Monthly Archives: May 2016

Atlas Reactor: Coming to Steam Early Access

Atlas Reactor

Trion Worlds today announced that Atlas Reactor, its competitive team tactics game currently in closed beta, is now available in Early Access form on Valve’s Steam digital distribution platform. To kick it off, Trion is holding a free weekend beginning at 5:00 p.m. PT today and ending Sunday, May 15 at 11:59 p.m. PT. During the free weekend, anyone can play Atlas Reactor, with access to all current freelancers. Trion today will also offer a preview of the game’s spectator mode, and during an upcoming livestream will tease a new freelancer, who will become available next week.

As part of Early Access, Steam users can jump into Atlas Reactor this afternoon and join the tens of thousands of gamers already participating in the closed beta. For a limited time, Trion’s Atlas Reactor can be purchased for as little as $19.99, and those purchasing the game will receive all freelancers forever.

“We’re proud of all the progress we’re making on Atlas Reactor and excited to see how the Steam community reacts to the game,” said Peter Ju, executive producer on Atlas Reactor.

Custom Game Spectator Mode, unveiled today, lets anyone jump into an active custom game and watch two teams battle. Viewers can observe both teams from an overhead perspective, or choose to follow the action from any particular player’s viewpoint. Spectator mode is being further developed to support other game modes.

For more info on closed beta, visit https://www.atlasreactorgame.com/en/

Ares Online – Now Hosted by Redfox Games

Ares Online

Redfox Games has just announced themselves as the new publishers for a classic traditional MMORPG known as Areas Online. With it’s old school gameplay and intensive combat, players can rejoin the endless battle between two fantasy countries: The Empire and the Allied Forces.

Not many details on the game’s re-release is currently available, but players can keep track of the game’s updates on their official Facebook page.

For more info, visit https://www.playredfox.com/ares

Forza Motorsport 6 Apex Goes into Beta

Forza

Microsoft Studios released related a F2P version of their popular racing series known as Forza Motorsport 6 Apex into beta testing on May 5th, 2016. Bringing the full Forza experience to Windows 10, it takes advantage of all the Windows 10 features including DirectX 12, 4K Resolution Support and more.

Other features include the including of Forza’s Drivatar™ system, over 60 cars to collect and weekly events.

Fore more info, visit http://www.forzamotorsport.net/en-US/games/fm6a

Worlds Adrift: Thoughts on Being a Skypirate Base Designer

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

 

Worlds Adrift Builder

Worlds Adrift’s developers have a pretty ambitious thing going on right now. The game is still very much in development, and there’s not a lot of hands on going on right now; well, that’s not true. We have in our hands the “Island Creator” toolkit, and there is some gameplay floating around from dev streams. However, I do not have my hands on that per se’, just the Island Creator. But after watching a lot of gameplay, I have to say it’s pretty interesting. I don’t see much in the way of a storyline, at least not yet, but it is the definition of ambitious sandbox gaming.  It’s a massively-multiplayer physics driven survival sandbox game. So it’s not a traditional MMO at all. I’ve heard Luke Williams say that there will be no official lore in the world, when it goes live, letting players build it as they see fit. Leaving it up to the players should be a phenomenal experience.

Worlds Adrift Builder

You play as a Skypirate; and come on, who hasn’t secretly fantasized about being a Skypirate? I know I have. I blame shows like Tailspin though… anyway! You craft yourself a little airship and cruise around these floating islands, looking for ruins, old technology, anything to make you and your ship a bit better.  That’s how you upgrade, by exploring these ruins, swinging around on a cool grappling hook searching every nook and cranny for these blueprints or pieces of salvageable tech. Anything might be just the ticket to a better ship, and better life. At the minimum it will make you look cooler, and that’s all that really matters in an MMO.  It’s not so much about killing things as it is exploring, finding out what you can about the world around you.   It’s so bold!  There are creatures though, and from what I understand, they’re going to breed and spawn and grow and try to push humanity out. And taking photos and exploring and gaining knowledge will make things better for people. But more for you; come on, Sky Pirates are ultimately all about themselves.  Between grappling hooks, swinging around like Spiderman, and sailing in your own custom ship, exploration is the big buzzword here.

 

Worlds Adrift Builder Tools

Wait: There’s a Tool. . . To Make Islands?

Instead of giving us straight gameplay, they’re letting us create our own, and explore at our leisure. I’m a bit torn on how I feel about it. Part of me wants to explore the Islands they’ve created, get a feel for how ship building and flying goes, but conversely, I enjoy seeing my own creations come to life. Though I’m sooo bad at creating stuff like this in 3D, I really am. But they make it pretty easy to at least get started. Apparently my Island isn’t very complex at all [30%, whatever that means], but you start off with pretty simple statistics. You have a “Noise Algorithm,” which lets you designate what kind of land is on your island.  You have a few flavors here:

Simple: As it implies, simple, fast, pretty smooth land.  This would probably be easier to shape up and down as you desire.

Perlin: More complicated algorithm, more variation. You’ll see more fine details here, stuff you probably won’t get in the default Simple.

Ridged Multi-Fractal: Similar to Perlin, but has more Rocky, Craggy, Mountainous surfaces.  Probably a lot harder to traverse and explore compared to Perlin, at least from the outset.

Worlds Adrift Builder

From there, you generate your basic island! Nothing on it but ground!  There are lots of options to choose from, but going in order, I’ll give you guys a bit of a run down on what you can do with it. Sculpting is pretty simple to understand. You sculpt the ground up or down as you need it. Carving to remove land, dig in and perhaps make cool caves, add mass, creating hills, islands, outcroppings, or flatten to make land nice and even. Good spots to put circles of stones, ruins, things of that nature.  Then you’ll want to smooth out the seams of the island, since there’s always a chance for cracks or broken cells, and you want it to look as close to real [as far as flying islands can be] as you can. You can also get rid of island pieces that are floating off on their own, but I think it’s kind of a magical look. I tend to leave those be.

The next important facet of this creation process is putting the ground down. You have ground, but you need grass, rock, mud, sand, whatever you want to put on it. You can change the colors of it [within reason] and paint it across the ground. You can paint, fill, or erase as you see fit. Each layer also has choices. The layers have a “top” “side”, and “bottom” tint/texture to pick, so there’s really a lot to consider if you want to really get down-and-dirty.

Worlds Adrift Builder

And now that you’ve shaped your island and put the types of soil/grass you want on them, the final task is to populate it with flora, rocks, ruins, pieces of old technology, graves, whatever your little heart desires! You can auto-fill, letting the game decide where trees go, or you can put them down yourself if you’d rather! Did you design a cool, deep cave? Put some glowing mushrooms or plants in it! Leave some ruined pieces of a city underneath the main part of the island, as if there was a hidden society, tucked away from prying eyes. You create your own story and can produce whatever style Island you want. Of course it’s all ruins and devastation, but how you arrange it is entirely up to you.

Worlds Adrift Builder Night

You can adjust Day/Night, add clouds while you’re crafting too, so you can see how it’ll look at various points of the day and from a distance thanks to the deep clouds. However, some of the zoom in is pretty terrible, because you can only get so deep into a cave before it starts to push outside of regular visibility and shows you some weird voxel crap. That’s going to happen when you aren’t building from the point of view of a player, but as basically God.

Worlds Adrift Builder

But when you get right down to it, what’s the point?  You don’t get to kill stuff or explore anything other than what you’ve made. But it lets you see how the world is going to look, and feel. I personally don’t know yet if this is something that will be a part of the main game, if you’ll be able to create your own islands for other players to explore, but it’s a fantastic way to give people a sneak peek, a bare taste of what’s going to be in store when this goes live. It’s unique even among survival games, and I appreciate that. Even among game betas, this is unique.  The devs had to have realized that with creation, every player will literally approach it a different way, and want to try things someone else didn’t consider. This way, the developers can see so many different ideas, things that will and will not work when the game goes live. It’s ballsy as hell, and I like it. I don’t think every game should or could try this, but Worlds Adrift is really taking the development/testing phase and standing it on its head. Now, as long as they pay attention to what they come up with in their player creations, that’s the real trick, isn’t it? I honestly like this approach, and only time will tell if it succeeds or not. Maybe they’ll update it and let us have airships to sail the skies in the Island creator to really get a good look at our work.

Riders of Icarus’ “Ride of your Life” Sweepstakes Takes Flight

Riders of Icarus’ “Ride of your Life” Sweepstakes Takes Flight

Nexon America and WeMade have launched an epic ‘Ride of your Life’ sweepstakes to celebrate the upcoming free-to-play Riders of Icarus, the unprecedented action-adventure MMORPG in which Riders can tame and collect hundreds of fantastical mounts, ranging from ferocious bears to fire-breathing dragons. One Grand Prize winner in North America will receive a free trip for two to this year’s Dragon Con, alongside a bevy of assorted prizes that includes Alienware gaming laptops, PC Gaming Accessories and Legendary Riders’ Pack codes.

 

Entering the sweepstakes can be accomplished by purchasing any one of three tiers of the Riders of Icarus Founder’s Pack, ranging from $24.99 to $89.99, or through the other methods of entry set forth in the Official Rules for the sweepstakes.*

 

Nexon and WeMade are in the midst of running a series of closed beta tests for Riders of Icarus. The game is planned to launch in open beta for players in supported regions on July 7 through the Nexon launcher and Steam for Windows PC. To stay up-to-date on the latest news and announcements for Riders of Icarus, join the community today: ridersoficarus.com

*No purchase or payment is necessary to enter or win. A purchase of any kind will not increase your chances of winning.  Open to residents of 50 US States (inc. DC)) and Canada (ex. Quebec) who are at least 13 years old.  Limit 1 entry per person or Nexon account.  Full details and rules can be found here: http://icarus.nexon.net/en/news/article/7870.  Sweepstakes ends July 5, 2016.

RIFT Reveals Mind of Madness Intrepid Adventure

RIFT Reveals Mind of Madness Intrepid Adventure

RIFT adventurers are in for all-new mind-bending hazards in Telara today as Trion Worlds’ free-to-play fantasy MMORPG receives its latest Intrepid Adventure, Mind of Madness. A core feature of RIFT and designed for more casual players, Intrepid Adventures hurl players into rich, story-driven raids.

 

In Mind of Madness, players battle through a series of progressively fearsome deities, uncovering secrets along the way as they pursue the mighty Lord Arak. Ascended who prevail in defeating the dark lord and the depths of madness’ twisted enemies will be rewarded with powerful equipment reminiscent of Mind of Madness’ nightmarish deities.

 

For additional details on the Mind of Madness Intrepid Adventure, please visit the official Trion blog.