By Dave Georgeson
The time has come for our pre-Alpha MMO to graduate from single zone tests to multizone ones instead. Not only that, but now we start to take the training wheels off – allowing players to explore and make their own paths, gain XP, gather resources, craft new equipment, explore a new planet and space zone, and fight to stay alive while they do it!
This weekend is Part 1 of those tests.
Stars Reach is still significantly pre-Alpha, but the game has grown by leaps and bounds beyond the basic combat and survey point test we ran only a couple weeks ago.
The players start on Rodin IV, a temperate planet in unknown space. A small forward base has been established on-planet by Rangers that visited previously but they left little behind…just a few crafting stations and a ReLife node.
The players have only their basic starting equipment, a desire to explore and the willpower to stay alive, and during the course of Parts 1 and 2 of this test, they’ll go from harvesting mushrooms to potentially building colonies and starports of their own.
All of this is designed so that we can gather feedback from the players and make adjustments to the game going forward, reinforcing what works well and replacing what doesn’t as we keep forging our path toward Alpha.
What’s New in Part 1?
- The Harvester and a basic Botany skill tree
- The Terraformer and a more extended Mineralogy skill tree, including Chronophasing
- Flares for the Trailblazer (Ranger skill tree). (A popular player request from previous tests!)
- You don’t start with the Grapple and Grav Mesh…you have to make them first, which makes travel and combat…interesting
- Pathfinder (survey tool) no longer has TAB modes…it’s all-in-one mode and easier to use
- Stove and Toolmaker can be used to make recipes for things you unlock with XP. (The Lathe will become functional in Part 2.)
- Added scores of recipes and around 50 new resources
- More than one zone. Look for the portal! And expect the unexpected!
- Lots of performance improvements and crash fixes
