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Indie MMO Spotlight: Free Play, Scams, And The Raknar

Mitch Gassner Updated: Posted:
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Before we get into all of the Indie MMO goodness from last week, it’s time for a PSA. While perusing indie MMO channels on Discord, I saw multiple warnings from developers about taking caution if someone PMs you with an unsolicited invitation to download “their friends game.” With so many of the games listed here offering alpha and beta invites, it can be very tempting to accept one of these offers from an unofficial source. Unfortunately, this is a new (or maybe rehashed?) Discord scam, and instead of a game, you’ll be downloading a virus. Remember to play it safe and only accept download links from trusted sources. 

Enough about the perils of the internet, let’s get started with this week’s Indie MMO Spotlight.

The Cycle: Frontier

There’s been a lot going on since The Cycle: Frontier started its latest Closed Beta Test last week. The PvEvP shooter had a busy weekend, and although the Fortuna III fauna can kill you, other Prospectors are much more deadly. There were nearly 30,000 Prospector deaths over the weekend, and just over 26,000 were kills by other players. That’s still nothing compared to the almost 216,000 monsters that died at the hands of Prospectors.

The Closed Beta also received its first patch on Thursday. Patch 1.1 is full of minor tweaks to drop rates, adjustments to Insurance payouts, and the usual bug fixes. The biggest announcement of the week was the lifting of the NDA for the remainder of the Closed Beta, so expect to see pics, videos, and reactions incoming.

Dual Universe

Last week, we mentioned that Novaquark was fielding community questions about the Apollo and Ares updates to Dual Universe. On Monday, Novaquark responded via a video where Sesch, General Manager of the Montreal studio, was joined by Pann and Deckard from the Community Management team to answer the submitted questions.

Along with the Q&A video, NQ also published a dev blog covering  LUA improvements and changes. It’s all Greek to me, but I’m sure some of you DU script wizards will be able to decipher the code.

Ember Sword

Wherever you find Crypto, it’s a fair bet to assume scammers aren’t far behind. That seems to be the case with Ember Sword, where Bright Star Studios has been battling bots on the ES Discord. Although no details were given, GameMaster posted an announcement on Discord that bots were impersonating the Bright Star team and asked anyone contacted to report it to a member of the Community Staff so they could take care of the bot.

Foxhole

Who wants some Foxhole merch? Siege Camp announced this week that they have partnered with Roba Roba to bring Foxhole fans high-quality, print-on-demand merch. The new store only has a single item currently - the classic black Foxhole Tee - but you can expect to see more items in the future.

Fractured

The Fractured Fall Alpha received a new patch just in time for the weekend. Dynamight Studios also opened up the Alpha to all registered users (no Founders Pack needed). The Free Play event will run for the remainder of the Fall Alpha, which is scheduled to end on October 13. You can download the Fractured client here.

Genfanad

Heleor announced on the Genfanad Discord that he is planning an open Alpha Test over Halloween weekend (10/30 - 11/1). He is hoping to use the event to test a new area with new content, and possibly even work in some sort of PvP.

Gloria Victis

It’s been what..a week...since the last GV update? Update 290 is all about Quality of Life improvements, most notably the first iteration of the new quest log. 

Ilysia

The Ilysia Kickstarter campaign ended this week, with 1,548 backers crushing the $60,000 goal. If you aren’t familiar with Ilysia, you should check out Kevin Ckick’s quick look and interview with Team 21 Studio to get up to speed on the VR MMORPG.

Mad World

It’s been quite a while since the Mad World site has been updated, but this week Jandisoft announced that the third Alpha Test for its 2D MMORPG Mad World will begin On October 11. They are looking to get more than 20,000 users this round, so be sure to sign up. You can read all about it in our news post from earlier in the week.

Profane

INSANE announced this week that it had selected the participants for their 1st User Test for Profane. Did you make it in (I didn’t)?

Profane is always posting images and short videos of their development progress to Profane Twitter. If you’ve missed them, don’t worry about scrolling through all of their posts to see what’s going on; they were nice enough to post a two-month compilation video to catch you up. They even threw in a couple of new things as well.

Project F4e

Project F4e found its way to the Indie MMO Spotlight last week. This week we have another quick update from Beta Dwarf. This time around they are showing off their recent work on a new enemy: the Cleric. By the look of it, I’d say that she worships an evil god.

Prosperous Universe

The PU weekly update is out, and Michi is hard at work on updating the system maps (among other things). Check out what else Michi, Fabian, and Nick are up to in Dev Log #305.

Soul Kingdoms

Power Proc Studios had a few announcements this week about Soul Kingdoms. First up, they announced their crowdfunding campaign will begin on Thursday, November 4. Lasting for 30 days, they will be holding multiple playtests and events during the campaign to build up some hype.

They also announced that there will be a Technical Playtest kicking off on Tuesday, October 26. You can read about the two battlegrounds being featured in the playtest on the Soul Kingdoms site.

Lastly, be sure to check the SK site on Thursday, October 14, for the second class reveal. The first character reveal, the Ember Priest, was a caster, so maybe this time we’ll get to see a melee class.

Trials of Ascension

Dragonfire Entertainment has released another gameplay video for Trials of Ascension. Previous videos introduced us to the Human and Dragon races, so this time around the video highlights the Raknar. The video also shows some gameplay for an upcoming race - the Vampire! 

Valorbound

I almost forgot to check the MMORPG subreddit this week. I’m glad I looked because there was a new Developer Spotlight for Valorbound. Valorbound is described by the developer as a “hardcore Full-Loot, PvEvP, Horizontal-Progression, Action Combat, MMORPG set in a mid fantasy setting.” So let’s just call it an MMORPG for short, shall we? If Valorbound looks interesting, you can follow their progress on the Team Scionica site, Discord, and Twitter

Loose Ends


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Mitch Gassner

Part-time game reviewer, full-time gaming geek. Introduced to Pac-Man and Asteroids at a Shakey's Pizza in the '70s and hooked on games ever since.