Greetings Mistwalker,
It’s been one week since we opened the new server! Time to do a little news about what is happening and where we are going.
Reception to the game has been great so far, and the server handled it quite well. During the EA we spend a lot of time optimizing the game for the release and our effort has paid off. We had a lot of returning players for the new server as well as many new faces that are now part of the community. We are really proud of having probably one of the most friendly game chats in the world of MMORPGs. Community is what makes a game like ours succeed, so we are really glad that you are all part of the adventure.
Having started a new server has shown us some elements of the mid-game challenges that could be improved. We will try to improve those elements mixed with new content as we are eager to have the main storyline progressing.
For the progression of the game content, we will use an hybrid approach where we create new adventures for the main storyline mixed with end-game challenges. The main adventures, linked to the Mists and Leonidas, currently end with the recruiting of Palenne north of Wellnear. An adventure will lead you to learn new details about what is happening in Wellnear as well as our overdue evolving of Finn. The adventure will be balanced for Palenne level but will include end-game optional challenges so players from Tarathiel (and speedrunner from Rylenback) will have something to do for the long run.
The way we open new regions of the map will change too. Back in the EA we were opening a big chunk of the world and adding contents for them on following updates. Starting now, we will try to use the optic we had with the south-east of the map. We will open a small part of the world, but all gameplay associated with it will be there. Region content should include new materials, new monsters, new animal taming, new recruits and new region events or questlines for skill progression.
A test server. Yes, we will have a test server. Exiting from the EA means for us that we cannot release game content and game engine with proper testing (yeah, we did that before). We decided to use the multiverse for our tests. Here is what will happen, when we are ready to test the game, we will branch the servers (or just one) and you will have your character ready to test the new version of the game for some time. When the game is ready, the new content and engine will be transferred to the live server for everyone to enjoy. After the playtest, a huge Mist Maelstrom will wipe the test server and the next playtest will start later with a new clone. We will try to make those public tests as fun as possible to make sure you want to participate in them.
We often receive requests to add languages to the game. We will look into it, for a studio of our size adding language has a big impact as it can delay all future game updates and complicate our handling of the community for bug reports. More news on that later.
Thanks for playing!
