Hey Tamers,
We are so happy to share the closed beta date and other news with you! Let's hear quotes directly from Josh, our Lead Game Designer.
Closed Beta Announcement Teaser
"We're going to be going into our first closed beta period on the 18th of March. So that's 16 days from now in NZ or the 17th of March for the US."
Closed Beta Round 1 Plan
We will be starting with Round 1, The Tame Round. Create your dream tames, and develop skills for certain tames. Here's what Josh has to say:
"We’ve removed 1v1 as the primary gaming mode so now dual battles are the new norm. All of the primary battles of our game now have two tames on field - one tamer, two tames. This is because during play testing we ascertained that it’s a lot more fun, it created a lot more diversity in builds and it generally provided more elements for game play.
We still have 2v2 and 3v3 game modes."
"Four tames will be available with full kits being Thoona, Skelt, Brackis, and Burrl. We’re excited to announce our tame forge. The big pretence to closed beta round 1 is that we’re beginning to really refine down on our feedback on combat and PVP and get our combat system to the place it needs to be.
So, what will tame forge allow you to do? It will allow you to choose a mood/colour of the tame. You will be able to select skills based on the limbs that you have selected. You will be able to select the levels and allocate stats based on the levels. You can fully limb swap. You’ve got a tone of presets you can create, you can save them, you can battle your friends."
"We’re putting in a very basic ELO system so that while you’re battling your friends, you can go up and down an ELO ladder to see where you came during the test. It’s not our full ELO system, but during closed beta we will play with it, adjust it, and modify it until we get to a happy place. For now, it’s just something fun for you while you’re all battling so that you can rank up against each other."
Merch store launch
"Our marketing team have been working diligently putting contracts together with different manufacturers and labels to put together a range of merch. You can see things like t shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, laptop sleeves and more in our merch store. The public will have access on the 14th of March - just four days before closed beta starts."
Early Access (Valentine's Day competition winners): 07.03 (NZ time)
Public Access: 14.03 (NZ time)
Merch store products: t-shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers, mouse pads, laptop sleeves & more
Roadmap
We are so excited to reveal the roadmap our team are working to. Here's our Lead Game Designer Josh back to share some thoughts:
"As always, I wanted to emphasise the roadmap is subject to change. I’ve advised the team to work sensibly, to find a good work life balance to not work late, work in the weekends or burn out. I don’t believe in that grind and I just want the team to focus on building a good product and taking the time that it needs.
"Some of the line items may be moved, others may be added, so let’s just keep an open mind."
Round 1 - The Tame Round
"This is all about playing with tame forge and being able to mix and match tames and control the builds you make to really test things out."
"We will be collecting data from all of the players during live balancing. We’re going to be looking at what combinations of tames are performing really well or over-performing and balancing combat."
Round 2 - The combat round
"This is when we really push deeper into combat and make some adjustments based on the feedback. We’re looking at adding the ability to Scry here. This will allow you to look at an enemy tame to see their make ups, passives, subtypes, limb combinations."
"Post battle breakdowns after the battles will be available, just some real basic post battle stats. The duel configurator will give the ability to pick how many tames are in a battle, whether it’s 2v2 or 3v3 and preset custom matches."
Round 3- The Exploration Round
"This is the first time we’re going to really open the island and let you have a good run around. We do have settlement island ready to go, but without NPC and tame encounters, it takes away from the experience. It didn’t make sense to have you guys wandering around a big empty world and it’s not a good representation of our world. We wanted to give you guys a good look and feel of our world when there was more to offer."
"Grass encounters will enable you to encounter wild tames. The exploration servers and the tame forge servers will be separate. So you can’t level up max tames in the forger and bring them into the exploration server."
Round 4
"We’re bringing in our loot system, our inscription equipment, our inventory system, the P2P trading system. You will be able to fight NPCs, wild tames, get loot. You can equip tames with equipment on top of all these good things."
Open Beta
"We won’t get into this too much now. Open beta offers the ability for everyone with a game key to join the game. The goal of open beta will largely be to leave servers up at all times and to follow less rounds and more of a patch progress, like what you’re used to in a traditional MMORPG."
"Open beta will offer tutorial, questions, auction house, the breeding system, cosmetics, the wild area, events arena… all the little features that tie the game together that we want to test and refine with you guys."
So guys, that’s the journey, thank you so much for being so patient with us. We’re aiming to bring a good game and we don’t feel like not rushing something that’s not ready or polished to market. It’s an ambitious title for a new studio, we are well-funded and we are aggressively hiring talent, we’re not being naïve, about this, it is just a big job."