Perpetuum

Avatar Creations has updated its Perpetuum dev blog with a lengthy end-of-the-year read that touches on a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff as well as the future of the sci-fi sandbox. First up is the title's debut on Steam, the preparations for which have been occupying the team as it gets the game ready to release to "such a broad audience."

Along those lines, the devs are looking at amping up the game's PvE content, but as Avatar is still a small company, it's taking a bit longer than everyone would like. The good news, though, is that a lot of work has gone into revamping world content, the research system, and a new assignment system.

Avatar has also been working on instanced content, and it will deploy the technology to improve the new-player tutorial experience as well as add small dungeons, PvP arenas, and events. Avatar acknowledges that some players may raise "torches and pitchforks and yell that instances have no place in an open sandbox world," but the dev blog explains both the benefits and the thought process behind them. Check it all out at the official Perpetuum site.

One of the few negatives inherent in the MMO explosion of the past few years is that there's simply not enough time to play everything. We have more choices today than at any point in the genre's short history, and this means that quality games often fall by the wayside.

Perpetuum is a gem of a sci-fi sandbox from an indie outfit called Avatar Creations, and it's a game that I regret not having more time to play. Its second anniversary slipped by me this year (an oversight that was thankfully corrected by a sharp-eyed reader). What about you? Is there a particular game that you really wish you had time to play?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Remember Perpetuum? Avatar Creations' sci-fi sandbox celebrated its second anniversary this past Sunday, but we missed it because we were too busy stuffing our faces with leftover turkey and dressing.

A new dev blog outlines the requisite festivities (including a treasure hunt, a quiz show, and the ability to unlock golden sparks via special assignments) which run from November 30th through December 4th. There's no tournament this year, as Avatar prefers to devote the resources that such an event requires toward further development. And speaking of development, the anniversary post nicely sums up the game's initial 24 months, which saw more than 60 patches and two major expansions.

[Thanks to Mark for the tip!]

Who doesn't know Nietzsche's famous quote about the abyss? When you look into an abyss, the abyss entices you to buy some stuff in the cash shop. It was something like that, anyway.

Today's breathtaking featured screenshot of a character meditating before an abyss originated in none other than The Secret World. Submitter Aedesius wrote to One Shots,

I've really been enjoying TSW; it's like a breath of fresh air and such a beautiful-looking game. Enjoy this screenshot of one of many amazing vistas in TSW.

Let's go do that! Aedesius' pic and a few others are just a leap into infinity past the break.

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Home is where you hang your hat, but in Perpetuum, home is also where you ensure that your mining operations remain stable with the aid of several high-powered turrets. The next major update to the game, Gamma Frontier, is all about making sure that your home is the best it can be. Player corporations will be able to make use of the game's new Modular Private Colony system, setting up static buildings and defenses for large-scale industrial operations, helped by the addition of 24 new teraformable islands.

Obviously, player-run structures are a pretty big deal all by themselves, but the update also includes a new rendering engine for land and sky textures. There's also a new public test server available so that players can take the measure of future updates before they go live. If you're a longtime fan of the mech-based game, you can tide yourself over a little longer by taking a look through the several new screenshots of the update below.

[Source: Avatar Creations press release]

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Perpetuum's new player-build settlements functionality and its new test server. Now, the devs at Avatar Creations have even more exciting news: an expansion!

It's called Gamma Frontier, and Avatar calls it the biggest expansion since the game went live over 18 months ago. Player corporations will be able to build home bases, launch industrial projects, and colonize the new Gamma islands (not to mention defend them from invasion-minded players).

The expansion also features extensive new terrain-shaping abilities. Avatar has given players full control over the land, including the ability to form hills, dig holes, and level the surrounding terrain as they see fit. Due to complications with pre-existing systems and landmasses, the terraforming capabilities are available only on the new Gamma islands (24 in total). Click past the cut to see a brief video of terraforming in action, then head to the Perpetuum website to read all the expansion details.

[Source: Perpetuum newsletter]

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Avatar Creations is hard at work fleshing out its Perpetuum sci-fi sandbox. The game has garnered a small but dedicated fan following since its 2010 launch, and those fans are finally getting some test server functionality as of this Friday. If you're not terribly excited by buggy test code, you should be excited by the opportunity to try out the long-awaited PBS feature.

PBS, or player-built settlements, are exactly what they sound like. They're also a part of Avatar's bid to strengthen Perpetuum's control and capture mechanics, which should give players and clans something to fight for beyond bragging rights.

Be sure you have an active sub if you want to check them out on the test server tomorrow. Avatar also says that you'll also want to set up a separate installation (i.e., don't load the test client over an existing Perpetuum install).

Perpetuum's sci-fi sandbox is preparing to go from your basic Toys-R-Us plastic pool to a full-on professional playground setup in the near future. Its team of 10 developers are slaving away at creating 24 brand-new "Gamma" islands for players to colonize and fight over, as well as the tools with which to stake their claim.

This chain of two-dozen islands will be the foundation for Perpetuum's Player-Built Settlements (or PBS, if you miss Sesame Street). Everything from the buildings to the land they're built on can be created and modified by players to make a real and lasting impact on the game world.

Settlements will be color-coded to represent its parent corporation and are incredibly complex in regards to how the buildings are linked to each other. Of course, this being a PvP game, other corporations will certainly have motive to destroy and conquer enemy territory.

[Thanks to Roy for the tip!]

Last week we told you about Perpetuum's impending one-year anniversary and the robot-powered shenanigans that the devs at Avatar Creations were cooking up for the celebration that took place over the weekend.

Well, the results are in, and Perpetuum's first official PvP tournament (and a PvE scavenger hunt) went swimmingly according to the latest dev blog. Avatar even handed out a few tongue-in-cheek rewards including the Dale Earnhardt, Jr. prize (for the most laps around the combat arena) and the Baby's First PvP award which was given to the best newb group brave enough to enter the event.

If you missed the event, or if you're just interested in a free look at Perpetuum, you can watch the archived video stream at the game's official website.

Perpetuum's latest expansion is rapidly approaching, and Avatar Creations has pumped out a good bit of info to make sure sci-fi sandbox fans are aware of all the goings-on in its maiden MMORPG. The Intrusion 2.0 patch hits tomorrow and brings with it substantial improvements to the mission and rendering engine systems, a new robot, and new conquerable outpost mechanics.

Prior to the expansion, outpost conflict was fairly random, but now thanks to a concept called stability that lets corporations gradually increase their influence over a given facility, Avatar is allowing enterprising players to get a lot of more mileage out of the system as they build their empires across the planet Nia.

As we reported last week, the devs are also hosting a tournament to celebrate the game's one-year anniversary, and you can read Avatar's description of the events after the break.

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Welcome back to Some Assembly Required, dear readers. This week marks something of a milestone for Perpetuum, the sci-fi sandbox set in the distant future on a far-flung planet known as Nia. Yes, the mech-based MMORPG has survived its first year (without a free-to-play conversion crutch!), and more than that, it's even grown a little bit. That's no small feat for an indie title in today's overcrowded MMO marketplace, never mind a niche sandbox that's been called a ground-based EVE Online.

Join me after the break for a recap of Perpetuum's first 12 months.

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Perpetuum turns one year old this week, and the devs at Avatar Creations are celebrating in style. A new blog entry brings word of an anniversary weekend complete with a competitive PvP tournament and a not-so-competitive treasure hunt.

The tourney happens on the weekend of December 3rd, and it's open only to corporations (few solo players could afford the 10 million NIC entry fee anyway). In terms of format, the event is a 16-team ladder elimination affair, and the first 16 corporations to mail in their registration fee will be accepted (the deadline is November 27th).

If your group isn't up for bloodletting and robotic mayhem, you can join in the PvE treasure hunt and obtain plenty of loot rewards for your trouble. Check out the official Perpetuum website for more details and the full list of tourney rules.

Why don't those silly devs just fix it? It's a single line of code! It would take a few seconds! If you've played MMOs for a while, chances are you've uttered (or at least thought about) a variation on those lines at some point.

We suggest a read-through of the latest Perpetuum dev blog, as it's a real eye-opener when it comes to the complexity that goes into seemingly simple fixes. Avatar Creations walks us through an example of the ricochet effect that can result from changing a single integer value, and while it's not light reading or intended for those of us whose eyes glaze over at the thought of anything technical, it's nonetheless an interesting peek behind the curtain.

The dev blog also illustrates the Perpetuum team's allow-anyone-to-fix-anything-they-can mantra, and you can read the full text at the game's official website.

A new patch just hit Perpetuum, and it brings Sparks and Extension Downgrading along with it. No idea what either of those things are? Don't worry, that's why we're here. In the Perpetuum universe, Sparks are nanobots that grant small but permanent bonuses to a player's bot. A number of these Sparks are already available in-game and can be unlocked either by paying a one-time NIC fee, or by reaching "a certain level of relation with a corporation." Sparks will also be available for Energy Credit when the system goes live later on down the road.

Extension Downgrading is exactly what it sounds like. It allows players to downgrade the level of their mechs' extensions in order to receive a full EP and NIC refund. The feature is largely intended for new players who aren't sure how to build their bots, so it will only be available to players for 30 days after the creation of their first character. However, since it's a new system, current players will be able to use the feature for 30 days after the feature goes live.

For the full details on the patch, boost yourself over to the official Perpetuum site.

Avatar Creations has posted a new Perpetuum dev blog that heralds the coming of shader 3.0. This is either great news or irritating news depending on what kind of gaming rig you run, but either way, change is coming.

The sci-fi sandbox game launched with model 2.0 shaders because Avatar wanted to make it as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, and because the team initially lacked DirectX experience. Now, though, Avatar has "reached the limits of shader model 2.0," and needs to upgrade the game in a visual sense without "going through significant hacks that reduce client performance and mess up the codebase."

Shader 3.0 is the answer, and the dev blog serves as a warning that the game's minimum hardware requirements will be changing. "As the vast majority of you have hardware that supports SM3, the change will only affect a handful of players," Avatar states.