Hi gang,
While we\'re all waiting for Cyrstal Blue to arrive, I thought I might let y\'all know there is yet another MMOG game in development that could use a bit of help in the testing department
It\'s called Sovereignty.
We\'re certainly not as far along as even the MB version of Planeshift, but we\'re far enough along that there is something to look at, heh. To be sure, there isn\'t much to *do* at the moment. I just finished implementing mouse selection (aka Picking), and you can walk around and see other players walking around in game, and talk to them through our chat interface.
I\'m approaching the end of our Alpha 5 list, which I expect to be finished around December or January (we call ourselves in Alpha rather than pre-Alpha or tech demo. These designations are somewhat arbitrary). All that\'s really left in A5 is the implementation of \"items\" (things you can pick up and put in your inventory). Before we start on the Alpha 6 list I want to get as many bug reports as I can (and get them fixed) so that we go into A6 with a solid code base.
There are some differences between us and PS. For one, we don\'t release major updates. We release micro updates as we get each thing working. Almost all of the time, you are playing the same version as the development version. Thus, even though I\'ve been working on A5 for several months, the actual program you use is updated much more frequently (from once a day to once every couple of weeks, depending on how difficult the system that is being worked on is).
Also, I\'m developing my own 3D engine rather than using an existing one. The engine is growing along with the game, so at the moment it\'s not nearly as far along as PS\'s is
For that reason, we\'re not as visually appealing yet (there is some major interface work scheduled in A6 though). We don\'t yet have a sky dome, and the landscape is only very basicly textured, and there is only one landblock, which is pretty simple.
Finally, there is still a lot of room for design. Many systems still need flushing out. I\'ve outlined most of them already (with the notable exception of Politics, which hasn\'t even been discussed yet). They include character creation and advancement, professions, skills, housing, religion and magic, combat and so on. We have a pretty good base already, but they certainly can be added to.
But most of all what I need are people to log into the server and test things and give me bug reports.
The place to take a look if you\'re interested is:
http://www.rjcyberware.comand the game is the second one (called Sovereignty). There is a whole overview section that describes background and gameplay, and you can download the Launcher from there as well (the Launcher will auto-update your game files, allow you to create an account, and log in, then you\'ll go into the client proper, where you can wallk around our world).
Anyway, if you are interested, we could use the help! There is no cost and no NDA to sign, everything is completely out in the open (it\'s an open Alpha testing), so you can talk about it all you want with your friends
-Ron
