Crowfall

Crowfall is hosting an event that would tempt even the most ardent feudal Samurai. The game's Decap-A-Thon rewards you for separating other players from their head.

Crowfall continues on it's path toward release and has given us a meaty status update on the state of development. We have brand new updates on version update 5.100 and a brand new world dedicated to teaching new players the ins-and-outs of the game.

In a brief announcement on the Crowfall forums, Director of Community Valerie Massey has announced that Artcraft and Travian Games have parted ways. Travian and Artcraft originally inked an EU publishing deal in 2016. The end of the partnership is effective today. No reason was cited for the break up.

The latest Crowfall developer diary has appeared on the official site, this time dealing with the "item reward cycle" or, more simply, the rewards players gain by completing a activities within the game. While players will earn a variety of items along their journey, those will come with a "diminishing returns curve" meaning the more a player advances, the less impactful the rewards are. "The reason is that we want a player's skill to matter more than itemization".

In a lengthy new blog on the Crowfall site, the team discusses how powerful the art of visual storytelling is to its game. Visual storytelling, in a sense, "brings worlds to life" with the goal to "visually give you a sense of a story without needing words or an explanation behind it". Each player can then take those visual cues and insert themselves into the history and lore of the game world to make it a more personal story and "give context to the greater narrative threads in the world".

The Crowfall site has been updated with a look at the War Tribes system that will bring complex challenges to players as they "try to wrest control of the world away from the gods and stave off their inevitable destruction". War Tribes can take the form of military encampments, tribal villages, abandoned villages. Usually these will be fortified by enemies that have banded together to scavenge resources and they can be found anywhere within the game world.

The Crowfall site has been updated with a look at recent changes to Hunger Crystals and how destroying them will yield some pretty sweet loot for those who take part. You may remember that Hunger Crystals are a physical manifestation of the Hunger that spreads throughout the game world and "that drain warmth and life from everything around them". After watching players for the past nine months or so, devs felt players needed more incentive to destroy Hunger crystals. And did they deliver.

Crowfall players have a new series of campaigns called The Trials of the Gods. The Trials feature unique campaign worlds dedicated to each of the Gods. Over the next few months, players will encounter "unique maps, rules, and rewards themed to [each] God's unique persona, powers and domain". The first Trial is underway. Called Trials of Malekai, the campaign will run for two weeks and "pits players against each other in battle to win the favor of Malekai the Faceless God of Deception".

Those involved in the current Crowfall test build will be able to check out the new Capture Point feature. Players will be working to capture specific points and to hold onto them as long as possible. The longer a location is held, the more Capture Bonus is awarded. "We've added an element of strategic decision-making to the choice around which locations each team will want to defend or capture".

In a new blog post on the Crowfall site, Creative Director J. Todd Coleman details the "Road to Alpha", numerically v6.0. Currently, the pre-alpha version 5.8 is live on servers and Coleman writes that it has been "VERY well-received" and has resulted in "both increased player concurrency and a noticeable uptick in new players".

A new Crowfall update has been posted to the game's official site that lays out some of the big changes that are coming to the character creation tool. Starting with the First Campaign (v5.8), players will be able to try out the character creation tool as it has been revamped. This means the process begins in the lobby prior to selecting "a cluster from either a list of Campaigns or a list of available Eternal Kingdoms".

The Crowfall team has sent over another fun gif image for us to share today that illustrates the new monster and race mechanics that the team is working on throughout October. This time, we get a look at a mighty Minotaur who ain't gonna put up with any o'your...stuff.

Nothing says "Tuesday" like a spirited discussion of necromancy, amiright? It seems that the Crowfall team agrees as today's latest developer blog post is centered on the subject. Penned by Thomas "Blixtev" Blair, the article centers on "Crows, vessels and...NECROMANCY", complete with the suggestion of spooky music and things bumping in the night.

The latest Crowfall developer diary has been published, this time turning to the topic of sound and music. Associate Producer Max Lancaster speaks to the creation of music where Nelson Everhart is handed very precise clues to aid in the composition of the game's score for any given moment of time in the game...literally things like "Campaign World - Beachhead - Daytime - Summer". What he does with those clues is best heard, and there are nifty little snips of music embedded in the blog.

In Crowfall, players will face off against many types of monsters and creatures that inhabit the Dying Worlds, one of which is profiled on the game's official site today. The "hideous Urgu" are a race of pig-men that are sentient and can offer up STYlish defenses with HAM-fisted attacks that can bludgeon their attackers. Ever SAU-SAGE a thing? Well, now you have!