The Repopulation may be the science fiction sandbox MMORPG that we've all been waiting for.

That's a very grandiose statement to make, I know. Hear me out, though, and you'll see why this may just beStar Wars: Galaxies 2.


First, a little background on the team behind this upcoming MMORPG. The company Above and Beyond Technologies is headed up by Joshua Halls and J.C. Smith. Joshua Halls seems to be a relative newcomer to professional game development, but J.C. Smith has been involved with Nintendo for several years. The rest of the team is an amalgamation of professionals and amateurs with aims to become professionals, and the quality of the game even in its alpha state is testament to their collective skill. Regardless of what happens with Repopulation, I see great things in store for this team.

Back in June, A&B ran a Kickstarter for The Repopulation that asked for the very modest sum of $25,000 to finish the game by mid 2013. Considering that Star Citizen earned itself seven million dollars through crowdfunding, and that The Repopulation itself earned just over $50,000 in its Kickstarter, I think they were selling themselves a little short. They would have been better served by paying more attention to their Kickstarter campaign at this time. That said, the influx of cash certainly has added a lot of polish to an already-polished game.

Spiritual Successor to Galaxies

Even just watching the few videos on Youtube that A&B has released will get you excited about the game if you're a fan of SWG. While the crafting system is certainly different from how SOE did it, preferring to use an overall grading system ranging from F0 to A9 instead of Galaxies' 1-1000 resource attribute system, the feel is similarly complex. Your skill at crafting improves on a per-recipe basis, not just a per-category one, as with SWG. You may be fantastic at producing light weapon components but abysmal at medium weapon components. This kind of system provides for a lot of variety in crafted items, and bodes well for a player economy.

Also, The Repopulation has a unique item decay system. Items have a Minor and Major condition, which decrease over usage. They can be increased by repairing an item, but repairing reduces the item's durability. Eventually, you will either wear out or repair your item into oblivion, requiring a replacement in much the same fashion as SWG had.

The Fittings System

Interestingly, The Repopulation has an item customization system which completely separates visuals from mechanics. You choose the appearance of items using molds, and then you can give the items stats by adding various Fittings. Fittings wear out just like items, and come in the same F0 to A9 grades. There's a lot of complexity here, and a lot of opportunity for customization. Now, that does mean that inevitably there will appear Flavor of the Month item Fitting combinations, but no game is safe from that.

Fittings first appeared in conceptual form in the now-defunct Hero's Journey, the very first MMORPG built on Simutronics' Hero Engine. Hero Engine, made famous by Star Wars: The Old Republic, has a special place in my heart. I worked as a world builder GM for Hero's Journey prior to its cancellation, and the engine was so easy and fun to work with that I was giddy with anticipation on what HJ would amount to. While that game never materialized, Fittings have seemed to survive through The Repopulation, which also uses Hero Engine. That makes me very happy.

These Graphics Don't Suck

Generally, indie games tend to fall into one of two categories - either they're artsy, or they're just bad. On rare occasions you'll find one that hits a very high-quality mark that competes with AAA titles. The Repopulation is one of those that has great visual appeal without catering to a niche audience. Some of the visual feel is comparable to Star Wars: The Old Republic, in terms of animation flow and physics determination. However, most of it has its own particular theme that suits the game's premise very well. The GUI is well presented and clean.

In essence, The Repopulation's UI looks a lot like how I'd imagine SWG would look, if given ten years to advance. The spiritual succession remains intact there. The icons being 2D instead of 3D is a departure, but a lot of the flavor is still present.

Creature Handlers Rejoice

The Repopulation features a pet taming system comparable to SWG's. You find juvenile creatures and tame them, then teach them abilities they can use in combat. Also like SWG and other games since, you can harvest creatures for their parts. However, The Repopulation's creature-harvesting system is even more complex than SWG's. Like with item crafting, you gain skill in harvesting from specific types of animals, so while you might be excellent at fetching skins from the six-legged scorpion-like beasties, you might suck at getting bone from others.

Oh, and Entertainers Too

Yes, The Repopulation will have entertainers. And yes, they're a lot like SWG entertainers, being able to buff other players at campsites by dancing or playing music. But they're a lot more, too - they can weave stories, tell jokes, and customize buffs to a degree Galaxies players opined for.

Nation Building: Beyond Galaxies

In SWG, player cities were a much-anticipated and enjoyed feature. However, The Repopulation goes a step beyond even this. Not only can players build out cities using buildings, furniture, city walls, and other decorative goodies, but they can populate those cities with NPCs, manage the NPC populace, declare war or allegiance with other player nations, and command player militaries with custom ranks and titles.

The nation system provides the third faction that SOE never got around to developing in SWG. If you choose to align yourself with a player nation instead of one of the two NPC nations, you have access to a host of customizations that are currently only touched on in EVE Online.

The One Failure

No game company, especially an indie company, is immune to failure. In this case, Above and Beyond's big failure is in its marketing. Only through word of mouth is hype spread about this game. While A&B does have a presence at a few major industry conventions, they have no advertising to speak of, and no marketing strategy. As a result, the player population could be devastatingly small at release for such a player-centric game. This may spell disaster for A&B unless they have help.

So, if you're at all interested in the kind of sandbox MMORPG that Star Wars: Galaxies presented, give The Repopulation a look! I know I'll be following its development very closely over the next year. There's a lot more about the game that's similar to SWG, so head over to their website and check it out.

Source: http://www.dicejockey.com/2012/12/succeeding-star-wars-galaxies.html

There were some references to SWTOR, so while I know that EA butchered the alpha Hero Engine (to make fps crap out when a dozen or more players were on screen) .. I have to ask:

Is the world seemless?  Does it have huge load screens?  Does it use instancing?  How it character custimization?  How is the fps on an average, even with low-end machines?  I don't have a low-end machine, but I needed to ask .. because games that choke and gurgle, gasp and gag even on the low settings means higher settings are going to have problems too (ala SWTOR).

That said, this is one of the few games on my radar.  I'm eagerly awaiting a new video :D

Originally posted by Karteli

There were some references to SWTOR, so while I know that EA butchered the alpha Hero Engine (to make fps crap out when a dozen or more players were on screen) .. I have to ask:

 

Is the world seemless?  Does it have huge load screens?  Does it use instancing?  How it character custimization?  How is the fps on an average, even with low-end machines?  I don't have a low-end machine, but I needed to ask .. because games that choke and gurgle, gasp and gag even on the low settings means higher settings are going to have problems too (ala SWTOR).

 

That said, this is one of the few games on my radar.  I'm eagerly awaiting a new video :D

It is a seemless world.. That's what caught my attention first.  As for performance, I don't know. I won't be playing until closed beta starts. 

Another cool thing the devs said they have already started sketching out..  Open space flight!  It will most likely be an expansion but they have already started planning some of it.

Originally posted by Karteli

Is the world seemless?  Does it have huge load screens?  Does it use instancing?  How it character custimization?  How is the fps on an average, even with low-end machines?  I don't have a low-end machine, but I needed to ask .. because games that choke and gurgle, gasp and gag even on the low settings means higher settings are going to have problems too (ala SWTOR). 

The world is seemsless, loading screens and instances are rare.

FPS noone can tell yet ... it's in Alpha and the new HE2 engine has been implemented. There is worldbuilding to be done and a lot of optimisation iterations.

Please don't compare it to SWTOR, they build their own version of HE :)

Originally posted by Karteli 

Is the world seemless?  Does it have huge load screens?  Does it use instancing?  How it character custimization?  How is the fps on an average, even with low-end machines?  I don't have a low-end machine, but I needed to ask .. because games that choke and gurgle, gasp and gag even on the low settings means higher settings are going to have problems too (ala SWTOR).

That said, this is one of the few games on my radar.  I'm eagerly awaiting a new video :D

Yes, the world is seamless. The only time you will see "loading screens" in the game is when you are transfering to an instanced location and they go by quickly. Virtually all instanced locations in the game are part of the housing system (including NPC housing for a few missions - you go to the instance to do the mission), but that's about all the instancing we have.

There's a video that displays the sliders and how varied the customization was months ago, and we've added to it since then. Character models now have multiple starting heads which allow for even more variation in features. Dozens of sliders for everything from eye tilt to lip width, height, weight, etc. 

Min specs are posted on the Repop forums. Josh uses a fairly low end machine to test things out, so if things get beyond the scope of what an older machine can handle, we'll know and hopefully be able to do something about it. I wish I could give a better answer than that, but I run a beast of a computer and I never stutter/lag, even when I'm working on HeroBlade.

I'm really looking forward to this game, but there isn't a whole lot out there for people to get excited about.  I'd suggest taking a screenshot now and again, something to stir the imagination, and send them to gaming sites like mmorpg.com.  Gives the writers something to write about and the fans something to salivate over.  I don't think that's too hard.

If you do that on a weekly basis, then get another kickstarter campaign going you would generate some more revenue to help with the game. 

I'm a big SWG fan so the fact it is similar to that game is a big selling point for me.  Can't wait to play.

There's actually a ton of information for people to salivate over, but it's on the Repop boards. Unlike most MMOs, the devs don't just ignore the fanbase and make no comments besides official news releases. These guys aren't your typical disconnected developers. Just recently a suggestion was made in the middle of a thread and that mechanic was implimented the next day.

JC and Josh are answering questions, replying to suggestions, and active with the community almost daily. It's primarily on the Repop forums, but they come over here and answer questions and concerns too. 

We generally do a new screenshot with each monthly update, but besides that I don't even know that we take many in the game lol. I certainly don't. I'll pass it along to the team and see if we can start getting more screenshots released.

Originally posted by Onomas
I like almost everything about this game, except it being F2P. Sandbox and F2P should never be in as one.

I would agree with you if the developers weren't taking a hardline stance on not adding 'pay to win' objects to the game. Aside from that I'm not sure how the F2P model wouldn't be effective in the game. 

I'm just curious about the reasoning for the stance on the subject.

Originally posted by Terranah

I'm really looking forward to this game, but there isn't a whole lot out there for people to get excited about.  I'd suggest taking a screenshot now and again, something to stir the imagination, and send them to gaming sites like mmorpg.com.  Gives the writers something to write about and the fans something to salivate over.  I don't think that's too hard.

 

If you do that on a weekly basis, then get another kickstarter campaign going you would generate some more revenue to help with the game. 

 

I'm a big SWG fan so the fact it is similar to that game is a big selling point for me.  Can't wait to play.

Actually if you take a look at The Repopulation website, and the information listed even here at MMORPG.com, there's quite a bit of information already available to help you get a good idea of what the game is about and how the developers plan on shaping The Repopulation.

Youtube - The Repopulation Channel 

• Pre-Alpha videos, note that these videos were made before the release of the Hero Engine 2.

Website - The Repopulation Website

• Check out the "Game Features" tab
• Also for screenshots see the Media tab

Forum - The Repopulation Forum another place to get more information about the game

MMORPG.com - Here's some links for info about The Repopulation that is right here on the MMORPG.com site!

The Repopulation News

The Repopulation Screenshots

You can also find The Repopulation on Twitter and Facebook, check out the links for them on the main website.

Originally posted by CreepProphet

Originally posted by Onomas
I like almost everything about this game, except it being F2P. Sandbox and F2P should never be in as one.

I would agree with you if the developers weren't taking a hardline stance on not adding 'pay to win' objects to the game. Aside from that I'm not sure how the F2P model wouldn't be effective in the game. 

I'm just curious about the reasoning for the stance on the subject.

 

 

It's not P2W that bothers most people about sandboxes.  It's trolls in FTP sandbox games that are really just the worst.  There is a reason that there is a technical term in the industry for the ammount of time emergent technology based games (player created content) will see pornographic material created by players.  FTP just compounds on this trollish behavior because all of the 12-16 year old kids flood the game, and just start making trash where ever they can.

remember to be wary of devs who try to do "too mcuh with too little".  remember all the features that were sposed to be in mortal at launch?  remember dark & light?

all i mean is to temper your enthusiasm til you see an open beta and get your hands on it.  otherwise you might be setting yourself up for a colossal disappointment which isplain old no good for the soul.

On the F2P discussion:

I agree that F2P can bring in the trolls, but it does depend on the game. If the game were fully open world all PvP all the time, I'd agree. The game is set to have safe areas for people that do not want to participate in PvP. Nations will be able to defend themselves against random one off rogues and full sieges via defensive countermeasures. Even non-combat skill lines will give players something to do besides bashing heads.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out in an F2P environment over a P2P environment. Especially with the features The Repopulation has listed.

On the Feature Fear:

The nice part about The Repopulation is that the dev team hasn't promised a lot of things that they can't deliver. There's footage of the important features working before the game went into the alpha testing phase. They've also released monthly updates on features that have been added and things that have been improved.

These devs aren't saying "this game is going to be so cool because it's gonna have this, this and this", what The Repopulatin devs are saying is, "this is what we're building, we hope you'll enjoy it." 

This is Not SWG 2:

Also, while The Repopulation has taken some inspriation from SWG, The Repopulation is not SWG2, Ultima Online 2, Fallen Earth 2, or the better, badder version of any other game on the market.

The Repopulation is The Repopulation. It's not billing its self to be anything other than what it is. "It is a sandbox oriented MMORPG with an eye on innovation". 

I will see when i play it. I am not into geting hyped about sandboxes anymore especially when people start making claims like 'it is going to be 'BEST' sandbox MMO.'

Originally posted by Zalmon

I will see when i play it. I am not into geting hyped about sandboxes anymore especially when people start making claims like 'it is going to be 'BEST' sandbox MMO.'

 

Honestly that's the best way to go, not everyone has the same opinion on what is the 'best' of anything. That and the important part is whether or not the game is fun. 

Originally posted by ragz45

Originally posted by CreepProphet

Originally posted by Onomas
I like almost everything about this game, except it being F2P. Sandbox and F2P should never be in as one.

I would agree with you if the developers weren't taking a hardline stance on not adding 'pay to win' objects to the game. Aside from that I'm not sure how the F2P model wouldn't be effective in the game. 

I'm just curious about the reasoning for the stance on the subject.

 

 

It's not P2W that bothers most people about sandboxes.  It's trolls in FTP sandbox games that are really just the worst.  There is a reason that there is a technical term in the industry for the ammount of time emergent technology based games (player created content) will see pornographic material created by players.  FTP just compounds on this trollish behavior because all of the 12-16 year old kids flood the game, and just start making trash where ever they can.

This, but also its a sandbox. Sandbox = player created items, crafting, player based economy, etc....

F2P = i can have as many accounts as i want. Thus i can make multiple characters. Will/could either:

1) Flood the market with items and resources driving prices down or up.

2) Not allow dedicated go to crafters.

3) Since everyone can do the same thing and craft the same items, there wont be a need to have player interaction/selling. Example in SWG a DE needed items from a weaponsmith and a artisan and would need to buy/sell/trade for those items in order to make his/her item. If everyone can have multiple accounts this is taken out of the equation. Severly hurts the economy and need for others.

4) If a player exploits, chears, uses dubs most companies dont IP ban, allowing that person back in within minutes.

5) F2P = no money for this company. Cosmetic items? Who needs those? If the company doesnt make money = no support, no expansions, no new content, etc... Eventualy most games that are F2P start adding items that arent "cosmetic" to the mix to make more money ( boosts, mounts, weapons, etc...) It could happen, and that would be a shame.

6) The game company seems to have a solid game here. They are selling themselves short by jumping onto the F2P band wagon right off the bat. They could do 5 or even 10 dollar per month subs.

F2P brings a lot of other issues to the table and just feel any successful sandbox wont thrive on this system. Perhaps i will be wrong, but i have never played a F2P game that was free and didnt have a ruined economy.

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by ragz45

Originally posted by CreepProphet

Originally posted by Onomas
I like almost everything about this game, except it being F2P. Sandbox and F2P should never be in as one.

I would agree with you if the developers weren't taking a hardline stance on not adding 'pay to win' objects to the game. Aside from that I'm not sure how the F2P model wouldn't be effective in the game. 

I'm just curious about the reasoning for the stance on the subject.

 

 

It's not P2W that bothers most people about sandboxes.  It's trolls in FTP sandbox games that are really just the worst.  There is a reason that there is a technical term in the industry for the ammount of time emergent technology based games (player created content) will see pornographic material created by players.  FTP just compounds on this trollish behavior because all of the 12-16 year old kids flood the game, and just start making trash where ever they can.

This, but also its a sandbox. Sandbox = player created items, crafting, player based economy, etc....

F2P = i can have as many accounts as i want. Thus i can make multiple characters. Will/could either:

1) Flood the market with items and resources driving prices down or up.

2) Not allow dedicated go to crafters.

3) Since everyone can do the same thing and craft the same items, there wont be a need to have player interaction/selling. Example in SWG a DE needed items from a weaponsmith and a artisan and would need to buy/sell/trade for those items in order to make his/her item. If everyone can have multiple accounts this is taken out of the equation. Severly hurts the economy and need for others.

4) If a player exploits, chears, uses dubs most companies dont IP ban, allowing that person back in within minutes.

5) F2P = no money for this company. Cosmetic items? Who needs those? If the company doesnt make money = no support, no expansions, no new content, etc... Eventualy most games that are F2P start adding items that arent "cosmetic" to the mix to make more money ( boosts, mounts, weapons, etc...) It could happen, and that would be a shame.

6) The game company seems to have a solid game here. They are selling themselves short by jumping onto the F2P band wagon right off the bat. They could do 5 or even 10 dollar per month subs.

 

F2P brings a lot of other issues to the table and just feel any successful sandbox wont thrive on this system. Perhaps i will be wrong, but i have never played a F2P game that was free and didnt have a ruined economy.

1) I don't necessarily think that will be the case mostly because of the complexity of the harvesting system and the crafting system. If someone overharvests an area they're going to get less goods from it, and then have to move on, taking time away from harvesting. Also to get the good stuff they're going to have to invest time in harvesting specific things that also is going to take time to develop the higher tiered crafting skills. The big factor here will be whether or not there is a world wide auction. If there is, it would cause a problem. But if the auction houses are per nation/faction, then that is going to make for a whole new group of players that can run materials between the factions (Rogue, OWEN, FPR). Not sure exactly what the stance on that is. 

2) With the complexity of the crafting system, I'm thinking there's going to be crafter specialization. Folks who are building nations are going to want people specialized in crafting armor, crafting weapons, and crafting structures. Skilling these trades up won't take a matter of hours, it's going to take time. There's also going to be people that will want to bio-engineer pets for sale while others will prefer to tame and raise pets. So specialization will more than likely occur. Just because folks will have the ability to do everything, doesn't necessarily mean they will. I can work on my car, but if I can pay someone else to do it and probably do a better job a lot faster, I'd rather go to the shop. 

3) I'm thinking that would probably follow if there wasn't a centralized trading house. If there were faction based trading houses that would enable merchants to go back and forth between the factions. Crafters may also decide to trade directly with traders to forgo selling at auction house prices, and traders might just sell to folks who then put things up on the faction trading house. Also in nations there will be the ability to have player based structures that exist in game, so players will have the opportunity to sell out of an in game structure, pretty sure this is an online only deal, after all you want people to log in. Also giving players the chance to advertise their crafting abilities in game might allow them to garner a client base of their own. This will also be a wait and see deal. 

4) That one's going to have to be touched on by a dev, but I'm thinking they're going to have some measures in place to work with this.

5) You overlooked the membership bits for people who want to be mayors and build cities. That's going to be part of the shop. Also there are quite a few people interested in cosmetic items when it comes to things like their homes, apparell that kind of thing. Folks do, can and have paid quite a bit for these things. When Free Realms added housing, not all of the items were coin purchases and people paid for housing items with station cash, pretty sure you can do that with station cash in EQ2. These games are also F2P. I doubt SOE would keep them running if these things didn't bring in cash.

6) I'm not sold that the F2P model won't bring in cash for these guys. It will really just depend on how the cash shop is implimented and how the player base reacts to it. A sub model makes money sure, but it can also be a barrier to entry for folks that just want to hop in once in a while and play with their friends. If anything else the F2P model may help with the fact that The Repopulation is a social game and will require cooperation from groups of people to make the big things happen in game. If a bunch of people want to play but can't because they can't pay a sub for a month, that's not helping their guild.

I can see your point. Thing is though most games aren't based around a solid crafting economy, they're based around loot drops. That instantly makes crafted items less necessary in game. If a person can grind for a chest piece, or raid for a chest piece, why would they buy it? Why would the guy go to the effort to source the materials and produce it? Why would the crafter's contact spend the time to go out and find the goods? That messes with the economy because it's based more on found objects than crafted objects.

It's one of those situations where it could go both ways I guess. I'm really curious to see which way it will go.