Each week, we scour the internet for all things indie MMO-related, so you don’t have to. This week, we give our final verdict on The Wagadu Chronicles, we share Part 2 of Philip Harker’s Case Studies in First-timer Indie MMO Development, and Fractured Online has one crappy week (image above). Plenty of other stuff is also going on, so let’s quit wasting time and get started with this week’s Indie MMO Spotlight.
BitCraft
BitCraft shared a longer than usual video this week. In the video, we get a look at what appears to be a player’s settlement, complete with buildings, workstations, and crop fields. The video also shows off several character emotes.
The settlement has some visitors!#gaming #videogames #bitcraft #mmorpg #mmo #sandbox #cozy pic.twitter.com/9lQrjGVSSg
— BitCraft (@BitCraftOnline) January 16, 2024
Dreamworld
Last week, we got a taste of the procedurally generated world that is Dreamworld. If you’re looking for a little more gameplay than that flyover video provided, you can check out the Alpha 2 Weekly Playtest video.
Dual Universe
A new clue for those hunting the Golden Goober was posted this week. Wait, an event that started back in September is still ongoing, with no clues handed out for three months? Do people still play this game?
Ember Sword
Dev Stream #4, Cats Craft & Code, was posted this week. Led by Lead Community Manager Thor, Game Devs Oliver and Jesse share their history before BSS, followed by a lot of talk about Ember Sword.
Fractured Online
Fractured Online had a week of bad luck. After identifying a gold duping exploit, things just got worse. While cleansing the damage done by the gold dupe - 6 gold coins were turned into 23 million - the team found out that there was a faulty hard drive on the server and that recent save states were corrupted. The world of Terra had to be rolled back about 24 hours due to the bad hard drive. Once restored, the world kept crashing and restarting due to more bad hardware.
On the bright side, the devs took the downtime as a chance to share some screenshots of the upcoming Endgame Changer Update on their Discord.
Havenhold
Havenhold shared a short video from an internal playtest that was held last week. The video shows off some combat, including some sort of meteor storm spell that looks pretty cool.
Our first post of the year calls for some action ??In Havenhold, you can embody and switch between ancient powers to create unique combat play styles. Here's a snippet from our internal test last week. Chaotic... but in a good way? #gamedev #wishlistwednesday pic.twitter.com/l8tpOSk8c9
— Havenhold (@PlayHavenhold) January 10, 2024
Ilysia
In case you missed it, Tavern Talk #5 can be found here.
Mad World
Jandisoft expanded the reach of Mad World this week with the announcement that they had partnered with gaming platform AG.ru to publish the MMO in Russian speaking regions.
Nightingale
With Early Acces set to start on February 22nd, Nightingale shared 20 minutes of gameplay on YouTube this week.
Palia
Palia’s January Dev Update was posted this week. Patch cadence, what to expect in patch 0.176, and celebrating the new year with a new in-game event were all covered in the post.
Project F4E
Project F4E’’s next playtest will be held from January 25th through the 27th. If you don’t already have access, you can get a key on Gleam (there were still keys available as of this writing).
Prosperous Universe
Fabian and Michi share their latest work in Development Log #417.
Quinfall
Vawraek Technology posted two announcements to Twitter this week. The first was a response to fake accounts being created on LinkedIn, with the second post bregarding the team using ready-made assets.
Ravendawn
Ravendawn officially launched this week. The game servers opened up at 12:00 EDT, and the queue rapidly hit 30000 people. For the “Why weren’t they prepared” crowd, the official response on the Ravendawn Discord was, “I hope you all understand we never expected 1/20th this amount of players for our Official Release.” A second world was opened up on Day 2, though lag continued to affect many players throughout the week. Welcome to another Perfectly Smooth™ MMO launch.
Realm of the Mad God
Season 11 is in full swing, and a new patch has finally added Forge Material Storage.
Scars of Honor
Scars of Honor took to its Discord to introduce the biggest of their Regular Kickstarter Reward Tiers - The White Knight. Gotta love the name.
The Wagadu Chronicles
Steven has finished his The Wagadu Chronicles Early Access review, and it ain’t looking good.
Wurm Online
An outline for a future update that would add an easy way to bind multiple actions to a default key was posted to the forums this week. Check it out and let the team know what you think.
Zenith: The Last City
Another closed playtest will be held the week of January 29th.
