We caught up with Trove’s Andrew Krausnick to talk about some of the new and upcoming additions to Trion’s world-building, destroying, raptor riding, sword swinging, soon to be pistol-wielding adventure MMO. The small, but growing team has been hard at work since returning from the holidays, and in just a few short weeks since our last update a slew of new additions have gone live in the alpha. Read on to find out what’s new and what’s coming soon to the voxel-based adventure.
The first big new addition is the inclusion of User Generated Content. UGC is now fully a part of Trove’s present and future, with actual items being made and added to the game on an almost daily basis. Over 100 weapons have been added already, and the community on Reddit is already taking to using 3rd Party apps (such as Qubicle). As they go along, they’ll keep adding more weapons, chairs, tables, and other furniture as well. They’re also giving players shaders to use with the editing software so they might make metallic or glass looking items. One player’s already made a clear crystal sword floating around in the game.
Coming within the next week or so is something many Trovers are probably chomping at the bit for: the new Gunslinger class. It’s almost ready to go in according to Andrew, and when it does it’ll bring with it dual pistols and a rocket pack to do AOE damage as well as helping the ranged combatant escape from foes. It’s a hugely different feel from the current sword-wielding Knight, and Andrew can’t wait to see how players use the class in combat.
There are also some updates to combat coming in the near future. Not only has the health bar above enemies been updated to more accurately reflect the damage they’re receiving, but full combat text and floaters are coming soon, and some serious boss fights are being added to boot. The latter part ties into the almost-ready-for-primetime “world cycle” system. The idea of entire worlds beginning and ending and resetting, then re-spawning with new layouts (one of the founding principles of the game’s design) is almost a reality. Andrew likens it to a dungeon reset, if dungeons in MMOs had more procedurally generated content. Each new world will bring new materials, new resources, and even new structures created by players in one world will carry over to the next.
Right now, Trove is a sandbox without an ultimate goal. That’ll change when world quests are added in in the next few weeks. Essentially, quests will be like the big public encounters you see in Rift. Group rewards, server rewards, and individual rewards will all be a part of each world’s overarching quests. There will be a tracking bar on each server that marks the progress in the world’s overall quest to “completion”. The harder the quests players complete, the more source (currency) the server will get. These rewards are server wide, and the goal is to encourage everyone to work together.
To help aid in the questing and “purpose” of the server progression, maps are finally coming to Trove too. You’ll not only know where you are in relation to landmarks, but where you need to go to get to a new region or biome of the world. The maps won’t point you directly to a quest, because they want adventure and exploration to still be a part of the game. Instead, it’ll highlight a vast area where a quest can be done.
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Seriously… Raptors with monocles, people.
Trion wants Trove to feel like a group experience, even if you play solo. But they’re adding in group benefits that will make the magic find stat stack in groups, as well as adding individual loot for each player in a party so that no one can be a ninja and steal everything. Rounding out all of these updates, Andrew also let it slip that more and more collection features are going to be added, such as trophies and rare drops you can keep in your Cornerstone. More and more features and upgrades are being added to the game each and every week. It certainly seems like Trion’s serious about making Trove the best experience possible, and as the team’s progress suggests, the game experience just keeps getting better.
Bill Murphy / Bill is the Managing Editor of MMORPG.com, and lover of all things nerdy. He has R2D2 as a copilot in his car, and is pretty sure that he was a Doctor in his past life. You can follow him on Twitter @TheBillMurphy.
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