Fractured MMO Thoughts

The Fractured mmo fall alpha test has now been live about a week. I have been honestly enjoying it. While there is not a whole lot to do currently in game, you can tell the foundation for something magical is there.

Currently in the fall alpha they added mounts(horses currently), cart systems, expanded town system, crafting builds for the town, new legends which are boss type things, more abilities and mobs, and enchanting/smithing.

The game foundation in game is currently amazing for what it wants to be which gives me great hope it can achieve this.

Upon release the game plans to have multiple races, 3 worlds, multiple continents, robust town, housing, crafting, taming and learning systems, robust pvp.

Of the 3 worlds, one will be pve focused, one pure pvp, and one a mix of the two with political pvp. Giving options for every type of player in these sandbox style mmos.

Another unique thing it does is, there is no xp you gain. You get knowledge points for monsters, and from monsters you learn new abilities you can use for your char. You start with a few basic abilities and have to go out, explore and learn the rest.

There is no blue, green, purples. There is no color system. The material you use to craft determines some of its values. Then the robust enchanting system lets you further customize and improve your weapon and gear.

It is currently in fall alpha test until December 4th. You can sometimes find streamers or youtubers with keys to try it out, or you can use their website to buy a package that grants access to it.

I do stream it here: https://www.twitch.tv/mhmaddingo

and I have videos on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEcP61kaD-8YW1KxpCWMrXw/featured?view_as=subscriber

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SamuTale sandbox mmo free trial

Samutale is currently running a free trial on their website: https://www.samutale.com/ to try out the game.

The same is a sandbox survival type mmo that is similar to the old version of tree of life. Fans of that will probably enjoy this. It also has a samurai type setting.

You can build actual houses like archeage that one can go inside and place furnishings in. As well as build walls and other objects around their place.

You can tame mounts, animals, farm, gather, craft, hunt and various other type of things similar to games of this nature.

It is also full pvp with loot drop on death. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm9IUzj5hcY

The Survival Genre Issues

There are quite a few glaring issues with the survival genre. Atleast those online anyways. Many try various gimmicks to try and fix it but normally fail for the most part. So what are the biggest issues in the genre?

Offline raiding. This tends to be a major issue for most survival games. The issue of this is that if you are not on the game 24/7 there is a high chance people will wait till you log off to raid you. Now there is a few trials to fix this in the genre but most tend to not do well. Many offer a pve-conflict type option where there is timed pvp and no base destruction, but that leaves tons of other issues and a lower player base.

Last oasis has the offline protection logging for the player/walkers but the server issues make this impossible to be good or even work many times. Others like rust/cryofall tend to wipe every month but that makes it more session based and less fun for folks who do want a static place. Also unless the core loop is really really good like rusts gunplay then no one is gonna want to keep doing that fresh start loop.

The most logical fix would be to create a way for the base to become immune or protected a few minutes after the player logs. While this can create issues of battle logging but there are ways to make it so one cannot battle log either.

Another issue is that many in the survival genre think pvp is offline raiding. Infact that is the complete opposite of pvp. But the least risk and most reward is offline raiding as bases simply cannot survive without the player online. So this creates a weird non pvp meta in a genre that promotes pvp. Of course this would be solved if offline raiding was not a thing.

The core game loop tends to be a big issue for many of these as well. Many of the survival devs say they just can’t fix the offline raiding problem, however, I think it is mostly because without that loop of always starting over most players would find the core loop is basically nil.

So rather than create a good loop and a lot of good content they rely on crappy mechanics to be lazy.

The last issue is the alpha or huge tribes that are able to build up and keep things in games that do not wipe. Of course many of those do get all that by offline raiding and not really grinding it out so of course offline raiding protection would help this. But there can be other ways to help this. Various limitations on numbers, or places owned. Something like a purge like conan does. Or even adding a system where if you get to a certain level then random folks could team up to take you down. Letting the player population basically police itself agaisnt such things.

Of course these are only some of the issues but the most glaring ones that plague the genre. Think you for reading and if you have any comment or ideas feel free to do so!

Last Oasis Now Live!

Last Oasis entered a stress test today. On launch day the games backend servers crashed when they reached 10k concurrent players. Today after a week of working on it we are now sitting at 20k and climbing with no real issues. So far it is looking good and the population is crazy.

On launch day in the starting cradle area I only seen a couple of people and it took me 2 hours to find pvp. Today on relaunch? I have seen 20-30 people in the cradle and it took me 10 minutes to find pvp! Check it out here: Dingos Stream First PVP.

It does seem they did delete and wipe everyones data which was expected. But if you got to play on launch day going back into the tutorial is a breeze. For those that are playing for the first time; do the tutorial. You will thank me greatly later.

It seems the steam survival crowd now has a new and very exciting game to enjoy and sink their stay at home time into! This EA survival game is one of the most polished ones to hit steams ea survival crowd since it started.

See you all in the sands!

PixArk: Needed Dinos – The Thorny lizard

A most needed dino in Pixark is the thorny lizard. They are a multi use dino that can benefit anyone and everyone in a variety of ways.

For offense and defense usefulness they have a nice dot ranged attack that comes from them shooting spikes. Up close they have a decent damage output as well as a decent hit point pool.

In terms of production and utility once you put a saddle on them they can turn basic stuff into ores. This is extremely useful as you will have a ton of say rock block stacks. They can turn those into iron ore. While it does take time for this it is really worth it.

They can turn all those dirt blocks you wondered what to do with into coal. No longer do you need to hoard dirt for fear you may need it one day. You can now use it.

The last thing they can do is turn clay into copper ore.

Those three things alone are needed for high end materials. Iron and coal to make steel, and copper goes into making electronics.

They need to be kited to tamed safely and is best to build a tame pit and lead them into it.

They can be found in the golden forest.

PixArk Second Anniversary

Pixark a game that fell hard but is one I still adore turns 2 today after it left early access. This event brings new skins you can get as well as a really cool cape.

Outside of that there is some new bone skins and item skins as well as a new item or two.

While not everything has been fixed that is buggy in the game they have made strides and I feel as it turns 2 pixark and the skyward dlc is in the best place it has ever been.

If you want to hop on feel free to join our own servers: Dingos Pve and Dingos PvP x3

Happy 2 years Pixark!

Grounded

Grounded is a new survival sandbox game that is launching between now and june in early access. It is a Xbox exclusive but will also be on Steam Early Access. I know what you are thinking…yet another EA survival dumpster fire. But looking at it I honestly think it may be a decent one. It is being done by Obsidian the same ones who made The Outer Worlds.

The Premise is you have been shrunk down to the size of an ant. This adds an entire new take on the survival genre as well as the nostalgia factor for those who grew up during Honey I Shrunk The Kids.

It is singleplayer as well as multiplayer co-op. Hopefully in the co-op there will be pvp. Regardless though we will keep you updated on this game and will host some co-op which we will post here as well as in the discord!