Happy holidays! :)

Hello there again!

On behalf of the developer team I wish happy holidays and a happy new year to everyone!

Meanwhile, I thought that if I share some info about the new features that we are working on, features that will make you guys very happy. Of course this won't be a super detailed info package, as we are still working on these features. So what will we have in the new year?

• We thought that the Sequer may not be enough for your current freight transporting needs. A new mech will be introduced.
• Lots of people requested a feature that can log some nice data for you. Like who killed you or who did you kill. This so-called ‘Combat history’ will be a nice feature for sure!

After witnessing all those huge pvp fights, we realized that there's an urgent need for a way to deal damage in an area. So we plan to add these shiny new ideas into the game soon:

• Robot-death-explosion-damage. If you die, you actually damage everyone around you. Bigger robots will have bigger explosions.
• If you think about the previous feature as an actual weapon, go no further; we will create an item that allows you to play kamikaze, with bigger fireworks. But it will require some reactor and CPU, so no Intakt rush with explosives.
• Have you ever thought about dropping bombs? You deploy it on the ground, it starts pulsing... and then everything fades to black. Well well well... I'm quite sure it will cause some damage! Use it to separate yourself from your enemy by placing it in narrow passages, or if you're a spy in the flock, why not surprise them with something funny? Also, my mind has just gone crazy about the possibilities of such a basic item and some more work on developer side... And had a vision of a bomberman event.
• What would you do with AOE (area of effect), if you couldn't shoot it on the group; why is it necessary to shake hands every time you want to cause damage? Of course we agree with you - new aoe weapons. Slow cycle time, shot at somebody, collateral damage to everyone nearby that target. And hoping that you ain't nearby that somebody.

So these are the most interesting features that we are currently working on. I still remember a beautiful board in the office, written all over with features to be done. Stay tuned for some moar candy!

Servers down

Our ISP decided for some reason to die. We're... working on it.
Will be back as soon as possible.

Anything lost due to this unexpected downtime will be reimbursed.

Awesome pvp video!

Thank you guys for this high quality, seamless gameplay record.
Congratulations to the winners of the event, and thanks to the other side for their effort on the battlefield! I wish you better luck next time ;)

Release aftermath

It was nearly a month ago, when I was able to stamp the blog with the the "out of beta" post, foolishly thinking that the blogging on this site has been ended for me. Until recent past happenings, I thought so. Plan A was that we will have a nice blog under the official site. Until plan A succeeds, I thought there's place for a plan B too. :)

It's kinda frustrating feeling, when you say "release time". First thing that gets into your head, is to look at the selling statistic. After the first sold copy you finally can say "somebody thinks that what we did actually worth the cash". And it's an awesome feeling after 4 years of developing. (for the developers who actually started the whole thing. For me, it's just nearly 2 years of poking around, mass bug hunting, working on balancing, zones, missions and so on.)

The second thing that you realize is that you developed an mmorpg. Hurray, we made it to release; let's take a sneak peak at the general chat to make sure everything is all right*. And since, we didn't had one day that would go without a new bug reported. Then you realize that mmos require constant developing; you look around to see that everyone works just to stabilize the situation.
* There's no such thing as all right in mmos. Lesson learned.

Then two weeks go by, and you may* actually say that I have time to work on new things again. At moment my main task is to help the GMs, as I can't do nothing else at the moment. :(
*I'm speaking only in my own name. Everyone around me works on thousands of things.

In the past weeks, we realized a lot's of things: we needed better hardware, more hardware. The longer (1 hour long) downtimes are usually due to some hardware upgrade. As the whole game runs now from 3 servers, we hope that the players would experience less server issues. Our network connection also had it first test: around a week ago, there was an intrusion event with lot's of agents taking part of a pvp battle. 45mb/s upload does sound nice, isn't it? :)

Network issues however, such as lag or full disconnect can't be fixed such easily. Many players noted that our connection may not be as stable as they experienced it with other mmos. Until we can improve on this, I found a nice post from the forums from Kethir, who said that his connection is much better, if he turns on a free VPN software called "AnchorFree". Although I can't really tell too much about it, I have to say that the ping to australia from hungary is lowered by 200ms, if this thing is turned on. This may be a good option for people who try to play far from europe, and a very bad idea for everyone in europe (+200ms here, to the server)

We have been nominated for Best New MMORPG in 2010. It's nice to feel that even if we are just a small company, our product is racing against the big releases.

Oh, and I made some time-lapse thing when I had a bit time; I was amazed that our beautiful garden in the TM starting zone can be so cool.

Alright, I'm out of interesting topics. Don't worry: We already working on our first huge patch, that will include some new tools to play with. Of course, it still requires lot's of work, so I'm going to stay silent about everything... for now.

Beta is officially over

Dear players,

We wish to say our thanks to every player who joined us for the beta. It's been a long development, and we are proud that the game is ready for release.

I wish to say special thanks to all those players who took part of the community, either by working for or with a corporation, helping or trolling on the channels. It's been a great experience for us, and every one of you contributed to the beta feeling in some way. We saw great pvp battles, corporations working to gain new technology levels and outposts... annoying bugs. :)

We hope to see you guys again after the release.

In the end, I wish to show you some nice videos from the community. :)

Screenshot gallery update

Our Screenshot gallery has been updated. Make sure to check it out! ;)

Press Release - October 6, 2010

AVATAR CREATIONS ANNOUNCES OPEN BETA AND EARLY ACCESS PHASES FOR THEIR OPEN WORLD ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME, PERPETUUM

Free for all testing of Perpetuum will begin on the 18th of October, 2010.

2010 October 6, Budapest - Avatar Creations Limited has today announced that after one and a half years of closed testing, the publicly available Open Beta testing of the persistent world Massively Multiplayer Online Game Perpetuum will begin on the 18th of October, 2010. During the Open Beta phase players from all around the world will be welcome to play Perpetuum and explore the alien planet of Nia.

Early Access

Perpetuum will be available for early subscription after the start of the Open Beta phase. Players with Early Access subscriptions will be able to enter and play the game once the Open Beta phase has ended, one full week before the official launch. Early Access subscriptions will include 30 days of playtime and will be priced at 9.95€. The exact date of when early subscriptions will be available and more information on the Early Access period and official launch date of the game will be announced at a later time.

About Perpetuum

In the sci-fi world of Perpetuum players engage in exploring the alien planet of Nia with huge robots. Remotely controlling these robots from Earth, players are thrown into a foothold situation where they need to build a stable economy while battling the natives and rogue human agents, all in order to supply Earth with precious energy.

Key game features

-Completely open, persistent game world on a single server

All the players in Perpetuum play in the same unsharded world, and the actions of players have permanent consequences which can only be changed by other players or the natural physics of the game world.

-Highly scalable combat

Fights in Perpetuum can range from one on one to whole armies battling it out, and thousands of items and versatility of the game world guarantee no two fights will be alike.

-Complex crafting system

Perpetuum features an advanced item crafting system ranging from mining raw materials and gaining knowledge to the mass production of items. Players will be able to reverse engineer technology found in the wild and even build special prototype items with the knowledge they amass over time.

-Player driven market

All game systems in Perpetuum have been built towards the goal to rely on each other, thereby creating constant supply and demand between the players of different specializations and encouraging trade between players.

-Time based character progression

Experience in Perpetuum is gained over time on each active account, even when the player isn't logged in the game. Extension points gained this way can be used to purchase skills on any character on the account.

-A living world

The environment on Nia is one that is constantly changing. Plantlife is fighting for territory while large battles leave barren wastelands where a forest of alien vegetation used to stand. Minerals in the ground require regular scans to find, and later even the face of the planet will be deformable by players as they start building their own settlements.

More information on Perpetuum can be found on the official website: http://www.perpetuum-online.com

About Avatar Creations

Avatar Creations, located in Budapest, Hungary is a small, independent game development studio of about 10 people. The company was founded for the development of their first game, Perpetuum - a completely unique, open, persistent world where players are able to engage in a wide variety of interactions ranging from combat to complex economics. The goal of Avatar Creations is to continually develop this world in the coming years to provide a game which a growing number of players can enjoy worldwide.

Beauty Patch

Hello there everyone!

After a long silence from the blog, I'm happy to share with you that today we finally released our newest patch. It was a bit tough for me to stay silent until this moment, because... we wanted to make it a surprise! :) So it's here, it's nice and shiny.

Take a look at the Change log, check out the uploaded soundtrack files... and get into the game.

Intrusion system preview

As the development continues, we’re constantly adding new features to the game. One of the most awaited features will be the ability to build your own settlements and terraform the area around them.

We’re not quite there yet, but to enable our players some form of territory control we’re introducing a new system where they will be able to take control of certain outposts. This system is called Intrusion.

So what’s it all about?

The idea is that under the right circumstances, player corporations can claim ownership of certain buildings. (Namely the outposts on the beta islands in the free PvP zone)

To achieve this, they will have to compete with other corporations for the ownership of the property by completing objectives at certain times.

From time to time each base will have a maintenance session, when extra parts of its structure will become visible for the players to interact with. Native Nians used these Service Access Points (SAPs) to perform regular maintenance on an outpost's systems, however these vulnerable points can also be used to bring down the main defenses of it. These events will be what we call Intrusion.

Each SAP requires players to perform some action to take control of it during the Intrusion event. If any one corporation has control over all of the access points associated with a certain outpost they gain ownership of the outpost. At the moment there are four different access point types:

Destruction: Destroy the access point. The corporation dealing the most damage takes ownership.

Specimen processing: Be the first to bring certain specific items to the access point.

Active hacking: Be the first to hack the access point (requires a unique hacking module)

Passive hacking: Hold the surroundings of the access point.

When the required objective of an access point is achieved it closes until the next event and ownership is transferred to the winning corporation. Of course things brings up the possibility that access points associated with an outpost are owned by different corporations.

If at the end of the Intrusion event not all of the access points are controlled by the same corporation the owner does not change, however the individual access points retain their controlling corporations for the next Intrusion event.

Example:

At the beginning of the event corporation A holds the outpost. This means, that sometime in the past they captured all access points claiming ownership of the base. It's however entirely possible that in the meanwhile other corporations took control of some of the access points for that base.

To make sure that corporation A doesn't lose ownership of their property the only thing they need to do is to prevent any one corporation from taking over each access point.

This can be done by completing access point objectives before others or simply preventing other groups from completing objectives.Meaning that capturing an outpost requires good teamwork and precise timing.

Corporations are required to register for Intrusion events at least 12 hours before the event begins. If a corporations wins an event by taking control of all access points they get the registration fee back.

The rewards of controlling an outpost are high: from each transaction that happens on their outpost the controlling corporation gets a share. This share varies with the type of the transactions. This in effect means that the controlling corporation can use the base facilities at a much reduced price and everyone passing through will generate money for them.

However winning an Intrusion event doesn’t automatically transfer control of the base to the winning corporation. The corporation does become the new owner, but the base still needs to be claimed by them. Each base has a large pool of money with a fixed maximum. Each time a corporation wins an Intrusion event or when they successfully defend a base they get a portion of this pool transferred to them. To gain control over the base the corporation needs to fill this pool to its maximum first, otherwise they won’t get a percentage from the transactions flowing through the base.

This opens up the possibility for groups to make some cash in the Intrusion events without paying the high fee of taking control of the outpost. Also the chances of someone taking over an outpost whose owner just recently changed are greater as the pool will be filled up and as a result claiming the base will cost less. This makes controlling a base a risky business.

As the timing of Intrusion events will be randomly determined on the server it’s possible that an event occurs at a time when the owning corporation is unable to defend it. To counter this problem the system has a feature called Intrusion Protection. This system will allow the owner of a base to skip an Intrusion event completely, but this option is of course limited: after every third successful defense of a base the owning corporation will get a protection token. This token can be used to skip an Intrusion event at any base the corporation currently owns. The tokens accumulate but their number may never exceed the number of bases under the control of the corporation.

Last Mech Standing event

Dear players! There will be another event, this sunday, so make sure that you have time to join the fun! Here's the details from our forum:

Date: Sunday 25th July
Event Preparation Starts: 19:00 Server Time (CET)
Event Start: 20:00 Server Time (CET)
Location: Hokkogaros

All times are in server time.

‘The Event’

‘The Event’ is a gladiatorial battle for supremacy in a closed environment designed to promote strategy, tactics and PvP prowess. All may enter, however only one must survive.

Anyone may participate in The Event and the rules are simple. Kill everything. Regardless of who participates in the event and their allegiance only one Mech must survive. That Mech will be awarded the main prize and claim the title of the first “Last Mech Standing Victor”.

Event Information

A unique arena has been constructed in order to house the event. The arena is circular an approximately 2 kilometres in diameter. Terrain will be harsh and unforgiving. Bunkers, ditches and firing ranges will be common place.

Players that wish to take part must be on Hokkogaros so that they can be teleported by a GM to the arena. The chat channel “LMS” has been created which all participants must join; this will make the GM’s lives much easier when finding players to teleport and provide a central channel of communication.

Event preparation will start at 19:00. GM’s will teleport players to the arena from 19:00 until 19:50. The event will start at 20:00. Do not expect to be teleported after 19:50.

Once participants have been teleported you will be assigned a location at the edge of the arena by a GM. Fighting must not commence until a GM has given the go ahead.

Once inside the arena and the event under way the rules of engagement are simple. Kill everything. The main prize will be awarded to the last Mech standing. If there are multiple people alive at the end of the event and they do not wish to fight then they will all forfeit the main prize. Only one Mech must survive.

All robots killed during the event will be reimbursed by a Dev/GM.

Prizes

A fully fitted Tier 4 Heavy Mech will be awarded to the player who wins the event. Various other prizes will be awarded to participants, both individuals and corporations who show organisation, a good strategy, tactics and general PvP prowess although the value of these prizes will not exceed the main one.

Perpetuum Extension Planner

The whole developer team was amazed by this little community created wonder. Although we keep track of a few tools that our players craft in their free time, this one just fantastic. You can plan your extensions (depending on your attributes!) or gain informations about them. The little application has many features, from setting up your current extensions and calculate requied ep from that point... load/save data and has an update system too. Truly, amazing work! Thank you very much Mark Zima for this great tool!

You can download the application here!

Squad bonus and Gui improvements

Hello there! It's been more then two weeks since the last post, so lets quickly check what happened.

We successfully updated some gui elements. :) Lot's of people had concerns about the visibility of the player's target with the previous locking gui, so we worked on that one a little bit. We reduced the size of the targeting computer(and landmark info), and we also reworked the module list. We will add soon some new features to the landmark list, based on the players requests. (filtering npcs/players, standing based filtering, robot type filtering.)

The squad bonus system works finally, offering nice number of bonuses like energy recharge boost, extra speed or lock bonuses.(9 type at moment) Although these bonuses are really expensive, they can be a really nice for the team. (max 3 squad bonus on one person, effect range from 100m -> 400m. Any player in the squad can provide the bonus.) A few more bonus types will come in the (very) close future too, including modules supporting industrial activities.

We finally released the video from the pirate event.

Renegade event results

On sunday, we had the biggest event in Perpetuum so far, the Renegade(Pirate) event!
Lot's of players joined the event for some loot and for victory. (eventually, for killing some archnemesis :-) )

We tought that you migth want to check out the whole killing list, so here it is:

20:35:49 Killer = siberian beast Victim = Inda
20:36:40 Killer = MadGelo Victim = Jita
20:37:06 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Pusztito
20:39:47 Killer = Oswaldov Victim = Corban
20:43:20 Killer = Neoxx Victim = Nordreptyly
20:43:29 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Ger fon Moskit
20:43:37 Killer = AngryAndy Victim = ReneGAD
20:43:40 Killer = Specchio Ipafo Victim = Duega
20:44:01 Killer = Akumaka Victim = Admiral
20:44:08 Killer = Oswaldov Victim = Kara Mustafa
20:44:12 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = bankup
20:44:22 Killer = Neoxx Victim = Tusk
20:44:25 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = DENWER
20:44:32 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = AngryAndy
20:44:45 Killer = Cyan Victim = Ormm
20:44:45 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Makika
20:45:13 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Manyaks
20:46:16 Killer = Ember Greyhart Victim = Nuclear fire
20:47:13 Killer = Annihilator Victim = Rouge Selenium
20:47:27 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = Oswaldov
20:47:54 Killer = Specchio Ipafo Victim = Violetta Frost
20:47:58 Killer = Shrike Victim = Sunduk
20:47:59 Killer = Karism Victim = Torano
20:48:13 Killer = Deeandre Victim = Auras
20:48:48 Killer = Siddy Victim = Sequadon
20:48:56 Killer = Karism Victim = Mat
20:49:28 Killer = siberian beast Victim = kombatunit
20:58:40 Killer = Karism Victim = Inda
21:06:40 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = BigTom
21:08:12 Killer = siberian beast Victim = Cyan
21:08:39 Killer = Voland Victim = Specchio Ipafo
21:08:44 Killer = Karism Victim = Alexander MkII
21:09:01 Killer = Annihilator Victim = Siddy
21:09:29 Killer = Nick Fury Victim = Kasha
21:09:40 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = MadGelo
21:09:44 Killer = Karism Victim = PeXi
21:10:34 Killer = Neoxx Victim = Scarba
21:10:47 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = Voland
21:11:06 Killer = Neoxx Victim = Nefaroth
21:11:37 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Meti
21:12:05 Killer = Neoxx Victim = Karism
21:12:07 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Pusztito
21:12:21 Killer = Nick Fury Victim = Ember Greyhart
21:12:37 Killer = siberian beast Victim = Tailn
21:12:38 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Styx
21:12:59 Killer = siberian beast Victim = Neoxx
21:13:13 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Nick Fury
21:13:42 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = Ghizmo
21:13:51 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Tiberius Korso

21:14:06 Killer = NickCave Victim = Joshua Wolf <- VIP 21:14:10 Killer = Siddy Victim = Rav 21:14:26 Killer = siberian beast Victim = Vincenoir 21:14:39 Killer = HeTyIIu Victim = Shrike 21:14:41 Killer = Siddy Victim = Kodsarkany 21:14:44 Killer = Annihilator Victim = siberian beast 21:15:10 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Siddy 21:16:51 Killer = Uranos Victim = CJIECAPb 21:18:27 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = Sequadon 21:20:45 Killer = Dongstromatic Victim = HeTyIIu

Thanks for everyone joining the event!

(high res, max detailed pictures&videos coming soon)

Effect system patch

Hello there!

In the last few months, looks like we were able to finalize the game core elements, and now we have much more time to actually work on balance, gui updates and models.

The updates ain't really big, still they can change lots of game elements, like we did with the prototyping, or just consider the extra safepoints/teleports in the outpost patch. We also started timing these patches: we try to give you some novelty from time to time. And so, here we are again, with a new update for Perpetuum!

This patch's main feature is the update to our effect system, with a few extra Gui elements(sharing information about how much effect's have an impact on you) and also featuring some limitations on effects stacking, nerfing the use of focused ewar gameplay.

The new effect system also holds some long waited development opportunities: to create Squad bonus systems and maybe later weather and other territorial effects. Stay tuned for some more nasty feature updates about this one. :)

Also because we created nice circle fill for effects, we also implemented this feature for weapons and modules too. Reload/Firing cycles now also viewable trough the module interface.


Pirate Convoy Event

I was recently informed by some nasty pirates, that there will be a convoy event, with heavy mech in prize, so make sure that you and your friends will join the party! GMs will spectate the event, and reimburse every lost robot. More info: http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topic/2221/pirate-convoy-event/

Patch day, again.

Again, we were able to give out a new patch, containing many interesting things. Let's just check the most importants.

• Insurance is now available, based on average market price. This should help players to keep playing where they stopped, even after a painful robot death.
• Tweaking in reverse engineering: for market and gameplay issues, from now on only standard, and prototype items will be reverse-engineer able.

We allowed in tons of people in the last weeks, and so the player numbers have increased nicely. Many new corp trains the incomer newbies. If you look for a new corp make sure that you take a good look around, many good corps looking for active players. :-)

Make sure to take a look into the game if you were away for a quite long time... Ohh and New Virginia holds a nice surprise for everyone! :) Make sure to check it out.

Perpetuum Parade

New patch, new players! :)

Hello there!

It's been a few days since we were able to release our newest patch, including many new features, like outposts, tons of missions, direct trading and so on.

As usually in the beta, there were a few things that had to be hotfixed, or changed after the patch, but I have to say that we dealt with them pretty fast.

First of all, I wish to say hello for our new players who joined the closed beta recently. We accepted many beta applications in the last few days, so make sure that you check into your mailbox if you ain't in the beta yet: it's maybe your lucky day.

There was a few details about the mission system, that we didn't wrote down to anywhere yet, so I wish to share with you now.
-To each corp you have a standing, that will increase as you complete missions for them. To get a higher confidentiality level mission, you have to achieve a higher standing. There are standing values which work as borders for these confidentiality levels. Basically, these are the whole numbers: 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00. If you reach 6.00, you completed all the missions for that corporations, at moment.
-We have a rule to make sure that you won't farm only one mission. This rule says, that you can pick up a mission only if this mission isn't in your "previously done missions" list in 3 times for the last 10 missions you have done.

There will be a few changes soon, so here's a quick update.
-We will change this farming rule, from 3 to 6, so missions won't disappear simply by doing them 3 times. Also, this allows players to level with only one corporation. (previous setting prevented this)
-Mission items (data discs) will be recyclable hopefully really soon. So it won't be simply a trash item if you have more of them then what you need.
-I will rebalance the mission standing modifiers, so missions with less standing reward will give a bit more, and missions with much more standing reward will give a bit less. (less difference on standing side, same difference in reward prices and items.)

Make sure you guys visit the outposts and do missions there too! (These missions accessible after reaching 1.00 standing with a corp, check missions available for you trough the assignment window!)

Finally, a nice screenshot from the ICS outpost:

Patchinfo 2 :)

Another week goes by, here's the latest news:

Direct Trade
You can trade only in base, and only if you both in the same base. Everything is trade-able, and you can even offer money trough the system. ;)

Fraction numbers in Market!
Many of you requested it, so after a long time, we finally implemented it.

New Outposts - Screenshot time!

Thelodica Outpost Building

Pelistal Outpost Building

There's still many things to finalize, and the Nuimqol outpost model is still in works... But looks like we finally will be able to patch in the close future. :) If any new thing comes up, I will be eager to share it with you! :)

New infos about next patch.

We have many things coming in the next patch! :)

Outposts
As you may know, we planned placing new outposts buildings all over the islands. These outposts will work same way as bases do, except that they have limited functionality (some factory maybe missing from the outposts.)

New missions

The new mission pack will contain new "mission levels". Let me explain this one: each mission has a standing requirement, and a standing reward. At moment, we have rank1 missions, (with a very low standing reward, so you can't get quickly a new standing "rank") and we will add five more. What we aiming at:

• at all, 6 mission ranks, from lightbot to mech category.
• Each rank takes more time to reach. (of course, hehe)
• Rewards will be more on higher ranked missions.
• Every mission target will be placed around a base/outpost. We don't want players to walk half hours just to reach the mission's place.

Changes in missions:

• Looting missions no longer have loot&fetch kernel objectives. Instead, every mission will have its own mission item, which will be required to complete the mission.
• Beside cash reward, we will give the players special ammunition. (which isn't producible, so you can get it only trough mission or market)
• Your standing to the corporations will modify the corporation related bases/outposts functions (Relation ratio)

New mission types:

• industrial missions requiring military support.
• specops mission targeting elite group of ewar bots.

Prototype crafting upgrade

In the future, if you will prototype a named item you will obtain a special, prototype item instead of the usual, named item. These prototype items will have a bit better stats, mainly reduced requirements, and minor amount of tweaks for better usage. In the case of reverse engineering such a prototype item, you will acquire the CT of the named item. (so reverse engineering a named prototype item allows the production of the named item.) Of course, reverse engineering a not prototype item still remains, but if you reverse engineer a prototype item, the decoder level, will be lower, and the CT's attributes will be better. (material and time ratio will be higher)

Development news

The team's working really hard. (honestly)

Let me show you the new Equip Window!
It's nice and working perfectly. It now even shows what level of modules can be equipped into the target slot. Actually, its far more perspicuous then the previous version, easy to use and looks much nicer too.

New mission pack is on its way too, with an npc spawnpoint replacement/modification. Most of the npc groups will contain at least 2 type of robots. We will have harder industrial missions, which will require military protection, but will give better reward.(at least double reward) The missions will take place on the pvp islands too: teleports and outposts will await the players everywhere. :) (teleports: atleast 3/zone, outpost: fix 3/zone)

We also working on balancing, we try to keep up with your forum posts. Some of them will be balanced later, but if you post about something really annoying, then we will try to fix it as fast as possible. It was a painful decision, but we limited the use of the mass reductors to 1/robot, so after the next patch we will not see Kains running with 90kmph+. To balance this, we improved the mass reductor's effectiveness by a small percent, so those who used 1-2 weight reducers should have nearly the same effect, but speed fittings wont be possible in the future. (this gives escape chance for small robots against big ones)

That's at all at moment! See you guys on next week!

Community news

Hello there, again! :)

Once again, we have a nice number of players online, giving us the chance of making pvp tournaments and such. Many new players testing perpetuum at moment, and we hope it will stay like that. :) (we allowing friend invites once more)

Meanwhile, we have 3 new fan websites, and each offers some interesting content.

GM|Dehrios (and a few more people of course) hosted a nice website, PerpetuumZone. It's a nice collection of information, that the admins collected here: Missions, factions, and tutorials. Dehrios also streaming trough xfire, so if you don't have a beta access, but you still wish to look into the game, this can be a nice place to check. (Because Dehrios is in USA, European viewers may have a low kbit/s connection) Image gallery is also noticeable.

The second website I found is a blog about a player, who just tells story about many things. The site is called A distant sparkle. I hope to see more article from the creator! :)

And finally, gremrod's blog,(who is also an admin of perpetuumzone) posting his tutorial videos nicely there. (if I'm correct these are also accessible trough perpetuumzone) A wonderful idea, and Great work! We all wish to see more tutorials like this, and we are very thankful that you help us creating such videos. (It should help all newbie player to get quickly informed, until we have a working tutorial system [soon, promise])

Well, thanks for reading!

The new patch is released!

Yesterday night we finally updated the servers, and the new patch is now available.

If you have a bit spare time, login and play some with us! :)

After a bit pause.

In the last 2 weeks, the team was working hard on many things, and I just couldn't give you nice screenshots.


Sadly, we had to delay our planned release time for the patch, and I'm not sure when can we release it. Maybe thursday, but nothing is clear atmoment.

So what will the new patch contain?
-Base GUI reworked, new background for the inbase enviroment: SyncOS. (hehe)
-The new production system.
-Terrains reworked, many roads and decors added.
-New decors. (New type of rocks)
-pvp flag system. (It's an addon to the police aggro system)

Here's a little "how it works" about the new production system.


And finally, some yet not released artwork. :-)


We keep polishing the patch, to make sure that we give a good reason for many player to return to the beta.

See you on the "release of the next patch day". =)

Base report.

Actually, i'm amazed. How fantastic work can such a few people do in such a short time.
So let's see what I have.

-Zoom's working on a full gui revamp. We going for a nicer, and more hmm, high-techy interface.
-We made a new information layer for the client from the map, so all players will be able see every police protected zone, even from outside. This also brings us a new feature: the system will warn you when you leave the police protected zone.

-I heard noise from the Melchior's Shack. I heard he plays with rocks and buildings. We hope to see them soon. :)

And finally, you may got bored of that red annoying marker, showing you where you can, or cannot go. Well, just as you, we got bored of it too. So we reworked this too.


+1: A nice interview

Finally, Ew mechs released. Patchday.

Patchlog:
-Chat reworked. We always tried to have a complex and well working chat system (like IRC), we just went one step forward. Mute options, remembers what channels you were in. Password protection for channels.

-Autowalk. Because you asked for it. And we care. :) Double tap forward at voila!

-Ew mechs released. Yarr! :)

-Sound updates.

Full patchlog: http://www.perpetuum-online.com/Changelog:2010-02-11

Other thingys.

-Xfire support. If you using Xfire, please make sure to add Perpetuum to your game list. (so we can move forward on the rank list of Xfire :) )
-New Icon. Shiny-nice, and big. I like it :)

Ictus, my new best friend.

Such a wonderful day!(at least for me, hehe)

Where should I start?
I won't lie: I have less time at moment to work on the game. So I have a bit harder time too, to get some nice info for you guys. Still, I join the server when I have a bit freetime. And of course, when something should be checked, I jump to the developer server, for a quick look around.

As I did it yesterday, I realized something, that I never did before: Ictus, our last EW mech on the line, will be the most awesome mech in the game actually. I spent time on trying different fittings, realizing, that actually Ictus will be a pvp massacre mech. Harvester of... robot souls.

Ictus actually able to use 3 energy weapon alongside with (or) 3 rocket launcher. (its 2+2+1/1, as you wish, 2energy with 3rocket or 3energy 2 rocket) What's really makes me say "awesooome" is that while it handles the three medium energy drainer, it's also able to use shield... +3 EW module. Basicly, he will dry your accumulator, while laughing behind a shield, and demobilizing +sensor suppressing you. Auch.

I'm actually amazed about its animation complexity: I hope you can check it out soon too. The rockets on it's shoulder can actually roll back to it's back, (most of the new robots have this trick) It actually has a hand, and unlike the other Ew robots, the hand trick is solved with the currently used animation system. (Yes, on the list... as always. :) ) The hand can change into the weapon, and backwards. +The jackpot trick, that it its head moves like... I guess its *mouth* is moving. The movement animation is 10/10, and the mech also has a bit "crazymachine" feeling, because as it moves, it just feels like that the parts on his back are moving... And this is actually a really cool thing... ^^ that our mechs do hand gestures, ingame. If I'm correct we have 2-3 mechs with this feature at moment, but more will come.

And with nice hand animations... Well, everything is possible. :)

Assignment Patch.

The newest patch is now released, which now enables the mission system, and holds many bug fixes. As most of the new features have been introduced here, i just wish to copypaste the change log, and wish you a nice game play, as always. :)

SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

The Assignment system is now active. Altogether 81 NPC-contracted offers are available on all three starter bases, currently consisting of the following variety: Military recon, Bounty hunting, Destroy & recover, Transportation, Geology assignment and Mineral exploitation. These are all low-level and open-world assignments for now, more challenging and instanced types will also be added soon.

GAMEPLAY

• Fix: Various cargo load update bugs. Also, no more 'Cargo is full' errors when trying to package an item in cargo.
• Fix: Various ammo reloading bugs (negative ammo, reloads not using ammo etc.).
• New: Reinstated the Arkhe request timer. If you request an Arkhe you will have to wait 5 minutes before you can request another.
• Change: Removed the "automatic" option from scanner modules as they work always in "oneshot" mode anyways.
• Fix: Chassis/cargo scanners cannot be activated without a target anymore.
• New: Confirmation box when emptying a robot.

BALANCING

• Change: Reduced accumulator usage of laser weapons.
• Change: The bonus of the 'Seismics' extension has been reduced to 3% per level.
• Change: Slightly increased damage of the medium sonic ballistic missile.
• Change: Slightly reduced explosion size of small and medium sonic compact missiles.
• Change: Riveler and Symbiont received an additional leg slot.

ROBOTS AND MODULES

• Fix: Bad calculations for seismic damage type on missile launchers, which caused them do to more damage than intended.
• Fix: Armor repairer tunings affect both normal and remote armor repairer modules, despite their descriptions stating otherwise. The latter has now been corrected.
• Change: As a preliminary change for the new production system, lower level items have been added to named items' component lists. Due to the large number of items not all of them received this change yet, so you don't have to report this as a bug.

GRAPHICS

• New: Added icons for auxiliary accumulator, energy injector charge and universal harvester charge.

GRAPHIC ENGINE

• New: More stable shadow engine.
• Fix: Resource leaks when having no active robot.

EXTENSIONS

• Fix: ECM modules were unaffected by the 'Long distance electronic warfare' extension.
• Change: Removed the following extensions: Bounty hunting, Advanced parallel assignments, Confidential status improvement.

CORPORATIONS

• Change: Corporation storage names are now limited at 30 characters.

GUI

• Fix: Opened extensions window is now properly updated upon deploying.

SOUND

• New: Target lock/unlock sounds.

GENERAL

• New: Corporation short ID is now shown for chat members.
• New: Current Agent's name is now shown on the top statusbar.
• Fix: A server error was hindering the reuse of deleted character names on the same account.

WEBSITE

• New: Completed the robopedia (for now).

Still alive

Hello there everyone! :)
It's been more then one week, since I last posted here... sorry for that. :(
Let's see what do I have in my treasury chest ^^

Missions
Yes I know, we talked about it. "It's coming" etc. For far too long. :) Mostly, it's just polish and extra work till we can finally release it to the closed beta server.

Sooo... Let's pick up a mission! :)

As it was told before, the first mission pack will contain 81 mission, all of them focuses on low level players, to balance out the "leveling" process. Then if it works as we want, we just add new missions in packs.

We have 6 types of mission at this very moment:

• Bounty hunting: You have to kill x piece of robot.
• Destroy&Recover: Get x piece of item, from a type of robot.
• Delivery: Transport special, Mission items (Load) between bases.
• Military Recon: Use the the chasis/cargo scanner on x piece of robot.
• Geology assigment: Use the scanner, with a predefinied geoscanner charge type.
• Mineral exploitation: Get x amount of material.
  

+ to all of this, we set position. So you have to do mining/killing/scanning on a preset location.

hmm: the radar also shows now targets.

Waypoints: new feature

Now you can send your waypoints to other players.

Lock Sound effects

Let the video talk instead of me. :) Beep Beep!

Community news

From time to time, we have some pvp action too. So I looked around for some video.
Fantastic work guys, thank you very much for crafting such videos!

Translate the Perpetuum project!
Many of you asked it previously, that would it be possible to translate the project into other languages. As the call for participation went to official state, just enough person has volunteered for the job. The game is under translating into German and Portugal! When a translation is complete, the client's language option will include it, and you will be able to use it.
To the translators: I'm amazed.. Thank you for your work! :)
(As I just wrote these lines, I heard that the devs added the new flags to the client's resources :) )

Production revamp

Due to the rising number of questions about the new production system we decided to shed some light on the general plan of things to come. This overview will not go into specifics because the system - as we're talking about not yet completely implemented and tested ideas - might still be subject to change.

First off: patents and licenses will become obsolete. This doesn't mean that the NIC you invested in them will go down the drain, we'll set up some means to compensate the owners of such items. (probably in the form of npc buy orders)

In the new system we split production into two parts: mass production and prototype production.

Mass production will function in a similar manner as the current system, however instead of being based on patents it'll be based on reverse engineering existing items. You'll be able to take any item and combined with a research kit you'll be able to create a calibration program. (This process will destroy both the item and the research kit. Also, the research kits will have varying quality, and different items will have different minimal requirements from a research kit to be reverse engineered) Calibration programs will be used to configure factory assembly lines to mass produce the desired item. Factory calibration will however get out of alignment with each run (reducing the time/material effectiveness of production) so from time to time you'll need to recalibrate the assembly line with a new calibration program.

So mass production is based on reverse engineering. But reverse engineering of course requires an already existing item, so we'll also be introducing a new form of item creation system called prototyping. With this system you'll be able to create any item out of thin air with very high material costs. An item created this way will be just like any item except for the investment it takes to actually produce it. These prototypes will most likely be taken to mass production via the reverse engineering/factory system.

To ensure that not every item is available for prototyping for everyone right at the launch of the new production system we're introducing the knowledge base - a sort of encyclopedia where you'll be able to collect information about Nia, the technology there and possibly more (lore, mission info, we have many ideas). By researching a type of loot taken back from npcs you'll be able to expand this knowledge base. Once you have sufficient knowledge of an item you'll be able to create that item using the prototype system.

This way we can introduce new items into the game without the items actually dropping in the form of loot. As players expand their knowledge base some of them will be able to build the newly introduced item, build a single prototype and then take that item to mass production. Others will then be able to buy these items off the market, reverse engineer them and start mass production on their own.

This is the basic material and item flow of the new system, the specifics are still being worked out as we're implementing it. Any thoughts on the ideas here are welcome in the comments section.