Artillery work in progress

Some features already done, some are still on the workbench.
Testing and polishing the artillery line of sight calculation.

DEV Crm testing the artillery calculations.

Red dots mark the flight path of the bullet, blue dots mark the points on the terrain to check for line of sight block.

Edit:

Dear players, please do not think that lightbots will have artillery. "Testing" means testing. :)

Banhammer strikes.

A-ha-ha!

Because this blog isn't official, I guess that means that I can troll around for a few minutes.
After a bit investigation, we successfully banned 15 accounts because of NIC selling for real money.

Many of you reported a large group of miners, mining for 12+ hours a day, without corporation and pretty suspicious.
It was super interesting to connect all those accounts together, and investigate their account, find someone who supposedly bought NIC from them, talk to the persons, confirm that these guys do what I thought they do... and then wave the banhammer.

I have to warn all of you, that such activities are forbidden by the EULA. If you receive cash from an unknown player, either send it back or immediately report this issue to a GM.

I was thinking by the way... How's this goes with other smaller mmos? Do they have the tools to confirm such issues? To point out the required informations? For us it's one of the most important things, to make sure that our game provides fair gameplay for every player. Do the other small mmos even care about such things as "gold farmers"?

Well, we do care. Take care guys!

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! :)