Category Archives: The Repopulation

The Repopulation – Player Housing System

  By Creep | January 26, 2013 - 3:18 am | The Repopulation
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housing_smallThe future players of The Repopulation answered at least one if not two recent polls showing that they REALLY wanted to know more about the in game housing system. Out of all the game features listed, Player Housing came out on top. It looks like this is the feature that future players are really passionate about. After reading up on it, I have to admit that I can’t wait to see how this will work myself.

Here’s the information available so far:

  • There will be 3 categories of housing plots Instanced Neighborhood housing plots, Persistent Non-Instanced housing plots and Nation City housing plots.
  • Houses will be either whole housing units or modular units players will be able to place together to build homes. 
  • Players will be able to move their homes
  • Players will not have to worry about other players destroying or stealing from their homes. 

Instanced player housing will be the easiest and cheapest option. The two NPC factions, OWON and FPR will have instanced neighborhoods where players will be able to set up homes.  Having a more neighborhood feel will give players a chance to showcase their homes to other players, just on a smaller scale. Sadly though OWON folks can’t be neighbors with FPR folks, so you’ll want to make sure that all of your friends join the same faction if you want them to visit your Instanced house. Instanced player housing will give anyone who wants to try out the housing system a chance to buy a plot and build a house.

The Persistent Non-Instanced housing will give players a little more of that Star Wars Galaxies feel by letting them put a house down in the open world. There won’t be a lot of these housing plots and they’ll be more expensive than the instanced housing. The Devs plan to release Persistent Non-Instanced housing plots slowly over time and restrict purchase of the housing plots to one plot per account.  The reasoning is that this will give more players a chance to have open world homes. This option is mostly for people who really want to have homes out in the open game world but do not want to risk building a home in a Nation city as these will be in PvP areas.

Nation housing plots are the third option available to Repopulation home builders. So not only will players be able to build their own cities out in the open world, but they’ll be able to have homes within those cities. These housing plots will be tied to the city. This means that if the city falls to another Nation, or the city Mayor decides to reallocate a housing plot, the houses on the Nation plots are released and the houses are packaged.

Here’s the really nifty bit, in The Repopulation houses are mobile.

All houses in The Repopulation are tied to the player, not the property they sit on. This means that players can move their house from one housing plot to another. This gives players flexibility in where they want to place their homes and also means that players can invest their time and resources on building and decorating their home without fear of having someone show up and try to destroy it.

Players will also be able to give others the ability to manipulate the items in their homes. Though apparently if you give someone else permission to re-arrange your house they can put things wherever they want.

That’s just the basics of the housing system and personally I can’t wait to get a chance to work with a home of my own. Chances are I may even try getting in with a player nation just so I can see how it works when you plunk down a house in a Nation city.

For more information check out the Player Housing System write up over on The Repopulation website. Also, if you have some questions about the system you can ask the devs directly on this forum thread Player Housing 1-25-2013 – Questions.

The Repopulation: End of November 2012 Update

  By Creep | December 12, 2012 - 2:45 pm | The Repopulation
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Mister November The Repopulation

Are you looking forward to the upcoming MMORPG The Repopulation? Haven’t heard of it? Well good news, here’s a quick overview before I give you the down low on the latest Alpha phase updates.

The Repopulation is a sci-fi MMORPG that is in the Alpha testing phase as we speak. The team hopes to have the game released by Q4 2013.

You may think of this as a long wait, but if you’re one of those folks that just haven’t found what they’re looking for in an MMORPG, you may want to take a look at what The Repopulation will have to offer.

Even in the Alpha phase The Repopulation already has some features that many games can’t boast. We’re talking about an in depth crafting system, player housing, multi-player vehicles, open world PvP, PVE that changes based on player activity, and last but not least city building.

I could go into details about these features, and I’ll probably do just that in other posts. What I want do to today though is talk about the latest updates posted by the Development team for the month of November.

The Repopulation development team posts monthly updates of what has been accomplished the previous month. You don’t see that a lot. So here’s some of the biggest features of the November 2012 update.

Engagements:

In The Repopulation Engagements will be spawning events that occur in the world. Players will have the option of participating in the Events or not. In November the team set up Engagements so that players will be grouped by their faction (OWON or FPR).

Entertainment Skill Line:

This is a big part of the update notes. The Entertainment skill line will offer long term buffs to players. It’s sort of an incentive to visit social areas and gives you a nice buff for having been there. Certain camps will also convert an area to a social area. This will give folks with the Entertainment skill line the ability to give buffs out in the field.

The neatest part about this skill line is that it was a suggestion made by the players on the forums. It made enough sense to have the skill line in the game so the developers added it in. How cool is that?

Harvesting Nodes:

One cool addition to the game is that if you’re not high enough level to harvest something, you won’t see it as a harvestable item. It will just look like part of the background. This was also a player suggested feature.

Increased GM Functionality:

More tools were given to GM’s. The tools include GM logging features to monitor GM activity. There were also some changes that will make it easier for GM’s to spawn NPC’s on the fly and manage NPC’s.

These are just a few of the updates listed in the End of November 2012 Update. Check out the details for yourself over at The Repopulation website. Keep an eye out for more information about the game as the Developers continue to work through the Alpha phase of development.

The Waiting Game

  By Creep | November 23, 2012 - 1:05 pm | Gaming, The Repopulation
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The Repopulation - Blue Energy Shield (a Black Friday Special)

For those who haven’t noticed, I’m currently waiting for The Repopulation. Thing is that it may not be entering beta for a while now. I am trying to wait patiently. I’m also trying not to find another shiny that distracts me from waiting to play what looks like an MMO gem in the making.

So what is a gal to do?

I tried playing Planetside 2. I may try again sometime but I just don’t seem to get it. The nice part about the game is that it’s all action. You just log in and shoot. Though in my case it’s more like you log in and die, but hey, it’s no biggie.

I could play more Mine Craft. Somehow though it just doesn’t have a lot of appeal to me right now. Though I have to admit I do enjoy getting in some serious world building in the game. Granted I’d probably enjoy doing that kind of thing on a multi-player server. Dungeons aren’t much fun if you’ve set them up yourself.

I’m thinking that in an attempt to keep myself off The Repopulation forums for a bit I’ll try playing Sims 3 a bit. I did pick up the Supernatural expansion at a decent discount. It’s not the newest expansion (Seasons) but it looks pretty fun.

Here’s hoping I don’t get too bored with the game and decide to start building worlds again.  The last world I built was based on the Fallen Earth town of New Flagstaff. Before that I wanted to set up an entire challenge where the poor simmies started with almost no businesses or amenities and essentially had to earn them via making enough cash to plunk down the buildings.

I may be thinking too big when it comes to playing the Sims.

I did want to get back into another MMO, but at this point nothing is really catching my interest. I’m just not seeing anything that grabs my attention. If anyone has some suggestions I am all ears!

The Repopulation

PS The Repopulation is running a Black Friday special of their own. If interested take a look at their page.

Sandbox Game or Emergent Gameplay

  By Creep | November 20, 2012 - 8:37 am | Game Biz, Game Building, Gaming, MMO, The Repopulation
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The Repopulation Gallery Screenshot

If you look at the MMORPG forums, SANDBOX is all the buzz.

Whether you love them or loath them, Developers are turning their eyes toward Sandbox game development.

Why? Because it’s much more cost effective than trying to cycle through content that players will plow through in a matter of hours.

Instead of looking to World of Warcraft and trying to emulate that design, it looks like more and more Developers/Producers are looking at EVE online and yes, even Mine Craft.

Mine Craft is no MMORPG, but in multi-player mode it is an MMO. Massively Multiplayer and Online. It sucks people in and doesn’t let them go.

Now why do people go back to playing Mine Craft instead of enjoying the shiny gems that are the current Themepark MMO’s?

Mine Craft gives you the ability to build your own structures. It even lets you build your own dungeons. I mean come on, how cool is that?

Even if you don’t have the patience to build you can explore, mine, then find other people and trade for anything else. There is even an economy in Mine Craft with respect to Emeralds. They’re only useful as currency (and very American, it’s green).

There are no levels in Mine Craft (there is experience, but that is only used for enchanting goods). You don’t find armor or weapons lying around. If you want to equip yourself, you’re going to have to build it yourself.

The thing is that even Developers/Producers are catching onto the fact that while players do love the super fancy roller coasters in Theme park games, you can only ride that so many times before you get sick of it, or from it.

In a Sandbox, you build yourself a castle. Yeah that by it’s self can be boring.

  • What if a creeper walks up, freaks out, and blows it away. Now you have to repair your castle.
  • Say some guy comes up and starts hacking away at it. You have to kill him, and repair your castle.
  • Now your gear is worn down, you have to make new tools and armor. TO THE MINES!!!

There’s just SO MUCH to do, and it doesn’t end unless you walk away.

Game companies have listened to the folks who play single player games for some time now. These people expect that every game they walk into will be like Diablo, Dragon Age, Skyrm.

You start out as the wandering hero to be, you gain strength and fight monsters for the best gear you can get your hands on. Then you get to the level cap and you go off to defeat the evil masters.

This is great and all, don’t get me wrong. I’ve played through Torchlight II and Diablo 3. It’s fun building the character and getting the loot. Thing is though, after the first couple play throughs  random dungeons or not, it starts to get a little old.

When you are producing new single player games, say one project at a time. It’s cost effective. You produce the game, you sell the title. You offer DLC for the previous title while working on the next.

MMO’s don’t work that way. If you want a steady revenue stream, you need a game that will get people interested and KEEP people interested.

In a recent Wired.com article it looks like even SOE is getting into the act by building a new  MMO with more sandbox elements. Thing is though, I’m going to keep an eye on the independent developers. I have a strong feeling that the success of the independent developer projects will set the tone for how many of the big names pick up the idea and run with it.

The Repopulation is my main focus. It looks a lot more like the kind of game I’ve been waiting for. And yes, still no more elves.

Now fun reads for the day :

Wired (Thanks to Trixie in The Repopulation forums) - The Future of MMO Games

MMORPG Forums - We want worlds not games