Earthrise Newsletter - NOV 2008

[Kavadas]

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How much longer until beta? What’s the latest on beta? Where does Masthead stand in the development process? It is no secret that some of the most frequently asked questions from our community revolve around when Earthrise will enter beta. Well, in this month’s newsletter we would like to give you an update on the development process and give you an idea of what to expect in the upcoming months.
In the last several months we have expanded our team at Masthead Studios to ensure that we can bring you the stellar game that you are all waiting for. Since our last update, our game designers have moved on from solely working on polishing the game design and are currently working on the character development paths, the skills, abilities and tactics and the combat system.

Last time our art team was working on the creatures of Earthrise and we are pleased to have been able to show you their progress and success with artwork from the last few months. Now the art team has moved their focus to Sal Vitas and the main character designs. Look forward to more art being released as we get closer to beta.

Our writing team spent a great deal of time earlier this year writing the extensive storyline to Earthrise and providing our community with some of the lore that you have already enjoyed. The team is currently filling their time working on the first set of quests for the game.

Also of interest, we are integrating a bunch of features and here is just a sample of what we are working on: the RPG system, PhysX, improved character control and collision detection, implemented game UI with complete functionality, performance and hardware information gathering, logs and reports.
As we move farther along in the development process, checking more and more off our list, it's hard to contain our excitement for what we feel will be an outstanding experience for players. Given the current development status, Earthrise should be ready for closed, limited beta testing by the end of this year.

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The roles have been reversed! We are excited to add a new feature to our newsletter that puts the moderators of our fansites on the other end of an interview. Join us each month as we talk to our fansite moderators and find out what makes them tick. This month, we drew names from a hat and chose Guillaume Allanic, from JeuxOnLine (http://earthrise.jeuxonline.info/).

Read More (http://www.play-earthrise.com/newsletter/006/)

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This month, Masthead Studios has presented a variety of new information from Earthrise. If you missed out on these interesting bits the first time around, now is your chance to catch up on developer profiles, game lore, a studio tour and conference interviews. Stay tuned in the coming months as Earthrise will continue to make headlines. Enjoy!

» 09.12.08 - Interview with Lead Concept Artist, Ed Mattinian, on EarthriseHQ.de. (http://earthrise.onlinewelten.com/articles,id283,0.html)
» 09.21.08 - Fansite EarthriseHQ.de posts a report from Leipzig. (http://earthrise.onlinewelten.com/articles,id292,0.html)
» 09.23.08 - RPG Vault posts part three of Continoma game lore. (http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/911/911918p1.html)
» 09.29.08 - WarCry Network takes a tour of Masthead Studios. (http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/5295-Three-Earthrise-Developer-Interviews)
» 10.02.08 - Polish site, Gry.O2 interviews Atanas Atanasov. (http://gry.o2.pl/publicystyka/?co=pokaz&id=257)
» 10.02.08 - MMORPG.com asks Masthead Studios 10 questions at AGDC. (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?feature=2286&game=331&from=%2Ffeatures.cfm%2Fview%2Flatest&bhcp=1)
» 10.09.08 - WarCry has a post AGDC discussion with Masthead Studios. (http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/5340-Interview-with-Earthrise-CEO)

For the latest information check out the Earthrise News (http://www.play-earthrise.com/index.php?action=showallnews)!

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Hi there!

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, it was great to see so many of you at our September Developer Chat. We always look forward to these opportunities to interact more with our community and have been working on additional opportunities and locations for future chats, so keep an eye out for those announcements. In the meantime, let's take a look at what's been going on around the forums (you might even find about some threads you've missed).

Whether by choice or design, disconnection happens to all of us. But what happens when you're fighting a mob, or another player? What should happen then? Should you disappear the moment your connection falters? Our community has some very strong opinions about the topic, with some feeling a logout timer is a must and others insisting that those sorts of things are just irritating. Many agree that something should be done to prevent intentional disconnections, but the specifics are under intense debate. Join the thread in progress, and let us know (http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1692.0) what you think. Our community members took up an interesting little challenge I issued over in the roleplay forums with great enthusiasm (http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1976.0), discussing the ways roleplay and PVP can go naturally together just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We went all over the map of topics in our Question of the Week discussions in September. One topic that was mentioned briefly (world size) continues to spark discussion and speculation even today, and we also added plenty of more official information to mull over regarding crafting, territorial battle, and weapons. Mid-month our developers took some time out of their busy schedule to give a well defined example on the complex nature of Abilities and Tactics by demonstrating how they can work together to shape unique actions customized to player's specific gaming styles.

As we head toward beta, we'd like to wrap up this month by reminding everyone of our fantastic Dev Tracker and search tools - with well over 30,000 posts, it's safe to say there's a lot of valuable discussion going on every single day in corners of forums you might not even think to look in on a regular basis. Why not take a moment to throw a random subject in search, read up on the results and perhaps get a new perspective on what your fellow community members have to say?

See you next month, and on the forums!


© 2006–2008 Masthead Studios.
All rights reserved.

I haven't even ready it yet! Now that's dedication.

[Knox]

What I got from this is that:

A: They still want to release beta this year
B: They are working very hard and,
C: Four new creature concept arts.


/sarcasm on

yippee.

/sarcasm off


How about some screenshots and video?

[Draconis]

I don't really care about the status of the project, so long as they don't lie about it.

It looks doubtful for this game to be ready by 2009. Based on what I can tell from the info available, they have a good chance of coming out with a game worth playing.

[Kavadas]

Why does everyone keep saying that a 2009 release is doubtful? I hardly doubt that they'd be lying about beta literally one month away from starting it.

[Draconis]

Why does everyone keep saying that a 2009 release is doubtful?I remember that they previously said there would be a beta by the fall. Announcing a closed beta in december sounds like something you do so you can claim you entered a new development stage in 2008.

They have not shown any 'live' action. I take that to mean the actual game-part of the game is not worth showing. I figure it may take most of a year to get from "working" to "worth playing" since they seem to be using their own graphics engine.

I guess my previous post comes off as accusing the devs of purposefully misleading people about the status. I just hope they keep making progress and share the current status of the work, whatever the status may be. Trying to make an arbitrary schedule is not in the interest of the (prospective) players.

[Washburne]

If they dont release the beta until next summer that will be fine with me. I want them to get it right. When games release content too early you end up with an incomplete product (TR is a good example of that). I would rather they take their time and give us a good product.

Wash

[Knox]

I remember that they previously said there would be a beta by the fall. Announcing a closed beta in december sounds like something you do so you can claim you entered a new development stage in 2008.

They have not shown any 'live' action. I take that to mean the actual game-part of the game is not worth showing. I figure it may take most of a year to get from "working" to "worth playing" since they seem to be using their own graphics engine.

I guess my previous post comes off as accusing the devs of purposefully misleading people about the status. I just hope they keep making progress and share the current status of the work, whatever the status may be. Trying to make an arbitrary schedule is not in the interest of the (prospective) players.

My thoughts exactly. Everything about the last four months development of this game screams "we are way behind schedule." Its not bad that they are behind, the game will come out when its ready, but anything earlier than winter '09 is a miracle and any small thing could easily push this to I say April 2010. If you mirror up ERs development to AoC, ER is right where AoC was when it was 18 months from release.

I still think that this game is the next best thing on the horizon (especially after seeing more stuf from SW:TOR) and I am looking forward to playing it some day, but I don't think this game will go gold in 2009.

[Gunn]

With no live in game vids up im thinking 2010 also.