SilentFuture takes over Earthrise Wuppertal-based development studio continues development of the online science-fiction role-playing game Wuppertal, May 10 2012 - Wuppertal-based development studio SilentFuture has taken over the online science-fiction role-playing game "Earthrise", and is already working on an overhaul. Shut down by developer Masthead in February of 2012, the sandbox MMORPG is receiving a new background story from SilentFuture with the corresponding facelift as well as essential improvements in both gameplay and technology. The relaunch is planned for the fourth quarter of 2012. Earthrise is scheduled to return to the market as a Free-to-Play game. SilentFuture also plans to revamp many of the systems used in Earthrise and to adjust the game world accordingly. A new background story complete with facelift will provide more excitement - Earthrise players no longer find themselves in a post-apocalyptic world, but rather part of the apocalypse itself. SilentFuture CEO Daniel Schemann explains: "With Earthrise, we've taken over an MMO with enormous potential for development. That's why we started revamping Earthrise earlier this month together with a team of experienced programmers. First we intend to address known issues in design and technology, during which we will be focusing on fundamental factors such as network and server performance. But we won't be neglecting the story and the gameplay, either. Our goal is to present players a gaming experience in the near future which is as exciting as it is varied!" About SilentFuture SilentFuture is specialized in the development of Multiplayer Games with a strong focus on MMORPG design and conception. Founded in 2005 by Daniel Schemann, the firm offers the complete palette of online game development and lifecycle services - from market research through project planning and design to customer support. For more information, please visit www.silentfuture.de

End of April 2012 Update April was a fun month for us here at Above and Beyond. Since our last monthly report we have released the first two of a series of videos dedicated to different gameplay aspects, as well as adding new Lore and Bestiary sections to the web site. With us inching ever closer to testing, our focus has been on finishing up features, and polishing game elements. Without further delay, here is the the compilation of build notes over the past month: Abilities and Effects Added effect icons to some combat effects which were previously hidden. This should make it easier for players to identify when certain Openings are available, so that they can adjust their attacks to take advantage of them. We now have more fine control over how we scale ability effectiveness through increased skill. This allows us to fine tune how each individual ability scales. Abilities can now be filtered using a generic Animal filter which allows that ability to work on any animal that can be tamed. Added the Animal Handling ability: Tame Animal See the Skills section for additional information on Tamed Pets section. Added the Animal Handling ability: Feed Animals. This ability requires Pet Food, which can be bought in stores. Proper feeding of tamed pets is required in order to keep them healthy and maturing. Added the Animal Handling based ability: Calm Animal. This ability reduces the aggression of an animal, allowing you to approach it more closely. Added the Veterinary Medicine Ability: Tend to Animal. This ability requires Bandages and is used to heal Injuries on tamed pets. They will suffer these injuries through combat or improper feeding. You can find more information in the Tamed Pets section. You can no longer repair undamaged fittings. Reduced the amount of health you start with after being Revived or Resuscitated. The following buffs/debuffs will now scale in effectiveness based on your skill level with the appropriate skill: Retreat, Fall Back, Double Time, Rallying Cry, Stealth, Camouflage, Defensive Focus, Instill Confidence, Aimed Shot, Berserk, Cry For Help, Shout For Help, Lunging Thrust, Feign Stab, Eye Poke, Dirt in the Eyes, Pummeling Slash, Evasive Maneuver, Jab, Body Blow, Comeback Rally, Feign, Crippling Shot, Take Aim, Critical Rifle Work, Impactful Rifle Work, Flash Grenade, and Lunge. Audio Integrated a new music system. This system will automatically mix music based on what is occuring during the game. The intensity level of the music and the type of music played are determined by your location and the level of danger you are in. Tracks can also switch baed on events occurring such as entering/leaving combat, completing missions, etc. Along with this addition we added dozens of new music tracks. Music will blend in and out together, and can be disabled from Audio Options. Our sound system has completed its transition to FMOD. Audio levels can be adjusted using a new Audio Options GUI. Network related optimizations to the music system. Added hundreds of new sound effects for everything ranging from Environmental effects, to weapons, character, vehicle, machinery, interface or prop sounds. New footstep region sounds added, and improved so that they should no longer cut off mysteriously. Combat sounds have undergone a second revision. Lurkers, Vultures and Setlang now have unique species sounds. Attached interface sounds to various functions such as zooming the map, gaining a skill or picking up an item. Crafting and Harvesting Genetically Engineered pets can now be crafted. These are created with the Genetic Engineering skill and all share the same base recipe of DNA and tissue as Ingredients with Growth Accelerators as an Agent. The type of DNA and Tissue used, their quality and grade, and the number of times you refine them with Growth Accelerators will determine the type and quality of your result. It is far more difficult to create hybrids than it is to create pure species, but they are also generally more powerful. There are currently 40 different results available. You may obtain this recipe from the Basic Genetics manual. Added a new Steak Recipe for the Culinary Arts skill. This recipe accepts a Meat and a Seasoning. The quality and species of your meat and how much you season them will affect the result. Steaks can be eaten by players to give a temporary buff that increases your health regeneration, and in the case of higher quality results can also give other bonuses based on the species used. Higher quality types also typically have longer durations. This recipe can be found in the Culinary Arts Manual. Culinary Arts now features a new Meat Stew recipe. This recipe requires a type of Soup Meat, Seasoning and Purified Water. Stews work similar to Steaks, except they have shorter durations, and the higher quality results will also increase your energy regeneration. This recipe can be found in the Culinary Arts Manual. Added new recipes for Repair Materials, Repair Kit, and Repair Kit Molds to the Field Repairs Manual. These recipes use the Repairing skill and are used to create Repair Kits. Robotic Engineers now have recipes for Power Infusers and Power Infuser Molds. They can be learned by reading the Modern Robotics manual, and are used as components for Robotics, Repair Kits or other items. Dozens of new items can now be obtained through Corpse Extraction. These items act as the ingredients for a number of different recipes. Created many new types of Crafting Components for things like Venom, DNA, Fruit, etc. Many items were reclassified to allow them to be used as ingredients under these component types. For example, Faugea Stingers are now considered a Venom, where the harvestable Lesapen Fruit is considered a Fruit. Engagements Added two new capturable control points to the OWON Training Facilities. These control points are located in the canyons leading into the bog. While they are under OWON control you will have access to multiple quest NPCs and vendors. They are subject to lurker attack though, and provide numerous engagements centered around those attacks and recovering them. FX Full screen effects now have the option of playing for every player who witnessed an action, or only for the specific target who witnessed the effect. Added a new full screen blindness effect. Combat animations and FX have been adjusted so that the target reacts to being hit and it is timed properly for each hit. Numerous new emotes and idle animations that can be used by players or NPCs. Consumable food and drink now will play sound effects when consumed. Increased the speed of the Grenade Toss animation. The following FX were improved to add new sounds or animations: Large and Small Explosions, Chain Lightning, Burning, Flame Bursts, Tracers, Air Strikes, Teleports and all of the various weapon attacks. General Characters can now have a single space in their names, and name sizes were increased slightly to support it. This should be helpful for players who have common first names. The /tell command has been updated to support multiple names. If a character has a first and last name you must place a comma after their name when sending them tells. Example: "/tell erasmus hurt, hey!". If the player has a single word name then you can omit the comma. Corpses will now fade out in 5 minutes if they have loot, and 30 seconds if they do not. Adjusted how Skills, DNA and Recipes are replicated to the client, resulting in performance increases for both the client and server. The /playerfinder command has been updated to be able to filter for players in the specific areas of Rhyldan. Items and Loot The loot system has been upgraded so that it is now generated on an NPCs death, rather than when a player loots the corpse. As part of this change you will now only see Loot Sparkles if the NPC actually has loot, saving you the time of examining empty corpses. Repair Kits are now available and can be crafted. These items allow you to repair items/fittings by clicking on them and consuming a charge. Higher quality kits are more effective and have less chance of damaging an item. Book items can now be multiple pages, allowing for longer stories. All existing books were updated to support this and provide longer stories. Items now support the ability to give a permanent skill boost the first time they are used. Once one player uses these items the effect is removed and no other players can gain benefit from this item. The First Invasion Book will grant a small but permanent to Defensive Tactics when read for the first time. The Daniels Murder Book now grants a permanent boost to Intimidation the first time it is read. The Formation of Freedomtown book will now give a small permanent boost to Survival on its first use. Equipable Items should now all feature five Fitting slots. The fitting points system has been adjusted to match. Items which are both stackable and have charges will be treated as one giant pool that will consume charges and remove items from the stack as you go, rather than needing them to be in a separate slot to use. If a stack is full but the charges are not, you can combine them to fill up the stack. The damage/repair system has been updated so that fittings will now need repairs. Damage can now reduce fitting quality. Durability fittings have been added for Melee, Ranged and Armor. Added Minor and Major Durability modifiers. These affect all minor/major damage to any fitting on an item. Adjusted the slot classifications in some areas to allow more commonly used fitting types to use the earlier letters. For example Armor/Weapon stat modifiers are now type A fittings. When a fitting breaks it will now be deleted, rather than cluttering up an inventory slot. Fitting level adjustments. Created a fitting value cache. Pet Food can now be found in general or pet stores. Culinary Arts can now produce 15 new types of Food items. Each of these items will give you a temporary buff that will increase your health regeneration. Some types also increase energy regeneration, and/or have additional bonuses. Growth Accelerators can now be purchased on Medical and Crafting vendors, and come in stacks of five. Salt and Pepper can now be purchased from Bakers, Crafting and General Store vendors. They can be used as seasonings for Culinary Arts recipes. Missions Missions are now categorized into one of many different categories. This includes: Menial, OWON, FPR, Rogue, Underworld, Tradeskill, Harvesting, Patrol, Seek and Destroy, Combat, Collection, Escort, Bounty, Exploration, Engagement, Tutorial, Epic, Medical, Service, One Time, Species, Language, Military and Diplomatic. The Quest Settings panel now has an option to filter generated missions to fall under certain criteria. The categories you can filter by are: Any, Combat Only, Trades Only, Diplomatic Only, Harvesting Only, Underworld Only, Epic Only, Non-Combat Only, or Trade/Harvest. This should allow players who only wish to do a certain type of mission easily change what that type is from session to session, or permanently. Randomly generated combat missions now have more fine control over the target hostiles. Each mission template underwent a quality control pass of its mission text, descriptions, NPC types and goals. NPCs Added new Robotics models and NPCs taking advantage of them. Upgraded the Setlang models. They are also now available in four different variations. Added new NPC profession types. These types are used to filter NPCs through the generated mission system. Lesoo and Faugea now have their own special ability types. Pets Added 40 new genetically engineered pets. Genetically engineered pets are one-time pets that will be permanently killed. They are created by Genetic Engineers. These pets can use the special abilities of their parent species and certain species can be combined to create hybrids. Certain pet types are more suited for different roles. Added 4 new species of Tamed Pets. Tamed pets gain some of the special abilities of their species, and will grow in power as they mature. They can also be permanently killed however, and require veterinary care to prevent that from happening. More details are available below in the Tamed Pets section. Adjustments to the way pet levels work. Skills Higher swimming skill will now increase the rate at which you can swim. Structures Many new buildings and walls were added. Improved internal terrain level detection. Tamed Pets Animal Handling has been implemented. Animals can only be tamed while they are babies. They are tamed using the Tame Animal ability. The Unthreatining Approach ability may be used to aid your chances in safely approaching hostile animals. If you successfully tame an animal you will be given a Leash which can be used to summon them for later use. Tamed Animal leashes can be traded to other players. If you do not have sufficient Animal Handling skill, you will be unable to use the Leash. It requires higher skill to tame animals than it does to handle them, however. Tamed Animals will mature over time, increasing their effectiveness. You can view their current age and health by mousing over them for a tooltip. Tamed Pets health will decrease unless they are properly fed and cared for. Tamed Pets can be healed and tended to using abilities from the Veterinary Medicine skill. Pet Food can be found in stores and can be fed to them using the Animal Handling skill. The pets general wellbeing can be viewed in their tooltips. If they are in danger of permanently dying the player will be warned to seek immediate Veterinary assistance. If they continue to ignore the issue the pet will be permanently killed. User Interface Ability, Effect and Fitting icons have been upgraded to a new revision. The new icons are higher resolution, color coded, and generally more attractive than the previous ones. Implemented an Audio Options window. There are sliders to represent Combat Music, Atmospheric Music, Combat Sounds and GUI Sounds. You now receive a Yes/No confirmation when deleting mail. Item and Fitting Information cards will now resize based on how much information is available for that specific card. Players can now have up to four Action Bars open at any given time. The UI will attempt to intelligently place these so that they do not overlap, but they can also be moved later. Any time you learn a new ability it will automatically be placed in a visible empty slot. The order it chooses will go from left to right on the first bar, then the second, etc. Action Bars can now be locked or unlocked. You must unlock an Action Bar to drag it's location. Action Bar settings and positions are now saved for future logins. Fittings now have borders which indicate the type of fitting slot they are using. Dragging an ability or item into your chat window will now create an information link in the chat window. You may now adjust your Mip Map quality from the Graphics window. This allows those with high performance systems to use higher texture qualities from long distance, or those with slower systems to drop to lower quality textures more quickly. Glow can now be turned on or off from your Graphics Options window. The Options windows have been rearranged, regrouped and condensed. You may now abandoned missions from the Mission Detail Window, instead of requiring you to open up the PDA. Removed the Auto-face option. The fittings radial menu has received beautification upgrades. Fitting tooltips will now display the Fitting type, Quality, Points, Condition and Grade. Terrain quality settings are now saved and loaded properly on the next session. Fitting damage bars will now update in realtime if they are open and its condition changes. Inventory Split window improvements. Improved the targeting reticle in Action Mode, so that it will not jitter. World The OWON Training Facilities day/night transitions are now more detailed. Many more NPCs are tied into the day/night system now, there will be less NPCs pathing at night time, different particles effects, and some lights and signs will turn on or off based on the time of day. Added a new pub near the Medical center in Training Facilities. This pub livens up significantly at night time, and provides additional generated mission opportunities and NPC chatter. It also provides chairs for players to sit in if they choose. When you stand near a seatable chair, an icon will appear on your screen which you may click to be seated. The Training Grounds now features new vehicles and buildings. Added a large number of new furniture objects and decorations throughout the world. Maintenance bots can now be found repairing various locations in the world. The objects they are repairing are randomly selected from a larger list on each spawn to vary up their locations. Added several new Points of Interest to the OWON Training Facility. Gave the OWON Training Facilities a performance pass. Neon signs will now shine more brightly. Improvements to each of the sewer instances. Vultures in the Bog have had their difficulty tuned down to bring them in line with the Setlang. Sprinkled new Baby animals (for taming) throughout the world. The frequency of rare NPCs in the bog has been increased, and their difficulty has been reduced in some cases.

The Repopulation - Fitting Feature Video - YouTube

We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but sometimes it's just unavoidable. Sanya Weathers, Director of Community for Pitchblack Games' in-development sandbox title, Dominus, posted on the forums today to inform players that, effective immediately, Dominus is no more. Weathers states that the team "simply cannot deliver the game [players] deserve with the resources [the studio has]." She goes on to apologize vehemently, adding that the forum is now read-only, though the game's Facebook page will remain open long enough for players to say their last goodbyes. Sanya signs off by thanking the players for proving that "there is a market for a game like [Dominus]." She concludes, "I will miss you all, and I know we'll meet again." Here's to hoping. Best of luck to the folks over at Pitchblack; we look forward to your next endeavor.