Three More For The Pot

With the Palia Closed Beta/Open Beta/Soft Launch/Whatever-The-Hell-It-Is looming, I figured it was time to start casting about for yet more free, in-development MMORPGs I'll never have time to play. Can't have too many of those!

There are three titles on my radar that I can't recall anyone else in this part of the blogosphere having mentioned, although since MassivelyOP has reported on all of them (One even from a tip I sent them.), some several times, I imagine everyone reading this will have heard of at least one by now. 

Whether anyone will remember anything about any of them is another matter altogether. I couldn't even remember the name of the game I sent in the tip for. I literally had to go to MOP and search for the article to remind myself what it was called, which turns out to be...  

UNYHA

No bloody wonder I couldn't remember It. I even mis-spelled it, copying it from the website, and had to correct it. Having worked in marketing once in the long-ago, it makes me wonder sometimes just who comes up with these names. It almost seems like they don't want anyone to know who they are.

Unyha is by far the weirdest of the three. It calls itself an "autochronicle seasonal multiplayer role playing game", which seems like another aggressively obscurantist move. According to the webiste, it's "the first-ever autochronicle online RPG". It uses a "unique Autochronicle AI" to generate "history and content... making it truly aware of its inhabitants activity".

The idea appears to be that the AI tracks player activity and records it, feeding the details back to NPCs, who then react accordingly:

"Everyone you meet, each place traveled, every trinket discovered—they all have real histories. You hear the tavern maid tells tales of recent gossip; trade deals of mighty weapons between merchants, a rowdy bar fight, or a mysterious newcomer’s arrival". 

At least, I'm guessing that's the players its talking about. Maybe the NPCs all wander about doing stuff to each other under the direction of the AI and it's the players who have to deal. It's unclear.

Either way, since the game is also "seasonal", the whole thing resets periodically. But don't think that gives you carte blanche to start over with a clean slate:

"As seasons come and go and decades become centuries, your stories only grow stronger, forming myths and legends. It will be up to the next generations to rediscover the truth of these stories—and take the consequences."

Seasons last "between 2-4 months real world time" during which "your character ages from young to death." You then pick up again with "a new character, a descendant" and of course "family heirlooms". So far, so familiar.

Less recognizeable from other games is the allegation that "Your name and reputation shield you from desperates" (Whatever they are.) All gear is player-made but "Your very first sword" can somehow record "all the epic battles and vicious monsters you slay". The same sword can then be handed to your future characters as "an important family heirloom", suggesting that weaponsmiths, at least, are going to find very few takers for their work.

There's more but I already feel like I've paraphrased the entire "About" (Or "Immerse" as they like to call it.) section. It seems like a combination of ideas we've seen many times before only with the current "AI" buzzword attached. The last update to the Devlog on the website was in November last year so I'm sure things are all going swimmingly.

The other two games I'm going to talk (Hopefully briefly.) about are much further down the line towards becoming something you can actually play. One ran an open demo a couple of months back and is listed on Steam with a release date of "2023". The other is in "Stage Two Closed Beta" with a Buy-In option right now.

Dawnlands

I quite like the look of this one. It's "an Open-World Survival Crafting game with a massive world and epic lore" but then aren't they all, these days. Comments on YouTube suggest it looks like a mash-up of Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact and Valheim, which is going to get a lot of people interested, if true.

It's set to be playable either with other players in a shared world or entirely alone in a world of your own. Even in solo mode it doesn't appear to be a pure sandbox. It looks as though there's some kind of plot or storyline and there's time-pressure involved, since"You need to find and defeat the darkness before it engulfs the land." I could probably do without that.

The game is cross-platform, as everything seems to be lately. You'll be able to play it on Android, iOS and PC. I've noticed that whereas a few years ago people would get quite excited about that sort of thing, nowadays they seem to be increrasingly suspicious, anticipating "cross-platform" will translate to "dodgy mobile port" or, worse, "crappy mobile game".

Dawnlands was part of the February Steam Next Fest but I missed it, most likely because it was tagged "Survival" not "MMORPG". I also missed the recent closed beta, which ended today. I applied but I didn't get in. 

According to the website, there's a PC demo available and you can indeed download and install the client as I did this morning. When you hit play, though, all that happens is the introductory movie plays and then a notice pops up to tell you the beta is over.  The movie's not that great so I wouldn't bother.

I have submitted an application to be notified of any future tests so if anything develops on that front no doubt I'll be posting about it. Unless there's an NDA. I really hate NDAs. Did I mention that?

Otherwise, I guess we'll find out what it's like when it launches. I have it wishlisted.

Age of Water

This is both the furthest along in development and probably the highest-profile of the three. It's being built by Three Whales Studio for Gaijin Entertainment, the Hungarian developer and publisher responsible for, among other things, War Thunder.

Age of Water has an interesting and appealing premise. "Set in a post-apocalyptic aquatic world", it's "the story of a motorboat captain, who explores the expanse of a completely flooded Earth of the future", in which "people are huddled in settlements built on what remains above water - like the tops of skyscrapers." 

It's Waterworld: the MMO, basically. Probably. Maybe. (Full disclosure: I have never seen Waterworld.) 

Age of Water also has a video and for once it's a really good. It sells the game hard:

On the other hand, someone who's actually played it left this comment in the YouTube thread:

"If your idea of fun is days upon days of heavily contested resource grind with boring, repetitive point and click combat, an unengaging storyline that you just spam E to get through and 90% just travelling between points. This is your game."

I think that's supposed to be off-putting but it sounds quite appealing to me, apart from the "highly contested" part. I think we established long ago that one person's grind is another's meditative groove and travelling between points can be relaxing, too. And obviously my eyes light up at the mention of point&click combat.

I'm certainly not going to be paying money for closed beta access to a free-to-play game (Been there, done that.) but I've put in my beta application for a place the old-fashioned way, so once again we'll see if anything comes of it.

These things are really starting to pile up, now. I have three more MMORPGs or close enough on my Steam wishlist (Nightingale, Coreborn and Cinderstone.), all either already in some form of Early Access or due out this year. There's Tarisland on the way very soon as well as Wayfinder, about which I am contractually obliged to say absolutely nothing. And, of course, Palia, right around the corner. 

I could list a dozen more but this isn't that post. It beats me why people keep saying the MMO is dead. (Which they do. I swear I've seen that at least three times in the last week alone.) If it's true, why the hell do so many companies keep making them? They can't all be tax write-offs, surely.

Commercially, the genre is clearly far from moribund. Artistically and creatively... well, that's another matter altogether. I can't say any of the games I've mentioned look to be genuinely fresh in ideas or imagery except perhaps for Nightingale, whose unfamiliar premise we now know is at least partially derived from a pre-existing IP. 

At best you could say the more imaginative developers are putting the prefabricated pieces together in a somewhat different order. Then again, as I've often said, novelty is highly overrated. I'll settle for quality, craftmanship and enthusiasm. 

And I'll count myself lucky to get any two of those.