First Look – Twin Skies
The upcoming MMO is taking a wide path to acceptance
Tags: Twin Skies Categories: PC Previews, Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 10th, 2008
Meteor Games upcoming Twin Skies is a web-based MMO as well as a more “traditional” online game, where players will have the option of playing the game through the dedicated client or via a web browser. Naturally the dedicated game client will offer a significant bump in visual quality, but the same basic gameplay will be available. This is nice for those times when a certain family computer is being overtaken with homework or during vacations.
One of the main features of Twin Skies is the character creation. This is such a huge part of the community aspect of the game that the player’s in-game character is used as the forum icon. The company and game are being driven by the community, essentially features that are asked for are being given serious consideration.
Rather far along for about a full year in “proper” development. Looking at taking come of the core technology (the game via dedicated and web clients) and creating a middleware option. Lots of Flash mini-games are being incorporated, which goes to the connectivity between the dedicated game and web browser clients. There is even some exploration of the game having some sort of cell-phone access. Currently, players are able to play the same game through the heavy use of Flash. One example I was given was one player using the dedicated game client and another through the web browser – both playing against each other in a game of chess.
Every character will have a residence, and these residences will be quite important. Another part of the community aspect will be voting. The needs of the community at large will be taken into consideration. Do the residents want a blacksmith on the west side of town or a market on the north side? After the results have been tallied, over the weeks players will see the new building take shape as the new NPC takes shape.
So what’s the story? There is another planet (see the hint in the game’s title) where humans had left, landing on the other which is populated by elves… and… others. Players will start out on one world, eventually working their way towards the other planet. One planet had some sort of cataclysmic event involving dark energy, an event that is at the heart of the mystery surrounding the overall story of Twin Skies. You could see the game as a light-hearted post-cataclysmic sci-fi fantasy (as described by the development team) which seems to sum it up quite nicely.
Twin Skies is planned to enter open beta in the first part of next year, with the full launch over the summer. The idea is to release early and often, meaning there will be no expansion packs, but a constant stream of new content being added (see the voting example earlier). Right now there is no announced pricing structure, but there is almost certain to be some sort of micrtotransactions for little items. A subscription is also most likely to be implemented as well.
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Twin Skies
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Nov 10th, 2008 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
