Remnants of Skystone
Posted by Stropp on April 4, 2008Both TenTonHammer and Massively are reporting on the announcement of yet another MMORPG called Remnants of Skystone. The game is being developed by an outfit called Flipline Studios.
The difference here is that Remnants of Skystone is set in a Steampunk themed world rather than the standard Tolkienesque worlds we know and love.
The Steampunk genre doesn’t really get much love from game developers. There is only one game that I can think of that fits the bill. That was the single player RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. If I recall correctly, it was released sometime in the mid to late nineties and was set in a Victorian era world that was undergoing the pains of a industrial technological revolution. The problem was that magic and technology were two opposing forces. The increasing dominance of technology was threatening to cancel out magic. This balance gave the player some interesting choices in developing his character.
The first thing to note is that Remnants of Skystone (or should we called it RoS from now on?) is a browser based side scroller. While it has some similarities to Maple Story it looks like the similarities are superficial. The artwork is unique, almost quirky. Perhaps some details on the world are in order.
In the game, players enter a world in which alien Mimics had long ago infested the land and spread their noxious poison throughout the countryside. The people of Skystone retreated to an airborne town high above the poison haze, and are now ready to launch their attack on the Mimic infestation.
Hmmm. A floating city. Neat.
Some of the features being promised are:
- Side-scrolling platformer adventure
- Browser-based MMO Game
- Three classes with unique platforming abilities
- Customize characters with new clothing / accessories
- Deck out personal houses with furniture and spoils
- Team up with another player for Co-op Missions
- Mingle with other players in personal houses
- Five worlds to explore in single-player and co-op
- Numerous side-quests for solo and co-op modes
- Collectible trophies, medallions, and cards
The game is due to be launched in the Fall of 2008. See the Remnants of Skystone developer blog for more details.
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Ah I don’t know Stropp, am getting a sick feeling again about MMOs. Think I am tiring of the endless grind involved in the process of playing & just really happy to be getting a Wii & PS3 this month.
For me I think MMOs will be an ebb & flow feature to my gaming but I really think if multiplayer is good on the PS3 I may leave gaming on the PC for now until Spore is released.
Just a thought are you going to cover Spore once it’s released?
MMORPGs by design have a bit of grind, and some of that is not so bad. But it appears there are a few designers who are looking into mixing things up a bit.
I read something the other day where someone suggested that the more money spent on a game, the more likely it was to have derivitave gameplay. If someone did spend a billion dollars on a WoW clone, it would likely be almost identical. The funny thing is that it has generally been the indie game makers who have come up with new ideas in gameplay. Since this is an indie development, who knows, we might see something different and unique with RoS.
Heh. When it comes to games, I’m an optimist.
I’m not sure about Spore. It does look very interesting. But getting time to play anything, even the usual games, at the moment is tricky. So I’ll have to see.
Maybe when I retire I’ll get all the time I need to play. Considering that’s around 23 years off…
I can’t say as this one (RoS) looks very interesting to me, frankly. A “browser-based, side-scroller”? Bleh. One thing that *did* interest me here is the concept of single-player and cooperative modes. I think the smart money in future MMOs is going to cater to both playstyles — or allow a player to toggle between them.
The ideal MMO, in my opinion, would be one that I can play 100% solo OR 100% play cooperatively or any mix of the two styles that I choose as a player. Guild Wars accomplishes this better than most MMOs. I believe Guild Wars 2 will also be effective on this front.
It isn’t that I don’t like cooperative play, I do; it’s that I don’t like party-requiring content to be a progress “sticking point” — as it so often is in WoW. You can’t very well solo Maraudon, for example — but Blizzard should make it so you could, if you wanted to. Restriction of content from players who are more solo-oriented is, imo, a poor design decision — yes, even in an MMO. Cooperative content should be parallel and optional to core gameplay, meaning that most instanced content should be either solo-able OR group-worthy. In WoW’s case, for example, this would have entailed scaling 90% the many five-man dungeons to party size, from 1 to 5 players. Now, that would have been truly awesome, in my opinion — and kept me as a WoW subscriber.
Hi Jakob.
I wouldn’t write this one off because of the browser based nature. With new-ish technologies like AJAX (based on Javascript) and the intentions of browser makers to make their web browsers more powerful, I reckon we’ll see some new games soon that do very well.
That’s not to say RoS will be one of those games, as you say, side scrolling isn’t for everyone. My bet though is that, if these guys can pull it off, RoS might end up a popular game. We’ll have to wait and see.
I’m with you on the must-do-with-a-party philosophy of game design. I do enjoy questing with others, but sometimes it’s not feasible.
I’m not sure being able to create dungeons that support all levels from solo to raid is feasible. Corners would have to be cut to make it soloable. But I would like to see more solo dungeons. Maybe make them wings of bigger dungeons, or stand-alone.
The problem is that game development time is limited and devs currently want to make raid dungeons that only 5% of the game pop will see.
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