GameStreet – Earthrise News

The Cascade Mountains

The team from Masthead Studios has prepared this new developer journal for us. This time focusing on the Cascade mountains, an area in the upcoming game.

Long before the construction of Sal Vitas had begun, the Pioneer scouts roamed the hostile island of Enterra prospecting its natural treasures and outlining their path for future expansion. During their exploration of the unknown territories of Enterra, the first wave of Pioneers encountered mutated wildlife in the northwestern parts and fought back against the mutants with all the means at hand. They built facilities and machines to be used for terraforming the area into humanity’s new home, but in the process major parts of the island were contaminated with the chemicals used for the decimation of various mutated life forms. Knowing that the citizens had the technology to remove such contaminants, Continoma continued with their efforts to terraform the western parts of Enterra, leaving the reclamation of the contaminated and rugged eastern region as an afterthought.

Read up on The Cascade Mountains

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The Industrial Area

The team from Earthrise has put together this lore-based developer journal revealing the situation surrounding the "industrial area" in-game.

The Industrial Area was created as part of the major expansion plans of Continoma. Construction began during the first waves of the Resurrection as the Pioneers built the first installations from basic modules and metal scraps and endured hellish working conditions in their push for completion. Without their heroic efforts, the marvelous city of Sal Vitas or the immense projects of the Concession Territories would have been left on the drawing board forever.

Check out The Industrial Area

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Question of the Week: Teleportation

Teleportation will be a means of travel in Earthrise, but how will it work? Find out in this latest installment of the Earthrise Question of the Week.

This week we transport in as fast as we could to cover the subject of instant transportation – teleportation, that is. How is teleportation handled in Earthrise, where would teleports be located, who could have access to them. Are they guild based or individual based?

Enterra is a huge island – even with a moderate vehicle at your disposal, it takes quite some time to walk (or run) across the island especially when in a hurry. With teleportation available, many players will choose to instead instantly transport, even with associated fees. There are two types of teleports – small, short-distance teleports, meant to transport players from one location to another within a single zone (a must for larger zones) and large, long-distance teleports that allow players to cross the whole island. All teleports interconnect in a complex network, with each interconnection costing depending on the distance covered, so a trip around the island may cost a considerable sum. Teleporters are not for grabs – they are heavily guarded and Factions make them available for both their faction and neutral players, with only teleporters to their own faction city being forbidden for players of the opposite faction.

Get the full story here

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Newsletter Issue 10 Now Available

Issue 10 of the Earthrise newsletter is now available. This latest newsletter brings the community up to date on what Masthead has been working on with the game. The focus of development seems to be on cultivating the crafting aspects of the game as they appear to intend for a player-driven economy to be strongly emphasized within Earthrise.

Check out the full newsletter here

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A Word on the Pace of Combat

Masthead Studios has published a statement addressing player feedback to recent demonstrations of the combat system in Earthrise, saying that combat will be much faster in the final game than it has been in the recent demos.

One of the things we’ve noticed recently is a fair amount of concern over the combat pace and cooldown of weapons. Masthead prides itself on listening to its community and we are committed on making Earthrise a fast paced RPG game that many people will enjoy. One of these things we are doing behind the scenes at present is fine-tuning the combat as a whole to make it faster and better. You’ll no doubt notice this means things will be faster as you experience them for yourself than initially demonstrated. We may slow things down a little bit in our demos and footage for illustrative purposes on occasion to highlight systems and features, though, but this is nothing to worry about. As we proceed through beta, is important for us to know what the community thinks overall about Earthrise because we want to continue to make Earthrise an unforgettable experience. We appreciate and thank everyone for their honest opinions and candid feedback.

Read more here

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Dynamic Targeting Video

To clarify potential confusion surrounding Earthrise’s combat system, the folks at Masthead studios have produced a new video which shows characters particpating in a brief PvP combat using ranged and melee weapons.

Watch the Dynamic Targeting Video

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Exclusive Screenshots

Today we present three new screenshots in the fourth instalment of our exclusive look at Earthrise.

See more Earthrise Screenshots

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First Look Preview

At GDC, the team from MMORPG.com got their first look at the upcoming, post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise as Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov gave us an overview of some of the game’s systems.

At GDC, we had the opportunity to sit down and talk to the folks from Earthrise to get our first look at their game. During the demo, Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov gave us an overview of a number of the game’s systems:

Armor

“In Earthrise,” said Atanasov, “everything is based on what gear you wear”.

The game makes use of two different major armor types: Heavy Armor and Light Armor. Heavy Armor is more suited toward players who want to play soldier types, both with guns and in close combat while light armor will be used by the game’s equivalent to mages in fantasy MMOs, psionics, cybermentalists, etc.

Equipment is divided into five slots: helmet, vest, gloves, leggings and boots.

Read the First Look Preview

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Armor and Abilities

Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov guides us through some of the first in-game footage for Earthrise, showing us how equipment and abilities work in their classless RPG system.

Watch Armor and Abilities

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Combat and Zones

In part two of our tour of post-apocalyptic MMORPG Earthrise, Atanas Atanasov gives us a taste of the game’s combat system while taking us through several different zones.

Watch Combat and Zones

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Exclusive Screenshots

Today we present three exclusive screenshots from Earthrise, showing the tone of this upcoming post-apocalyptic MMORPG.

See more images in our Earthrise screenshot gallery

Check out the Exclusive Screenshots

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Masthead Working on Probable Fallout MMO

According to Yahoo Finance, Interplay Entertainment Corp. announced yesterday that it had signed a “binding letter of intent” to develop an MMO with Masthead Studios, the company behind the upcoming MMORPG, Earthrise.

This new MMO, codenamed “Project: V13”, will make use of the tools and technology that the studio is using to develop Earthrise.

It seems to be widely agreed upon around the web that interplay’s Project V13, which has been in development by that studio since November of 2007, is in reality an MMO based on the wildly successful Fallout franchise.

The agreement, it is reported, will result in Interplay and Masthead co-developing the upcoming game with interplay taking the lead.

Interplay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Herve Caen had this to say about the deal:

“We are looking forward to turning the vision of our game designers into a compelling online gaming experience. The planning and design completed for Project: V13 thus far, combined with Masthead’s resources, tools, and growing team of dedicated MMOG developers, will bring this unique game to reality.”

Not surprisingly, Atanas Atanasov, the President of Bulgaria-based Masthead Studios was similarly enthusiastic:

"This arrangement is ideal because it leverages the technology our professionals have specifically built for advanced Massively Multiplayer Online Games into what we expect will be a groundbreaking Interplay gaming title."

Already, speculation is beginning to surface that this new project might curtail or even bury the company’s plans to release their post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise in 2009.

"Earthrise’s development and launch will continue as planned", answered Atanasov when questioned by MMORPG.com. We were also told that more information should be forthcoming at some point next week.

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Exclusive Screenshots

Today we present three exclusive screenshots from Earthrise, showing the tone of this upcoming post-apocalyptic MMORPG.

See more Exclusive Earthrise Screenshots

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Exclusive Screenshots

Today we present three exclusive screenshots from Earthrise, showing the tone of this upcoming post-apocalyptic MMORPG.

See more Earthrise Screenshots

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Dev Chat Transcript

On Saturday, the team from masthead Studios paid a visit to our chat room to talk about their upcoming game, Earthrise, with the MMORPG.com community. Here is the transcript:

MMORPG_Kunou: Howdy and welcome to MMORPG.com’s Live Dev Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I’m your host, MMORPG.com’s Community Manager Richard "Kunou" Cox. Joining us today are members of the Earthrise dev team!

MMORPG_Kunou: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question in the queue at a time, and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded. Feel free to add another question to the queue once yours is either asked or rejected.

Read the Earthrise Dev Chat Transcript

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