The following is an official news post, originally available here.
It has been a while since our last update, so here we go.
We've been focused on getting Corepunk ready for the next meaningful test phase. Once again, we want to thank all the participants of our first public alpha. Much of what we are working on is inspired by feedback from our community.
Due to the end-of-year crunch we experienced in December, we wanted to take more time to recuperate and enhance the game. Our initial target for the next test phase was the end of winter. However, upon delving deeper into all the issues we've encountered, it became clear that we're going to need more time to ensure a successful test phase. Therefore, we will host the second alpha from April 23rd until April 30th.
Although most of you enjoyed the first alpha, there were several annoyances that detracted from the fun. So, first and foremost, we're addressing those.
We're enhancing the map and quest interface based on community feedback.
Every NPC you've met will continue to be marked on the map as before. However, quests will now feature an NPC location pointer for handover. You'll be able to view rewards and a full quest log. We've also introduced filtering for points of interest and the ability to add your own markers on the map and share them with others.
We're enhancing the leveling experience from levels 1 to 5 by improving the balance in early gameplay. This includes the addition of more tutorials, modifications to some quests, among other changes.
Furthermore, the starting location has been upgraded to include more concentrated gathering spots for valuable resources.
We're relocating the crafting tables closer together. While having them spread out added to the game's immersion by making the town feel more natural, we acknowledge your feedback: moving back and forth, particularly with mounts disabled, was inconvenient.
In response to your feedback on the randomness in gathering, we're dialing it back slightly by diversifying the gathering spots. Where previously there were three categories of gathering spots, we've expanded this to nine. Furthermore, we're adjusting the distribution of resources obtained through butchering, so you'll hunt particular mobs for particular resources.
We're introducing chest mechanics to camps. Now, some camps you come across will feature a chest. To unlock this chest, you must eliminate all the mobs in the camp first.
In PvE locations, the chest will be accessible to the party that inflicts the most damage to the camp's inhabitants.
In PvP areas, once all the mobs are defeated, the chest can be opened by any player through a 10-second casting process.
Merchants will periodically update their inventory, offering you the chance to snag a great deal or a rare item if you check an NPC's inventory at the right moment and place. Once you purchase an item, it will no longer be available in the shop.
Additionally, we're enhancing the game by adding a wealth of searchable items to abandoned locations throughout the wilderness, inviting you to explore and discover valuable loot.
In Alpha 2, we're expanding your crafting capabilities to include tier 3 items. This means a broader range of artifacts, runes, weapons, chips, and consumables will be at your disposal to customize your hero further.
With all these enhancements to early gameplay, economy, gathering, and crafting, we believe that the overall game experience will be significantly improved this time around.
We don't want you to do daily quests and grind all the time. We want you to enjoy Corepunk as an event, we think of our content updates as seasons in a TV show. Every two to three months there's a big update, new location a few settlements, new types of mobs, npc's from new worlds with their stories to tell. Plus new heroes and weapon specializations.
One of our goals for this year is to release new content every 2-3 months and be very consistent about it. We've created a lot of assets over these last 8 years. But we need to learn to package them right, i.e. high quality, fun and fast. So during this year we'll be working on this. We want to do several content updates this year and hopefully release the first part of Corepunk: God bless the king, the story of Elan.
So with this test we're working on streamlining release of new locations and settlements.
Probably the biggest changes gameplay-wise are coming for hero builds. We want to test the full set of features we've planned originally for making your hero feel and play unique and gameplay more interesting.
We'll unlock 3 more specializations: Ranger, Shaman, Infiltrator.
Also weapon specialization talents will be available for Destroyer, Legionary, Blast medic + Ranger, Shaman, Infiltrator.
We also want to test 8 (of 10) passive skill trees: Warrior, Assassin, Hunter, Tank, Medic, Mage, Pathfinder, Support.
We'll also enable universal abilities, they will allow even better customization of your play-style.
Though it is a small section in this post, this is actually where the bulk of our technical team's work is focused. We're improving security, making connections not only safer but also faster, which leads to improved tactility (although we still have a long list of improvements to make in that area), more players per shard, and overall enhanced scaling, observability, and tactility.
Chat and groups are among the earliest features we implemented, so they had a lot of bugs and limitations. For this test, we're finally rewriting them. Expect much better functionality and stability.
The first alpha revealed many bugs that we are now fixing for the test.
As always, we're producing more assets to fine-tune the content under test and make the whole experience more vibrant and handcrafted. Here are some screenshots.
That's just a part of what we're working on for Alpha 2. We may share more updates closer to the test.
The first Alpha was very positively received, thanks to feedback from our community based on "first look" tests. There might be good and bad iterations, but what's important is that we align our vision with what's actually fun and works. Our goal, like that of most developers, is to build a fun and successful game. We appreciate your input in this process, thank you for your feedback.
Join our AMA on Feb 22 CET 19:00 on Discord
Register an account for a better chance to test for yourself.
See you in Corepunk alpha 2!
Your Corepunk team.
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