Fractured Online features three races: Humans, Wildfolk, and Demons. Each race has a different impact on game mechanics, such as which type of society players can live in, to the ways they interact with other players. Live within the peaceful Wildfolk community where cooperation and defensive gameplay shine or have free will while trying to follow the rules of a feudal society – like not breaking the law and “killing” other players – as a Human. For those that prefer hostility, blood, and terror, they can embrace their inner evil alignment by spawning as a Demon. Once a race is chosen, players can begin their quest for knowledge.

“We wanted to offer something that was more powerful and flexible than the conventional RPG level and skills progression system,” says Jacopo Gallelli, Co-Founder and CEO at Dynamight Studios. “In Fractured Online, we’re putting credence to the idiom ‘knowledge is power’ by introducing the Knowledge System. Our system rewards players that are courageous and clever, not for the hours they’ve spent hunting rats in a basement for some random farmers.”

When players aren’t improving their abilities, they can choose to take part in Fractured Online’s robust player-driven economy. Forget finding a broadsword within the corpse of a spider. Every item in the game is crafted by players, so you better be nice to your local blacksmith or else you could end up fighting enemies off with a stick. Crafters, merchants, farmers, shepherds, miners, woodcutters, hunters, and scavengers all play an important role in the world.

Combat also plays an integral part in Fractured Online as players will find it to be an adequate way to settle a dispute. Combat is fast-paced as fighters will learn to aim, dodge, and master over 400 abilities and 40 unique status effects. Whether abilities are used against various monsters in PvE battles or your fellow players in PvP combat is completely up to you.

“Our team is really proud to be the new publisher of ‘Fractured Online’ as we see huge potential in the game,” says Andreas Weidenhaupt, COO at gaming group. “We have been following Dynamight closely since their successful Kickstarter campaign and are now looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”

More information on Fractured Online is set to be unveiled in the coming months at and across the official social media channels.

Be sure to join the MMOSWorld community Discord: https://discord.gg/D8MYHkG

The post Gamigo Agrees Publishing Agreement With Dynamight Studios for Sandbox MMORPG Fractured Online appeared first on Mmos World.

For more information, or to take part in the Fall Alpha by becoming a founder, please visit Fractured’s official website.

Be sure to join the MMOSWorld community Discord: https://discord.gg/D8MYHkG

The post Sandbox MMORPG Fractured Will Begin Fall Alpha Phase On September 22 appeared first on Mmos World.

Gameplay

You’ll start things off by creating a character, and the most important choice here is your background. The choice of background determines the starting point for players, but it doesn’t affect the future development of your character. In the alpha you can pick from a pool of pre-determined starting abilities classified appropriately, like the Gladiator for melee skills and high strength attributes, plus relevant gear and equipment. Arcanists deal with magic but have less protection and so on and on, but keep in mind, Fractured doesn’t lock you into a certain class archetype, as you’re free to explore different styles of play and build your ideal class and skills.

Upon entering the Alpha world of Fractured, it was time for me to pick a direction and follow it blindly to see some of these early systems and mechanics in-play. Right now, testing is taking place in one huge continent and more land will be available to explore at release, which sounds great because even now, there’s so much ground to cover. The landscape is littered with plants and resources that can be harvested and you’ll want to do so because it’s important. Discovering a plant, resource or engaging and defeating wildlife for the first time, will create a new entry in your character’s Book of Knowledge, and it also earns you Knowledge Points.

For animals and creatures, each subsequent kill, engagement or death from, progresses the amount of knowledge you have in your log, which gives you better information about their attributes, and the best part is, there’s a chance you can even learn new combat abilities from these creatures, and that’s one example of how character progression is shaping up to be in Fractured, by offering a horizontal structure that rewards players through exploration and discovery as opposed to the standard routine of gaining levels, xp and grinds. As for Knowledge Points, these accrue the more you discover things in the world and they can be spent as character currency on learning newly discovered skills and abilities and for creating new presets that you can save for quick access out of combat. The progression here is a good alternative to what we have in similar MMORPGs and I’d like to see how this develops further, as there isn’t a whole lot of creature and skill variety in the Alpha so far.

Crafting

Now what about all that plant fiber, berries and meat that you’ve piled up in your inventory from your discovery spree? You’ll want to spend them of course, because inventory weight is a thing here, and you’ll get to put these to good use. Fractured does have survival mechanics like needing food and rest, both have indicators on the top left side of the UI and they decay over time. Meat can be cooked at crafted fireplaces or in player homes, while most non-edible resources are used in the game’s crafting system. Crafting is easy so far and can be done from anywhere if it’s for the basics like harvesting tools, weapons and armor.

I crafted pretty much everything after an hour of gathering all kinds of resources, and I do like the freedom your character is afforded when wanting to try different weapons than want originally came with your background – you can equip three at once at swap between them with a hotkey, and this is really handy if you’re out hunting fast food like rabbit and deer, and need to swap to a longbow quickly.

Combat System

While it’s still very early in development, Fractured’s combat system is functional and basic, and I think it has a long way to go before we start seeing what the studio has in mind at launch. The basics of combat plays out like a MOBA or similar top-down sandbox MMORPGs, with simple clicks for basic attacks, and your skills and abilities are sitting on a hotbar, ready to be fired off. Various factors will come into play during combat depending on what skills you have and what skills your opponent has, so you’ll see a variety of crowd control effects, and in the future and what I’m most excited about, is environmental manipulation, where casting a lightning spell on enemies that are standing in a water puddle would obviously do more damage or pop a CC.

So far I’ve encounter plenty of beasts that want to kill me, from wolf packs, to giant dire wolves and enormous spiders. I’m sure there’s more types of mobs out there but with how large the land-mass is, it’ll take me awhile to explore the far reaches and see what other dangers lurk. The stronger enemies like dire wolves and spiders offers the most challenge if you’re out exploring solo, and if you haven’t crafted some decent armor you’re bound to die a few times, and in the alpha test death is just a knock out and players will be revived after half a minute. At launch I’m not sure if there will be full loot on death. Otherwise, combat here just feels like an alpha test placeholder, and I hope the animations, pacing and more get upgraded for launch.

Housing System

My time exploring Fractured’s alpha did set me on one epic journey though, and it involved this burning desire to build my own home. I first stumbled upon another player’s house and thought it looked great. You’ll have a place to keep you safe from the constant agro of these overzealous alpha mobs, plus you get own space to cook your food, recharge your energy, and possibly play around with furniture crafting. So on I went to find and claim my own plot of land, which is easy to spot on the mini map, and as long as no other player gets it first, you can place down a house blueprint from the dedicated blueprint UI and start getting to work, and oh my, it’s a lot of work.

The housing in Fractured gets you involved in every step of the way, starting from the foundations, to the pillars, each wall side, windows and doors, and onward it goes. That means, you will need a crap ton of stone and wood, which are readily available on the landscape. You’ll definitely want to craft one or two of these wheelbarrow things that you can take with you out on foraging runs, because you need the weight and space. It took me over two hours, and a dozen trips to and fro between house and the wilderness to gather the resources, bring em back and then painfully click on each individual building project until it’s done.

Again, it’s a lot of work, but I feel good about, I did it at my own pace and now I’ve got house to place crafting stations and other beneficial stuff. If you’re playing with friends, the process will be quicker of course, but it’s the satisfaction of completing something daunting is what matters, especially in a sandbox MMO, and I hope at launch, Fractured will offer more of that from the various facets of PvE and PvP gameplay that we haven’t even seen yet.

The post Fractured: Is This Sandbox MMO Worth Backing? appeared first on Mmos World.

All players who own the Governor+ pack will be able to claim a city on a dedicated web page, provided they can find 19 players with access to the test willing to support them. The studio in the process of reworking the city claiming page to make it more fair, forcing candidate governors to gather supporters before they can choose a town. Once completed, a personal email is going to be sent to all governors and players with access.

The developers have also release an update video featuring the improvement to visual diversity in the world, and you can watch it down below.

Be sure to join the MMOSWorld community Discord: https://discord.gg/D8MYHkG

The post Fractured MMO’s Spring Alpha Begins March 31st appeared first on Mmos World.

Gameplay

You’ll start things off by creating a character, and the most important choice here is your background. The choice of background determines the starting point for players, but it doesn’t affect the future development of your character. In the alpha you can pick from a pool of pre-determined starting abilities classified appropriately, like the Gladiator for melee skills and high strength attributes, plus relevant gear and equipment. Arcanists deal with magic but have less protection and so on and on, but keep in mind, Fractured doesn’t lock you into a certain class archetype, as you’re free to explore different styles of play and build your ideal class and skills.

Upon entering the Alpha world of Fractured, it was time for me to pick a direction and follow it blindly to see some of these early systems and mechanics in-play. Right now, testing is taking place in one huge continent and more land will be available to explore at release, which sounds great because even now, there’s so much ground to cover. The landscape is littered with plants and resources that can be harvested and you’ll want to do so because it’s important. Discovering a plant, resource or engaging and defeating wildlife for the first time, will create a new entry in your character’s Book of Knowledge, and it also earns you Knowledge Points.

For animals and creatures, each subsequent kill, engagement or death from, progresses the amount of knowledge you have in your log, which gives you better information about their attributes, and the best part is, there’s a chance you can even learn new combat abilities from these creatures, and that’s one example of how character progression is shaping up to be in Fractured, by offering a horizontal structure that rewards players through exploration and discovery as opposed to the standard routine of gaining levels, xp and grinds. As for Knowledge Points, these accrue the more you discover things in the world and they can be spent as character currency on learning newly discovered skills and abilities and for creating new presets that you can save for quick access out of combat. The progression here is a good alternative to what we have in similar MMORPGs and I’d like to see how this develops further, as there isn’t a whole lot of creature and skill variety in the Alpha so far.

Crafting

Now what about all that plant fiber, berries and meat that you’ve piled up in your inventory from your discovery spree? You’ll want to spend them of course, because inventory weight is a thing here, and you’ll get to put these to good use. Fractured does have survival mechanics like needing food and rest, both have indicators on the top left side of the UI and they decay over time. Meat can be cooked at crafted fireplaces or in player homes, while most non-edible resources are used in the game’s crafting system. Crafting is easy so far and can be done from anywhere if it’s for the basics like harvesting tools, weapons and armor.

I crafted pretty much everything after an hour of gathering all kinds of resources, and I do like the freedom your character is afforded when wanting to try different weapons than want originally came with your background – you can equip three at once at swap between them with a hotkey, and this is really handy if you’re out hunting fast food like rabbit and deer, and need to swap to a longbow quickly.

Combat System

While it’s still very early in development, Fractured’s combat system is functional and basic, and I think it has a long way to go before we start seeing what the studio has in mind at launch. The basics of combat plays out like a MOBA or similar top-down sandbox MMORPGs, with simple clicks for basic attacks, and your skills and abilities are sitting on a hotbar, ready to be fired off. Various factors will come into play during combat depending on what skills you have and what skills your opponent has, so you’ll see a variety of crowd control effects, and in the future and what I’m most excited about, is environmental manipulation, where casting a lightning spell on enemies that are standing in a water puddle would obviously do more damage or pop a CC.

So far I’ve encounter plenty of beasts that want to kill me, from wolf packs, to giant dire wolves and enormous spiders. I’m sure there’s more types of mobs out there but with how large the land-mass is, it’ll take me awhile to explore the far reaches and see what other dangers lurk. The stronger enemies like dire wolves and spiders offers the most challenge if you’re out exploring solo, and if you haven’t crafted some decent armor you’re bound to die a few times, and in the alpha test death is just a knock out and players will be revived after half a minute. At launch I’m not sure if there will be full loot on death. Otherwise, combat here just feels like an alpha test placeholder, and I hope the animations, pacing and more get upgraded for launch.

Housing System

My time exploring Fractured’s alpha did set me on one epic journey though, and it involved this burning desire to build my own home. I first stumbled upon another player’s house and thought it looked great. You’ll have a place to keep you safe from the constant agro of these overzealous alpha mobs, plus you get own space to cook your food, recharge your energy, and possibly play around with furniture crafting. So on I went to find and claim my own plot of land, which is easy to spot on the mini map, and as long as no other player gets it first, you can place down a house blueprint from the dedicated blueprint UI and start getting to work, and oh my, it’s a lot of work.

The housing in Fractured gets you involved in every step of the way, starting from the foundations, to the pillars, each wall side, windows and doors, and onward it goes. That means, you will need a crap ton of stone and wood, which are readily available on the landscape. You’ll definitely want to craft one or two of these wheelbarrow things that you can take with you out on foraging runs, because you need the weight and space. It took me over two hours, and a dozen trips to and fro between house and the wilderness to gather the resources, bring em back and then painfully click on each individual building project until it’s done.

Again, it’s a lot of work, but I feel good about, I did it at my own pace and now I’ve got house to place crafting stations and other beneficial stuff. If you’re playing with friends, the process will be quicker of course, but it’s the satisfaction of completing something daunting is what matters, especially in a sandbox MMO, and I hope at launch, Fractured will offer more of that from the various facets of PvE and PvP gameplay that we haven’t even seen yet.

The post Sandbox MMORPG Fractured 2020: Why This Game Deserves A Look appeared first on Mmos World.

Gameplay

You’ll start things off by creating a character, and the most important choice here is your background. The choice of background determines the starting point for players, but it doesn’t affect the future development of your character. In the alpha you can pick from a pool of pre-determined starting abilities classified appropriately, like the Gladiator for melee skills and high strength attributes, plus relevant gear and equipment. Arcanists deal with magic but have less protection and so on and on, but keep in mind, Fractured doesn’t lock you into a certain class archetype, as you’re free to explore different styles of play and build your ideal class and skills.

Upon entering the Alpha world of Fractured, it was time for me to pick a direction and follow it blindly to see some of these early systems and mechanics in-play. Right now, testing is taking place in one huge continent and more land will be available to explore at release, which sounds great because even now, there’s so much ground to cover. The landscape is littered with plants and resources that can be harvested and you’ll want to do so because it’s important. Discovering a plant, resource or engaging and defeating wildlife for the first time, will create a new entry in your character’s Book of Knowledge, and it also earns you Knowledge Points.

For animals and creatures, each subsequent kill, engagement or death from, progresses the amount of knowledge you have in your log, which gives you better information about their attributes, and the best part is, there’s a chance you can even learn new combat abilities from these creatures, and that’s one example of how character progression is shaping up to be in Fractured, by offering a horizontal structure that rewards players through exploration and discovery as opposed to the standard routine of gaining levels, xp and grinds. As for Knowledge Points, these accrue the more you discover things in the world and they can be spent as character currency on learning newly discovered skills and abilities and for creating new presets that you can save for quick access out of combat. The progression here is a good alternative to what we have in similar MMORPGs and I’d like to see how this develops further, as there isn’t a whole lot of creature and skill variety in the Alpha so far.

Crafting

Now what about all that plant fiber, berries and meat that you’ve piled up in your inventory from your discovery spree? You’ll want to spend them of course, because inventory weight is a thing here, and you’ll get to put these to good use. Fractured does have survival mechanics like needing food and rest, both have indicators on the top left side of the UI and they decay over time. Meat can be cooked at crafted fireplaces or in player homes, while most non-edible resources are used in the game’s crafting system. Crafting is easy so far and can be done from anywhere if it’s for the basics like harvesting tools, weapons and armor.

I crafted pretty much everything after an hour of gathering all kinds of resources, and I do like the freedom your character is afforded when wanting to try different weapons than want originally came with your background – you can equip three at once at swap between them with a hotkey, and this is really handy if you’re out hunting fast food like rabbit and deer, and need to swap to a longbow quickly.

Combat System

While it’s still very early in development, Fractured’s combat system is functional and basic, and I think it has a long way to go before we start seeing what the studio has in mind at launch. The basics of combat plays out like a MOBA or similar top-down sandbox MMORPGs, with simple clicks for basic attacks, and your skills and abilities are sitting on a hotbar, ready to be fired off. Various factors will come into play during combat depending on what skills you have and what skills your opponent has, so you’ll see a variety of crowd control effects, and in the future and what I’m most excited about, is environmental manipulation, where casting a lightning spell on enemies that are standing in a water puddle would obviously do more damage or pop a CC.

So far I’ve encounter plenty of beasts that want to kill me, from wolf packs, to giant dire wolves and enormous spiders. I’m sure there’s more types of mobs out there but with how large the land-mass is, it’ll take me awhile to explore the far reaches and see what other dangers lurk. The stronger enemies like dire wolves and spiders offers the most challenge if you’re out exploring solo, and if you haven’t crafted some decent armor you’re bound to die a few times, and in the alpha test death is just a knock out and players will be revived after half a minute. At launch I’m not sure if there will be full loot on death. Otherwise, combat here just feels like an alpha test placeholder, and I hope the animations, pacing and more get upgraded for launch.

Housing System

My time exploring Fractured’s alpha did set me on one epic journey though, and it involved this burning desire to build my own home. I first stumbled upon another player’s house and thought it looked great. You’ll have a place to keep you safe from the constant agro of these overzealous alpha mobs, plus you get own space to cook your food, recharge your energy, and possibly play around with furniture crafting. So on I went to find and claim my own plot of land, which is easy to spot on the mini map, and as long as no other player gets it first, you can place down a house blueprint from the dedicated blueprint UI and start getting to work, and oh my, it’s a lot of work.

The housing in Fractured gets you involved in every step of the way, starting from the foundations, to the pillars, each wall side, windows and doors, and onward it goes. That means, you will need a crap ton of stone and wood, which are readily available on the landscape. You’ll definitely want to craft one or two of these wheelbarrow things that you can take with you out on foraging runs, because you need the weight and space. It took me over two hours, and a dozen trips to and fro between house and the wilderness to gather the resources, bring em back and then painfully click on each individual building project until it’s done.

Again, it’s a lot of work, but I feel good about, I did it at my own pace and now I’ve got house to place crafting stations and other beneficial stuff. If you’re playing with friends, the process will be quicker of course, but it’s the satisfaction of completing something daunting is what matters, especially in a sandbox MMO, and I hope at launch, Fractured will offer more of that from the various facets of PvE and PvP gameplay that we haven’t even seen yet.

The post Sandbox MMO Fractured: Why We’re Impressed appeared first on Mmos World.

The test – known as Alpha 2 Test 3, invites all alpha backers back into the world to experience a host of new additions and changes, with the developers claiming this is the most feature rich test since development began.

Among the systems and features that will be available in this test includes:

• Player cities and governor mechanics
• In-depth talent system
• More balances and tweaks

Check out the full post to see what else is coming in the upcoming test.

Be sure to join the MMOSWorld community Discord: https://discord.gg/D8MYHkG

The post Fractured’s Next Alpha Test Begins July 16th appeared first on Mmos World.

Gameplay

You’ll start things off by creating a character, and the most important choice here is your background. The choice of background determines the starting point for players, but it doesn’t affect the future development of your character. In the alpha you can pick from a pool of pre-determined starting abilities classified appropriately, like the Gladiator for melee skills and high strength attributes, plus relevant gear and equipment. Arcanists deal with magic but have less protection and so on and on, but keep in mind, Fractured doesn’t lock you into a certain class archetype, as you’re free to explore different styles of play and build your ideal class and skills.

Upon entering the Alpha world of Fractured, it was time for me to pick a direction and follow it blindly to see some of these early systems and mechanics in-play. Right now, testing is taking place in one huge continent and more land will be available to explore at release, which sounds great because even now, there’s so much ground to cover. The landscape is littered with plants and resources that can be harvested and you’ll want to do so because it’s important. Discovering a plant, resource or engaging and defeating wildlife for the first time, will create a new entry in your character’s Book of Knowledge, and it also earns you Knowledge Points.

For animals and creatures, each subsequent kill, engagement or death from, progresses the amount of knowledge you have in your log, which gives you better information about their attributes, and the best part is, there’s a chance you can even learn new combat abilities from these creatures, and that’s one example of how character progression is shaping up to be in Fractured, by offering a horizontal structure that rewards players through exploration and discovery as opposed to the standard routine of gaining levels, xp and grinds. As for Knowledge Points, these accrue the more you discover things in the world and they can be spent as character currency on learning newly discovered skills and abilities and for creating new presets that you can save for quick access out of combat. The progression here is a good alternative to what we have in similar MMORPGs and I’d like to see how this develops further, as there isn’t a whole lot of creature and skill variety in the Alpha so far.

Crafting

Now what about all that plant fiber, berries and meat that you’ve piled up in your inventory from your discovery spree? You’ll want to spend them of course, because inventory weight is a thing here, and you’ll get to put these to good use. Fractured does have survival mechanics like needing food and rest, both have indicators on the top left side of the UI and they decay over time. Meat can be cooked at crafted fireplaces or in player homes, while most non-edible resources are used in the game’s crafting system. Crafting is easy so far and can be done from anywhere if it’s for the basics like harvesting tools, weapons and armor.

I crafted pretty much everything after an hour of gathering all kinds of resources, and I do like the freedom your character is afforded when wanting to try different weapons than want originally came with your background – you can equip three at once at swap between them with a hotkey, and this is really handy if you’re out hunting fast food like rabbit and deer, and need to swap to a longbow quickly.

Combat System

While it’s still very early in development, Fractured’s combat system is functional and basic, and I think it has a long way to go before we start seeing what the studio has in mind at launch. The basics of combat plays out like a MOBA or similar top-down sandbox MMORPGs, with simple clicks for basic attacks, and your skills and abilities are sitting on a hotbar, ready to be fired off. Various factors will come into play during combat depending on what skills you have and what skills your opponent has, so you’ll see a variety of crowd control effects, and in the future and what I’m most excited about, is environmental manipulation, where casting a lightning spell on enemies that are standing in a water puddle would obviously do more damage or pop a CC.

So far I’ve encounter plenty of beasts that want to kill me, from wolf packs, to giant dire wolves and enormous spiders. I’m sure there’s more types of mobs out there but with how large the land-mass is, it’ll take me awhile to explore the far reaches and see what other dangers lurk. The stronger enemies like dire wolves and spiders offers the most challenge if you’re out exploring solo, and if you haven’t crafted some decent armor you’re bound to die a few times, and in the alpha test death is just a knock out and players will be revived after half a minute. At launch I’m not sure if there will be full loot on death. Otherwise, combat here just feels like an alpha test placeholder, and I hope the animations, pacing and more get upgraded for launch.

Housing System

My time exploring Fractured’s alpha did set me on one epic journey though, and it involved this burning desire to build my own home. I first stumbled upon another player’s house and thought it looked great. You’ll have a place to keep you safe from the constant agro of these overzealous alpha mobs, plus you get own space to cook your food, recharge your energy, and possibly play around with furniture crafting. So on I went to find and claim my own plot of land, which is easy to spot on the mini map, and as long as no other player gets it first, you can place down a house blueprint from the dedicated blueprint UI and start getting to work, and oh my, it’s a lot of work.

The housing in Fractured gets you involved in every step of the way, starting from the foundations, to the pillars, each wall side, windows and doors, and onward it goes. That means, you will need a crap ton of stone and wood, which are readily available on the landscape. You’ll definitely want to craft one or two of these wheelbarrow things that you can take with you out on foraging runs, because you need the weight and space. It took me over two hours, and a dozen trips to and fro between house and the wilderness to gather the resources, bring em back and then painfully click on each individual building project until it’s done.

Again, it’s a lot of work, but I feel good about, I did it at my own pace and now I’ve got house to place crafting stations and other beneficial stuff. If you’re playing with friends, the process will be quicker of course, but it’s the satisfaction of completing something daunting is what matters, especially in a sandbox MMO, and I hope at launch, Fractured will offer more of that from the various facets of PvE and PvP gameplay that we haven’t even seen yet.

The post Fractured MMORPG: Why You Should Check It Out appeared first on Mmos World.

ESO Greymoor Chapter

Up first is The Elder Scrolls Online, which will be launching its 4th Chapter, the second update of this year’s Dark Heart of Skyrim year-long adventure called Greymoor. Players will be heading back to Western Skyrim to investigate mysterious happenings all over the region, including the depths of Blackreach. It’s an new dark, broody and gothic story line which we’ve not seen before!

Additionally, the chapter has revamped the Vampire skill line complelety, and adds more flavor to the gameplay experience and what it means to be a creature of the night in ESO. Expect plenty of new PvE content too, from new delves and bosses on the landscapes, to Harrowstorms and Trials and public dungeons of course. The Chapter arrives on the 27th of May.

Guild Wars 2: No Quarter Episode 3 of the Icebrood Saga.

In ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2, brand new content is coming our way on the 27th of May too, forcing ESO and GW2 players who play both games to make a difficult decision! The third episode of the Icebrood Saga, known as No Quarter, will launch next week and brings a new map to play on, the Drizzlewood Coast.

This new map plays unlike anything else released recently, and it has a push-and-pull World vs World feel where players will battle NPCs for strategic locations on the map to earn resources, when not playing through the main story – which also tackles a Char civil war that’s been brewing for months now. Expect all new rewards to earn in the form of armor, weapons and skins.

Fractured May 2020 Open Free Test

Upcoming isometric sandbox MMORPG Fractured has some great news. It will be opening up its next test phase to everyone, free of charge, on the 28th of May, and all you need is to register for an account. Fractured is a living breathing world where players can build, craft and survive using skill you can earn and learn from simply interacting with the world and through defeating monsters on the landscape.

It has a decent community so far and there’s plenty of exciting features ahead that will be coming over time as the game continues its alpha test transition. Fractured backers can jump in two days earlier on the 26th of May, and if you want to grab a founder’s pack, click here.

AION

Aion North America has a major update coming for players of this free to play MMORPG, known as the Shadows over Balaurea, which launches on the 27^th of May. For those up-to-date with current story, your pursuit of Inanna continues, with a major revamp happening to the land of Balaurea, with Inggision, Gelkamoros and the Silentra Canyon seeing changes. There’s new instances too like the new 6-player Alter of Ascension which drops new Burning Altar accessories, on top of a new PvP battleground, the chaotic Vale, which is stat-equalized. In other areas, you can expect new systems like Renown, which unlocks more travel portals, merchants, quests and other benefits for leveling up renown ranks, that can be done through killing monsters and questing throughout Baluarea

Be sure to join our community Discord: https://discord.gg/D8MYHkG

The post MMORPG 2020: The Biggest Launches Happening Next Week (25-29 May) appeared first on Mmos World.

Gameplay

You’ll start things off by creating a character, and the most important choice here is your background. The choice of background determines the starting point for players, but it doesn’t affect the future development of your character. In the alpha you can pick from a pool of pre-determined starting abilities classified appropriately, like the Gladiator for melee skills and high strength attributes, plus relevant gear and equipment. Arcanists deal with magic but have less protection and so on and on, but keep in mind, Fractured doesn’t lock you into a certain class archetype, as you’re free to explore different styles of play and build your ideal class and skills.

Upon entering the Alpha world of Fractured, it was time for me to pick a direction and follow it blindly to see some of these early systems and mechanics in-play. Right now, testing is taking place in one huge continent and more land will be available to explore at release, which sounds great because even now, there’s so much ground to cover. The landscape is littered with plants and resources that can be harvested and you’ll want to do so because it’s important. Discovering a plant, resource or engaging and defeating wildlife for the first time, will create a new entry in your character’s Book of Knowledge, and it also earns you Knowledge Points.

For animals and creatures, each subsequent kill, engagement or death from, progresses the amount of knowledge you have in your log, which gives you better information about their attributes, and the best part is, there’s a chance you can even learn new combat abilities from these creatures, and that’s one example of how character progression is shaping up to be in Fractured, by offering a horizontal structure that rewards players through exploration and discovery as opposed to the standard routine of gaining levels, xp and grinds. As for Knowledge Points, these accrue the more you discover things in the world and they can be spent as character currency on learning newly discovered skills and abilities and for creating new presets that you can save for quick access out of combat. The progression here is a good alternative to what we have in similar MMORPGs and I’d like to see how this develops further, as there isn’t a whole lot of creature and skill variety in the Alpha so far.

Crafting

Now what about all that plant fiber, berries and meat that you’ve piled up in your inventory from your discovery spree? You’ll want to spend them of course, because inventory weight is a thing here, and you’ll get to put these to good use. Fractured does have survival mechanics like needing food and rest, both have indicators on the top left side of the UI and they decay over time. Meat can be cooked at crafted fireplaces or in player homes, while most non-edible resources are used in the game’s crafting system. Crafting is easy so far and can be done from anywhere if it’s for the basics like harvesting tools, weapons and armor.

I crafted pretty much everything after an hour of gathering all kinds of resources, and I do like the freedom your character is afforded when wanting to try different weapons than want originally came with your background – you can equip three at once at swap between them with a hotkey, and this is really handy if you’re out hunting fast food like rabbit and deer, and need to swap to a longbow quickly.

Combat System

While it’s still very early in development, Fractured’s combat system is functional and basic, and I think it has a long way to go before we start seeing what the studio has in mind at launch. The basics of combat plays out like a MOBA or similar top-down sandbox MMORPGs, with simple clicks for basic attacks, and your skills and abilities are sitting on a hotbar, ready to be fired off. Various factors will come into play during combat depending on what skills you have and what skills your opponent has, so you’ll see a variety of crowd control effects, and in the future and what I’m most excited about, is environmental manipulation, where casting a lightning spell on enemies that are standing in a water puddle would obviously do more damage or pop a CC.

So far I’ve encounter plenty of beasts that want to kill me, from wolf packs, to giant dire wolves and enormous spiders. I’m sure there’s more types of mobs out there but with how large the land-mass is, it’ll take me awhile to explore the far reaches and see what other dangers lurk. The stronger enemies like dire wolves and spiders offers the most challenge if you’re out exploring solo, and if you haven’t crafted some decent armor you’re bound to die a few times, and in the alpha test death is just a knock out and players will be revived after half a minute. At launch I’m not sure if there will be full loot on death. Otherwise, combat here just feels like an alpha test placeholder, and I hope the animations, pacing and more get upgraded for launch.

Housing System

My time exploring Fractured’s alpha did set me on one epic journey though, and it involved this burning desire to build my own home. I first stumbled upon another player’s house and thought it looked great. You’ll have a place to keep you safe from the constant agro of these overzealous alpha mobs, plus you get own space to cook your food, recharge your energy, and possibly play around with furniture crafting. So on I went to find and claim my own plot of land, which is easy to spot on the mini map, and as long as no other player gets it first, you can place down a house blueprint from the dedicated blueprint UI and start getting to work, and oh my, it’s a lot of work.

The housing in Fractured gets you involved in every step of the way, starting from the foundations, to the pillars, each wall side, windows and doors, and onward it goes. That means, you will need a crap ton of stone and wood, which are readily available on the landscape. You’ll definitely want to craft one or two of these wheelbarrow things that you can take with you out on foraging runs, because you need the weight and space. It took me over two hours, and a dozen trips to and fro between house and the wilderness to gather the resources, bring em back and then painfully click on each individual building project until it’s done.

Again, it’s a lot of work, but I feel good about, I did it at my own pace and now I’ve got house to place crafting stations and other beneficial stuff. If you’re playing with friends, the process will be quicker of course, but it’s the satisfaction of completing something daunting is what matters, especially in a sandbox MMO, and I hope at launch, Fractured will offer more of that from the various facets of PvE and PvP gameplay that we haven’t even seen yet.

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