Fall in Love This Week With Indie MMOG's Open Beta

[John Funk]

Fall in Love This Week With Indie MMOG's Open Beta

One-man-band Eskil Steenberg's procedurally generated indie MMOG Love will be hitting open beta this week for everyone to try to see what the hell it's all about.

What do you mean you've never heard of Love? Shame on you! has built the tools to make it [http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html].

The game has thus far been in closed beta and alpha states, but Steenberg is ready to open it up to everybody [http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post62] as of January 7th. As Steenberg is hardly a massive company like Blizzard or SOE, all he's asking in return is that people help defray his bandwidth costs, so if you want to get in on the beta it'll cost you €3 ($4.33) for 30 days.

For all I've been "Wow, that's a really cool idea" about Love, I actually know very little about how the actual game, y'know, plays - and Steenberg does not mince words: The game will not hold your hand as you get used to it.

"Love is a very different game, and not one that is easy to get in to. Its a game that's most people start to appreciate over time. There is no hand-holding, no glowing arrows, no female voice telling you what to do, and no quests. In many ways Its an old school PC game, that takes a bit of time getting used to. Evaluation of games are always tricky, and with a game so different its sometimes hard to know if something is broken, just different or something you haven't figured out yet."

His recommendation? Talk to more experienced players and check out player-run resources like Love In Verses [http://www.loveinvers.es/]. So if you're looking at falling into Love, heed his advice.

(Via Wired [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/01/love-open-beta/])

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[The DSM]

That sounds Intresting, if its one man im going to check it out.

He deserves credit for making an whole game on his own.

 

[QuirkyTambourine]

I'm really digging the idea of this game, I'm gonna have to keep an eye on it

 

[manythings]

I second that. Unfortunately it opens on the day of my first exam and I don't have credit card.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Sounds kinda nifty. Jan. 7, you say? I might just have to drop the $4.33 to jump in on this.

 

[Carlston]

Doesn't hold your hand...
RIGHT.

Sounds like a excuse for "By the way, you have no idea what to do, if there are quests they are hidden so you can play for 3 years and never know they are around -UO and Everquest anyone?-

I'll take it with a grain of salt and try it. But if the man can't even have a minor bit of direction to a objective then it's not "old School" its "Bad coding and design"

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

Oh, so its supposed to have a steep learning curve and low accesibility? Because he wants it to be different? Oh, how people will use "different" synonomously with "bad design choice". Most of the time, I do like my games to be at least a little difficult, this is true, but not because they have shitty tutorials. Of course, I haven't checked the beta out, so this is just going from what Steenberg has said.

 

[Jared]

That sounds Intresting, if its one man im going to check it out.

He deserves credit for making an whole game on his own.

Ill say, the time, committment, knowledge, patience...I certainly take my hat off to you sir!

 

[Nurb]

I've been interested in this for a while, but as much as I read, I don't know WHAT the hell you are or are suppost to do in the game... is it mission based? exploration? just having an interesting experience like in that Endless Forest game?

I gotta give the guy credit for doing this on his own, but he comes off awful pretentious about the whole thing, I dunno if that's just how I'm taking it or not.

I'm still curious about it though.

 

[Chaossebba]

I still think that "Love" is sort of a silly name for a game, just try telling that to someone else.

"So what have you been playing recently?"
"Love."
"*slowly moves away*"

 

[Zildjin81]

Usually these articles are pretty well written but the sheer number of love puns made this one suck.

 

[Composer]

i was following this game(loosely) when i heard about it somewhere else(gameinformer maybe)
and i was really exited about it but i didnt know u had to pay for it....

 

[Lexodus]

It's such a shame that 'indie' generally goes to mean 'nice idea, shit in reality, with awful graphics and never updated'.

 

[Paradoxicles]

I'd never heard of this game until now, but it seems quite interesting to say the least. I might just have to check this out and see what it's all about.

 

[Scott2210]

sounds cool ill give it a try seems like it could be worth the money really

 

[Killerbunny001]

So let`s see if I got this right :

One dude made a MMO - gratz
The game has random generated maps - pretty cool in concept
There are no quests - grindtastic
There is no "hand holding" - ?...! ooki

So there is a grindtastic indie MMO out there that is kind of a work in progress and it charges 4 goldz a month ? And of course there will not be any support what so ever.

Extraordinary news, I`ll take this to the M.E.H. society right away !

 

[CUnk]

I played the alpha for a couple of weeks back when it first started.

First of all, it's not an MMO. At least not in the traditional sense. It's more of a persistent-world, cooperative FPS. There is no PVP -- humans play against AI.

Usually with an MMO you have a character that you nurture and develop. In Love nothing differentiates you from other players (in fact names are randomly assigned to players when they first join a server -- supposedly a way to prevent egos from inhabiting the game). There are no classes or skills or levels or experience points or scores.

My experience was typically this:

You jump in the game in random location in the relatively small (but certainly large enough for the number of players involved), spherical world. Usually your first goal is to find a player settlement so you can get your hands on some weapons and tools. There is an indicator on the screen pointing to the nearest settlement to make things easier. Once you step into the boundaries of that settlement you automatically join it but sometimes getting to the tokens that dole out weapons and tools can be a challenge if walls have been built up or it's located in a hard-to-reach spot (e.g. on top of a towering mesa).

Once you get access to the tokens usually the first thing you'll want to do is pick up some weapons and go hunting for AI. The other tools available have a bit of a learning curve and your fellow citizens won't be pleased if you start rerouting power lines or carving holes in the walls (which when I was playing wasn't prevented -- perhaps since then he's added some way for players to control who can change what). So really the easiest way to get into the action is to hunt AI. This can be exciting and fairly dangerous if you stumble on an AI settlement.

I'm not sure what else to say about it. I got bored with it fairly quickly I hate to say (I've been championing this game for a long time now). I'll probably jump back into the beta to see what's changed but from what I've been reading it sounds pretty much the same. It would probably work better as a PVP game but it would be hard to maintain a settlement. At least with AI he can program them to lay off if no or few players are present.

Also, for those complaining about the price: give him a break. It's less than $5 for 30 days of playtime (no matter how long it takes you to use it). The guy is on his own and the servers cost him money. He's not getting rich off your few bucks.

 

[Asehujiko]

Doesn't hold your hand...
RIGHT.

Sounds like a excuse for "By the way, you have no idea what to do, if there are quests they are hidden so you can play for 3 years and never know they are around -UO and Everquest anyone?-

I'll take it with a grain of salt and try it. But if the man can't even have a minor bit of direction to a objective then it's not "old School" its "Bad coding and design"

It's one guy. There are more important things to do then making the tutorial.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't have tutorials and yet it's a very good game for being in alpha and being coded by a single person.

 

[Sevre]

I've been waiting for this since it was announced back in '08. Can't wait to see what it's like.

 

[Carlston]

Doesn't hold your hand...
RIGHT.

Sounds like a excuse for "By the way, you have no idea what to do, if there are quests they are hidden so you can play for 3 years and never know they are around -UO and Everquest anyone?-

I'll take it with a grain of salt and try it. But if the man can't even have a minor bit of direction to a objective then it's not "old School" its "Bad coding and design"

It's one guy. There are more important things to do then making the tutorial.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't have tutorials and yet it's a very good game for being in alpha and being coded by a single person.

One guy eh? I will certainly check it out then. Dwarf fortress brings me back long ways to Mine of Moria and the like,