Testing the 'Blogger in Draft' poll feature

I'm testing the new feature for polls that in offer for 'Blogger in Draft'. Running a poll on EVE Voice.

Yes, I've have noticed that it doesn't seem to work in Firefox, which means that most of you won't be able to participate until the Blogger devs fix the issue. I still want to leave it on so that it can be tested by them, and eventually improved. Hope you'll bare with me until then!

SEED: 10 new Beta screenshots

As promised, though a bit later then I would have liked, here are 3 of 10 new screenshots taken from the Garden inside the Tower. I did fairly a lot of exploration and went through every centimeter of the lush tropical garden.

This time there were sounds of various machinery as I walked near them. Made for a more interactive experience as you can imagine. It was getting pretty lonely walking alone in this great big complex with no one around (the Beta was limited to 75 simultaneous players) to interact with.

Here we go! This is the entrance to the Garden. Notice the mist effect in the far back of the Garden.

An here you can see the orange cone that marks the spot where I clicked to indicate a move command. In this shot we're now in the Garden, and you can see several devices to the left and right of my character.

I took this shot to show a close-up view of the characters and NPCs. The cell shading effects are really well done and gives this MMORPG a whole different feel to it.

If you want to see the rest of the screenshots, head over to my flickr SEED set.

By the way, if you have any questions, or would like to see a shot of something specific that I haven't yet taken, please let me know in the comments!

SEED: Derella's Seed Beta Blog

Derella's Seed Beta Blog is a great to follow, for those interested in keeping an eye on the SEED beta. Daily news, and info. Let's all wish Deralla good luck for the next wave of Beta accounts!!

SEED: February 9th Newsletter

The latest newsletter from Morten, Seed Community Manager:

Newsletter from the developers of Seed

We made it to the Beta test!... but you probably know that already :).

It was greatly satisfying for us to be able to launch the Beta test on time. The end of January meant constant overtime for all of us. Kroll has seized the opportunity to order everybody back to standard work hours for now - in order for us to be able to work around the clock again as April come closer, I guess :).

Nevertheless, the Beta opened February 1st 12:00 CET. Our uptime was a tremendous 13 minutes, before the first crash occurred – that was about 12 minutes more than expected. We pretty soon accomplished uptimes of 30-60 minutes, and thanks to our should-be-patented Sys-op-in-a-box servers were restarted automatically and up again within a few minutes.

Thanks to all the feedback we received, we were able to pinpoint the major factors for the server crashes, and this week the servers have run continuously for up to 12 hours. Of course we are working on making these numbers even better, but we are pretty satisfied with our progress so far :).

We have upped the allowed number of simultaneous players to 75, and provided this does not lead to greater problems, we hope to let in more testers next week. When and how many is yet to be decided, but we will post an announcement on the forums as soon as we know.

Staff wise, we have sort of expanded again. This time with three graduate students, who will help us out over the next months as junior staff members. Tom and Peter are writing a master’s thesis about in-game mechanics, and will provide us with analysis and recommendations. Søren is here to gain on-the-job experience as part of his IT engineer studies and will work as assistant programmer.

Oh, and welcome to all the new readers. Last time I sent out a newsletter, there were about 300 subscribers - now the number is over 4.000! Likewise our forum has grown to over 11.000 members. We greatly appreciate the support you are showing us.

Kind regards,

Morten
Community Manager

Feedback? Go to our forum.

Things are moving forward as you can see. The 75 players limit explains why I could not get in last Sunday. Hopefully this number will increase over the next few weeks. Congrats Runestone on a successful Beta launch!

SEED: additional screenshots while exploring the Tower

So after my difficulties logging in on Sunday, I logged in tonight after a few updates to the client. First thing I notice was that I was alone. I mean I had the whole tower to my self. Not a soul to be seen. Weird, to say the least, since this is supposed to be an MMORPG! Oh well.

The next thing I noticed was that I could not stop my character from walking. Not that she went anywhere. She just stayed there, on the same spot, walking to know where! So might as well go and explore! Which is what I did. The next 7 screenshots are the results of this exploration. Enjoy!

The skills window. See, I'm training to be a mechanic!

Once I've completed my training, I'll be able to repair this, this, what the heck is this anyway!

This is where it starts to get interesting.

Because now I have no clue where I am. And of course, this is when the client crashes!! Oh well next time then. Speaking of which, my next screenshots will be a rundown of the user interface. See you then!

Don't forget to register on the forums for the next Beta opening.
Links:

• Runestone (developer)
• SEED the Game

SEED: my first screenshots of the Beta

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I was amongst the lucky 500 chosen to be part of the first Beta for Runestone's SEED MMORPG. I've been watching these guys and the development of this MMO, and been waiting patiently for the beta to get here. And well, here we are.

So after getting my account creation info in an email on Tuesday, I just couldn't wait to download the game, install it and walk through this brand new and original virtual world. First I had to create an account, and that wouldn't happen until early Wednesday morning (the registration server didn't come online until then), which meant that I couldn't create mine until I got home from work last evening.

To my great disappointment though, the server was down when I tried to create my account! I would have to play EVE "instead". As if that was a poor second choice. No it was not. Never is. But the craving I felt was for SEED that evening, not EVE.
Tonight though, the wait was over. Sort of. You see, SEED is in Beta, and as with every beta version of any software it has bug, it crashes, it needs a lot of improvement. Which is why Public Beta exist in the first place. We're the Chuck Yeager of the MMO universe. That's us, the Beta Testers!! The Proud, the Few, the Lucky!!

So this first screenshot if where you create you your character. There's a bit of customization available though not as much as one could hope for. Still, these cell-shaded screenies are simply gorgeous! N'est-ce pas!



Then, once we have a character created, we're ready to step into this brand new world and explore it's farthest corners, it's every level.


And voila! Here we are, in the Tower! And this is pretty much as far as this went tonight. A couple of restart of the game, creation of 2 new characters and a few minutes after spawning to life, the game would crash. Too bad, cause it looks awesome and I wanted to explore some. Guess it'll have to wait.

All part of the Beta, all part of the fun. And there's more to come!

SEED: the roleplayer's MMORPG

I've been keeping an eye on this MMORPG for about a year now, and today I received my email to one of the first 500 BETA testers. I'm really ecstatic of it!!

SEED is a very different kind of MMORPG, and this is besides the fact that it uses cell shading, which make for some awsome environments and screenies. Basically it's a roleplayer's dream MMO.

What Seed is all about:

• Sci-fi MMORPG
• Personalized stories
• Social/political gameplay
• Believable NPC's
• 3D comic book graphics

What it's not about:

• Combat
• Character classes
• Standard quests

So I'm quite excited to be among the first BETA testers and I cannot wait to login to the Tower for the very first time. And the great thing is that the NDA permits screenshots! So I'll post them as I explore this brand new world. In the mean time you can enjoy some here.

RF Online Newsletter is here!

Just got the latest RF Online newsletter and it's stuffed with goodies. A new Lore section was openned up on the website, so we will probably see more of it over the next few weeks.

As for the BETA, well it looks like I wasn't the only one who applied. Looks like I might have to wait a while before I get access to the BETA. So far I've beta tested a number of games, amongst them: Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, and Car Wars. The only one that kept me entertained was EVE, and I'm still playing, still being entertained. Let's see about this one; IF I get in!

I must say that the 2 new videos they've just released are breathtaking. If their quality is any hint of the quality of the game and the developers, than were in for a lot of fun!

Beta Testing: RF Online offer from MMORPG.com

Received an email today from MMORPG.com to win a spot as a BETA tester for Codemasters' upcoming MMORPG "RF Online".

I've been keeping an eye on this one because the setting is interesting, the graphics are great, and, though not a totally new design in the current MMO offering, it's got a nice balance between the western and eastern influence on the genre.

On one side you've got the Lineage, Xenosaga, Final Fantasy et al. and on the other, your Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft and Everquest. RF Online seems to have aspects and features from both, in a original setting that is a mix between science-fiction and fantasy.

In the end though it all depends on the execution of the developers - trailers, screenshots and feature lists are nice, but how the game plays is what makes it or brakes it. Still, I'll be very happy if I do get a spot in the BETA!

Here are a few links to RF Online related information:

• RF Online News
• RF Online Beta Sign-Up
• RF Message Board

Enjoy!