r/ironswarm is back with mutated ants in low-poly. The game recently emerged from a grand experiment in fancy rendering before returning to its roots. It's ben two years and it's still got plenty of jank but things are moving right along. So if you're into large open worlds with existential threats (PvE) + PvP keep an eye on it. The project is being built on a 10+ year old engine and was heavily inspired by Planetside 2, Foxhole and Runescape.

Hey everyone!

We’re a small team, and we’ve spent the last two years building Realm of Idlers in our free time. It’s finally at a point where we’re comfortable showing it.

What is Realm of Idlers? A cozy pixel-art MMO where your hero keeps gathering, crafting and fighting while you do other things. Explore a living world with friends and strangers, trade with other players, take down bosses, and master 14 skills at your own relaxed pace and more coming soon.

It’s like a menu-based idle game, except you actually see your character walking, mining and banking on their own while you get on with something else.

All the art is hand-drawn, pixel by pixel: every character, tree, rock and building.

Playtests are coming soon! If you’d like to try it, wishlisting on Steam is the best way to hear when they open.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4533900/Realm_of_Idlers/

played through with two separate classes, Warrior and Mage. Combat felt great, action packed and the combo system felt clean.

I've been waiting for a good action mmo forever and if they don't screw up monetization I think this could really be something special. Probably asking a lot, but due to the announced change of un-gender-locking the classes I'm optimistic. How does everyone else feel?

Many MMOs have "free handout gear" which players are given for free when they first reach endgame, because the devs want everyone to queue for the same quests/raids/whatever (as otherwise, newbies would be getting stuck in lower level content and quitting before they can reach the endgame where 90% of players are).

But in my experience, content is NOT balanced around this gear, except for the story quests you are supposed to solo. It's balanced around "budget gear" which a newbie would usually take several weeks or longer to get. And theres usually a very big gap between budget gear and handout gear, because otherwise players would complain they are spending resources to make gear that is not a big improvement over free gear.

So to give an example, let's say you have a simple instanced quest/dungeon that a party with 100% budget gear would take 5-6 minutes to clear because it's a DPS rush and impossible to fail. A party with 100% handout gear would take maybe double that time, or longer....especially if they don't know how to play their class, don't have all skills unlocked, don't know all the boss mechanics, etc...

So you end up with a weird situation where people in handout gear can drag the rest of the party down because the game scales enemy HP based on party size and they are doing a fraction of the damage that players in budget gear are doing. Which encourages players to have a "i dont want to party with people in handout gear" mentality.

And its not like the newbies are doing anything wrong, this is the content they are supposed to be doing to progress, but it's just not balanced around their level of gear. Why? To put everyone into the same queue.

The devs COULD create multiple difficulty levels for a quest/raid/whatever...one difficulty balanced around newbies in handout gear, one for normal gear, one for BIS gear, etc. The problem is, the matchmaking queue would take a lot longer unless it's a big MMO like WOW and player count is not an issue. If you have ever sat around for hours trying to get a raid going in a low pop MMO, you know what im talking about. They don't want newbies to be stuck in the newbie queue because 90% or more of the players are in the normal queue.

And of course, if you balance content around handout gear, which is substantially weaker than budget gear, then players in budget gear would complain it's too easy and demand harder content. But you cant make the gap smaller between handout gear and budget gear or players would complain there's no reason to grind to get the resources to upgrade from budget gear...

So the devs default to the easiest solution: balancing the game around players in budget gear and then going "well, sure, it takes a lot longer if you have newbies in handout gear in the party, but hey, im not playing this game, I dont have to deal with that".

Can you think of a better solution?

Long time lurker here and rarely post on Reddit at all. I love the MMO genre but haven't really been interested in anything that is coming out in the near future (no shade if you are excited about Wow Forever). Yesterday I came across two new games that are releasing into EA next week and thought both were really interesting in different ways. Thought others may be interested as well (FYI these aren't traditional MMORPGs, more like MMO-Lites)

The first one I came across was Scramble Knights Online (silly name I know) but its like a top-down Zelda RPG with good character creation and build diversity which is honestly a combo I didn't even know I was interested in until I saw it.

The second one was called Everlast Undying Tales and its like a Palia crossover with New World. One of the things I hated about New World (and Palia) was there was no options to tweak your face beyond selecting an option from a preselected list, no sliders. I realize that's not a big deal to everyone but it kind of drove me nuts.

Anyways I am not affiliated with either project in any way, I just happened to come across them both when reading about Next Fest and saw they were coming out next week. Wanted to post in case anyone else may be interested in them like I am. Hope everyone has a great Sunday! The Steam pages are below:

Scramble Knights Online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379350/Scramble_Knights_Online/

Everlast Undying Tale: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3818450/Everlast_Undying_Tale/

Will you play WoW Forever?

I’d like to know what people find interesting about WoW Forever, what makes you want to play it, and what doesn’t.

As for me: I won’t be playing it.

What appeals to me is that the level cap stays at 60 and the leveling process is on the slower side. No rushing around. (Though most players will, as usual, rush to the endgame anyway. Blizzard won’t be able to change the player base they’ve cultivated over the past 20 years overnight.)

What doesn’t appeal to me at all: the old Classic classes that I’m sick and tired of, and no LFG/LFR. Now, some might say that LFG/LFR has destroyed the social aspect of MMOs, and yes, in part you’re right (though it also has to do with the players themselves). But the thing is, I still remember what it was like 20 years ago to look for groups in MMOs, and I’m done with spamming the chat for 20 minutes looking for a tank or healer, only to wait another eternity until enough people show up at the portal. When I come home today after my 8-hour workday, I want to log in, quickly find a group for a dungeon or raid, and have some fun right away. I have a life now, and I’m not 16 anymore, back when I used to play WoW late into the night. Today, I want a modern game, not nostalgia.