Zuroth Online: Forums Re-Opened

Happy day! I got this in my mailbox right before I went to beddy bye and it helped to explain a wittle bit about what's going on with Zuroth Online. They're recruiting artists too so read on for info:

Forums Re-Opened - October 5, 2007
Dear ZO fans!

It’s been a while since you’ve last heard from us, and we’re sorry for the lack of communication. However we do have some updates.

Zuroth Online will be taking a new approach.

We're also answering the concerns that ZO resembled SWG Pre-CU too much (even though we did have a lot of unique features), so we are going to try to distinguish ourselves more in terms of the skill system. However, we will still have the customizability, uniqueness, and player interaction that made SWG Pre-Cu what it was. What’s going to change?

1. The way skills work. You will NOT have to grind to get a full skill template in ZO. You will be able to assign your skill points in any tree, with no experience grind. However, in order to become proficient at whatever you chose to learn you will need to get experience points. Each box in a skill set has so many XP point slots, and the more XP points you assign to that box the better you will be at whatever is in that particular box. XP points will be awarded by actually doing whatever it is that box entails. You will be limited on both skill points and total XP points. You will be able to re-learn things whenever you please however you do lose all experience points and it does cost some credits in order to do so.

2. The story that we originally had will be scrapped. We plan to take ZO into more of a “galactic” approach and really create a game that makes you feel like you’re living in the Zuroth galaxy. We also plan on having more than 3 races as well.

3. A complete skill set related to Mining and Farming will be implemented. Mining and Farming will be much more than just placing objects and letting them collect. With mining you’ll be gathering raw resources and you’ll need to refine them into finer resources in order to sale. With farming you’ll need to actually grow your crop, and experiment with different seeds in order to produce better results.

4. Smuggling, and Bounty Hunting will become more of a secondary skill like piloting will be. It’ll almost work like faction.

5. There will not be 2 factions, and there will not be a main war or conflict. Instead there will be many small factions (think of wal-mart vs Walgreens, instead of United States vs Europe). Each player will be able to join many factions; however being on the good side of one faction may automatically put you on the bad side of another. You will also not “join” a faction, instead you will have to work at becoming a part of it. This should make PVP much more interesting and much more complex.

6. We’re going to be a lot more open in our design announcements. Since we’re going to be spending quite a while designing some of the new mechanics we required we’re going to go ahead and get your feedback during the design phases.

7. What does this mean for a release date or beta? At this point we really can’t tell.

8. PVP: will be encouraged by Arenas, and Battlefields. If players choose to do so they may focus more on PVP and make a pvp geared character.

9. PVE will be encouraged by world dungeons. It was a hard decision to make, but we’re going to greatly limit the amount of instances that we have in the world. This has its ups and downs but we feel we can effectively control the down sides to this.

I would also like to say that you probably shouldn’t expect any screenshots, alpha’s, or beta’s any time in the near future. However we may post concept art and future models every once in a while. We will be here though on the forums letting you know what we’re currently working on concept wise so that you may critique it and offer your suggestions.

We’re happy to have you back! If you have any questions about the new changes in development, please post a message on the forums.

-Netrex

P.S. We’re also recruiting some new talent in the 2D art department (Concept art, Website Graphics, and UI Art). Please send an email to staff@untiedgames.com if you’re interested.