So I’m patiently waiting for this game. I’m expecting it to be something along the lines of Fate on steroids, which is a good thing.
One of the strengths of games like Mythos and Fate, as I understand it, is that they don’t require a lot of resources to develop. Well, then what gives? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that this game has been in beta for ages now. Surely this game’s development cost is starting to creep up pretty high by now.
Release this sucker already!
Heh, just going by the tone of threads in which it had come up, I used to think that Mythos had already been released, faded away, and was undergoing brief revival spurts. I was shocked when I finally realized it’s still in beta.
Yeah, it’s a long beta. The good news is that it has gotten considerably better in the last 6 months.
what? I thought it was just a elaborate doodle for them to mess with gameplay ideas or something?
I’ve been in the beta for a while, but now I’m seriously considering playing it for more than 5 minutes, since in the last update I heard about, they added the ability to create Hardcore characters. They also added Elite characters, but I’m not sure what those are.
Still, a game that allows Hardcore characters is definitely worth checking out. Now if only I could stop playing Diablo 2 long enough…
Mythos is great fun. It is Diablo2 with an updated gfx engine and some WoW UI elements.
Elite characters = “hard” mode. Mobs have more hit points, more champions, better loot, etc. You are also not allowed to respec as an elite. Spend those skill points wisely.
You can combine elite and hardcore on a character to make life really painful. All character types play in the same world, but you can only trade with characters of your ‘type’.
Mythos is a great game, even in it’s beta state…but I have played about 2 hours in the last couple of months. The problem is that it can’t measure up to a game like TQ which has far more character development choices and is offline. For me, the question has been why should I play a game that’s online (when I don’t care about multiplayer) and offers me less choice? Obviously, the only answer was “because it’s something different”. That’s not enough for me, so I’ve been using TQ as my “Diablo-like” game. Perhaps for others, as mentioned above, elite/hardcore characters will make people jump on board but that’s never been a draw for me.
So, yeah, Mythos is chugging along in beta but it left me behind…only because it failed to offer me something more than what I already have available.
Sheesh, if you just want a beta invite ask! =p
I got plenty if anybody needs one (pm with email), plus these days I think they just sent out invites near automatically from the signup on the front page. Pretty much with Equisilus on this, though I expect that to change over time. It took years for Diablo II to get to the state we remember it as now.
I had forgotten completely about Titan Quest. Except for the fun of playing coop in Mythos if you have some friends around, I think I might have to agree. I was swept up in the ‘newness’, and the fact that it was free by virtue of being in beta softening the edges. I need to clear some space to reinstall TQ now. Aiieeeee.
I’ve been trying to find a beta invite for months, since I signed up a long time ago and haven’t gotten one… pm sent.
You really don’t have an invite? I really thought they invited everybody that wanted in by now.
I have 4 left, if anyone else still needs one PM me your email address.
Gendal hooked me up. I’ll check it out later tonight. Thanks!
We’ll be going to open Beta soon after the third Zone patch ( which should also be ‘soon’, as soon as we can tie it up ).
For anybody waiting to try, that might be the best time. Some of the new features ( PVP world, dueling, mail, crafting, instance switching, more shared spaces, new race), skill balance, and the extension to the content should give it a bit more meat. The impatient can ping me with a PM for invites now, as long as you promise to drop back by after the third patch and give it a whirl ;)
I miss the days of singleplayer development. Online games seem to extend the development time by a factor of 10. I think this is the longest I’ve ever worked on anything, period. Gah!
I’m told we’ll also get a website that doesn’t look like it was cobbled together by an eight-year-old with Frontpage, and might include art, logos, and screenshots that are ACTUALLY present in the game, as opposed to decrepit alpha junk. Of course, our current site might serve to deter all but the truly interested from trying it out.
One of the strengths of games like Mythos and Fate, as I understand it, is that they don’t require a lot of resources to develop. Well, then what gives? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that this game has been in beta for ages now. Surely this game’s development cost is starting to creep up pretty high by now.
We’ve been in Beta for a while, but to be honest, calling the early releases ‘Beta’ was probably a bit generous. If we hadn’t needed to test out the backend server tech for Hellgate, I never would have let it out the door at that point, as it wasn’t cooked enough for the Beta title as far as game content went.
The total dev time on this is a bit over 2 years now, but that number is probably a little misleading. The first 6 months was just one guy, then after that there were a whole 4 of us for the next 9 months. So, nearly a year and a half with an exceptionally tiny team. We’ve slowly crept up to about 14 folks - 3 QA, 1 QA manager, 2 programmers, 1 tools guy, 1 tech artist, 1 art lead, 2 artists, a producer, an office manager, and a particle/design guy.
Our pace has been accelerating as we go, but there have had to be a few, uh, revisions, as the scale of the game kept expanding and our intial mandate changed from ‘test this technology’ to ‘make a real game out of this’.
We’re still pretty lean as far as the expenses go, thankfully, and should hit commercialization this year, a while after our Open Beta begins.
What is a particle/design guy? A guy who designs game systems and does particle animations? A guy who designs particle systems and animates them? A strange cousin to Particle Man, as presented by They Might Be Giants?
Probably the last one.
John does a bit of everything - he designs particle systems, writes quests, designs game systems with the rest of us, does level layout, fights crime.
Damn. Sounds like your next game should be about him.
Based on what you’ve said, I’d suggest you probably want to hold enough for another 9-12 months and hire a bunch more people. I realize the dungeons are randomized, but you’re probably going to need a lot more content, and some additional gameplay (mini-games, etc.) designed to go alongside the all-day hack-and-slash.
Bruce
Damn. Sounds like your next game should be about him.
We’ll just have to add it as a new playable class.
‘The Partoclast’
I don’t know though. The Bard class that beats foes to death with his armor-plated lute will probably have to be first. I can’t wait for the discordant sounds of a musical instrument repeatedly braining a goblin.
but you’re probably going to need a lot more content, and some additional gameplay (mini-games, etc.) designed to go alongside the all-day hack-and-slash.
We’ll have a full crafting system, dueling, all-world PVP, and new content out to level 30 ( it goes to 20 right now, so a significant new chunk of quests, areas, etc. ) for the next patch, which should be very, very soon.
By commercialization we should be hopefully bumping the quest content up to about level 40 or so, and we’ll have capture the flag, and the markeplace ( auction house lite ), and online rankings.
Since it’ll be free and continually under development, ‘release’ doesn’t have any practical effect on our day to day development. We’ll just keep jamming stuff in, but we’re hoping that at that point we’ll have enough of a critical mass to retain people over the 3-4 month periods between updates. Guess we’ll see!