Hey all,
Just thought i'd update the good people of LOMCN with what’s happening over at Meteora HQ! And to tell you not to worry we're not dead. :P
Firstly a little history.... :P
The server has been hosted on a dedi server in Holland since August last year, this was so all members of the team could access the files and add things ready for closed beta. We started closed beta middle of September, we used this period to balance all the item, monster and experience statistics. Closed Beta was conducted on thedeaths 2.3 emulation files because are files were far to buggy to allow players on. We then moved into Open Beta and onto our files, unfortunately all the offline work we'd been doing wasn't quite up to scratch and a lot more bugs were found. The server has been online pretty much 24/7 since starting Open Beta and the team have been working on fixing bugs and adding in quest ready for live.
Where we are now....
We been through our bug list (100+ bugs, was a pretty big list :P ) and belive we have been pretty successful in eradicating most of them. We currently only have two more large bugs to fix and then we will start thinking about a live release. As well as plugging through our bug list we have added some nice new features. Here are some screenshots of what’s happening on the server at the moment.
You'll notice under the screenshot information we had the idea of adding NPC faces to all the NPC texts. The weapon in this screenshot is one that i have made from scratch using Photoshop.
This screenshot shows Valefor, the boss who live in TempleOfValefor in Lithium glades. He attacks like MK, but hits a lot harder. :P
This is Lithium Glades, one of the two new provinces that are incorporated into the lands of Meteora at the moment. We also have two more provinces made and ready to be added. Map made by myself.
This is the hazardous Netherstorm Rift. At the moment it is just and extra leveling area connected to Horizon City, but in future updates it will link Horizon City and one of the new provinces mentioned above. All maps made by me.
Horizon Forest links the two new provinces, Horizon City and Lithium Glades. The Horizon Forest maps were all made by me, there are 7 floors and two different routes between the two provinces. There are two bosses in Horizon Forest, one shown above.
Black Rock Cavern is located on the West island of Lithium Glades. It's a hunting area for players around the 38-40 level. It has 3 big floors, which were made by me using the PSC/PC tiles. Incubus, the boss in Black Rock Cavern is a group boss and is pictured above.
Horizon City, the other new province. It is connected to Bichon via Ant Hill. Horizon has 4 leveling areas connected to it, Ant Hill (to BW), Horizon Forest (to Lithium), Netherstorm Rift, and Tenchu Temple. The entrance to Tenchu Temple is on an island West of the city and can only be accessed via a hidden underground passage.
Tenchu Temple KR. This hutting area is for levels between 33-38. The boss, TenchuNode, is killable with a small group of 2 or 3 38+ characters.
There are also two sub bosses in the KR for people that are not quite high enough to take on the Node!
This is our added stats feature. When you level up you are rewarded with stat points which you may use to increase any of your characters stats. We are still ironing out a few bugs with the numbering, but it all works just have to know your times tables :P
The name colour of the item indicates how rare it is (Grey < White < Green < Blue < Orange). All items (bar 8) in Meteora are new, we also have a few new item skins. There are no item "sets" so to speak, just a broad range of different items.
The above feature was added just two days ago. We have completely re-coded the magic system. You will now get a different icon for every level of your spell (Not quite finished yet). (Excuse the map that's a test client and doesn't have all the latest maps.)
So there is an insight into what’s happening with the server i hope you like the look of it. I know it's not been the fastest server development ever but the team and i have spent far to much money (I've spent £150 of my own cash on the dedi so far), effort and time for this server not to go up perfectly.
If you would like to try out the remainder of our Open Beta period please head over to our forums (
www.globegaming.co.uk) and take a look at the download post in the Announcement section of our forums. There will be a wipe before the live launch of Meteora so don't put in to much effort, but just log in, look around, and leave some feed back.
We are still working on the server and we feel we are getting close to having everything working like we want them to, watch this space.... still. :P
- Lind
