In its first Q&A since Dune: Awakening launched on June 10, developer Funcom responded to questions on what’s subsequent for its survival MMO, and particularly adjustments because of come to its endgame.
Funcom said it is “presently formulating a plan” to enhance PvP within the Deep Desert, which gamers have beforehand branded as “poisonous” because of griefing. Funcom has already patched out the power for gamers to squish different individuals with their Ornithopter, however senior recreation director Viljar Sommerbakk additionally revealed the group was contemplating tweaking Ornis additional, akin to equipping them with rockets that “reduces total maneuverability and max velocity”.
The group can also be contemplating making Scout Orni rockets price barely extra warmth to fireplace, one thing Sommerbakk mentioned would restrict its fight usefulness relative to the Assault Ornithopter “whereas nonetheless permitting it to be an aerial risk.”
“Now we have a variety of plans to handle [players’] factors about respawn occasions and revives,” inventive director Joel Bylos added. “Full loot is a decree that may be obtained by way of the Landsraad (so compete there if you wish to make it a actuality), there are management factors within the deep desert already, now we have no plans to scale back the DD measurement. As we work on the sport, we’ll proceed to work on making PvP extra rewarding (I’m positive you’ll observe I’m not being very concrete however that’s as a result of we’re planning and watching how persons are taking part in and discovering the appropriate factors to handle).”
Lead producer Ole Andreas Hayley mentioned: “The Deep Desert will at all times keep a PvP free-for-all space, however we would contemplate including different areas that provide factional warfare.”
“We would like gamers to make significant choices about what they create with them and how they outfit their automobiles,” Sommerbakk continued. “As soon as gamers have engaged in PvP, we wish the expertise to be dependable, responsive, and clearly understood. This determines how PvP as an entire feels and how gamers make their moment-to-moment choices in a struggle. To guarantee a extra dependable expertise in floor fight, we’re persevering with to handle points with motion desyncs and rubber banding, in addition to capability activation reliability.”
There’s additionally some high quality of life tweaks on the best way, too, together with named storage containers and automobiles, that can assist you differentiate, in addition to “deposit/extract all” buttons for water storages and the like. We must also anticipate boss encounters as a part of future dungeons because the group continues to evolve PvE content material.
Curiously, Hayley additionally teased that we might obtain extra maps sooner or later, additionally.
“The Dune universe has a variety of attention-grabbing areas and worlds to discover, and we’re wanting ahead to persevering with to construct on high of the muse now we have,” he mentioned.
Proper now, there are not any plans to make it simpler to tell apart between NPCs and different gamers — “that is according to the imaginative and prescient of the sport” — and when requested if it might be doable to skip all dialogue and animations, Bylos mentioned: “Completely not.”
We gave Dune: Awakening a Nice 8/10 in our assessment, writing: “Dune: Awakening is a wonderful survival MMO that captures Frank Herbet’s sci-fi world extremely nicely, principally to its benefit and sometimes to its detriment. The survival climb from dehydrated peasant to highly effective warlord of Arrakis is a pleasure nearly each step of the best way, and the story and worldbuilding crammed this nerd with absolute pleasure.
“There’s nonetheless a lot for Awakening to work on although, as its fight by no means actually hits its stride, the endgame is a little bit of a chaotic mess not well worth the effort, and there’s fairly a couple of technical bugs but to be squashed, however even these tough patches felt like tiny desert mice subsequent to the leviathan shai-huluds which might be this survival recreation’s great successes.”
Dune: Awakening has loved an excellent launch, with a ‘very optimistic’ person assessment ranking on Steam. Inside hours of going stay on June 10, Funcom’s survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent gamers on Valve’s platform, and hit a new high over the weekend of 189,333 players.
If all that is acquired you , be certain to take a look at all of the Dune: Awakening courses you’ll be able to select from, and regulate our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step information to the story. To show you how to survive on Arrakis, we have Dune: Awakening useful resource guides that’ll show you how to discover iron, metal, aluminium, and extra.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and guide with 15+ years expertise working with a few of the world’s largest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.