Shards Online Developers Talk Upcoming Content And Release Dates In Latest Newsletter
February's Shards Online newsletter is here and it is has brought some exciting news with it. Shards Online now has a $250,000 stretch goal. If $250,000 of total funding is reached, mounts will be added. They will work a bit differently than most games. Players will have to tame wild horses that can then be equipped with a saddle and armor. All pledges made previous to hitting the goal will be given an exclusive set of horse armor on the official servers.
New pledge rewards have been introduced. At $75, players will earn access to a Founders-only map containing a "bar/club" with NPCs that sell items exclusive to that map and a "one-time quest line" that will grant an exclusive reward in exchange for collecting items from around the world. At $100, players will be given access to the Founders-only map's "VIP room," which contains another NPC selling exclusive items. At $200, players will be able to select a server to feature out of the many that people search through, limited to two people who have pledged at this level every two weeks. At $300, the devs will host an event of your choice on the server of your choice.
In terms of content, both Clusters and Catacombs are currently being worked on. The first pass at connected regions has made it into the game and a cluster designed for testing will be sent out to playtesters this very weekend. The Catacombs are "quickly coming together" according to the newsletter. The Catacombs will be a dungeon that randomly changes its layout. Six new sets of armor and clothing and several new mobs are being created for the dungeon.
Various animations are being added currently. "Humanoid characters" will soon sheathe their weapons automatically when not in combat. Additionally, a "slew" of combat and social animations will be introduced to the game soon.
The bad news is that Alpha 1 has been delayed until "Spring." The Alpha 1 and Steam Early Access dates will have "at least a few months" between them. As the newsletter states, "One of our promises to the community is that we will not do a major release until we feel it's ready. Since our Alpha backers have joined the ranks of playtesters, there is no need to rush our Alpha 1 release out the door."
