End of Janurary Update

We have been working hard over the last couple months, trying our best to bring everything together for everyone, and we wanted to make sure we correct one assumption that is floating around. We are currently NOT funded. We are in the process of negotiations that would do nothing but better our future, but we had to pull out of Kick Starter due to the chance of scope and date change of deliverables to our community. It was a hard choice, but we chose to not go down that route due to the nature of our on going conversations. We do not want to say any more until things are in stone, one way or the other. I do want to say this though, no matter what it will not affect, stop, or hamper any release plans we have in effect. We will not allow the game design to change from what we have planned and we will not introduce any models that we do not feel are right for the community that is interested in Origins of Malu.

So with that out of the way onto the update!

State of Development Updates for January, 2013

• Dynamic Quest Systems in progress, we are getting ready to show some of the magic we have planned for our community in terms of how we are handling quests, but in saying that Origins of Malu is not a quest centric game. This may not make a lot of sense at first, but one of the last things we want to do is introduce boring time sinks with lore and story that no one reads (just hitting next without reading NPC dialog). So we put a slight spin on it. We will be announcing more soon regarding this but we are excited to share.
• Development of the video got delayed a bit, but it is just around the corner here. It is another story based in game video and we hope you will enjoy it.
• Ability Talent tiers for spells have been finalized and we are working hard on implementing them. As we have stated before there are no classes and you define your character the way you see fit. There will be some rules, but we are trying to make them as minimal as possible. Our only real concern here is introducing game breaking gameplay, but so far we are confident that it is working as designed.
• Major content updates coming in the next 2 weeks, we will be updating the:
  • Faction Section: Complete overhaul with more detail to ensure people can pick up what we are putting down.
  • Crafting Section: Addition of crafting pages.
  • The World: New world features with more lore detail and screenshots of the structure of Malu.
  • Races: More features coming into our new races pages with more related lore material to absorb.
• Account management systems are going to be coming online to support registration for Beta that is coming
• The initial housing pieces for Beta are completed. We will be posting a preview of the pieces and what you need to know about them - Coming Soon!
• We had to go back and resolve animation issues with the Toljon female. We have completely overhauled her and we are now at a place of Zen with her animations.
• We have implemented some tweaks to our environmental sounds to sort spacial sound issues.
• We have been in communication with our friends over at flagship about integration of Ventrilo within OOM. We are looking forward to this and we will report back soon.
• We have just finished a server side event management system. We will be able to use live for events, as well as trailers and more video content for our fans.
• Our items database is growing daily with lots of goodies that all will enjoy!
• Caves, Caves, and more Caves! The large underground network of Malu is starting to take shape nicely. If you venture down below be careful how far you go. You may find yourself getting lost. I know I have, many times...
• Relic bind stones have been added to the world. These are a part of technology that have been left behind and are more then just bind stones.
• Dynamic shadowing clouds are now in engine as well. This we left for awhile but it's another small direction to improve the environment goodness.
• Dyes have gone into the engine be on the look out for a content release in the coming weeks showing some customizations

Origins of Malu Beta Update

First lets try some good old fashion honesty. We lost the time of a couple key dev's for a bit due to family issues and it put us behind schedule. This is what happens, I am afraid. We do have a large team for the size of a indie, but any loss of contribution is deeply felt. We have since recovered but it has come at cost. So let's get to the some details about Beta.

• The Beta date has been moved back to March 30th, 2013. We do not expect any further delays.
• The Beta forums will be opened up tomorrow for questions and answers concerning the beta. So feel free to ask all your burning questions and we will do our best to answer them as fast as we can.
• The Beta will be a closed beta to test systems and scalability.
• The Beta registration will be hosted by Alienware and you will be able to sign up on AlienwareArena.com. This will  be launched towards the end of February.
• We will release 20,000 Beta key through Alienware only. However, long time, active community members will be treated to a key and so will people who backed us on Kick Starter before we pulled the plug.
• Combat and faction wars will be a major point of the beta. One of our goals has always been large scale battles and this is our chance to test it on that scale.
• Testers will have access to around roughly 100 km. squared to explore.
• After this phase of Beta completes, another phase will follow. Once you have a key you are set for all future beta phases.

From the Designers

We are getting closer everyday and we are quiet for a reason. We want to make sure we deliver this well. Once we are happy and proud of our systems we will go hardcore on getting ourselves out there. Like many gamers, we too have fallen victim to many bait and switches. So we would rather release smaller, with more realistic expectations, and grow from there. We are making this game for the community and for now this our cozy little corner. We will continue to build this game to best of our ability.

Thank you,

Origins of Malu Team