The team behind the upcoming MMO, Monsters and Memories, is excited to share progress on the development of two new zones, Tel Ekir and Sungreet Strand, among other developments.

In a blog post from Monsters and Memories’ Shawn Lord, the game’s progress is shared with fans. Tel Ekir, a dungeon region, and Sungreet Strand, an outdoor zone north of Night Harbor, are currently the focus of the development team’s work.

The team is also hard at work on other areas, such as squashing bugs, refining existing systems, and advancing player character work. Additionally, they’ve introduced new tooling to improve the overall experience for players. In a surprise move, an open stress test was conducted on July 4th to see how the game held up under increased player loads. The test ended up being a success, providing the developers with invaluable data for the future.

The character art and concepts have also seen significant updates. The first iteration of Halfling male & female characters was modeled and implemented, the Ogre rig was integrated, and a Deep Dwarf proof of concept was introduced. Other inclusions involve diverse backpack appearances, the setup of a cleaned old Bat model to LERP, and the introduction of a Skull Staff.

On the environmental art front, the first pass of Tel Ekir was completed, and work began on placeholder textures for the gray box geometry. Other zones, like the Quarry in Sungreet Strand and the Pyrmos Ogre Fort, have seen blockouts and terrain updates.

In terms of animation, existing player combat animations have been tweaked, and new animations for Ogres and Bards have been introduced. The design team also mentioned class and ability iteration, design work for two new game modes – Hardcore & Self-found, and zone designs for the next biome, hinting at it being green and located to the north.

Improvements were made in the general tech area with numerous features, including the addition of tabs to the user options interface, the ability to disable drop/destroy confirmation, faction, and HID data additions to the /stats command printout for npcs, among others.

Significant enhancements were made to statics tooling, with world objects now having attached zonelines, configurable directions, and scheduled state transitions by time of day. Several zonelines were converted to use the new system, and improvements were made to how characters are placed on geometry when zoning in along a zoneline.

In conclusion, the recent surprise stress test was a hit and fans are encouraged to check out the VOD on YouTube or Twitch. The team appreciates the continued support and is excited to see what the future brings for Monsters and Memories.

Monsters and Memories, the upcoming EverQuest-inspired MMO by Niche Worlds Cult, recently underwent a public stress test on April 28th and 29th. The response was overwhelming, with more than 2,000 participants registering to take part in the test. In a recent update posted on May 10th, the developers provided a detailed breakdown of the test results and technical analysis.

The stress test was conducted to understand how the game’s servers would handle a large influx of players. The test revealed that the servers were capable of handling up to 1,000 players in a zone, beyond which the performance started to degrade significantly. The developers also identified several technical issues that needed to be addressed, including extended query times, database requirements, and optimizations to logging.

The team implemented a variety of contingencies to deal with the potential traffic influx into their login server and game servers. They also made modifications to the server setup and migrated to a new database management system. During the second stress test, the team slowed down player-to-server packet updates, increased time allocation to navigation, and throttled request spawn entity packets.

Despite the technical challenges faced during the stress test, the Monsters and Memories team expressed their gratitude for the overwhelming participation and the community’s feedback. The team also mentioned that they would be focusing on developing a proof of concept and doing more gameplay-focused testing in the future.

Monsters and Memories, the upcoming MMORPG inspired by classic fantasy themes, is set to hold a public stress test this weekend on April 28th and 29th. The test will consist of two four-hour sessions, one each day, with the possibility of extending testing based on conditions.

The focus of these sessions is technical stability at scale, including download and installation, in-game performance, and server performance. Data gathered from this test will help the developers plan for future tests that focus on gameplay and other specific facets of the game.

Monsters and Memories is a smaller-budget indie game in the style of a classic fantasy MMO that utilizes modern-day tools and development practices. The game is highly referential of classic fantasy themes and 70s-80s rock album covers, and its art style leverages modern engines while allowing the imagination to fill in the blanks.

The game also features simple, deliberate gameplay, reminiscent of classic era MMOs. Combat is simple, streamlined, and strategic, and progression pacing is slower, allowing persistence and ongoing involvement with the world and other players to pay off over time.

Community, identity, and reliance are at the heart of the game, with adventuring and community focus on single group activities and social experiences. Classes and skills are designed to feel familiar, with distinct identities and interdependence. Even solo play ties into a greater communal purpose.

The game’s world is living, layered, and mysterious, with a focus on scheduled and ever-changing content and NPC behaviors. Time, seasonality, factions, and relationships are used to maintain an ongoing sense of mystery and discovery. Many systems are stripped of hand-holding and overt explanation, and systems added over time focus on providing discoverable and unique ways to interact with the world and other players.