Stuff We Know

Twin Skies is a new massively multiplayer online game which is in development by Meteor Games, which was founded by Adam Powell and Donna Williams, the creators of Neopets. Twin Skies is going to be a full 3D MMO with multiple races, classes, abilities, items, maps, monsters, NPCs, pets, and more. While the game’s primary focus is to level up and become more powerful in the game, the creators have explicitly stated themselves that they do not want to be like other MMOs, mindlessly wondering through maps killing monsters, doing the same ole’ thing over and over again. Instead, Twin Skies will be like no other game with unique social interaction and flash games to earn Meteorites.

We do know that there will be massive wars and plots in the game as well (Adam has said this himself). The Meteor Games team is also working on transportation methods with horses too (as seen in this screenshot). Perhaps this will only be available for certain classes (such as the Swordsmen). Heck, you might even be able to fly too! Who knows?

The Twin Skies world will be exceptional… QUOTE (Adam): “We have the initial designs done for a LOT of zones though, you’d be surprised if you knew how many.” The combat will also be “very engaging and exciting” (quote Adam). Not only will the combat be great, but they will “definitely going to have some form of experience/skill point system” (quote Donna) too. Adam even said in this topic that guilds will have “loads of features to help guilds migrate to Twin Skies.” I haven’t seen much about guilds yet, but apparently they’ll have those too!

The game’s expected release date is the late spring or early summer of 2009, with alpha and beta being in the winter of ‘08-’09. It will be a PC-only game (they are working on the game for Macs in emulation mode though), costing about $5-$10 a month for a subscription. Adam has confirmed some P2P details via this post on the forums: “You can probably play a small portion of the 3D game for free, and we’ll charge around $5-$8 a month for full access to the game. The website games, accounts, and forums will always be free. There’s also going to be virtual items that you can buy, but not ones that unbalance the game (ie mega-armour or buying the ability to shoot snakes from your eyes). All this may change however, just letting you know where we’re at currently.”

Right now you can do a couple of things on Twin Skies: sign up, create your character, post on the forums, play flash games, unlock achievements, earn Meteorites, compete in the hi-score tables, and use various media (such as buddy icons and backgrounds) on your computer. Right now Adam is working on a forums makeover that will integrate characters with forum accounts; the entire forums will be redone and phpBB trashed, our sources believe.

Overall, this game looks very promising and is not a lame startup with nothing to back it (Meteor Games has licensed BigWorld Technology Suites); the art is impressive and the game features will be unique because, well… they’re coming from the minds who created Neopets. ;) We can only wait for more screen shots and images for now!

Adam on Housing

Yes, we are planning guild and communal housing. This isn’t going to be in the initial release however but it’s certainly planned. And yes, guild members of a certain permission level will be able to move furniture around.

You’ll be able to set permissions on who can enter your house. You can set it to allow everybody, just your friends or a pre-determined guest list.

We’re planning to allow user-generated content in the houses, but it will have to be pre-approved (so unlike Second Life). The winners of art competitions may have their art transferred to an in-game Twin Skies item.

We’re not sure on limits to items in the houses, we’ll have to see how that goes during testing. Probably enough to cover all your walls a few times over.

Adam on Puzzle, Plots, and Quests

Puzzle based quests are hard to do, those will be probably implemented in flash and live on the TS web site. Quests are going to be a lot more interesting than simply killing and collecting, those are just the easiest ones to implement so expect to see a few in early alpha/beta.

Elevere is currently around 3 levels, we expect it to be a lot more by the time the world is more fleshed out. The first level is about 60% of the way from the forest floor and contains Petiole, the Munching Grounds, and two other zones. You’ll be able to head up to Canopy City, and down to… some really scary places

Some quests will be race-specific, but those will be in the minority. Humans will certainly be able to go to Elevere to complete the quests there.

You’ll know about the third race soon enough.

Adam on the New Forums

I’m not sure on the new forums, we just don’t have the manpower right now to finish them as we’re concentrating on the 3D world / facebook app. I’ll try and give you an updated ETA soon.

Adam on Characters

It will be a photo of your character in-game, so just change your haircut, clothes, and pose within the 3D world and your character image will change accordingly.

(Talking about character death) Not permanently… we may make you do something annoying and/or silly in order to return to life however.

You’ll be able to create quite a few characters per account, we’re not sure how many yet but it’ll certainly be a fairly substantial number.

Big apologies on the under 13 issue, it totally slipped my mind. We’re going to iron all that out over the next week. Too much going on, brain cannot cope…

Adam on the Economy

We’re not going to ruin the in-game economy before the game has launched though. Meteorites will always be a seperate site currency and won’t be redeemable in the game. You’ll certainly need to collect both Meteorites and in-game gold though. Much like honour points, gold, and badges of justice in WoW, you gotta collect them all