Greetings Spacefarers!
Things have certainly been busy lately here at Ion Games! The launch of the new Echoes Discord has been a huge success, and we’re so happy to see the community enjoying themselves here. We’re seeing more people interacting with forum topics than we previously saw with the old forums, and it’s awesome to be able to share more long-form content with the community. With over 500 people joining in the first day, and rapidly rising, we’re excited for the future growth of the server, and the community as a whole.
On the game development side, all hands are on deck working to bring the alpha build to our landholders at the end of the year. There has been a lot of polish put on the UI and quality of life features, as well as adding game features and content. Visually, the game continues to look even better, with more variety coming in for PoI’s as well as polishing the look of existing content.
Among the centerpieces to this month’s work is implementing the quest system, and getting it ready for showtime in the alpha. Quests will be first introduced as a way to help tutorialize the game, and get players started in Echoes of Empire. Following the completion of those early quests, players will then be able to branch out into daily quests that will send them across the galaxy on a variety of missions. Questing will be driven by pillars such as exploration, expansion, and resource gathering.
The team is also working to bring in the refueling system, another system that will be important to the core gameplay loop, and which we want players to be able to experience early on in the alpha. Ships will need to refuel at regular intervals during travel, and the capacity of your ship for storing fuel will play a role in determining how often that happens. Players will be able to interact with fueling stations throughout the galaxy, as well as on owned Ancient PoI’s. The home base will also be an option for refueling.
This month is definitely going to be a busy one for us as we continue to put the finishing touches on the build, and get ready to roll out the alpha to land holders at the end of the year. We’ll have plenty to share as we get closer, so stay tuned!