Asleep for too long...

After a year in hibernation, Qweeg finally rises from his slumber.  But the world has moved on in his absence; would be colonists have begun to arrive in ever increasing numbers; skills now matter; and worst of all, Qweeg is no longer the mighty hunter he once was.  Past achievements and glories have been long forgotten - and a new breed of hunter has arisen: brash; strong; and better equipped than Qweeg.  For the first time in as long as he can remember he feels a pang of fear as he readies himself to confront what lays ahead.

Time to take a deep breath and venture out to see what this strange new, but at the same time familiar, landscape this has in store for him...

Band of Brothers

Introduced my brother to Pion this week and last night went out on his first team hunt.  We tackled Overseers, one of the tougher mobs on Ion, and probably the ones with the most health - so much easier to hunt in a team.  

Clearly he brought Qweeg good luck as after only a short time we looted this!

Top spot on the All time high list - so a good night indeed; and a nice introduction to the game for my brother.  

Hopefully he will stick with it after that.

Qweeg and the death of the Mutant Spiders

Making videos is obviously an art form - as I found out making this.  But a short insight into the dangerous environment of Ion as Qweeg battles courageously against the deadly Mutant Spiders:

Bits and Bobs

Okay so the last post in a whistle-top tour of the game.  After this the blog will focus more on Qweeg's adventures; and new features as they come along.  In terms of wrapping up this overview there are a few features that need to be covered:

Team hunting:

Team of up to 10 can be set up to take on tougher challenges (for example the spaceship).  The are various loot distribution methods for this - equal share, damaged based etc. so it should be possible to find something that everyone is happy with.

Storage:

Each of the settlements have storage facilities where you can dump stuff you don't want to room to carry about.  Currently there is no avatar weight restriction, but again I imagine this will arrive in time, making storage much more important.

Storage is unique by location, so items stored in the storage facilities at Zion can only be retrieved from there - not from storage facilities elsewhere.  This is the same model as AW, but differs from Entropia.

Recycling:

All settlements have recycling facilities.  Items cannot be repaired, and over time wear out and break.  Broken items (or items near to breaking) can be processed through the recycling terminal to produce raw materials that can be used in crafting.

Globals and HOF:

Any loot with a value of over 50 PID is flagged as a Global, and if your loot is one of the top 25 of the day it is classed goes onto the daily Hall of Fame (HOF) board.  There are also all time HOF boards.  Lists are stored for all the areas that globals can occur in:

• Hunting
• Mining
• Recycling

Behind you!

And on finding a global or HOF, as well as the loot, you are rewarded with a fanfare and nice screen animation:

Is that an Adjusted Prototype X, I spy in the loot?

And that's it - next up:  The continuing adventures of Qweeg.

On a personal note - I am astounded at how much has been achieved by effectively a 2 man development team.

Next year promises to be an extremely exciting one for the inhabitants of Project Ion!

Location, Location, Location

Here is the current extent of the PI world.  Overall I believe it represents a 64Km2 area (it certainly feels like that if you try and walk from end to end!)

As shown in addition to the general landscape, the land consists of 3 settlements, an Oil Rig, Spaceships, and a PVP area.

In fairness the term settlement is a little grandiose at the moment.  They are areas with crafting machines the odd NPC and a teleporter.  This means fast travel is possible between each of the 3 locations, which makes getting around a lot easier.  

Should you die out in the wilderness you will revive at the nearest settlement.

You can also choose to revive (perhaps you have run out of ammunition and need to restock).  Effectively this is the same as dying.

The 3 settlements are:

• Zion:     This is the place where new players spawn.  It contains storage, recycling facilities, crafting services, and a teleporter.  The area around here is mostly populated with robots of various types.

• Babylon:  This settlement has all the same facilities as Zion but additionally has a Pawn Shop.  Here items can be bought or sold and will be a vital place for restocking during your days in PI.  Baby Spiders to the South East; Big Scary Spiders to the South West.

• Travelers point:  Similar to the others, but has a different NPC - Mr Fixit.  Nothing can be sold to him, but he does sell basic equipment, and not always the same prices as the Pawn Shop.  Overseers, and a couple of smaller mobs to the West.

The Oil Rig:  Those of you with an Entropia background will know what this is.  Basically its an area that spawns barrels of Oil and Uranium, which can be collected simply by running over them.  

The area is PVP so you could be killed by other players here.  Also the rig is surrounded by Mech Elite robots (the toughest mob I have found so far) - so it's not for the faint-hearted.

Spaceships

There is an area in the North East where a crashed and several hovering spaceships can be found.  One of the ships can be boarded and searched for treasures - but the area is again surrounded by really tough robots.  Qweeg has yet to make it to the ship - so more info will follow in a future post.

Crafting 101

And so to the third profession - crafting.  Here things are a little different from other, similar games - but overall the concept is straightforward and has a lot of potential.  

One thing to note is that currently almost every item that can be crafted, can also be looted though, so the need for crafting is lower at the moment.  As more players come on board and the economy gradually becomes self supportive I am guessing more and more items will be craftable only - but time will tell.

In essence crafting is a 3 phase process:

• Raw materials are processed into refined materials    --> 
• Refined materials are manufactured into components --> 
• Components are assembled into usable items.

There are 3 processing areas - one for each of the above:

• The Alchemy service 

• The Component service

• The assembly workbench

Finding out recipes is a challenge - you have to place items into the processing area to see what can be made with it.  Refining raw materials will often yield more than one item - for example refining wood produces both wood planks and wood fibre.  And Refined materials are often used in more than one component.

Other than that the crafting process is straightforward, simply drag the item you wish to use into the particular manufacturing machine window and away you do - no need to click for hours and hours, just select the amount you wish to manufacture and providing you have the resources needed the items will be produced.

There are a few Refined items that can be refined a second time to produce a completely different refined resource - so always try out things in the machines, sometimes you will come across a surprising result.

It's a minefield out there...

Okay shorter post here, mainly because mining is really in its infancy at the moment.  The concept is simple:  You need a Finder, some mining probes, and an extractor.  Currently there is just one type of each so no concept of better equipment yielding better; rarer; or deeper finds.  But, the mechanics are there and I'm sure in time this will be an area that is expanded upon.

Using your finder will drop an explosive probe an bring up a new radar screen.  Should something be found it will be shown on this radar.  Then it is just a case of heading over to it and using your extractor to draw out the resource.

The only thing to bear in mind is that the mining radar is fixed, so that north is always at the top of the screen (unlike the main radar, which rotates along with your character).  So you just need to align yourself correctly before heading off to dig up your claim.

Simples!