MMORPG Center has a preview up on their website of Mythos, which talks about the game’s features as well as races.
As a player you will spend lots of time questing, crafting, and exploring new location for PHAWT LOOT!!one ( yes I used this again cause I find it funny and sometimes annoying see WOW), and fun alone or with friends in party. There is also an open pvp system located on a pvp location named Shadow Lands, where when you get killed, you loose an item every time a player kills you, and he gets that item and vice versa.
After playing the game a few days, now in Closed Beta phase, i got to say that it one of those great polished games even when they are Closed Beta. Mythos shows much potential with great and fun gameplay features, played casual or more, great graphics and atmosphere, free to play, ill say this is gona be the Free MMORPG of the year in our book.
The official site has also been update with news of the stress test:
Looks like a lot of you showed up today. Over 800 by 10:30am. That is fantastic! Thanks for coming! What this means to you, however…
… is that we are going to crash the game server at 12:00, or shortly thereafter. We’ll bring the servers down just prior to that, so we can set it up to bring only one game server back up. Once we blow it up once or twice, we’ll bring the cluster back up with all the game servers on, and we’ll be back to normal. So you will experience some short-term disruption of service today - that’s how you know it’s working!
All alliterations aside, at around 12:00pm PDT (GMT-7) Friday we will be conducting a stress test on our servers to see how many people we can cram into the least amount of servers possible. This is your chance to try and break Mythos.
Just hop on into the server at around Noon and play like you normally would. The servers may get a little laggy or jumpy, but that’s what we’re looking and some-what hoping for. See you then!
Flagship Studios would like to express our deep gratitude towards our Asian beta players. Your advice and reports have served to improve Mythos in every way.
We look forward to bringing back Mythos to Asia after we have localized the game and prepared local servers to begin local beta testing.
It has been a wonderful experience directly interacting with our Asian testers. We consider it an honor to participate in creating Mythos with gamers from the best gaming countries in the world. It is with regret that we must pass you on to our talented partners, HanbitSoft, but we have total confidence in their abilities and plans. They will depend on you for localized testing to make Mythos as good as it can be in Asia. Thank you again for your dedicated assistance and we’ll see you soon!
Thanks goes to MyG member FlashBloodletter for the heads up. The official Mythos website is reporting that they are now limiting the Closed Beta of the game to people in English speaking countries (or more correctly countries that have the same publishers, as the other countries all have different publishers and different localised versions).
While this may be annoying to some of you, don’t fret too much, as localised versions of the game in those countries will hopefully appear soon too, so you can play on those and in your own languages.
If you are a member of Mythos’ Closed Beta Test, we hope you’re enjoying the early taste of our free-to-play MMORPG. And we’d like to reassure you that the closed Mythos Beta continues apace.
In fact, things are going so well we’ll soon release Mythos to a much larger audience — we’ll open our doors and our test. However, before we can truly call our Beta open for business, a few things absolutely must happen. The top of all our lists say the same thing: “Who gets to play?”
Please understand that the Mythos Closed Beta Test was designed for English speaking audiences (North Americans, really). When we do open our Beta, we simply cannot have certain countries playing a semi-functional Mythos designed for territories that are not their own. These people won’t be getting the ideal localized experience we intend. Furthermore, we do still need to establish distribution deals with third-parties in foreign lands to ensure Mythos gets published and supported in the absolute best way possible.
Because of this, this week the Mythos Beta Test will no longer be made available to the following countries:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Cambodia, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mongolia, Macao, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
We sincerely apologize to you if you currently reside in one of the above listed countries and can no longer play Mythos. We hope you understand that this is very much a test and has always been a test.
Thank you for your patience. If you feel the need to vent, please send an email our way. Your plight won’t fall on deaf ears.
TenTonHammer has an interview up that they conducted with Travis Baldree and Max Schaefer, which looked at things like game features as well as the question of open beta.
Q: Talk about ingots some. How will you introduce items that are good enough that players want to buy them while still making sure that players who do not spend money can get the best items in the game? Can you give us an example of an item that we might purchase with ingots?
A: Every day we come up with new things that players could purchase. Our rule of thumb is that it should be cool, but it shouldn’t be necessary. And we won’t just sell the cool items. The sort of things we’ll sell are potions that give a boost to experience, or a shared account stash, or cosmetic items that make you look cooler than anyone else. Down the road, we’ll add guild houses, hopefully player housing, but that’s the direction we’re taking. We don’t think that buying the coolest items is fun for anyone. We want you to have to earn your loot, whether you’re paying or not.
Q: What is the plan to deal with gold spammers and other griefers?
A: We’ll try to design systems such that gold isn’t the be-all, end-all that it is in some games so there’s less incentive to farm. There will always be griefers, but we’ve tried to design our game play such that there’s just not that much griefing that you can do. Plus, we have ignore lists so you can immediately tune out the obnoxious, and good CSR tools so we can police complaints.
Q: When is Open Beta?
A: Open Beta will begin very soon. We won’t set a date because our criterion is not “when” but “what.” When we’re satisfied we’re ready, we’ll open it up. I can say that we’re looking to do that very soon.
Q: When will Mythos launch?
A: Again, it’s more of a “what” than a “when,” but it will be this year for sure. It won’t be too long before we’re able to give better and more accurate answers, but it sort of depends on how the Open Beta progresses. We have an aggressive schedule of additions and improvements we’d like to have in place.
Head over to their site to see the rest of the questions and answers.
GameSpy has a preview of Mythos up on their website. They talk about what the gameplay is like, the different game modes and the races.
Good news indeed for the lapsed Diablo II fan, or just about everyone else who craves an experience that can be light on commitment but often heavy on consequence.
Upon character creation, you’ll notice a series of check boxes next to the naming field. If you mark the one listed as “Elite,” then every monster you encounter will be stronger and more resilient (due to your attacks doing less damage across the board). The one marked “Shadowlands Only” will force your character to permanently reside in a PvP-enabled instance of the gameworld, meaning you’re fair game for all comers, regardless of level disparity. The one marked “Hardcore,” finally, does it like Diablo II. If you die in combat, regardless of the reason, your character’s gone. Internet thrill-seekers should bear in mind that you can check all three of these boxes upon character creation for an experience that’s sure to be memorable, if more than likely brief.
The four races in Mythos, at this point, amount to little more than aesthetic differences with a few tweaked stats. The three classes, however, are built to support multiple roles, offering up gameplay possibilities beyond their lean count. The pyromancer is ostensibly the “mage” class, but if you spec your character a certain way, you’ll have access to a bunch of attacks and abilities designed to keep you alive and lethal on the front lines. Meanwhile, the gadgeteer class is more or less meant to shoot stuff with guns, but if you drop points into the “tinker” tree, you’ll have access to a gang of pets that can do much of your dirty work for you.
IGN has an article up looking at Mythos. They go into a lot of detail about the game’s features and some upcoming things for the game. There is also a whole bunch of videos to go with the article on their website.
The game itself fuses elements of Diablo and Fate (an action-RPG released in 2005) and will feel familiar to anyone who experienced Iron Lore’s Titan Quest. In case you haven’t been following along, Flagship Studios was responsible for last year’s much-hyped Hellgate: London, an action-RPG dungeon crawler title that met with mixed reactions from the gaming community and media after a wonky launch and, in general, didn’t quite live up to the expectations of fans waiting for the “next big thing” from a studio founded by ex-Blizzard North executives (responsible for the previous Diablo games).
Will more classes eventually be included in the game? Schaefer says yes, but “we are not at liberty to discuss what they are yet, but it’s a safe bet that some will specialize in some of the weapon types that currently exist but don’t have a class that is optimal for them.”
Once players hit the level 50 cap, there’ll be special end-game content to act as an incentive to keep playing. According to Schaefer, Flaship will be adding, “things like a retirement/legacy system so new characters get a benefit of old retired characters…very specific rare collectibles and set-items to find, some requiring groups…rankings,…ladders, and that sort of thing.”
The game is currently in a closed beta phase and should move to open beta within a few weeks. As for a hard release date, here’s what Schaefer had to say: “We refer to [it as] our ‘commercialization’ date, which is when we turn the money on. Right now we’re aiming towards early fall, but will make the final decision when the game is ready. Development will continue as long as people keep playing, however.”
Head over to IGN to check out the rest of the article and the videos.
The 1Up Show reported on yesterday is actually a video show, and there is a video to go along with it. The official Mythos website has a small preview of it, but I also watched it and my notes that summarise the whole video follow.
The guys from 1up.com took a trip to Flagship Studios to meet with Mythos’ Executive Producer Max Schaefer. Interview covers some brief history of the game and some good old Q&A. Check it out!
Notes:
- Origins of Mythos - Originated from Hellgate. Was done to try out the new technology in a free game with same structure, but was easy to make
- Got Travis Baldree to help out on it as a one man project
- Realised shortly after that the game was fun and good enough to turn into a real project
- Easy to jump straight into for many gamers
- Many people say it’s just diablo II - but the new asthetic makes it a lot more social, many social features, lighter tones
- Marketplace, Guilds, PVP modes, Emails, Group areas
- New model of PC gaming
- Speculative things, new ways about doing work - No publisher, can set own schedule. New busoness model, going to commercialise it this year, means they are going to turn on money gains - for Mythos this means item shopping, but it won’t be for best items, but more things that help you do things faster, it’s a lot more of an Asian model, but FSS is going about it in a way that means that free play will not be gimped over the pay mode
- Game has both dark dungeons, as well as more “pretty areas” outside
- Comfortable tone of the game, people send an average of 2.5 hrs per gaming session based on data from beta
- Item system is per individual, you see your own items, based on what people wanted to see and didn’t like in other MMOs
- Social setting of being able to show off to friends - lifts the fun
- Mythos seems to fit the market a lot better than Hellgate seems to, the sort of model used for Mythos makes it easier - take expertise and technology of the big games like Hellgate and then add them to the more casual games like Mythos - fairly accessible to people and more variety of titles - makes sense for developers, publishers and gamers (Triple A Casual space)
- The three different classes are all fun
- Game using a proven formula, hard to not like it (Free, fun, accessible, great art)
The weekly 1UP internet radio/chat show has been broadcast again this Friday, and one of the topics discussed was Mythos.
Shawn, Anthony, and Jay Frechette discussing their experiences in the new MMO Mythos, including an impromptu chat with Flagship Studios lead producer Max Schaefer.
While I don’t have the time to download it and find out what they talk about, if any of you guys do let us know if it’s of any use. Thanks.
The download links for the show are on the website.
The official Mythos website has been updated with news of a new build coming later tonight.
Mythos will be coming down tonight at 5:30pm PDT (GMT-7) for about 2 hours. Included in the patch will be various PvP and Crafting fixes that a lot of people have been waiting for.
The Mythos Forums are coming down now for maintenance and will return with the new web page tomorrow. The new website will be coming up tomorrow barring no major catastrophes. The Zone 3 update will be following shortly after. Don’t forget to use your remaining invites because once the website goes down the invite system is gone forever! See you on the other side!
Mythos Guru was founded early in 2007 as the first fansite and forum ever dedicated to Flagship Studios' online game, Mythos. It caters to an international base of players and guilds. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor Hellgate Guru, Mythos Guru shares a proud tradition of sponsoring and organizing community backed projects and events, and a powerful skill calculator. More
