By Jim Rossignol on November 23rd, 2011 at 11:35 am.
Miner Wars 2081 is an astonishing thing, really. It’s a freeform mining, trading, and building game, based around the mining of vast voxel asteroids – and that can be accessed now at a sort of tech-demo level by preordering, with the full game due in the Spring – but it’s also going to be an MMO, which will apparently arrive in the Winter of next year. Yes, I can hardly believe it either, but that’s the plan. I’ve had a few glances at the steadily updated alpha client over the past year, and the work is certainly continuing apace, and you can see some of that in the awesomely narrated trailer, below. There’s apparently going to be a public demo before long, too, so we’ll keep an eye out for that. I suspect that this could be one of those games that really rewards a community getting involved, or at least it will be when that multiplayer aspect of it opens up. The satisfaction of chomping up asteroids and fighting off privateers as a group could be quite something.
23/11/2011 at 11:47 Ovno says:
Mighty, pre ordered this ages ago, haven’t messed in a while though might have to have another go, if I can ever pull myself away from bf3 anyway…
23/11/2011 at 11:49 MeestaNob says:
Oooooooh!
23/11/2011 at 11:50 NaN says:
This game ship and somehow environment reminds me to:
http://youtu.be/h7eREddMjt4
are they related?
23/11/2011 at 11:54 Jabberwocky says:
Nope, different game, different people.
23/11/2011 at 11:53 Jabberwocky says:
It’s gotta be a coder narrating that. Only a coder could say “Voxel” with that much excitement. ;)
Neat game. I like how they’re getting the community involved as they progress towards an MMO.
23/11/2011 at 11:54 Squishpoke says:
From that trailer, it looks like they improved the game dramatically since the very early alpha I played last year.
I’m more excited about the “space station” level editor, which means Descent can be born again! Don’t get me wrong, the flying around in space was cool, but it was kinda boring because the ships are too small and space is too boring.
23/11/2011 at 12:33 Angryinternetman says:
I bought this game ever since the first RPS article and forgot it existed.
23/11/2011 at 12:37 ntw says:
“Reading things off a list”
23/11/2011 at 12:43 Javier-de-Ass says:
not such a bad thing when the list is as awesome as this
23/11/2011 at 12:47 Grimm says:
And here I thought that Voxels died with NovaLogic’s flight sims. It looks amazing. I wonder if anyone from Descent is working on this game, apart from Dan Wentz, the sound guy.
23/11/2011 at 12:51 maktacular says:
For some reason i thought this looked like it might be possibly linux compatible. i have been well and truly spoilt be the various Bundles. Still looks great though.
23/11/2011 at 13:12 JackDandy says:
I’ve been keeping my eye on this for a while now, trailer looks very nice.
I’ve been wondering what kind of game they can create with that engine of theirs.
23/11/2011 at 13:35 Gnoupi says:
I tend to cringe each time I read “state of the art-something”.
The demo of this game shows a promising tech. Now I only hope that it will actually feel like a world, and not just some empty thing.
I’m aware that space, by definition, is mostly empty, but still.
23/11/2011 at 13:50 Network Crayon says:
It’s like descent meets minecraft…
The Narrators voice is very annoying.
23/11/2011 at 14:43 KingCathcart says:
Is six degrees of freedom anything like six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
23/11/2011 at 15:35 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
No. There is no known way of linking “left” and “up”. Science tells us so.
23/11/2011 at 18:42 vecordae says:
If skimming the titles of various fanfictions for laughs has taught me anything it is that any two things can link up given enough incomprehensible narrative.
23/11/2011 at 15:38 nimzy says:
This reminds me of Allegiance in a good way. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go find some people to play Allegiance with.
23/11/2011 at 16:17 Consumatopia says:
There seem to be a couple of attempts to make Minecraft-ish building in outer space, but I wonder if that really makes creative sense. Because the setting of Minecraft is terrestrial, then can you can build structures that human can relate to. You can build cottages, mansions, castles, temples, churches, skyscrapers–the kind of modern and historical buildings we’re familiar with.
Once you’re in space and you’re given a set of blocks or modules that look like space station/ship pieces, then everything you build is going to look like a space station or space ship.
Of course, it’s probably cooler to fight inside space stations and rock tunnels than empty space.
23/11/2011 at 16:22 Chaz says:
Looks like the sort of thing that should be right up my street. I’m very tempted to splash some cash in this right now, but is there much of a game in there at the moment to play around with and get a taste of it, or is it still just very much a tech demo?
23/11/2011 at 16:22 ChiefOfBeef says:
Voxels, how do they work??
23/11/2011 at 17:30 disperse says:
I’m wondering how a persistent-world MMO version of this game will work in terms of a business model. It seems like the initial voxel data could easily be procedurally generated on a sector by sector basis. However, as players start deforming the asteroids and building their own space stations they will be generating an enormous amount of data. Data Storage = Money
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t see a free to play model working for a game like this.
23/11/2011 at 23:17 dsi1 says:
Heh, you think free to play actually means free.
12/01/2012 at 13:24 mmalove says:
I agree F2P in a sandbox style game would be hard to pull off. Though, if in the spirit of minecraft F2P also means they don’t care if you host your own servers, then maybe it could work. A big part of the reason MMOs charge subs (and thus we come to expect them) is that maintaining servers, their admins, and the game masters within the virtual world all come with recurring costs that must somehow be paid for after the initial sales wave crests.
23/11/2011 at 21:41 BathroomCitizen says:
If only we could get BIGGER SHIPS
…I’m just sayin’.
23/11/2011 at 22:32 paterah says:
The game itself looks awesome even if the trailer was pretty funny. (I just loled when he said community supported by developers in “the preview man” voice :D)
25/11/2011 at 02:54 Eagle32 says:
I looks like a cool concept… but if $20 is a 50% discount I’ll pass. Plenty of great indie games that are already out that cost that or less. What makes this worth double the market rate ($15-20) for a good indie game like; Bastion, Dungeon Defenders, Monday Night Combat or one of many others.
Obviously it’s selling, but it just isn’t showing me anything that screams that it’s worth that kind of money. It feels like the sort of thing that will get to release, be priced at $40 and in a month would be cut down to $20 anyway. Then I’d feel silly if I pre-ordered it for $20 at “50% off”
03/12/2011 at 16:11 marek_rosa says:
Thanks for all your comments!
Marek Rosa
Keen Software House – Miner Wars