Cube Cube Rift Craft World: Trove In Open Beta

What happens when an MMORPG studio makes a Minecraftbut game? You can see for yourself now, as Trion Worlds launched Trove into open beta testing last night. The Rift and Defiance devs have a world made of big blocky voxels where you can dig and craft things, but also it's got quests and dungeons and raids and classes and skills and levelling and MMORPG-y things. You know, a bit like Cube World. But you do get to build your own cross-server base.

So there you are, in a procedurally-generated blocky world, roaming, killing mobs, going on unexciting quests, and... I'm just describing an MMORPG here, aren't I. Trove's largely one of those, but it has digging and voxels. I do like the sound of the server-roaming 'Cornerstone' bases, which gives players a small plot of land to build a home (16x16 at the base, but up to 200 tall) - a sense of home can be a real pleasure in Minecraftbuts. And it's quite interesting how Trion are soliciting designs for items and dungeons from players. And I do like the look of that Neon City biome too.

I played Trove in closed beta and it didn't grab me at all. I don't know why I tried, given that I'm not too keen on conventional MMORPGs or Minecraftbuts, but I was profesionally curious. I think I played for 15 minutes. Why am I even saying this? It's not all booth babes and bourbon, you know.

You can download Trove over here. It'll be free-to-play when it properly launches, with a microtransaction store selling things like mounts, classes, and costumes. Trion don't plan a character wipe before launch.

Here, about the first hour of this livestream is Trove: