Miner Wars - unique indie MMO

Sikgamer

Here's an interesting new game that's popped up for you guys to look at - Miner wars. It's an upcoming indie space-based 6DOF (basically a Freelancer-style control system) game with some new features seen in very few games before, if any at all.

Miner wars is primarily about making your mark in the economy after Earth's resources have run out. You live your entire space-faring life in the asteroid belts within the solar system, selling your ore to Earth to make money which you can use to buy upgrades, new ships, etc. You have a base ship, which is like a mothership, which you use to access your interface, fast travel to other sectors of the asteroid belts, etc. ( the red ship shown in the picture is a base ship)

The different, cool thing about this mining-based game is that the asteroids aren't just static objects which you shoot your laser at for ore to appear magically in your cargo, ala EvE. The asteroids are realistic. The game engine uses a voxel system that realistically calculates the asteroid's shape and the hole you would make when firing a missile at it, so you could make a huge labyrinth or hidden base inside an asteroid. Or you could completely destroy it or break it in half (it would take a lot of explosives though). You can blast holes in them with most explosive weaponry (which can be used for more than mining, you can always follow a pirate or militant's life), and collect the resulting chunks of ore debris to sell. Asteroids have a huge variety of ore in them.

Volumetric solar wind events can literally engulf your ship. You can hide in the shadow of - or inside - an asteroid to avoid being toasted, or you can use it against your enemies.

Look at the pictures for yourself, such a unique system is hard to explain without seeing the actual website and the amazing screenshots that accompany it. Click 'Pics' at the hotbar at the top and you can see some examples of the solar wind in action.

Miner wars will be released for the PC and the Xbox 360 in both singleplayer mode and multiplayer (MMO) mode, hopefully by the end of this year. An alpha test will begin in a few weeks too. You will be able to play through the campaign, or jump straight into multiplayer and fight other players for precious ore.

Website: www.minerwars.com/

merieke82

Looks interesting. What are the elements of the multiplayer that make this mmo-like?

I see that to play single or multiplayer you will have to login but I don't see much about the social interaction between players. Sort of reminds me of an upgraded version of Descent.

Sikgamer

By MMO-like, I mean the areas of the asteroid belt won't be instanced. Similar to Eve, everything will be on one server (or more, depending on what happens later). You will be able to make custom factions with other players (similar to corps).

 

And yes, this game was somewhat inspired by Descent. Great game.