At Long Last... Divergence: Alpha 2 NOW LIVE

What a long, crazy voyage it's been.

In September 2013 with two small yet successful crowdsourcing campaigns under my belt, I remember thinking that surely 2014 to come was bound to be my best year yet.

What ended up happening was 12 months of backbreaking labor that, at the end of the day, didn't result in a game that was superior to the damn prototype that I had in 2013.

How is this possible? I'd like to blame one single factor or individual, but the truth is there isn't one. Rest assured, there was zero laziness. If you heard me say i was pulling 12 hour days, what i really meant was 15 and hoping my pancreas wouldn't shrivel up before it got released. However there are many games that one person can make, and this just isn't one of them. IF... I, or the community, were ok with settling for a game that needed to support only 100 people or less on a series of servers, or IF we were ok with drastically reducing the amount of customization, or perhaps going with tab-targeting instead of live combat, there would have been a game in 2014.

But the mandate the community gave me when they invested themselves in this project was there is to be no compromise. None. This is the pact that we agreed to at the beginning of this voyage, and if you're angry it's taken this long, then at least you'll be pleased to know that no such "watering down" has taken place.

This is the real McCoy.

And finally, the turning point came...

What had to happen was a long time in coming. I had to basically become an even bigger prick than I was already and start cutting ties that, by even the most gracious measurements, just plain weren't doing shit. Free help isn't free, if it costs you a year of your life. After much heated debate I ended up putting all my cards on the table and devoting to a radical new approach: To scrap the half-finished work of others and create our own networking system from the ground up so what I/we would never again be trapped under the rotting carcass of "someone elses black-boxed code".

I had no money left but my two best programmers Ana and Dan were so entirely confident that this was the right approach that they volunteered to work with me every single day for one month pro-bono to get this new alpha version of the game launched.

The result is this: Divergence: Alpha v0.001

The game that exists right now doesn't look like much, but in just one month's time we've already conquered mountains that we struggled to overcome for an entire year with the old system. It's sleek, lightweight, and most importantly 100% tailored to our specific needs because we built it with our own hands from the ground up. Nowadays we don't have to spend even one second trying to find a workout to some pre-existing system that stood in our way for literally months at a time before.

For the most part, the community was far more understanding than they should have been. If I gave some assclown $100 expecting to be in a new version of the game in a couple months and it took a year, I'd be one mad sumbitch. It's because of this incredibly supporting attitude from the community that anytime anyone did "turn on" me or the project, I took it really seriously and it was basically because I felt like i was letting someone down simply because i couldn't duplicate myself and have 5 me's all working on the game instead of just the one. In actuality, If we waited another month to push the game, it would absolutely, absolutely be even better than it is now.

However, i just cannot risk losing even one more friend I made back in 2013 to the ravages of time; This has to happen now. Now, damnit.

Special Thanks To:

My two guardian angels for this push were Dan and Ana; Putting in 14-18 hour days for the past month to make this launch happen. We literally all worked back-to-back rising and sleeping in shifts. If you see anyone by those names on our forums, please shower them with praise.

Also a huge thank you to Austen Lindsey for keeping us afloat when we hit rock bottom, as well as Corey, Mattis and all the crazy people who contributed financially to the cause from out campaigns and web store. It literally wouldn't have been possible without you.

And so without further ado, I'm releasing the first new version of Divergence in over a year to the general public for immediate (and hopefully ravenous) consumption by the masses.

This is NOT an MMO that exists in a series of dozens if not hundreds of servers. The game world you're going to be entering is the only one in existence. If you know anyone else on planet Earth who plays this game, they're in the same server. It's because of this feature that anything we do in this game is exponentially more difficult to accomplish than it would be in (what passes for) an MMO of today.

Harder, but absolutely worth it in our opinion, because the things you will do are undeniable to everyone else in the world.

Who can play?

Right now, anyone can download the game, make an account, log in, make a Homo-Sapien character and enter the game world. Alpha/Gold level contributors, rest assured, you aren't getting screwed over, because that's all free-users can to is "look". You're still the only ones who can actually affect things in the world.

Species and race permissions are LIVE. If you bought the Ennie perk, guess what, you can be a tiny lizard. If you bought a killer Vindicator, you can make that character as well. If you're gold, you can make synthetics, lokri, all that stuff. 

To gain these permissions, all contributors need to do is drop me an email at ethan@divergence-online.com with the name of your account and we'll hook you up just like in the prototype game.

In the future, i'd love for that to be automated but as it is right now, it's lower on the totem pole than "actual game features" so guess who get's to do the bitch work and add all those permissions by hand? ;)

Also this is the 64-bit version of the game. If you have an old crappy computer running 32-bit windows, you're going to have to chill for the time being until I have the time to deploy for that platform when we start building for linux and mac os as well.

Here are a list of things you shouldn't bitch about:

• The patcher looks like suck.
• I have to click the X after i make my account to get back to login and login with it.
• What, no music in the login screen?!
• I clicked a million keys at once and fragged character creation! (just restart it fool!)
• Some of the game windows are grey instead of  cool-blue like they should be right now!
• I paid $5 a year ago and i can't kill people who paid $1000 yet?!
• Some animations aren't 100% perfect.
• Sometimes, to open the chat window, i have to hit enter TWICE!
• It's too dark at night!
• It's not dark enough at night!
• I walked for ten miles then fell into the ocean and now i can't get out.
• Between 5:50pm and 6:pm in the game world the water looks stupid!
• I can't catch the birds.
• I stared at the sun and now i'm blind.

This version 0.001

Everything is going to be much, much better before we even consider considering any kind of release on Steam or otherwise. You're only reading this because you're an early, early adopter.

Will there still be another campaign and if so when?

Absolutely there will be. My original promise was that there wouldn't be a new campaign until one very simple thing was accomplished: turrets that players can place to defend their homesteads from interlopers. Are we there yet? No. Are we at least on the game-board? Absolutely. What was once a "Here's how we might be able to do it with the current system" is finally "We know exactly how to do that".

Let The Games Begin!

As always, thanks so much for your support guys. I'm very glad to say that you'll be seeing new updates on a regular basis as we push newer and bigger versions of the game each week.

The next thing i do will most likely be to start describing the actual instructions on how to play and make things happen, so check back here soon!

Download Here!

Divergence: Online - Alpha 2 Installer

New Major Update Coming

Short update just to say that I've been planning on making a major update for the past two weeks but still waiting on one update to our internal system that'll allow me to show it functioning which I expect will be ready around Tuesday of next week if all goes well.

Keep your eyes open!

New Divergence Wallpaper: The Northstar

Just a quick update to disseminate a new image to everyone following the game.

What I love about this scene is that players of our prototype game will recognize the actual in-game geography of the setting, such as the "twin peaks".

They'll also finally understand why I went to such great lengths to convince people not to build houses in the area surrounding the actual crash site, so that their stuff wouldn't be smashed under the weight of a falling ship from space ;)

Here we have DC personnel, lead by Ennie guides, showing soldiers the crash location of other "offworlders"; In this case, the Omicron capital ship "OSV Northstar", Shortly after planetfall, OSI survivors are already busy trying to assemble some semblance of a base camp outside the wreckage of their ship. They should work fast, because who knows how long until survivors of other rival organizations (such as DC) will discover their location and find them in a quite vulnerable state.

Enjoy!

First Player Vessel and Community Contribution Opportunity!

So the plan was originally to make our big showcase all about "This is what a player-owned ship looks like in our game" and make a big deal about how the players themselves actually obtain and express power in Divergence.

This ship was designed and implemented for a gentleman named Austen Lindsey who made a large enough investment to keep our doors open for a good period while we worked on the rest of the game.

Please note that, as Austen is aware, that there is no sum of money that would convince us to deviate from our core strategy of "hardcore". In this case, and as the case with the islands we've created for players and many other unique objects, management and protection are entirely the owners responsibility. For example, Austen's character is a clone of the ship's existing actual (see-also "captain"), however he knows full-well that this is an actual role-playing game and his character is no more than a heartbeat away from having some young upstart take him out of the equation to seize this seat for themselves. That's why, after much discussion, we came up with an idea.

We talked it over and decided to make an event out of allowing the players to propose a name for this, their first base of operations on Rook. It's a sly move on his behalf, I'll admit, getting his roots in deep and early, cultivating loyalty in those fellow faction-members who step aboard this massive ship for food, shelter, crafting, repairs, or whatever their motive.

Therefore, we're opening a new thread on the forums purely for proposals and discussion of this matter.

Below I've included as much relevant data I can think of that might help you clever people come up with your own ideas for a designation.

Just as a final bit of info, so you have some idea of the general formula this faction usually follows.

1. Names of influencial people, designers, engineers, financial supports. "DVSC Yashimoto" or "DCSV Tom Jones"
2. Names of notable places, such as "DCSV Saratoga"
3. Nebulous names such as "DCSV Nostromo"

Thanks for reading and good luck with your ideas!

http://www.divergence-online.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=486

-Ethan Casner

Make: Darius Conrad Space Vessels
Class: Logistical Weapons Platform
Prefix: DCSV
Length: 638m
Lifespan: Current In Service
Range: <1 Light-year from mothership

Armament: 6x Missile Batteries, 2x Heavy Rail Delivery Systems
Shielding: Kinetic + Reactive Shields
Propulsion: 3x Soren Mk3 Heavy Ion Drivers, 8x Vental Repulsorlift Emitters (For Planetary Flight)

Primary Role:
The Darius Conrad Logistical Weapons Platform serves primarily as a troop and fighter carrier with it's 300m of internal runway and maintenance-bays. Additionally this platform allows for emergency planetary landings via 6 extendable pillars and a large ventral loading ramp. This platform, while primarily of use as a carrier, is also fitted with six missile batteries and two enourmous rail cannons, each capable of delivering a one-metric-ton aluminum payload at ultra-high-speed, making it ideal for sub-orbital bombardment.

Condition:
This platform sustained heavy, yet salvageable, damage on both re-entry and crash-landing just above the polar cap of the moon. It's survival, despite the destruction of three other DC vessels which were also pulled into the planetoid, was largely due to the fact that this series features eight ventrally-installed repulsorlift emitters, normally allowing for planetary flight. While crushed on impact, along with the existing landing support struts, surviving DC personnel have been working day and night trying to restore the ship's hull and systems.

Status:
This platform, currently under repairs, now serves as Darius Conrad's first and foremost base of operations on Rook. While a makeship city is slowly appearing in the snowy bluffs surrounding the ship, the other factions know one thing about DC, "DC does not stay put". It's believed that from this frozen tundra, once established, DC will make efforts to spread to other, more hospitable parts of the moon.

Keep your eyes peeled!

So you've had a look into our new in-depth character creation system from our last post and some of the bugs that were listed have been purged, one of which was the animating error. All networked animations are playing nice with each other which is great.  The second bug to iron out is a huge one that deals with character equipment and we are currently putting the final nails in that coffin.  Keep an eye out for our next update where we'll show off a bit of this equipment in action!

I'm also going to try and update this blog a bit more regularly to kind of clue you in on what goes on in the development cycle as it happens.

Oh, and I'm Brandon by the way...

Massive Customization Upgrade Live

Well it took longer than I'd hoped, but we're finally at the point where we can begin to show the fruits of the last several months of labor.
The speed of progress is directly linked to the fact that it's a constant struggle for me to hold onto reliable help, and that is directly linked to the fact that I can't pay them much.

So what am I doing to rectify the issue?

The goal has always bee a new crowdsourcing campaign, but when I brought it up in a poll on the website, the most vocal people not insisted, but demanded that I finish this leg of development with what was available, so that's what happened and this is the speed things get done without the financing the grease the wheels.

So you keep saying how you don't have money, but wasn't the kickstarter a success?
This is the common misconception that I fully admit to having misunderstood myself at the time. The goal of the kickstarter was a success, but how much did we actually clear out of it? Less than $11,000. No one explained to my the multitude of ways you can get cheated out of money with Kickstarter and everyone assumes (as I assumed) that "what you see is what you get", although the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

The result was, what most people perceived as a success, but the reality was I now had less than $11K to spend on the entirety of the game. This is less money in a year than the average person would make as a sandwhich artist at Subway, and yet i had to find some way of salvaging the situation. Undoubtedly, any other entrepreneur would have just declared the whole thing a flop and walked away at that moment, but that isn't a possibility for me. This game must happen. Not just for myself, but for there to be any hope for the mmorpg genre itself. That's what I believe.

So I started taking private contracts and dumping that money into the project. Thankfully I've built up enough of a positive reputation people are still willing to hire me to do custom assets, models, and other work for them, which has helped. Additionally, I opened up a web store on the website, while only making a few hundred dollars each month right now, again every bit helps when my ability to keep progress like this video going is directly related to when the two guys working for me perceive we're flat broke. It all helps. It's not enough, but at the very least it's a mechanism for helping us glide across the finish line of this milestone into a new financing campaign (you can bet your sweet ass we're going back to IndieGoGo) in the future. In the meantime, I'll be continuing to return emails and entertain all offers for independent work to keep these wheels turning. If Divergence needs blood, it'll be my blood that supplies it.

What is the technical state of the game?
The prototype has been online for a good long while now, free to play to all contributors past the $100 threshold and will remain to until it's no longer relevant. In addition, our current unity-powered incarnation of the game (that you see in the video) is also running nearly 24/7 on the same server, more or less solidly.

• The nice pile of clothing and armor models we have created need to be equippable to the character via inventory. The commands appear to be successfully being sent back and forth but the visual change is taking place. We need to find this bug and crush it.
• People don't see other people animate. Find bug. Crush it.
• The ocean creates a weird effect with the sky. Find. Crush.

These are the primary things I'm devoting myself to conquering with the help of a couple guys i've convinced to help finish this part of the game with the promise of future profits. As you can imagine, this is nearly impossible on it's own, so any and all revenue we can generate in the meantime will be immensely helpful in making this happen.

Hello there.

Hello, I am Travis (LordVe on the Forums.)

I am the Lead Programmer for Divergence, and the one you all need to take your ire out on.  It is my insistence that the Game is Stable before we allow players in, it is never fun to see all your hard work disappear due to a bug.  You will have to forgive yet another Soon^TM, but it will be Soon^TM.  With great luck, it will be Really Soon^TM.  We are not far off from being able to allow all the wonderful backers in to play around, you will be rather amazed with the game when you do. I would love to follow Ethan's Example and show some Nice screenshots, or give Detailed information, but I can't since it would ruin the surprise. Just know, we are working as hard and as fast as we possibly can and will give you what information we can.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I hope to see you all in game soon.