The Phoenix

We knew in advance about the launches of two immensely huge games Battlefield 1 and Civilization 6 occurring more or less simultaneously, which is why we attempting to launch the game much sooner than it did. However there is a new approvals system which requires several additional review and approval steps before you're allowed to launch. Probably a good idea of Steam IMO and we support their decision to do so. However by the time it was our turn in the queue three weeks had passed since the day we originally wanted to launch and sure enough, it ended up launching late night pretty much the same day both of these huge goliath games launched.

Now I know how Weird Al must've felt finally launching UHF at the same time as Indiana Jones, Honey I Shrunk The Kids and Lethal Weapon 2; A sapling among the redwoods as it were.

But it didn't end Weird Al, and it won't end us.

In Divergence's 300 years of lore, I've had more than a few people ask me what the emblem means and where it comes from. They're curious as to why the emblem for the game appears to be the emblem of one of our three factions; VRTek. Does that imply favoritism?

In the lore (which we'd love to have the time to actually be able to freaking expose players to), it's referred to by most as the "Pasare de Foc". Translated into English, it essentially means "Bird of Fire"; The Phoenix.

In Divergence, Omicron is a civilization based on scientific advancement, federated and democratic rights for all. Darius Conrad (Conrad in Year Zero) is based on improvement through "The Bottom Line", meaning through (economic) growth. Viconye Ritek (Viconye in Year Zero) is a society based on personal reinvention through adversity in all things, which is why it takes the image of the phoenix as it's sigil. It requires no advertisement, no description, no words. It simply means, "Rise From The Ashes. Right Now. You son of a bitch".

To me. That's what it means, to me.

In the story, characters liken to all sorts of permutated variation on the same theme. "Viconye" is commonly known to be synonymous with "Perseverance" or "Endurance", etc.

You can see why we chose this emblem to represent the game. Games. Both games.

Five months ago, Divergence didn't have horses. Three months ago, it didn't have vehicles. Last month it didn't have cooking and fishing. Regardless of when sales are up and when sales are down, it has always maintained to be "better than it was the month before", and that's simply what we're going to resolve to maintain at any cost until the game(s) is/are at a state we feel comfortable "fulling launching".

Honestly, Year Zero will probably be launched first by virtue of the fact that it's less complicated. Divergence: Online, to do it the way we want to do it, requires completion and refining of systems requisite for things such as our military-synthetics (AKA Mechs) and the like that Year Zero doesn't depend on.

Over the next several weeks, you're going to notice these changes taking place. Things that look like crap will look a lot less like crap. We're adding new areas, new weapons and weapon types, and as soon as we're able (and this depends entirely on sales and our ability to pay for help) combat and mobs will be polished, polished, and polished even more.

And so without further ado; Our Roadmap:

City 1

Horse Stables where players can consign and checkout how much fun it is to ride a horse in our game. With fossil-fuel being such a rare commodity, all three factions (Including the lawless Wasteland Warriors) rely on horses as a cheap and reliable means of getting around. The stables are where horses are bred, fed, and cared for. If you like, you can even take one for a spin around a dirt track and see what you think!

Firing Range where players can work up them marksman skills without having to shoot animals or strangers in the face to do so.

Vehicle Depot where players can checkout some of the vehicles in the game, buy one, and even take one for a spin around the track to see if they like it's characteristics.

NPCs

We're working to introduce more NPCs in City 1 like our Vendor dude. These NPCs will be both factional and nonfactional and populate several areas including gunshops, various weapon and armor stores, and colorful interactions with dialogue. They'll also represent the different professions and give players a description of what it is they specialize in to help players decide on professions.

Halloween Event

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to be allowed to run a Halloween event as planned for Year Zero. It fits all the criteria, but our submission still hasn't been approved and the deadline was tomorrow. Regardless of whether we're allowed to be included in the sale or not, we'll still be running a Halloween event involving a specific Halloween-themed area (Think Darkshire) and rewards for contribution such as props, weapons, and even costumes.

Thanks a ton for all your support guys and gals - Expect big things in the near future :)

Server Maintenance Today (Saturday October 15th)

The server is down today (Saturday October 15th) while we begin our big transition to hosting both Divergence: Online and Divergence: Year Zero this coming week. We're deploying what we've already been testing feverishly on our own side and don't foresee any major surprises migrating it to the live server, so unless something unforeseen arises, the server will definitely be back online today hopefully by evening. Thanks for your patience and support!

In-Game Tutorial Videos LIVE

You bitched about it... I mean.. You "asked for it"... We made it happen XD Divergence: Online now has it's first stages of in-game instructional videos for new players and veterans alike available in the new "Training Database" (AKA Help Menu) accessible by the new questionmark microbutton in the bottom right of your screen. Right now, the tabs that are available are Controls, Basic Harvesting, Grids, and Housing. We'll be adding the same type of instructional videos to the other tabs in the coming weeks.

New Continent + Vehicles!

Today is a special day for us; It marks the first day that our players and friends can finally give their sore legs, appendages, and lower-leg actuated servomotors a rest... It's the day we add.
Anduine: a land of brightly-colored flora, low and rolling hills, calm rivers and plenty of room to expand. Accessible via ATCs newly-constructed "Anduine Station", transporting to this new region is as easy as vising your favorite shuttleport and paying the super-low fee of just 1000 credits. Hey, this shit wasn't cheap to build out of salvaged starship wreckage after all. Anduine is also the land of "big game hunting", with Grontos, Vangrels, Aigathrix, and local species of our most beloved creatures that people just like running for their lives from already.
Of course with our "one large world", players can obviously "hoof if" should they wish and run the 10K through the Akkhera desert bearing due East. Whatever floats your boat!
Speaking of boats, Today's build of the game also brings into play our latest profession; "Operator". "Operator" is synonymous with "Vehicle and equipment operator" and if you want to learn how to fly that huge-ass freighter, first you'll need to pick Operator as one of your professions from the kills panel then spend a few skill points boning up on your chosen vehicle types.
How many vehicles are we adding? How about "lots", the majority of which are flight-capable as well!
Included in today's patch are;
Two light freighters, great for hauling them resources from place to place as well as any contraband that falls off the bed of a truck.
One medium freighter for more fun, more friends, and more contraband. Not to mention the added bonus that all freighters can actually accommodate and load land vehicles into their bay for transporting them as well!
Terrestrial Fighter Jet - No working weapon yet but crap is it fast!
Terrestrial Racer - Even faster, it's essentially an engine with a cockpit.
Planetary Rover - Not so fast but a lot better than running everywhere!
Hoverbike - Fast and hard as hell to control, but do you want easy or do you want fun?
As if that weren't enough, all vehicles have their own internal hoppers, so you can not only fill them with resource canisters, but even bolt them to the hull for aesthetic appeal should you choose! Turn your ship into a party... ship... or whatever for all your friends for all we care.
Craftable versions of all vehicles will be coming this week once we have a few days to tune their flight characteristics enough that we're confident binding them to crafting schematic results.
As always, special thanks go out to all our contributors, players, and supporters for making this nearly eight-months we've been able to continually develop our game! We hope you'll continue to support the effort as we drive towards full launch in several months from now. As with everything new, we're sure there are a few bugs we missed so also thanks for letting us know as soon as you find them and being patient while we crush them.

Divergence: Year Zero on Greenlight!

Well it's finally time to let the cat out of the bag on our super secret project and clue you all in to both what we've done and why we've done it.

After much careful consideration and debate, about one and a half months ago we

Divergence: Online simply does not make enough profit for even two adults to live on (while sharing a single apartment mind you) let alone be able to hire anyone new. The other complication we've had is that this game is a niche of a niche. Not only does it draw only the sci-fi audience, but only a very small sect of that audience in itself. We knew this going into it and honestly are amazed that such a few people can come so close to supporting it enough to be self sufficient. Almost, but not quite I'm afraid.

So after a lot of back and forth, weighing our options and trying to find out what we could possibly do to increase the profitability of our project so that we could continue to do what we love and improve on our game solution every day, we arrived at the answer you see today; an answer that we've named;

Divergence: Year Zero

Divergence: Year Zero was an idea we came up with to market and sell that thing which we believe is the core of our game's soul; Our MMO system. While Sci-Fi and Hardcore Sci-Fi have a very small following, modern survival draws a much larger crowd and exposing those players to "The Divergence Experience" we believe is the best chance we have of making the business more profitable.

Divergence: Year Zero ("Year Zero" for short) is a prequel to Divergence: Online and exists at a place in time I'd long planned to explore years from now but we simply do not have the time to wait. Year Zero centers around the catastrophic abduction of the San Andreas Fault shortly after the year 2020 which obliterated west-coast civilization and released the unfinished form of the virus being designed to wipe-out solitus humans. The resulting quarantine essentially rendered the shattered landscapes of California, Oregon, and parts of Washington state no-mans-land, ruled only by wild animals and even wilder human survivors... And other things.

Year Zero contains not just "everything Divergence: Online has", but all our new advancements as well, first and foremost not only rideable mounts but more than a dozen vehicle types as well. In the badlands, power belongs to those who control the harvest, refinement, and supply of fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil. Our systems completely embrace the life of a "road warrior" scouring the wastes in his junker, dodging bandits and stealing what he can.

Oh, and did we mention the best part? All vehicles are also hoppers! That's right, check the video for proof - Virtually any item you can craft and place to a hopper (AKA Claim/Property) you can bolt onto a vehicle! You can actually load up your truck with resources, oil and salvage and drive it around, or armor it up! Be forewarned though, adding stuff adds mass to the vehicle and will raise its center of gravity, causing it to tip over more easily?

Cars. Trucks. SUVs. We're even working on motorcycles and helicopters as well.

How is this possible? Didn't we just get done saying that we don't have the money and resources to develop Divergence: Online any faster?

The reason is both simple and tragic; Nobody wants to work (for free) on "someone elses sci-fi game". 100% truth. Oh, there are TONS of people out there willing ot line-up to "get involved with a survival game", because they have a much better chance of earning those people money, but getting them to work on something that isn't even made for profit (Divergence: Online) has been virtually impossible. If you can't get people to help out on principle, then you need to pay them to do the work, and if you can't pay them, well then you're fucked aren't you.

So this is that solution. Take what we've built, use it to make something additional with a much broader appeal, end up with two products putting funds into the project instead of one.

Don't approve? Tough shit, you aren't the one putting your electric bill on a creditcard are you.

The only thing (existing) Divergence players need to understand is this simple truth; If you want Divergence: Online to survive and grow, THIS is what has to happen. We feel there's a good chance you'll like it, but even if you don't, you don't have to, but you need to understand that supporting Year Zero means Supporting Divergence: Online.

Both games have the same core features.

Like the fact that we're finally spawning real creatures in the game world in Divergence: Online now? Guess what, we wouldn't have that if we hadn't been able to get some extra help in creating "zombies" for Year Zero, that we were able to immediately copy over to Divergence: Online.
Ridable mounts and vehicles? We had virtually zero chance of having those in Divergence: Online in the next six months before Year Zero, and now that's completely a reality.
Looking forward to our "can't get inside other peoples bases" fix? Guess where that's coming from also? You guessed it, Year Zero.

I could say more but i think you get the general idea. Obviously all modern content lingering around Divergence: Online is removed.

So where does this leave people who bought Divergence: Online?
Pretty fucking well off actually, because everyone who bought Divergence: Online is entitled to a free key for Year Zero. Obviously since we're doing this to make money for the game, we'd like some people to buy the damn thing please, but if you ask for a key through the regular channels, you'll get one no sales pitch and confidentially.

People who've bought larger and more expensive perks already get larger and more expensive perks in Year Zero, such as a companion island (because the shattered west coast is full of islands that used to be called "Portland" now), or (if you own either the Vindicator or Verrator perk), your own "Extendable Electrified Riot Baton" (Meaning, a theta-blade) in Year Zero. Think that's rare in the future? Imagine how rare they are in 2020 :)

That's all I have to say for now. Before we can even launch Year Zero on Early Access it still has to go through greenlight, so we hope you'll head on over to our greenlight page and show your support for both this game and our project as a whole!

Akkhera Desert 2.0 LIVE

Akkhera Desert 2.0 LIVE

Tonight, in addition to generator bugfixes and a few other small fixes, we roll out our first major update to the Akkhera Desert in the form of a total re-skin.

As a player, you aren't just funding our ability to keep developing Divergence: Online, but you're also contributing to our ability to continually improve at what we do as well. A part of this comes in the form of continual improvements on, not just the features of the game, but the overall quality of the production as well.

This new improvement to the Akkhera Desert, which constitutes more than 25% of our game's total landmass is the latest in roll-outs to our games terrain and subsequent systems as our game continually "sheds its skin" of it's original "super-early" placeholder content with (in this case) all-new terrain more than 400% more detailed than the original, while simultaneously providing a big boost to performance through improved shaders.

While obviously imperfect (you WILL find rough edges if you look for them) and needing a few more improvements, this puts us on-track to move onto subsequent updates for our jungle biome "Lomenia" and then circling back to finish the remaning regions of Malkav (temperate) in the same style as the first prototype re-skin we did a few weeks ago.

Tell us what you think and hope to see you around the desert!

https://gyazo.com/3250d0223dbe7f56286dca8ae1bea693

Vindicator Tier-2 Armor + Theta-Blades NOW AVAILABLE For Testing

You heard right, checkout our full writeup for all the info kids!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/415812755276522/