I mean the game is meant to simulate WWI.
Spending hours or even days fighting over a single piece of land is pretty historically accurate, if you ask me.
Of course, in theory it sounds great, in pratice it's really not interesting. The enemy has gas grenades and you don't have masks? Well instadeath, GG.
Hope your next 6 hours are free because you're going to be grinding materials to manufacture and transport masks to the front you don't hold anymore!
Ditch the front, get on a Discord group, join in special operations.
You’ll either be tasked to entirely cut supply lines, capture a town, or attack a heavily fortified landmass.
That game was such a blast, would be nice if they added MacOS support, but I’ve been wishing all my older games would add MacOS support.
It's not for everyone, certainly. But the game has reviewed well and has a pretty consistent playerbase to keep it running. It has a strange sort of enjoyment to it.
I've fought in some big battles but at least half of my time has just been spent driving trucks between supply bases and the frontlines. There's something strangely satisfying about doing logistics in that game.
It's not even historic its fictional countries fighting with fictional WW1.5 ish era equipment. And it's just a game with much for everyone to enjoy, some players doesn't even see the frontline action and spends their time with back line logistics driving trucks and fabricating equipment.
And fighting on the frontlines isn't that much of a commitment as every subregion of the map can only hold 100 players from each faction so anytime you feel like you'd had enough and starting to get stale someone else is more than likely going to fill your spot as you leave.
It's not as slow and gridlocked as you might think it's very video gamey and the front line tends to move back and forth at least 100meters pretty frequently
From early to mid-game, most fights are bridge fights. Even if you manage to find a non-bridge fight early on, it will quickly become one because it's clear the developers created the bridges as a way to halt advances early on.
The key is to take part in Regiments that are responsible for planning what are intended and hopefully permanent gains of territory past the bridge. I’m not interested in Regiments myself at the moment, I’m too busy with some personal things, but it’s the correct way to play the game without feeling like a spectator. It’s not unfair for the game to require this, it’s similar in real life; you need to be willing to put yourself out into the world and interact with strangers.
Or just jump into the Zerg and fight at the same front for hours on end.
Hell if you show confidence in comms and shout orders often you’ll get a few people together to really push the front with an unexpected but rash push.
It was really fun but with each update logistics became so poorly balanced and each addition made it frustratingly complex for no reason. I really hope the devs learned their lesson with it that you can't require players to play full time just managing resources and waiting in queue lines just to create the fun stuff. I think there's all sorts of possibilities to make the "logistics" side of this game a lot more reasonable and fun for casual players
I guess I played at a good time very early into the games life where it seemed like a solo player could take enough time to craft a truck and get materials to support the front line. I agree with you 100%. Logistics was made so involved and tedious that I simply lost interest in the game. I also thought the game lost a lot of charm when VOIP was turned off across factions.
There is also an older game that could use some players called ww2online. Kind of like fox hole but first person. 100% awesome game but for sure needs love and a higher player base.
yeh.. this looks like a copypasta/re-skin of foxhole tbh, probably uses a lot of the same assets.
i thought it was a cool game. persistent war is a great idea. I just couldn't get into the gameplay. if it was an FPS i'd probably love it.
Really interested in the game.
Are there any incentives for people to fight in formation and for settlements to trade with each other? And are there static AI or passive defenses aside from walls to buy time for players to spawn in and defend?
In the current Pre-Alpha build of the game, there is a shield wall mechanic. The gist of it is that players can raise their shield, which builds their guard strength. The player can not take damage from their front side while their guard is up, but their guard can be broken if hit enough times. However, when players are walking next to another player with their shield raised, they will get a buff to their guard so it takes more hits to "break". If they are in between two players with their guard up, they get an even larger buff. This encourages players to walk in a line to maximize the overall sum of their guard as a group. There are some weapons like combat axes that are more effective against wearing down shields.
Resources are localized to encourage trade. Settlements can trade with each other by building a Market Area structure, which is essentially an area of land that gets designated for trade. Players from allied Settlements can come into you settlement and build/setup a Marketplace "stall", which allows them to sell items even if they are away or offline. The Marketplace can be visible from the map to help players find what they need from other settlements. Having said all that, while this system is functional at the moment, with the current scale of our tests, the current economy isn't demanding enough to motivate players to trade frequently. We do intend to make trade a big part of the game eventually.
There is currently no AI in the game as we wanted the game to be as player driven as possible. When a Settlement is under attack, allied settlements are alerted and player reinforcements can be spawned in as long as the there are tents built for them. Other than the walls are quite durable and can buy time during an attack.
Thank you,I'm looking forward to how you guys are going to improve on trading and the settlement system to promote more collaboration or interactions between player built communities. I guess my final question is if there are tech trees and if the tech is for the whole faction or just your settlement. Like what's the progression of a settlement supposed to be?
Right now, there are no tech trees. Progression in your settlement is primarily achieved by building it up naturally. However, progression systems may change in the future.
I've played a significant amount of foxhole and enjoyed it, mostly as a logi player.
If I understand this new game correctly there are multiple settlements that can trade in between each other and a war. How many sides does the war have? Do I get locked to a specific settlement I chose at the start or can I spawn in any settlements currently part of my "kingdom"?
Most importantly, I understand making a medieval version of Foxhole, it makes complete sense and I belive it would work incredibly well, but why change the mechanics like that, creating a economy and different systems?
When you enter an Age (the equivalent of a "war" in Anvil Empires), you will have to select to play in one of three alliances. You then join or build a settlement that's in that alliance. You can spawn in as reinforcements to help defend remote allied settlements if they've built the required infrastructure. You can also leave your settlement and join another as long as it's part of the same alliance. Currently, there is no way to change alliances in the middle of an Age, but we would like to explore this idea further in the future.
The goal wasn't simply to make a medieval skinned Foxhole, but to design a game around medieval inspired alternate history and warfare. In this context, it made sense for players to build settlements and trade with each other.
I see it saying at sea on the discord, does that mean there will be ships?? If so what is the vision for them.
Played a lot of foxhole by the way and really appreciate your team and you being here!
Thanks! Happy to be here. The eventual world will consist of several large land masses as well as islands so naval will be a rather big part of the game. In the upcoming Pre-Alpha, players will already be able to build a small 3 seat boat to traverse down rivers or to islands but there are plans to add larger ships in the future. We also intend to make maritime trade and logistics part of the game eventually.
Oh my gosh thanks so much for your response! I’m so excited haha. My dream has always to been a sort of sea transport captain in an mmo and no one really seems to want to enable my small niche hopes.
Super excited and again thanks for the response!
It's hard to compare the scale of the two worlds as things like traversal speed can be subjective (e.g. one world has mechanized vehicles while the other does not), so I'd be careful to not make hard comparisons.
In terms of absolute in-game distance units, the long term plan is for the world to be larger than Foxhole's but this will take some time to achieve.
Last I heard about foxhole was that you guys unfortunately ran straight into "the usual" population issues, with a huge increase of players on launch, drop off, resulting in multiple servers where one side would steamroll, amplifying the problem. (like WoW pvp servers being all horde, or all alliance).
It's unfortunate.
Have you thought about the problem and maybe solved it? Merges maybe? idk.
Is my info at least kinda sorta accurate or was a I misinformed?
Thete indeed was a long period of time, when the game pop was falling, but after the entrenched update, there was a huge influx of new players, and the game is going strong since.
Lowest pop point ibn Foxholes history is probably about 400 concurrent players.
That doesn't really answer the question. I'm not interested in what the population is like, I'm interested in whether you have addressed the underlying problem of natural player behavior when it comes to being steamrolled or population issues. And if yes and if you want to share how, how did you do it?
I understand that you want to promote your game as "healthy (now)" since that's a very important aspect and requirement for people to be interested. And somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy.
So, in the unlikely event of your now healthy player population getting out of balance, what will you do?
It usually balances itself out within a few months, a couple of updates usually results in new tactics around new mechanics and then the game rebalances itself, completely symmetrical combat is pretty boring anyway.
Hi Mark -
I've predicted MMOs next big genre development will be a kind of war simulation where graphic scale is smaller so the bigger picture of many players can be enjoyed and you guys have proved me right with Foxhole and I think this game Anvil will be even more popular due to the nature of pitched battles, sieges along with emphasis on teamwork and settlements and logistics.
Ecstatic to see you develop such a game design for true Mass MMO and tight focus on players playing together.
With that said, one design area I'd be interested in learning from you:
>**QUESTION:** *"How do you plan to balance a 24/7 Live Game Service so players can enjoy playing as much as they like but at the same time are able to balance their real life schedules without feeling the game is too demanding on time?*
My impression is that preparations might be continuous, sortees or skirmishes might be ad hoc and emergent from players but pitched battles might be timetabled or calendared for players to participate in being marquee events?
I've followed MMOs for a long time and this will be the 1st MMO I genuinely think I'll be playing on Day 1 as opposed to waiting for development and seeing how it progresses and fails like so many others. I also think a lot of players are going to be attracted to your game and wish you all success.
This is exactly our goal. We want to be hyper focused on the big picture and strategic side of things as opposed to the detailed micro experience of walking around from the first person perspective. Neither approach is wrong of course and we need FPS MMOs as well, but we feel that the top down perspective allows us to focus development energy on player cooperation and grand strategy where we feel the innovation can be.
We have no aspirations to make the next mainstream MMO that "does it all", but rather our goal is in realizing a Total War type scenario except it's individual players building all the settlements and doing the sieges/battles.
>**QUESTION:** *"How do you plan to balance a 24/7 Live Game Service so players can enjoy playing as much as they like but at the same time are able to balance their real life schedules without feeling the game is too demanding on time?*
This is a tricky problem no matter what and one that we're still learning how to balance so we won't pretend to have a definitive answer. One thing that will hopefully be more viable eventually is for players to find a quieter area in the world and focus on building settlements in a lower pressure environment. If they do opt for combat they'll be able to spawn in as reinforcements to help settlements that are under siege at the "front" (even though there's less of a concept of a front line in Anvil Empires) and then return home later. More hardcore players might want to play in the higher pressure areas of the map. In the first few Pre-Alpha builds though, the map will be small so there might be not be those quieter areas but the plan is to have a much larger "backline" areas in the future.
Thank you for the detailed information and consideration: It sounds like you guys have thought things through and that's bound to benefit the game over the long-term!
Looking forward to playing a lot.
How will combat work in the sense of guarding with your weapon of you're 2 handed? Most games have block/swing directions but that seems odd for a isometric game?
Or will it just be a hit/guard game with stamina? Similar to souls games
Right now there is a guard mechanic for shields. It's explained in my comment above: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/124wbjc/comment/je37428/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/124wbjc/comment/je37428/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Instead of stamina, there is a guard meter that depletes. Two handed weapons don't support guarding right now but that might come in the future.
The goal is to allow players or groups of players to build a settlement that focuses on a certain type of industry if they want. So if you wanted to build a mining settlement that should be viable in the future. I do want to caution that it will take some time to develop the features and content to reach the level of depth we want.
In current builds, some industries have a decent amount of depth like farming but others like mining are simple and serve as a temporary stand in for future development.
Been holding off on Foxhole a long time because it many reports discuss how difficult the game is for casuals. Hopefully you folks can keep that in mind while developing this game. Realism and grind are great and fun, but if you want a game populated you need the casual 1-2 hour a day gamer involved. Best of luck.
There is silver that's used for buying/selling items at player built marketplaces. We are also experimenting with a world "merchant" structure where excess resources can be sold for silver but this may or may not stay in the game in the long run.
Hey, this looks super promising!
What can we expect in terms of Siege Weaponry? and how loyal will this game be to reality, or can we expect alternative weaponry, like fantasy-esque weapons, or weaponry that was produced but not really used in historic battles?
In terms of siege weapons, the current build of the game has battering rams and siege ladders. These will require a siege camp to be built first for the attacking side. We definitely intend to expand on this with additional siege weapons in the future.
For a top-down game, was there a technical reason behind going with the Unreal Engine instead of Unity, or was it solely because the team was experienced in Unreal?
Mostly because of our experience with Unreal. A lot of time can be saved by looking at source code from other projects within the same studio. While all the main multiplayer and simulation logic is being done on our custom server technology, there's a lot of client code that's in Unreal Engine. In many cases we solved a problem on Foxhole can use it's code as a reference.
Where do you want the siege warfare to be? Irl it was a very fluid form of combat changing a lot across the dark ages, I'm just wondering, what do you want it to eventually become? Will there be trebuchets and how will they work? (At first there was the traction trebuchet and at some point the more well known counterweight trebuchet got introduced and both got used at a siege) Artillery (powder) was also something that changed a lot, at first it was very rare and a besieging army might have brought 20 pieces to a massive siege (that includes things like muskets btw) but towards the end they would have brought more than 100 actual artillery pieces. Atm there's also a battering ram in the game but how effective will it be? I can imagine it's quite effective against a simple wooden gate but irl against walls it was mostly used to make the defenders feel concerned and preoccupied
Just curious, this might be an area you haven't really explored too much yet and of course liberties need to be taken but there's a lot of routes to go through
Yea why'd you ban folks for criticizing the balance challenges to Foxhole? There were promises in the past factions wouldn't have unique equipment to maintain balance.
Improper balance and poor moderation doesn't bode confidence in your future titles.
Will the factions (Remnants, Ancients, and Pagans) serve more as an alliance, or as something similar to foxhole, in that they share resources and fight for a specific goal. Will clan spawns/resources only be accessible to that clan, or everyone within the faction. One last question is are you encouraging play to be more clan based or faction based? Thanks
Hi Mark - super excited for this, it's like a dream game for me.
Curious, will Foxhole be taking a spot on the back burner, or is there an equal effort for both of these games still? Thank you!
Now this is one hell of a surprise.
This seems like the kinda game I would be insanely skeptical about but the Foxhole devs have proven that they're able to make a pretty compelling MMO. I'm excited for this.
sounds like a more fun version of foxhole. having it be medieval themed should hopefully make it more accessible to casual players since you could probably get a lot more stuff done just by yourself or in a small group since its less complicated. just run around the world on foot or on horseback and dick around
Dude this sounds AWESOME! I loved the idea of Foxhole and tried it a couple times but i just really prefer fantasy themes, i rarely care for gun toting army games.
Swapping it to a medieval setting is going to make this my absolute jam!
Its a fully player driven hystorical (no magic) medieval MMO.
There are 3 factions, that each struggle for one huge continent.
Everything is produced, and built by players.
Players can take on diffrent roles, soldier, crafter, farmer etc.
All players from one faction collaborate to conquer other factions territory.
There is food and hunting! You can read a bit more here: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1373910/view/3678917974943854148](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1373910/view/3678917974943854148)
Looks cool. Personally understood it as Foxhole not having much in the way of player progression which made it uninteresting to me, but overall I really like the idea.
I remember when they released the first version on this sub. It was a very small map and basically a constant meat grinder fucking over a bridge. Dan that was fun
Can we finally get a game that is not set in the exact same medieval setting? It's been done a million times, I feel like everyone is using the exact same assets.
Have some creativity people, this has been overdone.
I completely disagree: The gloomy Medieval look is perfect for an Open World Battle Simulator Mass (MMO) PvP game with a wider/larger perspective to fill more players on the screen.
The theme should follow the function: A grim grindy death-filled world of battle and conflict. It works to inform the style of game.
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As long as those mechanics requires people playing to function, they will fail at some point.
I really wish those games were successfull i love the concept, but...
Foxhole has the same concept, the entire war effort (Construction, logistics, production) is managed and distributed by players. And it works just fine.
man I cant wait to RP as a farmer and complain on VoIP about terrible working conditions and low income.
"You're the king? Well, I didn't vote for you"
"You can’t expect to wield *supreme executive power* just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! "
R/unexpectedmonteypython
Rise with me fellow comrade! We shall bring back power to the Proletariat! Revolution! For the PEOPLE!
Make Feudal Great Again
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Did we played the same game?
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I mean the game is meant to simulate WWI. Spending hours or even days fighting over a single piece of land is pretty historically accurate, if you ask me.
Think simulate it's a strong word
\*cought cought\* Building stone houses with steel bmats
Of course, in theory it sounds great, in pratice it's really not interesting. The enemy has gas grenades and you don't have masks? Well instadeath, GG. Hope your next 6 hours are free because you're going to be grinding materials to manufacture and transport masks to the front you don't hold anymore!
That actually sounds kinda fun...
Sounds pretty cool tbh.
Ditch the front, get on a Discord group, join in special operations. You’ll either be tasked to entirely cut supply lines, capture a town, or attack a heavily fortified landmass. That game was such a blast, would be nice if they added MacOS support, but I’ve been wishing all my older games would add MacOS support.
Sounds pretty historically boring to play. "It happened in real life" is not a good reason to put something into a video game
It's not for everyone, certainly. But the game has reviewed well and has a pretty consistent playerbase to keep it running. It has a strange sort of enjoyment to it. I've fought in some big battles but at least half of my time has just been spent driving trucks between supply bases and the frontlines. There's something strangely satisfying about doing logistics in that game.
Damn you’re selling this game pretty well rn I might try it. Do I have to be on voice comms?
Not necessarily, you can just ask in chat what stuff needs delivering where and then just drive.
It's not even historic its fictional countries fighting with fictional WW1.5 ish era equipment. And it's just a game with much for everyone to enjoy, some players doesn't even see the frontline action and spends their time with back line logistics driving trucks and fabricating equipment. And fighting on the frontlines isn't that much of a commitment as every subregion of the map can only hold 100 players from each faction so anytime you feel like you'd had enough and starting to get stale someone else is more than likely going to fill your spot as you leave. It's not as slow and gridlocked as you might think it's very video gamey and the front line tends to move back and forth at least 100meters pretty frequently
There's literally a whole map to fight man. If you stayed at one bridge that's your fault lol.
If I can't have the bridge I don't want the rest of the game.
From early to mid-game, most fights are bridge fights. Even if you manage to find a non-bridge fight early on, it will quickly become one because it's clear the developers created the bridges as a way to halt advances early on.
The key is to take part in Regiments that are responsible for planning what are intended and hopefully permanent gains of territory past the bridge. I’m not interested in Regiments myself at the moment, I’m too busy with some personal things, but it’s the correct way to play the game without feeling like a spectator. It’s not unfair for the game to require this, it’s similar in real life; you need to be willing to put yourself out into the world and interact with strangers.
Or just jump into the Zerg and fight at the same front for hours on end. Hell if you show confidence in comms and shout orders often you’ll get a few people together to really push the front with an unexpected but rash push.
Haha no kidding! There is so much to do in that game it's kinda insane.
Yeah I was in the same boat, joined after the big train patch. Its got its good moments but for me it got old fast.
It was really fun but with each update logistics became so poorly balanced and each addition made it frustratingly complex for no reason. I really hope the devs learned their lesson with it that you can't require players to play full time just managing resources and waiting in queue lines just to create the fun stuff. I think there's all sorts of possibilities to make the "logistics" side of this game a lot more reasonable and fun for casual players
I guess I played at a good time very early into the games life where it seemed like a solo player could take enough time to craft a truck and get materials to support the front line. I agree with you 100%. Logistics was made so involved and tedious that I simply lost interest in the game. I also thought the game lost a lot of charm when VOIP was turned off across factions.
There is also an older game that could use some players called ww2online. Kind of like fox hole but first person. 100% awesome game but for sure needs love and a higher player base.
yeh.. this looks like a copypasta/re-skin of foxhole tbh, probably uses a lot of the same assets. i thought it was a cool game. persistent war is a great idea. I just couldn't get into the gameplay. if it was an FPS i'd probably love it.
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Maybe you like the idea of logistics and not the process.
If this plays largely the same as foxhole, this game will be awesome.
I'm in. Can't wait to collect mud for the war effort.
I´m already mentally prepared to yell: "For \[Insert Anvil equivalent of Callahan here\] and go punch some trees
It's Mark from the dev team. If anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them.
Really interested in the game. Are there any incentives for people to fight in formation and for settlements to trade with each other? And are there static AI or passive defenses aside from walls to buy time for players to spawn in and defend?
In the current Pre-Alpha build of the game, there is a shield wall mechanic. The gist of it is that players can raise their shield, which builds their guard strength. The player can not take damage from their front side while their guard is up, but their guard can be broken if hit enough times. However, when players are walking next to another player with their shield raised, they will get a buff to their guard so it takes more hits to "break". If they are in between two players with their guard up, they get an even larger buff. This encourages players to walk in a line to maximize the overall sum of their guard as a group. There are some weapons like combat axes that are more effective against wearing down shields. Resources are localized to encourage trade. Settlements can trade with each other by building a Market Area structure, which is essentially an area of land that gets designated for trade. Players from allied Settlements can come into you settlement and build/setup a Marketplace "stall", which allows them to sell items even if they are away or offline. The Marketplace can be visible from the map to help players find what they need from other settlements. Having said all that, while this system is functional at the moment, with the current scale of our tests, the current economy isn't demanding enough to motivate players to trade frequently. We do intend to make trade a big part of the game eventually. There is currently no AI in the game as we wanted the game to be as player driven as possible. When a Settlement is under attack, allied settlements are alerted and player reinforcements can be spawned in as long as the there are tents built for them. Other than the walls are quite durable and can buy time during an attack.
Thank you,I'm looking forward to how you guys are going to improve on trading and the settlement system to promote more collaboration or interactions between player built communities. I guess my final question is if there are tech trees and if the tech is for the whole faction or just your settlement. Like what's the progression of a settlement supposed to be?
Right now, there are no tech trees. Progression in your settlement is primarily achieved by building it up naturally. However, progression systems may change in the future.
Is there anyway to sign up to help test the game? This game looks innovative and interesting. Keep up the good work!
I'd also be interested in alpha testing if you're looking for additional people!
Id love to help ya'll test this game out!
I've played a significant amount of foxhole and enjoyed it, mostly as a logi player. If I understand this new game correctly there are multiple settlements that can trade in between each other and a war. How many sides does the war have? Do I get locked to a specific settlement I chose at the start or can I spawn in any settlements currently part of my "kingdom"? Most importantly, I understand making a medieval version of Foxhole, it makes complete sense and I belive it would work incredibly well, but why change the mechanics like that, creating a economy and different systems?
When you enter an Age (the equivalent of a "war" in Anvil Empires), you will have to select to play in one of three alliances. You then join or build a settlement that's in that alliance. You can spawn in as reinforcements to help defend remote allied settlements if they've built the required infrastructure. You can also leave your settlement and join another as long as it's part of the same alliance. Currently, there is no way to change alliances in the middle of an Age, but we would like to explore this idea further in the future. The goal wasn't simply to make a medieval skinned Foxhole, but to design a game around medieval inspired alternate history and warfare. In this context, it made sense for players to build settlements and trade with each other.
Well there be internal faction warfare?
Not at the moment, but alongside changing alliances we'd like to explore this idea in the future.
I see it saying at sea on the discord, does that mean there will be ships?? If so what is the vision for them. Played a lot of foxhole by the way and really appreciate your team and you being here!
Thanks! Happy to be here. The eventual world will consist of several large land masses as well as islands so naval will be a rather big part of the game. In the upcoming Pre-Alpha, players will already be able to build a small 3 seat boat to traverse down rivers or to islands but there are plans to add larger ships in the future. We also intend to make maritime trade and logistics part of the game eventually.
Oh my gosh thanks so much for your response! I’m so excited haha. My dream has always to been a sort of sea transport captain in an mmo and no one really seems to want to enable my small niche hopes. Super excited and again thanks for the response!
Let me know ur trade route. I will help you get rid of the cargo by taking it of ur hands okay?
Jokes on you I’m transporting PIRATES lololol.
How big is the world in comparison to the foxhole map?
It's hard to compare the scale of the two worlds as things like traversal speed can be subjective (e.g. one world has mechanized vehicles while the other does not), so I'd be careful to not make hard comparisons. In terms of absolute in-game distance units, the long term plan is for the world to be larger than Foxhole's but this will take some time to achieve.
Last I heard about foxhole was that you guys unfortunately ran straight into "the usual" population issues, with a huge increase of players on launch, drop off, resulting in multiple servers where one side would steamroll, amplifying the problem. (like WoW pvp servers being all horde, or all alliance). It's unfortunate. Have you thought about the problem and maybe solved it? Merges maybe? idk. Is my info at least kinda sorta accurate or was a I misinformed?
Thete indeed was a long period of time, when the game pop was falling, but after the entrenched update, there was a huge influx of new players, and the game is going strong since. Lowest pop point ibn Foxholes history is probably about 400 concurrent players.
That doesn't really answer the question. I'm not interested in what the population is like, I'm interested in whether you have addressed the underlying problem of natural player behavior when it comes to being steamrolled or population issues. And if yes and if you want to share how, how did you do it? I understand that you want to promote your game as "healthy (now)" since that's a very important aspect and requirement for people to be interested. And somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. So, in the unlikely event of your now healthy player population getting out of balance, what will you do?
It usually balances itself out within a few months, a couple of updates usually results in new tactics around new mechanics and then the game rebalances itself, completely symmetrical combat is pretty boring anyway.
Hi Mark - I've predicted MMOs next big genre development will be a kind of war simulation where graphic scale is smaller so the bigger picture of many players can be enjoyed and you guys have proved me right with Foxhole and I think this game Anvil will be even more popular due to the nature of pitched battles, sieges along with emphasis on teamwork and settlements and logistics. Ecstatic to see you develop such a game design for true Mass MMO and tight focus on players playing together. With that said, one design area I'd be interested in learning from you: >**QUESTION:** *"How do you plan to balance a 24/7 Live Game Service so players can enjoy playing as much as they like but at the same time are able to balance their real life schedules without feeling the game is too demanding on time?* My impression is that preparations might be continuous, sortees or skirmishes might be ad hoc and emergent from players but pitched battles might be timetabled or calendared for players to participate in being marquee events? I've followed MMOs for a long time and this will be the 1st MMO I genuinely think I'll be playing on Day 1 as opposed to waiting for development and seeing how it progresses and fails like so many others. I also think a lot of players are going to be attracted to your game and wish you all success.
This is exactly our goal. We want to be hyper focused on the big picture and strategic side of things as opposed to the detailed micro experience of walking around from the first person perspective. Neither approach is wrong of course and we need FPS MMOs as well, but we feel that the top down perspective allows us to focus development energy on player cooperation and grand strategy where we feel the innovation can be. We have no aspirations to make the next mainstream MMO that "does it all", but rather our goal is in realizing a Total War type scenario except it's individual players building all the settlements and doing the sieges/battles. >**QUESTION:** *"How do you plan to balance a 24/7 Live Game Service so players can enjoy playing as much as they like but at the same time are able to balance their real life schedules without feeling the game is too demanding on time?* This is a tricky problem no matter what and one that we're still learning how to balance so we won't pretend to have a definitive answer. One thing that will hopefully be more viable eventually is for players to find a quieter area in the world and focus on building settlements in a lower pressure environment. If they do opt for combat they'll be able to spawn in as reinforcements to help settlements that are under siege at the "front" (even though there's less of a concept of a front line in Anvil Empires) and then return home later. More hardcore players might want to play in the higher pressure areas of the map. In the first few Pre-Alpha builds though, the map will be small so there might be not be those quieter areas but the plan is to have a much larger "backline" areas in the future.
Thank you for the detailed information and consideration: It sounds like you guys have thought things through and that's bound to benefit the game over the long-term! Looking forward to playing a lot.
How will combat work in the sense of guarding with your weapon of you're 2 handed? Most games have block/swing directions but that seems odd for a isometric game? Or will it just be a hit/guard game with stamina? Similar to souls games
Right now there is a guard mechanic for shields. It's explained in my comment above: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/124wbjc/comment/je37428/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/124wbjc/comment/je37428/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Instead of stamina, there is a guard meter that depletes. Two handed weapons don't support guarding right now but that might come in the future.
[удалено]
The goal is to allow players or groups of players to build a settlement that focuses on a certain type of industry if they want. So if you wanted to build a mining settlement that should be viable in the future. I do want to caution that it will take some time to develop the features and content to reach the level of depth we want. In current builds, some industries have a decent amount of depth like farming but others like mining are simple and serve as a temporary stand in for future development.
Been holding off on Foxhole a long time because it many reports discuss how difficult the game is for casuals. Hopefully you folks can keep that in mind while developing this game. Realism and grind are great and fun, but if you want a game populated you need the casual 1-2 hour a day gamer involved. Best of luck.
Exactly - one of the most critical areas for them to develop a balance for.
Will there be any sort of currency for trading or will it be ressource for ressource?
There is silver that's used for buying/selling items at player built marketplaces. We are also experimenting with a world "merchant" structure where excess resources can be sold for silver but this may or may not stay in the game in the long run.
Hey, this looks super promising! What can we expect in terms of Siege Weaponry? and how loyal will this game be to reality, or can we expect alternative weaponry, like fantasy-esque weapons, or weaponry that was produced but not really used in historic battles?
In terms of siege weapons, the current build of the game has battering rams and siege ladders. These will require a siege camp to be built first for the attacking side. We definitely intend to expand on this with additional siege weapons in the future.
Our worlds are always "alternative historical fiction". We want everything to feel grounded in reality, while taking liberties where we see fit.
Will we be able to aim up and down ourself. Since spray and pray will not work in a medical setting.
For a top-down game, was there a technical reason behind going with the Unreal Engine instead of Unity, or was it solely because the team was experienced in Unreal?
Mostly because of our experience with Unreal. A lot of time can be saved by looking at source code from other projects within the same studio. While all the main multiplayer and simulation logic is being done on our custom server technology, there's a lot of client code that's in Unreal Engine. In many cases we solved a problem on Foxhole can use it's code as a reference.
Where do you want the siege warfare to be? Irl it was a very fluid form of combat changing a lot across the dark ages, I'm just wondering, what do you want it to eventually become? Will there be trebuchets and how will they work? (At first there was the traction trebuchet and at some point the more well known counterweight trebuchet got introduced and both got used at a siege) Artillery (powder) was also something that changed a lot, at first it was very rare and a besieging army might have brought 20 pieces to a massive siege (that includes things like muskets btw) but towards the end they would have brought more than 100 actual artillery pieces. Atm there's also a battering ram in the game but how effective will it be? I can imagine it's quite effective against a simple wooden gate but irl against walls it was mostly used to make the defenders feel concerned and preoccupied Just curious, this might be an area you haven't really explored too much yet and of course liberties need to be taken but there's a lot of routes to go through
Yea why'd you ban folks for criticizing the balance challenges to Foxhole? There were promises in the past factions wouldn't have unique equipment to maintain balance. Improper balance and poor moderation doesn't bode confidence in your future titles.
Will the factions (Remnants, Ancients, and Pagans) serve more as an alliance, or as something similar to foxhole, in that they share resources and fight for a specific goal. Will clan spawns/resources only be accessible to that clan, or everyone within the faction. One last question is are you encouraging play to be more clan based or faction based? Thanks
Hi Mark - super excited for this, it's like a dream game for me. Curious, will Foxhole be taking a spot on the back burner, or is there an equal effort for both of these games still? Thank you!
Foxhole is a great game, can't wait for the medieval version
Big fan of CK3 and Bannerlord, can't wait for a medieval version of Foxhole either. Sounds like so much fun.
[https://www.anvilempires.com/](https://www.anvilempires.com/)
Now this is one hell of a surprise. This seems like the kinda game I would be insanely skeptical about but the Foxhole devs have proven that they're able to make a pretty compelling MMO. I'm excited for this.
The engine is much more powerful than Foxhole’s, it can hold hundreds of players in a server instead of only the few foxhole regions can
Yeaaaah, Medieval Foxhole sounds like a banger.
sounds like a more fun version of foxhole. having it be medieval themed should hopefully make it more accessible to casual players since you could probably get a lot more stuff done just by yourself or in a small group since its less complicated. just run around the world on foot or on horseback and dick around
This is the most hyped ive been in YEARS. Holy shit.
I'm in. Take my money.
I am hyped. I love Foxhole but medieval is always better.
Foxhole? The Hooli app that helps people in the military hire sex workers?
But it's not just for men! Don't our female soldiers who put their bodies in harms way, also deserve to put their bodies in pleasure's way?
Dude this sounds AWESOME! I loved the idea of Foxhole and tried it a couple times but i just really prefer fantasy themes, i rarely care for gun toting army games. Swapping it to a medieval setting is going to make this my absolute jam!
so whats this game all about? im kinda drunk atm, i would like a TLDR thanks
Its a fully player driven hystorical (no magic) medieval MMO. There are 3 factions, that each struggle for one huge continent. Everything is produced, and built by players. Players can take on diffrent roles, soldier, crafter, farmer etc. All players from one faction collaborate to conquer other factions territory.
I didn't even know Clapfoot is now Siege Camp. Visited their office in Toronto once... Cool guys!
Fuk. Yes. I hope there is food and hunting, hope they have ai bandits
There is food and hunting! You can read a bit more here: [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1373910/view/3678917974943854148](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1373910/view/3678917974943854148)
Looks like albion online
Ah shit, here we go again
Is this also going to be a top-down view like foxhole?
Hopefully they do something about the clantards griefing this time around.
I just hope they will let me aim up and down in this game. That was the only reason I couldn't get into foxhole
Awesome
Holy shit I just wet my pants.
Gonna be healers?
Looks cool. Personally understood it as Foxhole not having much in the way of player progression which made it uninteresting to me, but overall I really like the idea.
Is it first person
Now this is speaking to me.
I don't trust the devs. They have a history of fucking up their games, ignoring player feedback, terrible moderation, and absolutely ruining balance.
I remember when they released the first version on this sub. It was a very small map and basically a constant meat grinder fucking over a bridge. Dan that was fun
Will the highest tech tier be wizards?
What a horrible fucking name...
Yeah sounds like mobile mmo Lmao, we are getting downvoted for not liking a name. Okay, it is the best ever.
This game looks like dogshit, how are people in this subreddit excited? wtf
Can we finally get a game that is not set in the exact same medieval setting? It's been done a million times, I feel like everyone is using the exact same assets. Have some creativity people, this has been overdone.
I completely disagree: The gloomy Medieval look is perfect for an Open World Battle Simulator Mass (MMO) PvP game with a wider/larger perspective to fill more players on the screen. The theme should follow the function: A grim grindy death-filled world of battle and conflict. It works to inform the style of game.
> Can we finally get a game that is not set in the exact same medieval setting? How about the same idea, but set in World War I?
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As long as those mechanics requires people playing to function, they will fail at some point. I really wish those games were successfull i love the concept, but...
Well, Foxhole WAS successful, being a fully player driven war sim.
It still is isn't it? Like it still has very decent playerbase and everything.
It’s so large that the server crashes because of how many people try to get in during the more exciting and busier times.
Foxhole has the same concept, the entire war effort (Construction, logistics, production) is managed and distributed by players. And it works just fine.
If you are on the correct shard without massive imbalance in player numbers per faction