On April 6, the MMORPG Fractured started its Closed Beta. Since then, there have been many adjustments to the game. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch spoke with Jacopo Pietro Gallelli, the CEO of Dynamight Studios, about the current state of the MMORPG.
Fractured is a sandbox MMORPG with an interesting idea. There are three different races, each with its own world and a different approach to PvP:
- The Wildfolk are a peaceful race – here there are only duels.
- The humans have PvP in the open world, but you have to mark yourself for it. Attacking unmarked players results in penalties.
- The demons, on the other hand, have open PvP without penalties.
This system alone makes Fractured interesting for many players. Since a lot has changed in the MMORPG over the past 6 months, we spoke with the CEO about the current developments.
Bugs, balancing, and hacker attacks mean a lot of work
MeinMMO: Last time we spoke in December 2021, you told us the current state of the game. What has changed in Fractured in the last almost 6 months?
Gallelli: I would say a whole lot. We have, of course, received a lot of player feedback concerning the mechanics and balancing. In this regard, there is a lot to do. So we released many patches in the first one to two months after the launch that balanced the game.
For instance, there were major problems with attacks on cities, sieges, and the entire mechanics surrounding them. There were issues in PvP due to balancing. We had difficulties with player retention due to certain phases in progression, and so on. We have tried to consolidate the core of the game.
Additionally, we had problems with hackers attacking the game. Nothing major, nothing like stealing player data or similar. But there were a few duplicate bugs. We eliminated them. We closed all security loopholes. Then new ones emerged, so we closed even more security gaps.
But yes, a lot has been done to it. There have been many requests for improvements regarding the game chat, which we fulfilled with the latest patch.
In total, there were a lot of changes, and I wouldn’t call them small. However, it wasn’t about releasing new features, but about improving the game’s functionalities.
That was the biggest part of our two months. Besides that, we also released a major feature, actually two major features: the temperature system and the weather system.
In different parts of the game, it will be cold at times, and hot at other times. This impacts your character. And then there is a weather system where clouds are generated in different parts of the world. Depending on the temperature, they can become larger or smaller. They can generate rain, sleet, snow, snowstorms, and so on, depending on the location in the world and the temperature at that moment.
So the two systems are interconnected, one with the other. This introduces a system that is meant to make exploration more challenging, especially in the most remote and difficult areas. Additionally, it visually enhances the game, as all the atmospheric effects contribute significantly to the player experience.
MeinMMO: The new temperature system has not only been praised by players. Some criticize that its effects on the character are even too slight.
Gallelli: So the idea was not to let people die from it. It should only make traveling to specific areas in PvE more challenging. Killing people outright would be – I don’t know. That’s something we didn’t want to do.
But aside from that, there was criticism that it is too difficult to find protection from the cold. Cold is much more effective and problematic than heat. Heat is not really relevant. Cold is significant because it slows us down. So there are things we still need to improve in the weather system.
We don’t want to kill players with it, but we want it to be significant enough that if you want to go to the frozen area up north on the northern continent, you need to have a certain armor or a skill that blocks the effects of cold. Or you use special materials for the armor that make it cold-resistant, like wool.
In the future, when alchemy is introduced, potions will be used to counteract the effects of cold and heat. So there are a whole series of countermeasures that players can take. But we don’t want players just to go and die.
It’s not a survival game, and we don’t want it to be punishing.
The Conquest of Cities Will Become More Difficult
MeinMMO: What have been the biggest wishes of the players? What is still not in the game that fans would like to have?
Gallelli: At the moment, there is a feature that was removed but is coming back soon. I think I’ve already mentioned it: raids and city sieges. We had to remove them because they were very poorly implemented. Exploits and bugs were some of the main issues that made it very unbalanced.
Additionally, it was criticized that it was too easy to conquer cities because players take a long time to build a city in Fractured. I know it can take three or four weeks. And then neighbors could take the city from you by winning just one conquest or siege, which in principle was not right.
So we are first implementing the raids with all the bug fixes. Raids only steal resources, so it’s not that critical. Then we will re-implement city conquests, but with a loyalty system that makes it much, much harder to conquer a city. You have to win several battles. That is, along with balancing, what the players currently desire the most.
When talking about new features, the other two races are probably the most important. This is also one of the three core functionalities of Fractured that are still missing.
The New Races Are Coming in Summer and Late Autumn
MeinMMO: That brings me to the next question: How far along are you with the other races?
Gallelli: At the moment, we are working on Arborius [the continent] and the Wildfolk [the race]. We game designers are building the world. The artists are creating all assets, and the developers are implementing the other races.
And yes, basically most of the team is busy with that. The Wildfolk are supposed to come out in the summer. We haven’t announced a specific date yet. The demons will have to wait a bit longer because the Wildfolk are more important than the demons.
The Wildfolk’s planet is the one that comes without PvP, so without non-consensual PvP. You can engage in duels, but you cannot attack and kill other players. And there is a significant portion of players who will enjoy the non-PvP scenario.
That’s why we are also focusing on that first. The hardcore PvP players can also play on the human world for now. That’s why Tartarus and the demons have a lower priority. They will probably come out in winter or already in late autumn.
Is the World Currently Too Empty?
MeinMMO: During my own wanderings through Fractured, I felt that the world is still a bit empty. I missed diversity among the monsters, and in my opinion, there were too few points of interest. Are you adjusting the old areas again?
Gallelli: First, I have to ask you a question: On which continent did you play? Were you on the new one in the north or on the old continent?
MeinMMO: I think I played on the old one.
Gallelli: Okay, yes, there is a problem with this continent. It was our very first attempt to build a world. And we made many mistakes with the continent. First of all, it is too large. We just like big areas, and the new continent in the north is also very large. It is about 40 square kilometers.
But the old one is 60 square kilometers, so significantly larger. And that is – also from a technical standpoint – too big. It’s just not good for it to be that large. And also, populating and processing it took a long time.
The second major problem is that we do not offer a lot of variety in biomes. You may have noticed that when you walk around Myr, you see grass everywhere. Grass, grass. Grass. There are two types of grass. There’s the tall grass in the grassland. And then there are the mountains, which have a different shade of green. You can see that the trees are a bit different. You can see the difference between the mountains and the grassland, but they are still green and therefore not very impressive.
And especially if you are an explorer or a trader – a player who engages in trade – it can easily happen that you walk around for 30 minutes in something that looks the same. That is the big problem of Myr.
If you go to the other continent in the north, you find areas that are all whitish. And then there’s the tundra, which is completely red and very colorful. There’s snow, low snow, high snow, frozen caves. Then there’s the volcano where you only see ash. There’s a crystal zone full of crystals. And then the storm islands with the thunder and the crazy rocks and structures.
Things look really different, even without the sights. When you walk around in the world, you can see many, many different biomes, about eight different ones. Yes, I don’t think Myr lacks points of interest. I mean, when you open the map, you see all those pins with interesting points. You have thousands.
I think the biggest problem is that the biomes containing these interesting points are all the same. And, yes, it feels like it’s repeating. I would like to rework that as well.
In the meantime, we have also completely overhauled our procedural generation systems. When we previously created these new stations, we used some external tools. With our own additions specifically for the procedural world generation last autumn, we rebuilt the entire procedural generation systems from the ground up, completely internally. It’s great and super customizable. It took us two or three months of work to redevelop all that.
We would like to redo Myr, but the problem is that our development schedule is very tight. We still have the first continent of the PvE world, then the first continent of Tartarus. I don’t think we will have the time to redo Myr.
Release in Winter, But Not Necessarily in 2022
MeinMMO: That actually sounds like a lot of content you still need to finish. Last time you mentioned that you are aiming for a release by the end of 2022. Is that still the case?
Gallelli: Maybe 2023. Yes, the release was planned for 2022. When we published the roadmap, I believe we said winter. And winter starts in December and ends three months later. I think the release will happen during that period.
The Number of Testers Was Low in the Meantime, But the Game Is Recovering
MeinMMO: How satisfied are you currently with the number of testers? In my own adventures, it often seemed very empty and underpopulated.
Gallelli: When exactly did you play?
MeinMMO: Early May.
Gallelli: Okay, yes, in early May we didn’t have many players. I believe the numbers even dropped a bit before we then brought in a new patch and the free testing week. We initially had a lot of players, but they stopped due to various issues.
So basically, there are three major problems.
One is a problem with retention after the tutorial because players don’t know how to proceed once they finish the tutorial. Fractured is a sandbox game. So if you have the sandbox mentality of users to use the global chat, Discord, or the wiki, then you research on your own and find out what you can do in the game. That’s good. Theme park players and also generally younger gamers feel lost once they finish the tutorial.
After the tutorial, players select the continent and land in the world. And then often the question arises: And now? What do I do now? You have zero guidance. And there are many players who give up in the first hours after the tutorial because they don’t know which character they should play, even if we explain it to them.
They need something to look forward to. Especially, someone to tell them that they should pursue certain goals that they need to follow. And we will work on that. So that is the main reason why the player base was low.
In addition, we didn’t promote the start of the beta much because I think the publisher wants to spend the money only when the game is more polished and closer to release.
There were also some other problems, such as killing players, bugs, and the sieges. Thus, most PvP players stopped playing to wait for the raids to come back. Therefore, the game was quite underpopulated in May, that is, in the first three weeks of May.
But no, we were not satisfied at that moment. But we knew why players had stopped, and we are working on making corrections.
MeinMMO: The population of an MMORPG is always a tough topic. Do you think you can really split the player base across three worlds, and which world do you think will be the most populated?
Gallelli: That’s a very good question. I would bet on the human world because many players like the humans, and overall it’s the middle option, it’s the middle ground. So yes, I guess it will be the human world.
But it’s quite possible we will get many competitive large guilds that all go to Tartarus, the demon planet. Or maybe we will get many more PvE players than expected, and they will all go to the tree planet. Honestly, it’s very, very hard to say.
As for having a sufficient number of players, I mean, if we don’t get enough players to populate a world, a server, or let’s call it a shard, as in Ultima. So if we can’t populate those, that’s a big issue.
A continent, even 60 square kilometers, feels populated when there are 300 concurrent users. It would be better if we had 500 or 1,000 users; then it would feel really populated. But even 300 are enough to feel good. I have seen it myself when 300 users were connected on a continent. You find people everywhere. The cities are populated. Trading takes place.
Now imagine we have 300 continents. Multiply that by three worlds. That would be 1,200 systems. If we have less than 1,200 concurrent players, that’s a big problem, right? So yes, we definitely expect to fill everything to make it feel really populated. Our goal is to have around 4,000, 5,000, or ideally 6,000 concurrent players active.
MeinMMO: If it turns out that one race is more popular than the others, will you focus solely on that in development?
Gallelli: No. We treat all equally. I mean, from now on, the focus is on the other two races and planets.
Minor Graphic Updates, But There’s No Time for a Complete Overhaul
MeinMMO: What about graphic updates? There’s always criticism that the game doesn’t look pretty enough to entice players.
Gallelli: Honestly, we are constantly making graphic updates. I believe that has been seen in the last few years. We have made many updates, both in existing worlds and in creating new content. If you compare the game from two years ago to today, you will find that the biomes are prettier and more densely populated.
The grass, it has almost completely changed. When you look at details, no matter what, you see big differences in color. We have changed many environment effects. Also for the future, we are planning further updates, such as for the trees. The trees on Myr look worse than on the new continent.
So we have some graphic updates planned, but yes, ideally it would be best if we could just rebuild the old stuff. But that won’t be possible, at least not in the next few months.
MeinMMO: We thank you, Pietro Gallelli, for the detailed interview!
What do you think about Fractured and the development of the MMORPG? Feel free to share in the comments!
