Guild Season 8 saw major changes to guild warfare in Albion Online, as well as a massive change to the land of Albion itself in the form of a whole new Outlands continent. The interplay of these new regions and systems presented both challenges and opportunities for guilds of all sizes and opened up the playing field for a new champion to take the crown. Congratulations to Sex with Ex for emerging victorious among a highly competitive field of challengers and claiming their first-ever season victory!



Season 8 started on February 1, directly after the release of the Queen update. Veteran guild Conflict took an early lead on Invasion Day, with last season's second-place winners Black Order, HustlinHitmans, three-time champions Blue Army, and last season's third-place winners RAQ rounding out the top five. But already within the first week, newcomers Sex with Ex had risen through the ranks to first place, where they would remain by fending off numerous challenges throughout the remainder of the season.

With the new Crystal League in play, Final Order managed to break into the top five over the following weeks until being supplanted by Agresor. After the first Territory Reset (on Leap Day 2020), the top 3 stood at Sex with Ex, Black Order, and Conflict.

On March 6, the AO Daily Show aired an interview with Arista, GM of Sex with Ex, in which he shared their hardworking approach to staying on top in an open-world-based season - click here to watch.

By mid-March, Agresor had broken into the top three, on their eventual way to edging out Black Order for second place overall. The final ranking was cemented after the Territory Reset on March 28, despite a last-minute push by Agresor to take first place by winning the final Level 8 and 9 Crystal League matches with hand-picked 5-man teams. Ultimately, the final Crystal League showdowns, while thrilling (and lucrative for the participants), weren't enough to upend the final rankings.

Congrats again to Sex with Ex and all the top-ten teams:

• 1st place: Sex with Ex (514,195 points)
• 2nd place: Agresor (316,337 points)
• 3rd place: Black Order (239,612 points)
• 4th place: Final Order (233,480 points)
• 5th place: Hammer and Sickle (206,958 points)
• 6th place: Conflict (202,008 points)
• 7th place: Last Warn (190,959 points)
• 8th place: Blue Army (190,358 points)
• 9th place: RAQ (113,549 points)
• 10th place: Crimson Imperium Reborn (112,291 points)

Season 8 started on February 1, following the unique Avalonian Invasion Standalone Season that filled the gap between Season 7 and the introduction of the new Outlands that arrived with the Queen update. This season introduced two major new guild warfare mechanics:

• Open-World Territory Battles to determine territory control, replacing the former 5v5 "GvG" system, and
• The Crystal League, which offered high-level 5v5 fights to elite and beginner teams alike, and allowed winning teams to both earn Season Points directly and to upgrade territories for more points and resources.

In addition to the new Outlands, the Queen update brought several major new features that opened up new gameplay options for guilds, including Hideouts that gave guilds a home in the open world and Elite Dungeons that offered large-group gameplay with equally lucrative rewards.


Guild Season 9 starts on May 16, and builds on the foundation of open-world territory battles introduced with Season 8. The season will bring numerous improvements and changes, including:

• Point and Energy Storage in higher-level territories
• Season Points from Veteran and World Bosses
• More Crystal League matches, and the ability to buy Lv.1-3 Tokens directly
• Increased Energy Drain for large alliances

For the complete Season 9 schedule and details of what's new, click here.

Townsmen VR allows all sorts of interactions in an intuitive way. Although many of them can be performed directly in the game world, some of the most impactful ones are initiated from user interfaces (UI) like the build menu.
There are a few issues with UI controls in VR, compared to UI in non-VR games: While in "normal" games these controls are usually straightforward and easier to execute than the more complex in-game controls, it is the opposite for VR games. Interactions with the game world feel easy and natural, while UI feels immersion-breaking, and reading text is harder.
As you already know, we tackled this issue by reducing the amount of text in menus to a minimum. You also place new construction sites by just manually dragging a building from the build menu into the game world. This "drag-to-place" mechanic works great for several reasons:

• It bridges the gap between the user interface and the game world by allowing players to use pointing or grabbing
  
• It allows you to carefully choose a place in the world without being restricted by a grid
  
• It allows you to cancel actions without the need for a confirmation window.
  
• Therefore, we are using the "drag-to-place" mechanic outside the normal build menu.

We added build options to the building info UI you can activate for each building. These build options contain add-ons and upgrades that use the "drag-to-place" mechanic.
When it comes to upgrades, you drag the upgraded building directly on top of the original building.
But there is a second object you can drag on top of a building:



The hammer lets you tear down a building in case you need the space for something else or need this type of building somewhere else.
As you have to pick up and drop the hammer, it is harder to do this by accident (compared to a UI button doing the same thing). We also make sure that you only destroy the building of which the player opened the building info UI to reduce mistakes. Tearing down buildings is costly and rarely required, so we want to make it as safe as possible.

The library is one of many add-ons you can build for the church. The library’s info also contains a research selection, allowing you to choose what you want to research next. To start some research, you use the same mechanic, dragging the research item on top of the library.



A stack of books will appear in front of the library and your clerics will have to read through all of these books to complete the research.

Trading is a central part of most city building games and has been a big part of the Townsmen series for a long time. But trading is also usually one of the UI heaviest features in these games requiring players to manage large menus.



Trading in Townsmen VR stays in the game world as much as possible and works with physical resources. You can initiate trading from the UI of a trade ship or a marketplace, by using the "drag-to-place" feature from a selection of available offers. A physical pallet will appear where you or your workers can put the required resources. Once the pallet is full, you will get a new pallet with the desired resources. This takes time but makes sure that resources act the same in all cases.



We are currently polishing and testing these features while working on all the levels that use those. After that, we will have to finalize the dialogues and record and implement the voice-overs before we can aim for a release date later this year.

Our friends from Live Motion Games are releasing Train Station Renovation today! Drop by and watch livestream!



Today you will be able to buy and play Train Station Renovation! Early access version will contain the first ten levels and all tools you already could seen!

Our friends from Live Motion Games will launch livestream to celebrate the release - it will start at 6 p.m. CEST (12:00 p.m. EDT, 4 p.m. GMT)

Take a look at the list of the official channels, where the stream will be live:

1.Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/livemotiongames
2.Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLDglCvIGl-Gt1aLIx-ZxiQ/live
3.Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561198904981383


More about the game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/914010/Train_Station_Renovation/

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHoo9Hg5OZA

This Patch includes fixes and updates for the 2020 Season 2 Release.

Check out the Release Notes for this update on our Members Forums here:
https://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/3733692.page

Dear players!

We are warning you that tomorrow, on May 1, Defenders 2 servers will go offline at 9:00 a.m. GMT. Maintenance break will last for 7 hours (until 4 p.m. GMT). After that, the brand new version of the game will become available.

We are sorry for the temporary inconvenience!

Hello heroes!

Get ready for our LABOR DAY EVENT with more XP, more gold, more epic items (level 50 required), more forest rarities and a +20% more mushrooms sale on May 1-3!



In addition, as announced on Monday, we will also launch the NEW INTERNATIONAL WORLD #40 with all bonuses on Friday, 16 CEST: https://w40.sfgame.net

Moreover, please note that our STAY SAFE EVENT which has been live for weeks will end today at 23:59 CEST.

Have a nice weekend!

Our friends from Live Motion Games are releasing Train Station Renovation today! Drop by and watch livestream!



Today you will be able to buy and play Train Station Renovation! Early access version will contain the first ten levels and all tools you already could see!

Our friends from Live Motion Games will launch livestream to celebrate the release - it will start at 6 p.m. CEST (12:00 p.m. EDT, 4 p.m. GMT)

Take a look at the list of the official channels, where the stream will be live:

1.Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/livemotiongames
2.Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLDglCvIGl-Gt1aLIx-ZxiQ/live
3.Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561198904981383


More about the game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/914010/Train_Station_Renovation/

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHoo9Hg5OZA

Welcome to the next Truck Mechanic: Dangerous Paths Dev Diary. In which we discuss the progress of our work on the game from the past weeks. We're still working on the truck



We are constantly working on adding new elements to our engine. With each new part we are getting closer to completion. It takes a lot of time and patience to prepare the whole thing.



We take care of every detail, so that ultimately the engine is as realistic as possible.



Take a deep look at the engine crankshaft speed limiting device centrifugal sending unit.

As always we encourage you to actively comment and share your feedback with us. Remember that all the screenshots shown above are WIP they don’t reflect the final version of the game.


See you next time!
Stay safe!

It's time for Space Mechanic Simulator Developer Insights part 10. We have some fresh new informations about the game.



Focusing on creating Time Attack mode, we wanted the mechanisms repaired by the player to be drastically different from what will happen to him in the campaign. All this so that the player wouldn't have it that easy after passing the main missions. There's a lot of these, and they're different.



We tried to make each subsequent device unique in its own way and required a slightly different approach to its repair.



In addition, we want to share with you another breathtaking view for one of the missions sites.

As always we encourage you to actively comment and share your feedback with us. Remember that all the recordings, screenshots shown above are from a WIP build they don’t reflect the final version of the game.


That is it for today.
Stay safe!

Looks like my last post (1. April) was taken seriously. To be frank there have not been many sales since (not that there were many before). I've been working on some pretty crazy stuff, but it will take some time for me to get them release-ready.



I started a small side-project that I hope will allow me to make more interesting bullet-pattern-designs for new enemies and bosses.



Then I got slightly side-tracked by this bullet-pattern-designer and started creating a small prototype for a relaxing, playful game that's actually nearly finished after not even two weeks of work.
short video of the current state