A first look at Mythos' Overworld

by Brenda Holloway May 29th 2008 at 10:30AM

Filed under: At a glance, Betas, Fantasy, Galleries, New titles, Patches, Previews, Mythos, Free-to-play

What do you call it when the developers of a hotly anticipated free-to-play Diablo-esque MMO decide at virtually the last minute to entirely redesign their game? You could call it crazy, or unwise, but developers of the upcoming title Mythos went ahead and did just that. Many of Flagship Studios' beta players said the game was more than ready to ship as it was, but it wasn't good enough for the developers. They combined all the instanced, single player overland zones into one massive continent, shared among all players. Instead of being reached by maps that led players through narrow paths to dungeons which looked identical from the outside, the devs placed the dungeons, Oblivion-like, through the world.

For the past week, the folks at Flagship promised the Overworld Real Soon Now. A deathwatch was kept on the forums. It was going to be the next day, or the day after, or in a few hours. Players gathered on Mythos' IRC channel where devs tossed out tantalizing hints of what was to come. Then around 9pm EST dev Taylor Balbi advised everyone to re-patch and log in to the Test Center to see the Overworld. He gave some advice as people hurried to be the first into the new world.

Test Center will be a separate server.
Test Center and Beta Server will be online at the same time and require the same client.
To tell which version you currently have, the login screen screen will make it obvious (two different ones).
Test Center will start lagging after like 800 people, Mythos Beta won't.
Taylor Balbi is Awesome.

We think the other Flagship devs are pretty awesome as well. Though there were more than a few glitches with patching, we were able to eventually get in and take a quick run around some of the Overworld, its dungeons, the villages outside Stonehill, and the city of Stonehill itself. All we have left to wait for now is the open beta, expected in the next several weeks.

Take a first look at Mythos' Overworld with us

Gallery: The Mythos Overworld

Tags: at-a-glance, beta, casual, diablo-2, diablo-ii, fantasy, featured, flagship-studios, free-to-play, gallery, joystiqfeatures, mythos, new-title, news, oblivion, overworld, patches, preview, server-downtime

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

NekoAli said on 11:23AM 5-29-2008

Oh man, looking at those screens is making me drool. I loved Mythos as it was, but with all these changes, it looks so much better now it's jaw dropping. I can't wait until I have the time to log in and run around in it...

brandon said on 12:31PM 5-29-2008

AUGH! I wish devs would realize that not everything has to be WOW. I liked this game the way it was. The map system / travel points were my favorite part :(

I guess I'll have to try this though to see if I can find any pros for the new system.

Theadrick said on 2:44PM 5-29-2008

I am in the beta and have a question which I haven't found the answer to on the boards:

Is there a way to play in 3rd person non-isometric view (WoW default camera view)?

All of those screenshots would seem to indicate that there is.

Thanks!

Joe said on 11:27AM 5-30-2008

hey, i'm not in the beta and the wait for OB is killing me. I enrolled and waited about 4 weeks, but i dont seem to be able to get in. would you happen to be able to invite me?

Brenda Holloway said on 9:05PM 5-31-2008

If I had invites, I would :) I think the people at Flagship are just making people wait for open beta. I was lucky enough to get an invite from a friend back when they were giving them out, and whenever I got invites in turn, I'd give them away first come, first serve. I always ran out in minutes.
So anyway, I headed to the Mythos IRC channel to see if maybe they might have one or two to give away, and there was this big message saying "Don't ask for any Beta invites, there AREN'T ANY!", but right NEXT to that was a message telling to register for a possible invite on Mythos.com. I know you have already registered, so maybe that means they will be letting some more people in soon?

Bissrok said on 4:06PM 5-29-2008

brandon, I wish kids would realize that not every MMO feature originally came from WoW. Having a static world in an MMO is actually a pretty old feature for online games. The same goes for having maps, and in-game mail, and swords, etc.

Virtually everyone on the forums and everyone who was online last night loved the changes. There were bugs and some long load times for the people who didn't have much RAM, but it went about as smoothly as we could have expected it to, considering that they remade the entire area, added new content, slimmed down the ingredient list, fixed bugs, and balanced almost all of the skills in one patch.

As I said on the Mythos forum: Huge, huge improvement in a lot of different areas. It actually feels like a real game now. It was good before, but it was missing something. And this was it.

Brenda Holloway said on 5:41PM 5-29-2008

@Theadrick -- go to Options > Display tab, turn ON Advanced Camera Control, and turn OFF Pitch Lock, and you'll be able to move the camera in closer. The very closest shots were taken in Vanity mode ('V'). The ones taken at a distance are the normal view when you unlock pitch, use advanced camera, and zoom in as much as you can. You can't yet (as far as I know) get as close as in WoW.

fester said on 8:23PM 5-29-2008

I'm so incredibly sick of cartoon graphics. I fully realize that a game's graphics are just a piece of the whole puzzle, but cartoon graphics become a major obstacle for my enjoyment after 3+ years of WoW. Hell, Mythos is looking more WoW-like than even WAR, especially screenshot 11/15.

ushgor said on 10:22AM 5-30-2008

I've played last night an i found it magnificent. I love the feeling of freedom of the overworld. This game is incredible and i can't wait to see it's final version.

Taylor Balbi said on 2:49PM 5-30-2008

Fester, keep in mind Warhammer's art style has been around far longer than any Warcraft game. Warcraft and Starcraft are just Warhammer without the license hehehe. Also, to get close like other MMOs, there is a follow cam option in the Game tab of the Options.

Jacob said on 3:27AM 6-02-2008

Ugh.

I don't really want to judge a game I have yet to try, but seeing those screenshots :/. It now looks just like any other run of the mill MMO out there. Having played FlyFF for about a year I were looking for something different and mythos appeared to have it. Not any longer I am afraid. Need to find some ingame video to make sure.