eskil-steenberg posts

One Shots: Home is where the Love is

by Krystalle Voecks Feb 24th 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Screenshots, One Shots, Love

With Eskil Steenberg's indie MMO, Love, set to launch in just a little over a month, he's been incredibly busy pushing out updates and refining the game further. The idea that one man has managed to bring a whole new form of MMO from idea, on through building all the tools, to creating the game, running the beta, fixing all issues, and soon -- publishing! Add to that how uniquely beautiful the procedurally-generated world of Love is, and you can see why we're glad to see players sending in One Shots from there.

Today's image comes to us from Joshua P. who writes in to explain the scene: This is a screen shot taken just after Eskil sent out a graphics update. The Kadeshi Junction is one of the most beautiful places in the game. My character, Nathon (names are randomly generated), on Atlanta-1 server, had logged on and ran through legions of the genius AI to find a good spot for a settlement. I think this is it.

Why not join the fun and send in your own screenshots to be featured here on One Shots? We can always use more to pick from. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game its from, and whatever other information you'd like to give us. We'll post it for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit.

Gallery: One Shots: Gallery II

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: eskil-steenberg, joshua-p, love, one-shots, quelsolaar, screenshot, screenshots

Indie MMO Love set for March 25 launch

by Rubi Bayer Feb 16th 2010 at 5:00PM

Filed under: Launches, New titles, News items, Virtual worlds, Love

Development of Eskil Steenberg's MMO Love has been proceeding quietly for a few years now, with the occasional story when alpha or beta milestones are reached. Back in October, we took a closer look at this gorgeous, unique game thanks to Krystalle and Seraphina.

The work of the one-man development studio and the patience of Love fans is about to pay off: Mr. Steenberg announced via Twitter that Love will launch March 25th, just over a month from now. If the game looks interesting to you and you haven't had the opportunity to check it out yet, the official site has some tips and suggestions for getting the game set up on your computer as well as some links to informational sites.

Take a look at the game, and we'll see you at launch!

[via Heartless Gamer]

Tags: eskil-steenberg, launch, love

One Shots: The glow of Love

by Krystalle Voecks Feb 1st 2010 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Screenshots, One Shots, Love

When it comes to looking for new gaming ideas, there's no denying Eskil Steenberg's procedurally-generated art-house MMO, Love stands out. Now in beta, Eskil has been working hard at improving the game since the last time we looked at it. Today, we have a gorgeous One Shots from the beta to share with you. This came in with a report in from the front lines, courtesy of GamingLove's iamacyborg, who writes:

This is a screenshot of a player settlement in Eskil Steenberg's game, Love, on the UK1 server. We had the base set up on top of a few pillars, over a lake, with a force-field (that pink ball) protecting the important tokens. Here's a video someone took of the settlement a little while after the screenshot was taken, once we'd set up a perimeter defence with some blaster turrets.

Are you playing something we haven't seen before - or only see rarely? If so, why not take a moment and send some screenshots in? Just mail them to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit.

Gallery: One Shots

Tags: art-house, beta, eskil-steenberg, indie, love, mmo, mmorpg, one-shots, paid-beta, procedurally-generated, screenshot, screenshots

LOVE open beta is now live

by Rubi Bayer Jan 7th 2010 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, New titles, Love

It's been almost two years since we at Massively first laid eyes on Eskil Steenberg's MMO Love, and wondered if it would ever make it to production. The unique look and gameplay features of Love made it stand out immediately, and we (along with a good number of fans) remained anxious to see the game succeed as we watched production advance and open alpha approach.

Now one-man design studio Steenberg has crossed another hurdle. He's finished up a list of 26 things he wanted to add to the game, and beta launched today. The client is available for download at the site, and three euros will net you one month of gameplay. (Steenberg suggests that you download first and make sure the client will run on your computer before you pay for anything.)

If you're interested in checking out an MMO that's unlike pretty much anything currently out there, visit the Love page, read through what Steenberg has to say, and give the beta a try.

Tags: eskil-steenberg, love, open-beta

Love's beta launches on January 7th

by Seraphina Brennan Jan 1st 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, News items, Love

Eskil has done it! He has completed the "List of 26" and has shut off the "join Love" screen until January 7th, when the beta will officially open up to all new players.

However, if you've been with Eskil through the Alpha process, you have a small thank you gift in the form of the servers already open for you and patched up with the beta client. So, if you have had an active account this past month, log in and see some of the things Eskil has changed and/or added to the game. Things like sound -- glorious sound!

For the full run down of Eskil's 26 major additions to Love, you're going to have to check out his Twitter page. There's no formal patch notes as of yet, so this is the best you can do until Eskil gets it all down formally on paper or just lets us find out what he changed.

[Via Blue's News]

Tags: 26-things, beta, beta-announcement, eskil-steenberg, fantasy, love, open-beta

Love counts down to the launch of beta, account holders play free

by Seraphina Brennan Dec 28th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Betas, News items, Virtual worlds, Love

While everyone's off enjoying the holidays, there's no rest for Eskil Steenberg. The one man of the one-man-MMO team is working hard though the holidays, putting together 26 major new features for the introduction of the Love beta test.

While the features are secret, Eskil is updating his Twitter account with information on the new features as he completes them. Once all 26 items are done, Eskil will be updating Love and sending the game into beta. Currently the features look quite interesting -- such as new specialized settlements, sound pathing for the game, letting the game's AI use teleporter guns, a new building type (prisons), and something that is only referred to as "armageddon." Whatever the heck armageddeon is, it sounds awesome.

Tags: beta, beta-test, countdown, eskil-steenberg, free-gameplay, love, one-man-mmo, open-beta, update

Anti-Aliased: What is Love?

by Seraphina Brennan Oct 8th 2009 at 3:30PM

Filed under: Betas, Puzzle, Guides, New titles, Tips and tricks, Opinion, Hands-on, Love, Anti-Aliased

So what is love? That's certainly the metaphysical question of the ages, isn't it? Is it simply an attraction to another gender, or is it a deep bond between two people that goes beyond mere friendship, and more into the realm of headbanging, suit and sunglasses wearing pride? Do I have the authority to take on questions such as this in my editorial column?

Heck no! That's why we're going to spend this week talking about Eskil Steenberg's indie-MMO, Love! We've been covering Love extensively this week, announcing that the alpha was available and showing off some really beautiful in-game footage. But, even with all of that, we never got into the meat of the game. What is Love about? What do you do in it? Why is it so special to us on the Massively staff?

Those questions and more will be answered in this week's edition. So come on in, the Love is great!

Tags: anti-aliased, eskil-steenberg, featured, fps, indie, indie-mmo, love, monolith, myst, open-world, procedural-generation, puzzle, sandbox, tower-defense

A first look at the Love alpha

by Krystalle Voecks Oct 6th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Video, MMO industry, New titles, Hands-on, Love

Ever since I first heard about Love at GDC, I've been hoping to get a chance to check it out. The graphical style floats somewhere between impressionist and Abstract, with only the suggestions of people and things. Gone are the "customize your character heavily" moments of an MMO. You simply log in and your character is immediately created - an amorphous entity ready to take part in all that Love has to offer. If you like to explore, Love has that. If you want to help build a mighty settlement, you can do that too. Alternately, if you want to run around blowing NPCs (and their settlements) off the map, that's also an option.

While it is a paid alpha - something some may balk at, and others find quite reasonable considering Steenberg is developing Love solo - the game offers an interesting twist on MMOs as we know them. It's a little bit adventure game, a little bit cooperative civilization building, and a little bit FPS. How you get through the game - through fending for yourself or working with others - is entirely up to you. At 3 EUR per 30 days of paid time (approximately $4.50 US) it's worth checking out if you're curious. If, however, you're just interested in looking in on Love from afar, we have two videos full of our very own beautiful alpha Love exploration footage behind the break.

Tags: alpha-footage, eskil-steenberg, love, open-alpha, preview, procedurally-generated, video

Love opens up logins for alpha testers

by Seraphina Brennan Oct 5th 2009 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Launches, New titles, News items, Virtual worlds, Love

A while back, we mentioned that the Love alpha client was available for download, so you can run the engine on your system and help the one-man-developer, Eskil Steenberg, with gathering data for his server. Eskil has gotten done that portion, however, and has now opened the anticipated game for alpha testing audiences.

Eskil has stressed on his website that much of what Love is now may not be what the game is in a few months or years, and that alpha will be chock full 'o bugs. Things may have been going really well for him, but he is giving no one any assurances on how well the alpha will function.

For those interested in Eskil's project, the open alpha will cost you 3 Euros (about $4.50) so Eskil can pay for the servers and bandwidth. Eskil has also posted the full information on what the account creation page does, which can be found in the middle of his information on Love's alpha test.

Tags: alpha, alpha-test, bandwidth, breaking, eskil, eskil-steenberg, freeform-mmo, love, open-alpha, quelsolaar, server

Love reaches open alpha, client download now available

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 28th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: At a glance, Betas, New titles, News items, Virtual worlds, Love

The above picture is not a lie -- it's the login screen to Eskil Steenburg's one man MMO, Love. Mr. Steenburg has just recently pushed the client into open alpha, letting users download and run the game on their PCs, but not log into the game. Not yet, at least.

However, running the client is quite important, as it will send Eskil a few important statistics. The client will collect the name of your video card, if it supports the three OpenGL extensions he uses, and it will count how many people are interested so he can go invest in some servers without going overboard. So if you're interested in eventually playing the game, you can jump on over to his website, Quel Solaar, and grab yourself the open alpha of Love to "register your interest" by running the client on your machine. Plus, you get treated to an awesome look at Love's beautiful dynamic graphics.

Tags: breaking, client-download, eskil-steenberg, eskil-steenbergs-love, love, love-mmo, one-man-mmo, open-alpha, opengl

The Daily Grind: Procedurally-generated MMOs

by Krystalle Voecks Jul 13th 2009 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind

With the way MMOs keep changing and growing, there's some very exciting things on the horizon for players wanting something more than what's currently out there. For example, Eskil Steenberg is working on a unique procedurally-generated MMO - you could call it an art-house MMO - named Love. What we've seen of it has been utterly fascinating so far, and the fact that he's developing it solo ensures it will hopefully come out precisely as he wants it. Outside of that, a friend of mine named Jason tossed out a post this morning about another procedurally-generated engine - the CityEngine - that can generate enormous cities completely on the fly. As he mentioned, can you imagine using it to create a horror MMO where you can essentially wander for huge distances, in and out of buildings before you find another player? Completely open and playable building interiors? Zombies? In a sandbox? We'd be happy to just play there as a seriously spooky fragfest.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we wanted to ask you - what do you think of the idea of procedurally-generated content? Do you think this is really the only logical choice in terms of building enormous open-ended sandbox MMO worlds for the future, or do you think the tightly designed and scripted worlds we have now are the only way to go? Can you see procedurally-generated games becoming a part of the mainstream, or is the tech too open ended for us? Are we ready to break free and tell our own stories?

Tags: cityengine, eskil-steenberg, horror, love, mmo, mmorpg, procedurally-generated, zombie

Two new videos bring the Love

by Krystalle Voecks Apr 24th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Video, New titles, Previews, News items, Love

Since we've heard about Eskil Steenberg's concept for a procedurally generated MMO, we've been craving a close look at Love. Luckily for those of us who have only heard about it through news sources, he's decided to publish a video presentation showing off just what gameplay is like in Love, very similar to what our very own Shawn Schuster saw at GDC.

For those of you who are interested in just what a procedurally-generated MMO looks like, or who are curious for more information on this art-house feel MMO, check behind the break for a couple of videos showing off the splendour of Love. As an added bonus, there's a video showing the tools involved in the making of this intriguing one-man generated title. Technical and art geeks alike should find something interesting in this pair of previews!

Tags: eskil-steenberg, love, mmo, mmofps, procedurally-generated

LOVE creator Eskil Steenberg on how his game differs from other MMOs

by James Egan Apr 8th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, New titles, Love

It would be an understatement to say we're excited about the upcoming massively multiplayer online game titled LOVE, and we've certainly given the title some mention here in the past. It's an MMO being developed by one person, Eskil Steenberg, featuring a rather unique art style and some interesting gameplay elements. We're always looking out for more info about the title and came across an interview with Steenberg conducted by Phill Cameron from Gamasutra, just before the LOVE creator's Independent Games Summit lecture at GDC 2009.

Steenberg discusses his choice to adopt procedural generation for LOVE, which was actually the only way forward on this project. "Working alone, you simply just can't build a massive world all by yourself, so you need to do something smarter," he says. "Given that I am forced to solve this problem, I get some added bonuses like being able to constantly generate new content while the game is running." Steenberg points out another benefit to this type of game design."As it turns out I think this could be the key to gaming in the future, as the game is able to develop and change in response to the player's actions," he says. "Rather then having a few binary plot choices, the world becomes far more dynamic and responsive to your actions."

Tags: design-choices, eskil-steenberg, gamasutra, game-design, gdc, gdc-2009, independent, independent-games-summit, indie, interviews, love, mmo-industry, new-titles, phill-cameron, procedural-generation, procedurally-generated, solo

GDC 09: Eskil Steenberg on bringing the Love

by Krystalle Voecks Mar 24th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, PvE

We're always on the lookout for innovation in the MMO genre, so that's why Love has caught our eye. Developed by one man, Eskil Steenberg, Love is a procedurally-generated game, which essentially means that the entire world - including almost watercolor-looking graphics, different locations, etc. - are created randomly as you adventure through the world. Currently set to support 200 people per shard, Love is an interesting take on the massive genre.

Within the world of Love, users will be treated to a completely free-form adventure that will involve complex chains of missions. According to Steenberg, "You want to have cool adventures with cool things, but part of the fun is just to adventure; to just explore it. [Love] is the ultimate in player-versus-environment. The idea is that there are ways to control and manipulate things in the world - cities are like networks of interesting stuff rather than just static cities - which makes it more of a puzzle than a regular MMO. You can figure out your own ways to hack your environment, if you will; find your own way of doing different things to make it your own story."

Steenberg's talk at GDC about creating a game like Love, and the tools involved will be held later today at 4:45 Pacific, which promises to be a very interesting discussion. Of course, if you're not able to make it to the Game Developer's Conference, but are curious about Love and just how the project has proceeded with just one person working on it, Steenberg has been so kind as to post the long version of his presentation on his blog for us to enjoy. So if Love seems like an interesting game to you, be sure to check out the main site for more information and procedurally-generated graphics from the current alpha. We'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one as it progresses.

Tags: discussion, Eskil-Steenberg, gdc-09, gdc09, panel, player-versus-environment, procedurally-generated, puzzle, pve, replayability

Eskil Steenberg on developing the Love MMO solo

by James Egan Mar 19th 2009 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Interviews, MMO industry, Love

Massively multiplayer online games are the result of millions of dollars of investment and the collective efforts of a large team of developers to produce... right? Not according to Eskil Steenberg, who has the distinction of being the only individual we've heard of who's developing an MMO by himself, titled Love.

No doubt this is a Herculean task before Steenberg, but Love is by all indications rather far along in development, particularly in light of the video footage we've seen in the past. Steenberg recently did an interview with GameSource, discussing aspects of Love ranging from his motivations to take on a project of this scale by himself to the tools he's using to make his game concepts a reality.

Eskil Steenberg will be in attendance at this month's Game Developers Conference, so it's a safe bet you can expect to hear more about Love at Massively in the coming weeks.

Tags: eskil-steenberg, fantasy, game-developers-conference, gamesource, gamesource-it, gdc, interviews, love, mmo-industry, quelsolaar, solo