Development Update

MMORPG development is incredibly time-consuming. That is probably obvious in hindsight but I clearly wasn't prepared for just how much time it would take. At this point in time, Solaxia Online is now about 2 years old. While I am proud of the progress we've made, until I actually release something to the public, this is all talk and no action.

Before I spill the details on the upcoming closed alpha, I first want to go through all the features and improvements made since the last update back in May, because a lot has happened since then.

Player vs Player Combat

One of the most requested features by the community is PVP support. While I initially wanted to add PVP support to the game after the closed alpha, I decided to add it earlier since it is such a big feature and it would be useful to get early feedback on it.

Keep in mind that this feature is purely experimental and just for fun. There is currently no benefit to PVPing other players other than for fun.

With that being said, PVP is enabled on the new Kingsfall map.

Equip Comparison Tooltips

Now when you hover over an equip while you have another equip equipped, you will see a tooltip that shows the stats of the two equips side by side.

This is a great way to compare the stats of two equips and see how they stack up against each other.

This can also be disabled in your settings if you prefer a cleaner user interface.

Quest Tracker

A new quest tracker has been added to the game. You can now control which quests you want to track and when a quest is tracked, the name and its requirements will be displayed in a window.

This makes it easy to focus on the quests you want to complete sooner rather than later.

New Items

Since the last update, a lot of new items have been added to the game. Here are some of them and what they do:

Item Bags

Item bags are a type of consumable item that will gift you a random item within that category. For example, a Helmet Bag will gift you a random helmet. Items obtained from item bags have a higher chance of being a higher rarity than normal drops.

Summoning Bags

Summoning bags are a type of consumable item that will summon monsters at your location.

Return Stones

Return stones are a craftable consumable item that, when used, will return you to the nearest town. This is useful if you are in a remote area and want to quickly return to town, or if you are just exploring and want to go back to to town to clear out your inventory by selling your items at a shop.

Obol System

Obols are a new currency that can be obtained by completing quests and from mob drops. You can spend your Obols at Obol shops like Mol. Mol currently features item bags and summoning bags.

New Maps

In addition to the aforementioned Kingsfall map, another new map has been added: Blossom Meadows.

Blossom Meadows is the first non-town map in the game. This map is where monsters lurk and therefore is a great place to level up and farm for items. This beautiful map contains mountains, a lake, and stunning waterfall.

New Equip Categories

There were three new equip categories added and they are:

• Earrings
• Belts
• Medals

With more equip categories, there are now more ways to customize your character and build your own unique play-style.

Seed System

Seeds can be found from monster drops and be traded with the Agatha NPC for a variety of rewards like fruits, vegetables, and more.

Agatha can be found in Sevaris next to the farm.

Player Shops

Player shops have been added to the game. They allow anybody to set up a shop and sell items to other players.

To get started, talk to Mylos, the Marketplace NPC. From him, you can browser other shops or set up your own.

Mini-map

Mini-maps have been added to the game. As you would expect, they allow you to see a larger view of the world around you, helping you find other players, NPCs, and mobs a lot faster.

Cosmetics and Gems

Gems are the premium currency in the game. They will be used to purchase cosmetics and other premium features in the game.

To be clear, this is purely experimental and there are still no plans to monetize this game. There might never be plans to monetize this game, however, if it does happen, it will likely be through a system like this.

During alpha testing, gems will be freely given to all players for the purpose of testing the cosmetics system.

Either way, once you've obtained gems, you can use them to purchase cosmetics from Lazarus.

Occlusion Silhouettes

Now, when you stand behind an object of some kind, like a building or a tree, you will now see a silhouette of your character underneath the object.

This is very useful for keeping track of your character when it is out-of-sight.

Bald as a Hairstyle

You can now choose to have "bald" as a hairstyle. This was probably the easiest hairstyle to add.

New Performance Indicators

We've added options to the HUD to show your FPS and ping statistics. You can enable or disable these at any time within your settings.

Water Reflections

Water reflections have been added to the game. When you look at a body of water, you will now see reflections of your character and the surrounding environment.

They don't affect the gameplay in any way, it just looks cool.

Character Selection Screen Revamp

The character selection screen has been revamped to include a render of your character. This makes it easier to see which character you are selecting and looks a lot better than how it looked before.

Closed Alpha

It is almost time for the first closed alpha test of Solaxia Online. Because the game has never been tested at scale, the number of players will unfortunately have to be limited in some way at the start. I simply don't know how many players will be interested in trying the game at the same time, and I wouldn't be able to handle a large influx of bug reports all at once.

Rather than individually hand-select who gets access, the process will be as fair as possible. The players who have been waiting the longest will get access first.

With that being said, the closed alpha will be released in three waves.

• Wave 1: Anybody with a join date in 2024 (about 50 people)
• Wave 2: Anybody with a join date in 2025 (about 175 people)
• Wave 3: Anybody with a join date in 2026 (about 70 people, basically everyone else)

That's it. That's the plan.

Wave 1 begins on Sunday, November 15th, 2026.

Waves 2 and 3 don't have a date yet as they will be completely dependent on how wave 1 progresses. If wave 1 uncovers major issues or exposes serious instability, then these issues will have to be addressed before further waves are released. On the flip side, if there aren't enough players playing during wave 1, or the game seems relatively stable with few issues, then wave 2 will begin shortly afterwards.

The goal is simply to allow myself the time needed to address any issues before it affects even more players.

Final Thoughts

It's hard to believe that the end is finally in sight. Players that have been waiting for years will finally get their chance to play the game for the first time.

I am excited to see how the game will land with players, and how they will react to playing it. I am especially excited for the feedback I will receive because I am looking forward to pushing out updates to the game based on community feedback.