Camelot Unchained Enters Early Access for Existing Backers

A little bit of gaming news for everyone.  Camelot Unchained has finally gone into their closed beta 1, but only for existing backers.  This closed beta is off steam and is using their own in game launcher for the testing.  The beta testing is currently under NDA, so I am unable to stream it or talk about it with all of you, but I did get a chance to play this morning for about an hour to see what they have currently.

According to their newsletter, the following will be available in their closed beta test:

• Our handcrafted maps, designed for large-scale Realm vs. Realm conflict, with more than 60 square kilometers to explore and fight over.
• More than 400 playable abilities across six archetypes, with eighteen playable classes each boasting three divergent paths to tailor your playstyle.
• Technology capable of supporting large numbers of actors in a single battlefield, enabling the scale of combat CU was built for.
• Major improvements to our lighting and shadow systems, enhancing the look and atmosphere of the world, as well as greatly improving performance.
• A complete rework of the UI visuals, improving clarity, usability, and presentation.
• New gameplay systems, including:
  • Trading – Exchange goods with friends and allies to help prepare them for war. And don't forget to pay the King his due tax!
  • Crafting – Our crafting system is built around a full production pipeline, allowing players to harvest materials from the world, refine them into usable resources, and ultimately craft their own equipment. In addition to the myriad skills listed below, Cooking, Alchemy, and Enchanting will also be added at a later date.
    • Gathering – Players can collect raw materials throughout the world through activities such as fishing, herbalism, hunting, mining, logging, and prospecting.
    • Refining – Gathered resources can then be processed into crafting materials through refining professions such as gemcutting, sawing, smelting, tanning, and weaving.
    • Processing – These refined materials can be used by dedicated crafters to create equipment and consumables through professions including armorsmithing, artificing, jewelsmithing, leatherworking, tailoring, weaponsmithing, and woodworking.
  • Banking and Currency – Store your items for safekeeping and collect gold to exchange for goods and services throughout the Realms.
  • A comprehensive stats overhaul – every archetype is represented by unique attributes, mechanics, and resources to manage.
  • Royal Quests – Contribute resources, crafted equipment, and participate in battle to earn rewards from your Realm!
  • Guilds – Join forces with other players from your Realm to tackle more difficult content and pool your resources together.
• Overhauled playable races, including seven races that have received major updates and a total of eighteen unique player character models.
• A rework of the patcher flow that brings character creation into the game client – with more updates on that coming soon.
• Nearly a hundred new equippable armor models, and dozens of new and updated weapon models.
• New capture objectives, resources, and combat hotspots designed to expand Realm conflict (RvR) gameplay.
• New sound effects, music, and environmental audio to bring the world to life.
• New visual effects for abilities and character effects, making combat more dynamic and readable.
• New ability and combat animations, as well as improvements to existing animations.
• Content pipeline overhaul reducing downtime and improving download speeds during patches.

As a result of this important milestone, all current Backers of CU will be able to access and participate in playtesting current builds of the game, which will typically be up every weekend, from Friday evening until Monday afternoon. 

In addition to the beta test announcements, the Camelot Unchained team has released a spring roadmap as follows:

I plan to put more time into testing this game over the course of the spring roadmap, especially when they allow us to stream the gameplay to the general public.  It is nice to see that a game that I backed so many years ago will actually see the light of day.  How the general public reacts to it however, will remain to be seen.

Until next time,

Blackboa