Getting ready for Halloween!
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispéd and sere —
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir —
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
(Ulalume. Edgar Allan Poe)
Here comes October. Every year in late October a wave of anomalous energy passes across the Earth. According to old traditions of the Earth this time is called ‘Halloween’. Fanatics and cultists who worship the Signal think that on ‘Halloween’ dead souls penetrate into our world. Of course, this is all nonsense and fiction! Yet we are preparing for one special night of the year. A Night in the Lonesome October…
Today we want to tell you what to expect from this year’s Halloween. Traditionally, during Halloween, all players can unlock a special celebratory achievement. To do this, pilots need to get special holiday missiles from the Inquisition. This year we decided not to stop there, and bring even more fun! Remember how we were hunting assistants of the mysterious Miss Summer? Perhaps this story is not finished just yet. There are rumours that the mysterious Revenants (and maybe even other forces) are up to no good. They can only be stopped by you, fearless mercenaries.
More detailed instructions should arrive on the eve of Halloween. And right now we can tell you a little bit about the future rewards for excellent performance on our missions. Pilots will be able to obtain a new module for special Halloween activities. We will not reveal all the secrets and spoil the surprise though. We can only say that the module will actively influence your enemies. And the enemies will be scared!
Another fun activity to make an appearance in the project for Halloween will be the new PvE mission. You will have to fight with the pirates at a secret orbital factory, the one where Miss Summer developed her ship Nyx. It still remains a mystery who really owned the complex. All management was carried out by a front company, but Summer was listed as a board member. After her exposure the plant has been under special supervision of the Security Service of the Empire for some time, but now it’s abandoned. Most of the data was destroyed but the complex itself remains intact.
Not much time is left till New Year and Christmas. I guess you already know that on New Year we are going to release a large update. In this update, we plan to show a new class of ships called ‘Destroyers’. As we have told you before, these ships are going to be special. They are several times bigger than frigates, with turret controls and their own sets of weapons and modules. We will talk about the new ships in greater detail in the next developer blogs.
Preparations are underway for the launch of a new automatic battle mode. Any player can create his own team and participate in a tournament, gaining experience, wins and advancing in the rankings. The best teams will get into a tournament with real prizes!
We’re also planning a substantial transformation of missions and contracts in the game. Now all jobs, contracts and ship assignments will be merged into a single window in the game interface. All of this will be called ‘Jobs’. It will also contain all the information about the game characters that hand out missions. We hope that this will significantly simplify getting new tasks in the game. Everything will be found in one place, all the information about available jobs, and rewards for them.
We also remember about our favorite PvP mode. We plan to add a few new PvP battlegrounds, specifically prepared and balanced for interesting and exciting team battles. The main surprise will be the unique new maps, where the pilots face off inside a huge planetoid-station capable of destroying entire planets and mysterious canyons, containing the remains of an old dreadnought.
There’s still lots of new and interesting stuff ahead. Stay tuned, follow the news, play Star Conflict!
