It’s been months in the making, but today we are finally updating the Skystone Beta with a ton of new additions!  There are lots of changes across the game, so we’ll try to highlight the biggest new features in this post:

Nidarian Guard

This major expansion includes the recently-announced Nidarian Guard, which players can join via subscription to gain access to a number of exclusive features.  Nidarian Guard members can take part in new weekly Co-op Trailblazing for members, including new Mimics and challenging bosses, as well as learning two new moves for each class.  The Spectra Circuit is also unlocked for Nidarian Guard members, who can earn Circuit Points and collect Ores and Geodes in order to gain permanent stat boosts on their characters.  Guard members will also have access to a variety of exclusive Daily Quests, which are also new to Skystone.

Daily Quests

Daily Quests offer a number of activities and missions that will change on a daily basis, earning rewards each time the Daily has been completed.  The majority of Dailies are exclusive to Nidarian Guard members, though a couple will be available to non-subscribers as well to try.

Otto von Tesla has a special type of Daily Quest to offer to Guard members, where monstrous Mimics called Golembombers are patrolling the ground, and can’t be attacked by normal means.  These Dailies require the player to cloak themselves in Sporedust, disguised from aggressive Mimics while they sneak across the land, taking out the Golembombers with stealth.On top of the Nidarian Guard and new Daily Quests, we’ve toiled away to have another surprise addition in our massive update:

World 3: Ridgeback Highlands

The third world is finally here, where players can travel into the land of the Crags!  After revealing the lands and heritage of the Aeronauts and the Ferrics, it felt too empty by leaving out the lore of the Crags, so we’ve completed the puzzle with the Ridgeback Highlands.  This world is the largest of the bunch, and offers up a whopping 18 new Mimic breeds, as well as 10 new Missions, three new sub-areas, and a handful of new characters to meet across the land.  The challenge is also higher in this area, with more aggressive Mimics, a new type of Mission, and new environmental hazards to navigate on your way.  Both members and non-members will have access to the third world, continuing the story of the Nidarians reclaiming the ground and their search for Skystone Remnants.

And much more!

Players will also notice a bunch of other changes across the game — ranging from the new premium currency called Brass, to checkpoints giving you health, to your Skill Meter being reserved for Nidarian Guard attacks (and getting unlimited jets and climbing in the process).  For more information on what has changed, you can check out the change log on the forums.  Current beta testers should already have access to the new expansion, and we’ll be letting in waves of new testers soon!

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We have a small update to the Remnants of Skystone Beta this week, with a number of bug-fixes and some new furniture hitting the store in Nidaria.

The Vertigo line of furniture gives a velvety, moody feel to your Floats:

In similar fashion, the Rustic Bar furniture gives a more natural look to your bar or lounge:

Some bugs when using machinery and gardening have also been fixed, as well some issues with furniture.  We’ve also added new Extermination Duties, with both Stiltskin and Pidgebomber duties available to earn the first Deluxe Silver trophies for these Mimics.  Beta testers will be able to find the newest version on Kongregate today, and if you haven’t gained access yet we’ll be letting more testers in shortly.

The full change log can also be found here.

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Now that we’ve reached the Beta stage and are updating the game with new content regularly, we decided to use the development blog to keep players up-to-date on the latest changes to the game, as well as letting others know what’s in store when we finally launch.

This week, we’re updating Remnants of Skystone to version 0.7, which centers primarily around Floats.  The biggest change is the new “Float of the Week” voting, where each player gets a pool of votes to award towards others’ Floats when visiting.  If you really like someone’s Float, you can give up to 3 votes from your pool of 50 for the week.  You can keep awarding votes until you run out, and you can remove some of your previous votes if you find a new place that you think deserves them instead.  At the end of the week, the top three players with the most votes will be awarded plaques to hang on their wall, and the First Place winner will be featured as “Float of the Week” from the Rankings Board and from players’ maps.  Also, each player will also get 1 Nidarian Point for every vote they cast at the end of the week, as well as a new pool of votes for the next week.

Along with the new interface for casting votes, we’ve also adjusted the “Changing Floors” interface to move between Float floors quickly.  Along the side of the screen, numbered tabs will appear for each floor in the Float.  You can click on a tab to jump to that floor, and a tab will be colored green if other players are hanging out on that floor.

We’ve also added the rest of the bronze Extermination Duty missions for Admiral Stanton, so every enemy now has a mission and trophy for this level.  Maps have also been improved, with clusters and floats being able to sort by ranking, and floats able to sort by activity now.  You can also hit enter to search at the bottom of the map, instead of clicking the Search button.

For anyone interested in moving their Float to a new cluster, we now keep track of your original cluster — so even if it’s locked, you’ll be able to return later if you change your mind.

We’ve also launched a new line of furniture at the Furniture Outlet:  The Brass Lounge debuts with a variety of hardwood bar counters, tables, couches, and more.  This new line was designed to be modular, so players can create bars that stretch across an entire room, or create a mini bar in the corner.  Seating is also modular, letting players create their own type of couches, booths, and seating that wraps around walls and corners.

No lounge would be complete without food and drink, so we’ve added a few types of bottles, glasses, and snacks to the store as well, as well as a shiny brass cash register to ring up your patrons.

We’ve also added a handful of new quests for a variety of NPCs.  Be on the look-out for new quests from Lana Westwood, Rook Maxwell, Chief MacGregor, Admiral Stanton, Madam Bristlecone, Captain Meelie, Wystan, Otto von Tesla, and Hawthorn!All current beta testers should find the update on Kongregate today.  For everyone else that signed up for beta testing but haven’t gained access, we’ll be letting in more testers soon!

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We’ve been busy working on the new quest system for Skystone, and a handful of other updates and features for the Beta version of the game.  While we don’t have any major posts on the blog, you can get a glimpse into our day-to-day updates by following us on Twitter.  We’ll look for a good widget for the blog, but in the meantime you can follow these links:

Matt on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/flipline_matt

Tony on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/capital555

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