Mankind Reborn Reveals Huge Update

After a little time off for much-needed rest and relaxation, the team behind Mankind Reborn released their 11th developer blog to discuss recent changes and updates to their upcoming Cyberpunk MMO. Another thing they led off with, which I found to be interesting was they discussed the software used in the organization/planning of Mankind Reborn, but also bug tracking. This software from Atlassian is considered an industry standard and with Confluence and JIRA both at their disposal, it should improve the overall quality of Mankind Reborn. One of the great concerns in MMOs is Player Retention. Lots of people may flock to a game, but if it’s not fun or interesting, they fall off and stop logging in. So Mankind Reborn is presently concerned about making it fun, even in this pre-alpha phase, to hopefully solve that problem right out of the gate. Then they can concern themselves with the Faction vs. Faction content, graphics, and other issues. But first: The Quest for Fun.

Mankind Reborn began as a “Face of Mankind” combat simulator, where a few players could run around on a small map and shoot at each other, but slowly interest began to grow, a Discord popped up, and the dream of a commercial title began. Now that E3 has passed us by, they are slowing down the major visuals and focusing on the core systems and improving the flow of development, according to BioXide. They feel that if they focus on these systems now, before people are getting their hands on it outside of small closed tests, fewer game-breaking bugs will be seen by the public. The User Interface was also discussed in this update, as it has been revised, with a new Chat and Hotbar UI. It’s important for your UI and text boxes to be clear and easy to read, and the menus we saw in their development blog, seen below, are very sharp and clear. They also teased Drone AI as a feature that’s in the works. This blog also teases the soundtrack with a sick synth/electronic track called “Wide Awake”, which is found on Soundcloud.

A sneak preview of an area is also visible in this blog, with the Ceres Prison Map Design (v2). Though I have never been in a prison before (and hope to continue that trend well into the future), the design of the prison makes a lot of sense to me. The Warden’s Office is kind of big, and though I think it might be a little dangerous to have it so close to the Prison Blocks, it does afford them a smart view of all of the prisoners around them, and the Prison Yard. It has plenty of room for prisoners to work like slaves down in the mines, and the entrance and exit both make logical sound sense. It has an old, industrial feel, where the prisoners likely work for the profit of a larger, outside company.  We also saw some sneak previews of an Earth location, “Union City Leisure District”.

The final part of the developer blog focused on Player Customization. The base male body has been improved and looks far more muscular than I probably ever will be. They have a slider for ethnicity, to change between various races to give players plenty of options to play whatever they want. The current look of the PCs is incredible, and I certainly think their player customization has come a long way and will continue to swell as time passes. In each of these developer blogs they’re going to show off faction outfits for two of the groups that will exist in this world: Civil Protection Commission, Terran Defense Corps, North Star Mining, Followers of Eternity, Avalon Enterprises, The Syndicate, Guns of the Conclave, and Oda Zaibatsu. In this blog they focused on Followers of Eternity and North Star Mining. The Followers of Eternity are an anarchist group with no grounded history but grew out of the slums of Earth’s various Mega-Cities. They believe in transhumanism, that change comes from altering one’s perception of reality.

Whether it’s through drug use or implant grafting, that’s not important. Their uniform consists of camo pants, black boots, and a dark green long-sleeve top that is reminiscent of body armor. This is not a cult to be underestimated. North Star Mining is one of the Big Three Megacorps, and I’m willing to bet they have a stake in Ceres Prison. They have origins in pre-space Earth (2045), when former mine supervisor for SA Mines (Dawie Copper) bought up several palladium mines in South Africa. His company grew like wildfire. I admit, the chaps are an interesting choice over slacks, but I like the black and brown leather jacket. There will be additional clothes in game to purchase outside of the faction garb as well.  They finally teased some awesome looking alien eggs, and something we all need: Big Mining Trucks. With their teasing of a mining-colony/prison, this is the perfect thing to show off. Mankind Reborn is growing at a nice pace, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they produce as the months go on.