Closed Alpha Test 5 Begins Tomorrow, Plus new Health Bars and Quests

Tomorrow at Noon (12 PM) US Central Time, we'll be kicking off our fifth Closed Alpha Test which will last for 35 hours. (Here's a handy Countdown to the start of the test).

If it's your first time in the Alpha

Be sure to check out the Getting Started Guide on the Wiki. That is a must read at this point since there is no in-game tutorial to guide you. Other players will also be very helpful in this regard.

You can download the game launcher here: https://community.orbusvr.com/t/alpha-game-client-download/1261?u=riley_d

If you don't already have access to the Alpha, you can purchase access on your My Account Page at any time.

Welcome to OrbusVR, we're excited that you're here!

For our testing veterans

This test's feedback thread is here: https://community.orbusvr.com/t/alpha-test-5-feedback-thread/1667

The main focus of this test is the Alchemy Discipline as well as Player Trading. The Patch Notes have also been updated on the Wiki with the full rundown of everything that's changed, including a few things we snuck in at the last minute.

New Health Bars with Relative Strength Indicators

One new thing that we've been working on are some redesigned health bars for the enemies in the game. The new bars are sleeker, and they have some neat features like smoothly transitioning between values, flashing when the enemy takes damage, and auto-changing from blue to yellow to red as the health bar decreases. We also now only show the health bar for an enemy when they've been engaged in combat, which really "cleans up" the view of the world, and makes it less cluttered.

In addition to that, we are in the process of transitioning the game away from being so focused on the enemy's exact level, and instead relying on relative strength. What that means is that instead of seeing that an enemy is Level 10, you will now see an indicator above their head that lets you know how tough of a fight they will be relative to your own strength.

Our icon artist, Aaron, has done a great job on these. Not only are they different colors, but each shape has a number of points that increases as the enemy becomes more difficult, so you can quickly tell what's what in-game. From left-to-right, they are "No Challenge", "Weak", "Even Match", "Difficult" and "Impossible."

We'll also be moving toward relying on this relative strength as a way of determining how much XP you get for killing a monster; ideally you should be fighting mostly Even Match or Difficult monsters as you level up, and leaving behind anything that's No Challenge.

Questing

We've started adding quite a few more quests to the game. Most of these are still just placeholder quests, but they are giving us a chance to test out the questing mechanics, so feel free to check them out when you get a chance if you're interested.

We also have the beginnings of our Player Tutorial quest available in the Training Area which is up above Highsteppe village. All the NPCs look the same right now but that will be changing soon.

In addition, now NPCs who have something to say to you (and have an exclamation mark above their heads) will only start talking to you when you wave at them. So be sure to greet them when you see them...

That's all for now, see you in-game tomorrow!