Perpetuum
Encyclopedia
Perpetuum is a video game by Avatar Creations Ltd. It is a player-driven persistent-world MMORPG
set in a science fiction ground setting. Players pilot customisable robots on various islands connected by several teleports. These islands are either alpha ('safe' from attacks by players) or beta, meaning players can freely engage each other.
Players of Perpetuum are able to participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining
, logistics
, missions, manufacturing
, trading
, artifact hunting and combat
(both player versus environment
and player versus player
). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon extension points accumulation (EP) in real time, even while not logged into the game.
Perpetuum was first released worldwide via a digital distribution
scheme on 25 Nov. 2010, following a period of closed and open beta testing. The current version of Perpetuum is dubbed Terra Incognita, which was released on May 4, 2011.
Nia is home to three alien factions: the Pelistal Empire (green, preferring missile launchers), the Nuimqol Union (blue, preferring railguns) and the Thelodica Clan (yellow, preferring lasers). The faction representing Earth is known as the Syndicate, which will also provide new agents with an Arkhe, a weak but fully featured beginner robot. Alpha islands are represented by a syndicate foothold, also providing security for agents against other agents.
Alpha islands are relative safe; player vs player (PvP)
can not be initiated unless players activate their PvP flags, and NPC's are (with some rare exceptions) of relative low difficulty and/or value. Beta islands offer more of rarer resources, more challenges and higher rewards, but players can always attack each other. Additionally, beta island offer corporation-owned outposts, to be conquered from other corporations in what is known as an incursion. This system will soon be phased out in favor of a more organic mechanic, where ownership of an outpost must be reinforced by completing small objectives every few hours, ensuring the owner has a convincing foothold in the area.
All islands originally belonged to one of the three alien factions, and feature faction-specific textures and architecture.
s, player characters in Perpetuum advance continuously over time by the accumulation of extension points (EP), a passive process that occurs in real world time so that the advancement process continues even if the player is not logged in. One (1) EP is assigned every minute to a player's account's EP pool, from which the player can install abilities, or extensions, to any of up to 3 characters.
Any extension can be installed, depending on their prerequisites, but their rank (1 to 9) and attributes determine the cost for increasing levels. Although older players seem to have the advantage (having acquired more EP), younger players can install a wide assortment of extensions straight away, while older players will pay an increasingly larger amount of EP for smaller nominal advantages. Additionally, if a new player is willing to specialize, they can catch up quickly.
in Perpetuum is an open economy
that is largely player-driven. Non-player character
(NPC) merchants sell low level modules and ammo. The players themselves gather the necessary raw materials to manufacture a large portion of all of the robots, modules and ammunition in the game. NPC robots can be looted for items, kernels (to be sold or used for research, providing base knowledge to build items) and materials. The in-game currency is called NIC, an abbreviation for Nian Credit (the events of the game take place on the planet Nia).
The amount of money or materials in the universe is not fixed and, as such, the economy operates under supply and demand
. The game provides support for the trading of in-game resources, including graphs of item price history. Some players operate primarily as traders, buying, selling and transporting goods to earn profits. Others operate primarily as producers, purchasing components or raw materials and transforming them, sometimes on massive scales, into useful items such as modules, robots, ammunition, or various technologies wanted by players. Others still operate as miners, collecting and sometimes processing the raw materials used in manufacturing to sell on to others in bulk.
scheme, where each faction is weak to one faction, but strong to the other. Additionally, there is a fourth industrial faction, but they feature no significant offensive capabilities.
Each robot has a different set of characteristics and can be fitted with different combinations of modules subject to their fitting requirements. Robots have a wide variety of characteristics, including (but not limited to) reactor size, CPU (robot's computer processing power), accumulator size and accumulator recharge rate (functionally, a battery for activating high powered systems), armor, maximum velocity, locking range, time and maximum number of lockable targets. Robot systems also receive bonuses to performance depending on the level of various appropriate extensions that have been activated by the robot's pilot. These bonuses usually correspond closely to the particular role that the robot has been designed for, and thus vary as widely as the roles of the robots.
One of the most important characteristics of a robot is the slots it has available for fitting modules. Each robot has a number of slots available, ranging from a handful to ten or more. Slots and modules come in three variants: head, legs, and chassis slots, with head modules fitting in a corresponding head slot and so on. Generally speaking, head slots can be considered electronics (such as scanners or sensor amplifiers), legs slots for engineering and chassis slots are for offensive and industrial modules.
in other MMOs). Corporations are run by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who also controls the corporation's assets.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
set in a science fiction ground setting. Players pilot customisable robots on various islands connected by several teleports. These islands are either alpha ('safe' from attacks by players) or beta, meaning players can freely engage each other.
Players of Perpetuum are able to participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
, missions, manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
, trading
Trader (finance)
A trader is someone in finance who buys and sells financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. A broker who simply fills buy or sell orders is not a trader, as they are merely executing instructions given to them. According to the Wall Street Journal in 2004, a managing...
, artifact hunting and combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
(both player versus environment
Player versus environment
Player versus environment, or PvE , is a term used in online games, particularly MMORPGs, CORPGs, MUDs, and other online role-playing video games, to refer to fighting computer-controlled enemies—in contrast to PvP .Usually a PvE mode can be played either alone, with human...
and player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon extension points accumulation (EP) in real time, even while not logged into the game.
Perpetuum was first released worldwide via a digital distribution
Digital distribution
Online distribution, digital distribution, or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet directly to a consumer's device. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media,...
scheme on 25 Nov. 2010, following a period of closed and open beta testing. The current version of Perpetuum is dubbed Terra Incognita, which was released on May 4, 2011.
Setting
Set somewhere after 2208, the back story of Perpetuum explains that humanity, in search of alternative energy sources, has stumbled upon technology to create tiny particle-sized wormholes, creating shortcuts through spacetime. After sending miniature probes out to map known extrasolar planets, one of them stumbled upon a planet designated Nia, home to a synthetic, robot-like lifeform. It was soon discovered these lifeforms have unique and efficient ways to produce energy, so it was to become an objective for conquest. Earth-based IT specialists found a way by using probes to hack into the alien information system, enabling them to take over several lifeforms and set up a base, facilitated by the fact that most of the alien lifeforms were already divided by a long-standing war and were unable to respond quickly to the takeover. Now that the conquest has begun, the aliens have reinforced their networks and the war will have to be decided on the ground. As it stands, human pilots known as agents control their robots remotely, participating in the Perpetuum Project, with their main goal to transfer as much energy as possible back to earth.Nia is home to three alien factions: the Pelistal Empire (green, preferring missile launchers), the Nuimqol Union (blue, preferring railguns) and the Thelodica Clan (yellow, preferring lasers). The faction representing Earth is known as the Syndicate, which will also provide new agents with an Arkhe, a weak but fully featured beginner robot. Alpha islands are represented by a syndicate foothold, also providing security for agents against other agents.
Gameplay
Players start the game by either selecting a previously-created character or by creating a new one. Each Perpetuum account allows for up to three characters to be made. When players create a new character they start by choosing one of the three Earth megacorporations (ICS, Truhold-Markson, Asintec), followed by schools (combat, industrial, logistics) and further specializations. These choices also affect starting extensions and attributes. Choosing an Earth megacorporation also determines for which alien faction you'll receive starting extensions for, but by no means limit or determine what faction the player eventually can or cannot use.Universe
The playing environment in Perpetuum consists of several islands, and have either alpha or beta status. Islands are connected by a teleport network.Alpha islands are relative safe; player vs player (PvP)
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
can not be initiated unless players activate their PvP flags, and NPC's are (with some rare exceptions) of relative low difficulty and/or value. Beta islands offer more of rarer resources, more challenges and higher rewards, but players can always attack each other. Additionally, beta island offer corporation-owned outposts, to be conquered from other corporations in what is known as an incursion. This system will soon be phased out in favor of a more organic mechanic, where ownership of an outpost must be reinforced by completing small objectives every few hours, ensuring the owner has a convincing foothold in the area.
All islands originally belonged to one of the three alien factions, and feature faction-specific textures and architecture.
Advancement
Unlike most other massively multiplayer online gameMassively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
s, player characters in Perpetuum advance continuously over time by the accumulation of extension points (EP), a passive process that occurs in real world time so that the advancement process continues even if the player is not logged in. One (1) EP is assigned every minute to a player's account's EP pool, from which the player can install abilities, or extensions, to any of up to 3 characters.
Any extension can be installed, depending on their prerequisites, but their rank (1 to 9) and attributes determine the cost for increasing levels. Although older players seem to have the advantage (having acquired more EP), younger players can install a wide assortment of extensions straight away, while older players will pay an increasingly larger amount of EP for smaller nominal advantages. Additionally, if a new player is willing to specialize, they can catch up quickly.
Economy
The in-game economyVirtual economy
A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...
in Perpetuum is an open economy
Open economy
An open economy is an economy in which there are economic activities between domestic community and outside, e.g. people, including businesses, can trade in goods and services with other people and businesses in the international community, and flow of funds as investment across the border...
that is largely player-driven. Non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
(NPC) merchants sell low level modules and ammo. The players themselves gather the necessary raw materials to manufacture a large portion of all of the robots, modules and ammunition in the game. NPC robots can be looted for items, kernels (to be sold or used for research, providing base knowledge to build items) and materials. The in-game currency is called NIC, an abbreviation for Nian Credit (the events of the game take place on the planet Nia).
The amount of money or materials in the universe is not fixed and, as such, the economy operates under supply and demand
Supply and demand
Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers will equal the quantity supplied by producers , resulting in an...
. The game provides support for the trading of in-game resources, including graphs of item price history. Some players operate primarily as traders, buying, selling and transporting goods to earn profits. Others operate primarily as producers, purchasing components or raw materials and transforming them, sometimes on massive scales, into useful items such as modules, robots, ammunition, or various technologies wanted by players. Others still operate as miners, collecting and sometimes processing the raw materials used in manufacturing to sell on to others in bulk.
Robots
Robots in Perpetuum are organized into four general classes: Light robots, assault robots, mechs and heavy mechs. With the 3 alien factions, the game follows a rock-paper-scissorsRock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....
scheme, where each faction is weak to one faction, but strong to the other. Additionally, there is a fourth industrial faction, but they feature no significant offensive capabilities.
Each robot has a different set of characteristics and can be fitted with different combinations of modules subject to their fitting requirements. Robots have a wide variety of characteristics, including (but not limited to) reactor size, CPU (robot's computer processing power), accumulator size and accumulator recharge rate (functionally, a battery for activating high powered systems), armor, maximum velocity, locking range, time and maximum number of lockable targets. Robot systems also receive bonuses to performance depending on the level of various appropriate extensions that have been activated by the robot's pilot. These bonuses usually correspond closely to the particular role that the robot has been designed for, and thus vary as widely as the roles of the robots.
One of the most important characteristics of a robot is the slots it has available for fitting modules. Each robot has a number of slots available, ranging from a handful to ten or more. Slots and modules come in three variants: head, legs, and chassis slots, with head modules fitting in a corresponding head slot and so on. Generally speaking, head slots can be considered electronics (such as scanners or sensor amplifiers), legs slots for engineering and chassis slots are for offensive and industrial modules.
Players and communities
Players have several options when playing Perpetuum in regards to how they interact with the community. Some activities are perfectly feasible being done by solo players, but most activities are more suitable for groups of players, for example corporations (similar to guildsClan (computer gaming)
In computer and video gaming, a clan or guild is an organised group of players that regularly play together in a particular multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 1000-person organizations, with a broad range of structures, goals and members. The lifespan of a clan...
in other MMOs). Corporations are run by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who also controls the corporation's assets.
Accounts and subscriptions
Users start playing Perpetuum by creating a trial account, the game itself does not have to be purchased.See Also
- EVE OnlineEVE OnlineEve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting.