Originally slated to launch this past summer, Influence is now ready to get things going with a limited mainnet release, followed soon after by a full pre-release on a testnet, and then the official Exploitation launch later this year!
Though we expected to hear about new releases from Influence over the summer, we ended up having to wait a little longer. But that wait is now over! Influence has a date for a limited mainnet release, and general plans for further updates later this year.
Influence will run on Starknet, and part of their delays are making sure that Starknet is ready for prime time. Well it seems that things are good to go as Influence has announced a limited mainnet release, set to go live on October 12th, at 14:00 UTC. With this release players will be able to bridge their assets to Starknet, finish up any crew assignments, make long-range asteroid scans, name their asteroids and crew, and also recruit new crewmates.
The upcoming testnet pre-release will include full gameplay (building bases, harvesting and refining resources, constructing ships, etc) and will also offer special events and missions where players can earn titles, limited collectibles, and discounts on in-game access. This release will also include the in-game SWAY token.
Once the testnet version has been tested, patched, and deemed ready, it will launch on the live servers in a initial game phase called Exploitation, and the game will be officially live!
What is Influence?
Influence is a space-based MMORPG. In Influence, a colony ship has arrived at its destination, only to find uninhabitable planets. After much debate, the ship commander decides that the passengers and crew would set up camp in an asteroid belt and begin building a new civilization. Players have already begun to lay claims to Asteroids in the belt, and soon will come mining crews, bases, merchants, wealth, and inevitably, conflict.
In addition to the Asteroids and Ships, players also own Crew NFTs. Crew have the option of creating a background storyline. This is done through a text story where the player makes choices for the Crew member. Based on those choices, the Crew member receives certain traits that affect their in-game skills, allowing players to personalize their NFTs.
Influence is offering some other unique features that make it stand out. Mainly, its adherence to a realistic simulation. Not only are the resource production processes complicated and based on real life, but the Asteroids themselves include orbital dynamics! This is not a static map. All the Asteroids are constantly moving in their orbits. Each Asteroid has an orbital period (how long it takes to complete one orbit), a semi-major axis (how far it is from the center), inclination (how angled the orbit is off from the orbital plane), and eccentricity (how stretched the orbit is from a perfect circle)! This all plays into effect as time progresses, causing the distance between any two Asteroids to vary daily!
There certainly will be a lot to process in this game. Luckily, some people are already building tools to help players figure out the complex production processes.
To learn more about Influence, visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord server.
