Trove is Trion’s latest MMO, and there’s certainly a feel of Minecraft hanging around those parts. But as much as Trove is a different game to Minecraft – thanks to a RPG-style questing system and other MMO features – the major elements that make Mojang’s game such a hit will still be part of Trove. Chief among them are mods, which is a big part of the player experience. So much so that mods can become part of the main game if they are spotted by Trion’s team.
“There’s a huge mod community of people who create and change game assets, some of which catch our eye and actually end up in the game itself. People are often surprised to discover that the cool new sword they equipped was actually made by another player!” explains Andrew Krausnick, Trove’s lead developer. “The ability to modify the game world is incredibly addicting and fun.”
The emphasis on having player-created items in the game is key to Trove’s future. Krausnick hopes that, like in EVE Online, one day much of the items available in Trove’s trading economy will be player-created. “Almost everything in our game is tradable, including real money store items, and later this year we plan on adding an easier way to trade with other players,” he explains.
To get there though, not only does a great trading system need to be built, but also constant encouragement for creativity. It’s Trove’s world and opportunities that will inspire players, says Krausnick: “Players get their own permanent world to build in by themselves or with friends. There are crafting stations, fast travel mag rails, updraft blocks for gliding, terraforming, and a ton of decorations.”
Minecraft’s worlds are randomly generated, and there’s elements of that in Trion, too. But Krausnick assures us we haven’t seen the best of Trove’s world yet. “In the future I’m very excited about the possibilities we have with our world generation technology. We’ve only just scratched the surface on what is possible to see in our worlds.”
But whilst much of the world is randomly generated, the game’s recent beta proved that letting a computer take charge of everything isn’t necessarily the best route. “[In the beta] We learned that some randomness is good but there is such a thing as too much,” explains Krausnick. “And well… We learned that people really like dragons!”
Our Nick has been collecting together the best mods for Trove. And if you’re just starting your Trove adventure, you’ll need to know all the console commands.