Read the full article about Qorena’s post-mortem here.
TL; DR – We’re done.
In Other News
Despite all odds, Maze Qore might just finally awake from his coma soon…
Next year…
Give it time…
Author: Onye Nacho
Founder of Néotl Empire. Jack of all trades, master of many.
Qorena released out of Early Access!
After 4 years, Qorena has finally been released!
Qorena Playtest Postponed
Economic matters have struck critically for us, making it difficult for us to continue hosting the weekly playtests and compensate users for it. To make matters worse, we’re stuck trying to solve a critical bug with Unreal Engine 4 and Steamworks, preventing connections from working properly on the server browser. We cannot continue playtesting let alone release the game until this is solved.
Official Qorena Playtesting has been postponed until further notice.
Weekly Qorena Playtest
Qorena (formerly known as Maze Qore Arena) has received a massive overhaul last month through Foresight – our playtest program for Qore World titles, from the old competitive arena shooter (still playable on the main build if you so wish), to a new cooperative survival arena shooter, and we need YOUR help testing it.
You can find out how to access the playtest by clicking here.
Qorena Foresight – Version 0.8 OVERHAUL Update
After several months, the game overhaul is finally here and better than ever! Transitioning from competitive multiplayer matches to full cooperative arena survival.
You can read more about it at our parent website Qore World!
Click the image below to go there now!
Maze Qore Arena Update & Plans for Overhaul – Version 0.7.0
Greetings!
The new 0.7 update for Maze Qore Arena is now available!
In this update, we have been hard at work to deliver yet another a new game mode, and a few more new levels!
NEW GAME MODE: IDENTITY THEFT:
Steal the ID card, escape the area or kill all the other players to win! Player with the fastest completion time wins!
IMPROVEMENTS
- New game mode: Identity Theft.
- New map: Outdoors – Imperial Base.
- New map: Outdoors – Deserted Town.
- Introduced a PS1/PC-classic graphics aesthetic.
- Improved the AI to perform better with Flag Hustle, and the Riots.
KNOWN BUGS
Bot AI may still have a few hiccups with Identity Theft. We might work towards fixing it in a patch.
MOST IMPORTANT NEWS
As this year comes to a close, we’ve been deciding long and hard with what to do with this game. Despite our efforts, nigh no one seems to care that this game even exists as it has languished for months with no online servers populated with players (let alone at least one server to join), and almost no activity. Either that, or they probably played the outdated singleplayer demo and forgot about the entire game afterwards. For all we know, we are unsure if anyone is probably even reading these update articles.
So considering this and the research on how competitive multiplayer games fare on this marketplace, we’ve concluded that competitive multiplayer is a fruitless endeavor. We really want to give players a reason to care for this game, and most importantly enjoy the game, for our success can only be achieved when players are enjoying this game.
Starting next year (and part of our resolution for 2022), Maze Qore Arena will be overhauled. It will no longer feature competitive gameplay as it currently stands. Instead, it shall live closer to it’s name; an Arena; a coliseum of enemies to slay; a might and fight for survival. MQA is going cooperative.
WHAT ABOUT THE CONTENT?
Most of the pre-existing levels, sprites, and gameplay will remain intact. The game modes will be scrapped and replaced with only one; Survival.
NPCs from the old singleplayer demo will make their return to the overhaul.
Bots will be overhauled to specifically support this game mode, so hopefully you will not have to fight alone against waves offline.
This also means MQA might compete with the likes of Killing Floor when it comes to it’s new gameplay direction (even though we’re not trying to compete with them).
From the beginning of this game development, we wanted to provide a variety of gameplay options for players to enjoy including the Survival mode (eventually), however we’ve learned that MP games for the most part have gone nowhere, often dead-on arrival. We tried to rectify this with bot support, giving players an alternative to at least still enjoy the game offline should online disappoint.
We’ve learned that sometimes. it is better to keep it simple and straight-forward, rather than try to make an online game suite.
Hopefully all goes well. It will take a long time before an overhaul arrives.
(c) Néotl Empire
Establish, Explore, Expand.
Introducing Foresight – Progress Update [5/6/21]
We have been hard at work with the new levels and gameplay improvements with Maze Qore Arena, and we wish to demonstrate our latest progress.
NEW LEVELS
Maze Qore Arena is heading into a new direction as we introduce new levels with the Outdoors update. No more chromatic prison maps, more maps taking place outside of the prison and into the world of Asterisk shall take prominence!
Imperial Base
Our first multiplayer level from the outdoors is finally complete and playable! No more fighting within the interior, chromatic, confines of a max-security prison. Now the entire world is your arena! Fight through many places around the world of Asterisk! We will be releasing a hand-full of outdoor levels arriving to Version 0.7. The Imperial base is only the first of them.
Desert Ville
![WIP - Levels - Desert Ville [Marketplace]](https://i0.wp.com/media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/66/65547/thumb_620x2000/Marketplace_1.png?w=820&ssl=1)
![WIP - Levels - Desert Ville [Museums]](https://i0.wp.com/media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/66/65547/thumb_620x2000/Museums_6.png?w=820&ssl=1)
![WIP - Levels - Desert Ville [Museums]](https://i0.wp.com/media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/66/65547/thumb_620x2000/Museums_2.png?w=820&ssl=1)
![WIP - Levels - Desert Ville [Museums]](https://i0.wp.com/media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/66/65547/thumb_620x2000/Museums_8.png?w=820&ssl=1)
![WIP - Levels - Desert Ville [Taverns]](https://i0.wp.com/media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/66/65547/thumb_620x2000/Taverns_1.png?w=820&ssl=1)
A medium town with plenty of places to go (and with an interactable environment)! This is also the very first level in the game to be designed for up to 64 players.
INTRODUCING FORESIGHT
Our initiative feature for play testing the upcoming version of our game soon before the next version even releases officially. Waiting for a new update to release can be tedious, so we decided to make it more available to access the game within work-in-progress state. This is of course the unfinished version of the update(s), so that also means unstable builds and thus prone to crashes and bugs. Any content in MQA Foresight does not represent the final game. Anything in the builds can be redacted at any time for any reason, but it will give insight of how we’re trying to improve the game.
If you wish to sign up for Foresight, you can do so by requesting access on the Steam page.
(c) Néotl Empire
Establish, Explore, Expand.
Maze Qore Arena – Multiplayer Update [Version 0.6]
Greetings!
The new 0.6 update for Maze Qore Arena is now available!
In this update, we have been hard at work to deliver a new game mode, and several more new levels!
IMPROVEMENTS
- New game mode: Jail Bait.
- New map: Yellow Sector – Fahrenheit.
- New map: Red Sector – Peer Pressure.
- New map: Quarantine Zone – Doctor Sid’s Lab.
- New map: Grey Sector – The Killing Floor.
- New map: Dream Sector – Cloud Nine.
- Fixed bugs with the audio and multiplayer settings.
- Fixed bug preventing a match from loading it’s respective settings.
- Polished the bot AI to perform better with Flag Hustle and Jail Bait.
KNOWN BUGS
- Bot AI is still a WIP; finally playable with Flag Hustle and experimental with Jail Bait.
- Players may seldom disconnect as the server changes to a new level.
- Players may be unable to rejoin the same server they were abruptly disconnected from, requiring a restart of the game.
- Instant Action: Bots have trouble navigating through teleporters, seldom rendering some maps unplayable on certain game modes (Flag Hustle and Jail Bait).
- Teleporter sounds lack proper attenuation; sounds will still play as if you are close by. For this reason, it is recommended to play Doctor Sid’s Lab and Cloud Nine with at most 4 players/bots to reduce noise spam. Expect a patch soon to remedy this.
After feedback from the team, we decided to alter our plan for the final release and post-support. We will take our chances introducing mod support before early access ends and hope for the best. We may have been looking at this the wrong and realized the potential the game truly has beyond just an action-arena, E-sports-friendly, shooter. We want to make it modular and expand the game with multiple themes to suit the gamer’s preference, somewhat similar to Prison Architect only better. As a spin-off to our main project, we now seek to expand this game outside the confines of a prison, and we will start showing this by the next update version 0.7 with more outdoor levels and another new game mode.
Version 0.8: We will bring two more new game modes, and a handful of game themes (to be discussed when that time comes).
Version 0.9: Bot support should be completed, and mod tools released in beta phase.
End of early access (Version 1.0): Mod tools will leave beta, completing the entire project.
Post release: Possibility of two additional game modes, and a series of holiday events for two years.
_____________
I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena!
– Establish. Explore. Expand.
Maze Qore Arena – Multiplayer released! (Version 0.5)
Initially, we stated prior sometime in the past that multiplayer will mark the day Maze Qore Arena leaves early access with a price tag, but after some months deciding hard on it, and re-evaluating the quality of the single-player component, we decided to release the first multiplayer update free into early access, and we will continue this tradition until Version 1.0, which will mark the full release out of early access.
In addition, we have already decided to make the singleplayer version a separate component via ‘demo’ release, available on the front page.
Now please note. this game is still not complete, let alone feature complete. We still have plenty of features to complete before the game leaves early access. At this point, due to personal reasons related to COVID-19, we can no longer guarantee it will leave early access before the end of 2020 as we had hoped, but we still intend to ensure it does, hopefully no later than Holiday 2020.
As for post-support, well to be honest with you all, that all depends on how well this game performs and how much the players care. We are willing to devote our time and efforts to supporting this game to be polished and complete, even after early access, however there is little purpose to do so if it is dead on arrival. To help prevent this phenomenon that many multiplayer titles succumb to, we are working on bots (player AI substitutes) to fail-safe this game from such predicament. As it stands now in V0.5, they are unready, and to a point where some game modes can be unplayable due to behavior. This shall be fixed in Version 0.6 or 0.7. Regarding mod support, this will also be completed during post-support for the very fears aforementioned – no point in mod support if no one cares about the game.
KNOWN BUGS
- Bot AI is a broken mess, yet they are fairly playable on Riot and Gang Riot.
- Players may seldom disconnect as the server changes to a new level.
- Players may be unable to rejoin the same server they were abruptly disconnected from, requiring a restart of the game.
- Score streaks are still a work-in-progress, thus you may experience an “unknown scorestreak” message, often when you kill multiple enemies.
IMPROVEMENTS
- Many features from singleplayer have been transferred to this multiplayer build, with necessary changes and omissions to balance online play.
- Players have the ability throw grenades and carry up to 8 at a time. Subject to change.
_____________
I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena!
Establish, Explore, Expand.
_____________
NOTE
If you are having trouble finding a multiplayer server to play on, or finding players to play with, you can join our Discord server to lobby for players and join a match together.
Use !register to access the server, then use the #gaming channel to host a session to other gamers.
Maze Qore Arena – Progress Update [6/29/20]
Maze Qore Arena – Progress Update [6/29/20] – Upcoming Features
Greetings all! It has been months since Maze Qore Arena entered early access, and we wanted to show you what we have in store for our major update to the game.
Camera View Object Fading (CVOF)
We have been working on CVOF or Camera View Object Fading. This will fade the object to a transparent view whenever a player moves through terrain or structures above them. This also includes ceilings when entering buildings.
This will come very well in handy during gameplay, and will also allow us to expand for better level design.
Online Multiplayer
Another feature we have been working on is online multiplayer and it is far from completion. This has been our ultimate goal for MQA from the very beginning, however we thought it would be best to start off with singleplayer first and give players something to enjoy while we work on polishing, tuning, and finalizing the game with our multiplayer update. The idea was for the singleplayer to serve as a demo of sorts to showcase the core gameplay style and features players can expect when playing the game (subjective to change). We wanted feedback on the direction to understand what we have done right and wrong about the game and what we can do to better it so it will be a fun game to enjoy once it leaves early access – all the more reason it is free to play during early access.
Meanwhile, we are working on network replication and multiplayer game modes as well as user mod support – player sprite editor, and level editor.
By the end of the release, we hope to publish MQ to mobile devices. This was our original intended goal but we underestimated the costs and requisites to distribute our game to iOS or Android store and lack the resources needed to make it happen, so we decided to just go with the standard PC path first, then return to the mobile path later.
The Labyrinth
Did we mention user-mod support? Why yes we did! The Labyrinth is our special plan to make this possible. In addition the the player sprite editor, the labyrinth is a special game mode that allows players to create custom levels to play and distribute with the community.
We are also far from completion with this feature. As modders ourselves, we truly liked what some games have offered for custom user content – Mario Maker, Little Big Planet, TimeSplitters – and we wish to preserve this tradition with Maze Qore Arena. As you may suspect, the Labyrinth is heavily inspired by TimeSplitters’ Mapmaker. Players will also be able to download their levels via save data and upload them on Mod.io.
That is all folks! Subscribe to our social media for updates (you can find them at the bottom of this website).
Got any concerns or feedback to the game or like what we do, join us on Discord.
If you wish to give Maze Qore Arena a try, the game is on Steam E.A. for free.