Lots of news to cover for this week. Otherland's second CBT weekend has come and gone, with a new Making-Of trailer, many new posts on the official forums, and lots to catch up on with the Advent Calendar Contest.

Otherland Making Of Part 5 - New Class Announced: Hacker
This making of focuses on the four classes within Otherland: Rage, Marksman, Energizer, and Assassin. Listen to the developers as they talk about their take on each of the classes and their vision for how each class should play out. Also listen until the very end for the announcement of the new upcoming class that will most likely come out in a patch post-launch!



Otherland CBT Phase 2 Comes to An End!
The Otherland Closed Beta Phase 2 has ended and the Otherland Team is eager to get your feedback if you participated! Check out the post below to do your part by filling out the survey.

Originally Posted by Azrael

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Feedback Survey | CBT Phase 2
For all players who were able to participate in CBT Phase 2, please fill out the following survey ASAP. This is your chance to give your feedback and help shape the future of Otherland! So be honest, be thorough, and be a part of the process of making Otherland great!

Here you will find the survey! (link offline)

We greatly appreciate all of your help and dedication,
-the Otherland team

(Source)

Holiday Prize Calendar Event Recap
The Holiday Prize Calendar is still plugging away until the 24th of December and there's been many great prizes so far! If you're looking for a chance to score a beta key there have been quite a few that have been won from this event so far. Make sure you're checking the forums daily to have a higher chance of winning something!



Follow us and Like our Social Pages!
We love to keep the community up to date on news. We also love to do contests and giveaways! Be sure to get in on the contests first by subscribing to our social media outlets! Who knows... We may even get a certain type of special access key to give away in the near future.

It has just been announced that Otherland's second Closed Beta test will begin Friday December 14 at 10:00AM CET. Remember, all contents are still under NDA and talking about the game in areas open to public is not allowed.

Originally Posted by Dust

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After weeks of hard work implementing your feedback, Otherland Closed Beta | Phase 2 is finally ready to launch! This latest build features many changes, including:

• a revamped tutorial
• a completely new starter zone
• refined combat mechanisms
• updated quest chains
• and much more!

We will be opening the server to closed beta testers for a short preview and feedback round on Friday, December 14th (10:00 AM CET) through Monday, December 17th 2012 (03:00 AM CET). The new client downloader can be found here.

Please note that only Closed Beta Testers can access the game with this client. Please uninstall all previous Otherland clients before installing this new one. All relevant game and server information is available in the Closed Beta Forums , available to all Closed Beta Testers. A survey will be handed out to all testers soon afterwards.

In the coming weeks we will be allowing more players into the closed beta tests and holding more contests for keys! Stay tuned and thank you for your feedback and patience.

(Source)

Follow us and Like our Social Pages!
We love to keep the community up to date on news. We also love to do contests and giveaways! Be sure to get in on the contests first by subscribing to our social media outlets! Who knows... We may even get a certain type of special access key to give away in the near future.

[Note] Don't miss our earlier post! - Otherland Advent Calendar Event Recap, Community Contest Report: 99%

Well done. You've managed to hit the final progression milestone of the contest. (This also means we can finally get rid of the meter at the top of the page too! )

We have five exclusive screenshots lined up for the community that you can see below. You can also see all of our previous unlocks below as well in case you missed anything. Thank you to everyone who participated in this contest and helped us reach our milestones again and again. Stick around the NetFeed for some exciting things happening in the very near future!

Community Contest Milestone - 100%
Drum roll please...



Community Contest Recap
Here are all the previous milestone unlocks:

Originally Posted by Otherland NetFeed

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Hi Tad!

Thanks for taking the time to sit down with Otherland NetFeed, Otherland's first English based fan site for the upcoming MMO, and answer our questions about the game, the books, and about yourself!

You're very welcome, Travis.

Firstly, I need to know. A little while back I saw a Twitter post about a new Otherland story. Can you perhaps shed some light on this topic? Is there going to be another book?
There may indeed be another Otherland novel someday, and I also intend to do more fiction-writing work for the game itself, but the Otherland story is for an anthology edited by John J. Adams. We can't name the title of the anthology yet, and for that reason also I can't give you the story title! It'll all be announced in the next month I think. But the story is about Orlando trying to solve a murder mystery in the one of the Otherland simulations, which has been returned to (ostensibly) happier times. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I think it adds a level to the original exploration of that simulation, since we see it now apparently functional.

Out of everything that has been shown so far in the Otherland MMO, what part of the game have you had considerable influence over in terms of RealU designing and implementing your ideas? What part of the game did you struggle with the most to match up to your vision?
I've never tried to impose a vision, because the best part of collaboration is when you trust people and can let them bring what they bring. I think the Eight Squared is very, very accurate, and Lambda Mall feels very much like the books, which makes it fun to explore. Another of the first settings was not in the book, so I can't really rank it. We have a bunch of others from the book in the pipeline, though, and would like to regularly add worlds.

Other than Otherland's rich and unique story line, what can players expect from the game that will set Otherland apart from the MMOs of today?
For one thing, it's not just one simple world -- it's at least three to begin with, all complex, and it will grow. Also, there's a strong emphasis on social interaction as well as just hack-and-slash, and my biggest hope for the game is that the community grows and I get to see it develop into something special. You can own your own property and customize and add and defend it. And unlike a lot of games, there will be things to do while just "hanging around", which will keep both casual and hardcore gamers entertained and involved while they're waiting for the next worlds to come online.

What feature or game system are you most looking forward to in Otherland? What can you tell us about this feature that we don't already know?
I'm really bad with technical stuff, but I know they're working hard on combat logistics so that it WILL satisfy the hardcore gamers. Also, the personally-owned and group-owned property system is going to be very new and very nice.

There hasn't been a lot of talk about the Otherland movie since it was announced. Is there any update you can give us about it?
Current state of play is going back and forth with ideas about how to tell the story, so there's not much to tell except that it's an active option and active prep is going on. I'll make sure to let people know more when things begin to solidify. Sorry to be vague, but Hollywood will kill you if you get too impatient. Things happen when they happen, and when they DO happen, it's usually in a mad rush.

Thanks Tad!

Follow us and Like our Social Pages!
We love to keep the community up to date on news. We also love to do contests and giveaways! Be sure to get in on the contests first by subscribing to our social media outlets! Who knows... We may even get a certain type of special access key to give away in the near future.

December has been pretty exciting so far as Community Manager Dust put together a nice advent calendar for each day of the month up until the 25th. While not every day has been something for the community, there have been quite a few screenshots and other prizes that have been made available for us!

In other news, the contest is at 99% as of the time of writing this. Otherland NetFeed is also almost at 600 likes on Facebook! That's amazing! Remember that we have been given exclusive beta screenshots to release when the meter hits 100%. More on this past the break.

Otherland Advent Calendar Event Recap


Community Contest Report: 99%
Well it looks as if the contest will end tomorrow. We're so close to hitting 100% and I wouldn't be surprised if you guys hit that mark for tomorrow morning! There are quite a few never before seen beta screenshots waiting to be released on our side, all that needs to be done is beat the meter!

Remember that doing almost anything on Otherland NetFeed will help in pushing the meter over. Here are a few of the easier things to do:

• Post on our forums
• Register on our site
• Like/Follow Facebook and twitter accounts

We're almost there guys, keep pushing!

Follow us and Like our Social Pages!
We love to keep the community up to date on news. We also love to do contests and giveaways! Be sure to get in on the contests first by subscribing to our social media outlets! Who knows... We may even get a certain type of special access key to give away in the near future.

Otherland NetFeed turned one year old this month! So happy birthday to us and we hope to see everyone and more around for next years birthday as well! In this showcase we have some pretty epic news about our 100% milestone on our ongoing Otherland Community Contest, so check past the break to read everything about it. Also in some very not-awesome news, Otherland will not be having another beta event as announced by Massively some time ago. Here's hoping for some December action, though!

Otherland NetFeed Turns 1 Year Old
So it appears that Otherland NetFeed has been around for a year (yeah, I forgot ...) and this month we are celebrating our first birthday! I wish this meant more than just a hoo-rah and the wearing of a party hat, and really we'd love to be doing giveaways and birthday related stuff (like cake), but unfortunately I think we'll stuff all of that stuff back in the closet and wait for next year.



Make sure you stick around until next year for something truly epic and fun for everyone!

Exclusive Beta Screenshots for the 100% Milestone!
We have something big planned for our 100% milestone in the Community Contest, but we need the help of you guys to get there. We've opened up the possibilities to increase the meter: posts on our forums, likes on our facebook/twitter pages, registers on Otherland NetFeed forums, and a few others. Basically anything you do on Otherland NetFeed will likely be calculated into the meter progress. That being said, there won't be any 90% milestone prize.

So as the title says, we are unlocking a bunch of beta first look ingame screenshots at 100%. Get to it guys!

No Beta for November
It seems that there won't be any beta for the month of November with there only being a few more days left in the month. Also the internal word is there won't be an event ready for this coming weekend either, sadly. We will just have to wait for some time in December!