Expeditions: Viking - January Newsletter

Here's the January newsletter for Expeditions: Viking:

Sound the Horn!

Welcome back friends of the North! This month’s newsletter arrives with all sorts of things to talk about, from a summary of our most recent closed Beta to a highlight of a few skills that are new to the game, to how YOU can help us to raise awareness about Expeditions: Viking, and what’s in store for the Expeditions: Viking crew in the near future. Let’s get into it!

Rally the Hird!

First off, a warm thanks to you good people! One of the wonderful questions we get from the kind folk of the internet is:

“How do I show support for Expeditions: Viking?”

To answer that for you-- there are lots of ways, and we’d appreciate every bit of your support!

Spread the News

The first thing you can do is recommend us to people you think would enjoy playing Expeditions: Viking. You can suggest that they sign up to the newsletter (www.expeditionsseries.com), or visit the Steam store page and add the game to your (or their) wishlist.

Talk About Your Experiences

We appreciate all of you who participated in the Beta Test being so wonderfully active with your reporting and suggestions and for keeping those reports and discussions in the closed sections of the steam forum. We thank you for your candor and confidentiality. But now is the time for you to get out there and share! Do you have a player experience or screenshot that you’d like to share in an online community. We encourage you to do so! Whether it’s on a social media site (like Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest) or an online forum (like Reddit, 4Chan, Steam groups, RPG sites, or Youtube comments sections), get on out there and tell people all the things you’ve enjoyed in your experiences so far with Expeditions: Viking.

On that note, take a look at this shiny new video series that Youtuber Many A True Nerd released just last week. The comment section is abuzz, so here’s a great place to get out there and talk more about Expeditions: Viking from a player’s perspective. Go on then, let's give Many A True Nerd some love!

Closed Beta Report

To start this off, if you’re new to the newsletter and were too late to join the previous Beta, fret not! We plan to host one more closed Beta before launch so stay tuned to the newsletter to find out more when the time comes!

A huge thanks for all of you Beta Testers who participated in the last Beta session. It was really exciting to get your comments, questions, and feedback, and we want to especially thank you for all the lovely bug reports.

There were nearly 200 bugs and issues that made it through initial reporting and into our system. More than 120 of these were resolved during the Beta, and we published 6 updated builds over the duration of the Beta with improvements abound.

This was such a great opportunity for us to hear back from you with feedback on user experiences and your comments and suggestions were paramount. Thank you again so much!

The Great Dane Axe

It’s finally here! Now you can crowd control and cleave your way to bloody victory using the devastating two-handed Dane Axe. But “what will I do in the shield wall without my shield?” you ask. Well, disrupt and destroy the enemy, my sword-and-boarding friend! As with most weapon types, investing skill points to level the Dane Axe skill will reward players with a total of 3 unique combat abilities:

Reckless Strike - at Rank 1 Reckless Strike is an attack action that currently gives the axe wielder a 25% bonus to damage on their attack but applies the status effect “Unbalanced” (we could have called it “Overpowered” *giggle*) which prevents the character from moving until the end of the next turn. Big Mess, No Fuss.

Pull - at Rank 3 players will unlock Pull. Pull is a crowd control ability that allows players to hook an enemy who is two hexes away by the neck and pull them into melee range. This is great for dragging enemies into unpleasant situations you’ve set up for them (like the ice patch in the gif), and while it won’t trigger attacks of opportunity, it’s great for forcing enemies into traps and the like.

Swipe - at Rank 5, Swipe is an attack action where the player will strike an enemy and any characters standing on either side of the target. Swipe cannot damage shields if blocked, however, and deals no armor-piercing damage. We were thinking of calling it Cleavey McCleaversen but it was too many characters.

Coming Up

We’re very excited to announce that we will be attending a number of trade shows and conferences in the coming months. You can find us at:

GDC San Francisco from February 27 - March 3 in San Francisco, USA for business development meetings and media presentations for Expeditions: Viking. If you’re in the Bay area and are interested in arranging an appointment contact us at info@logicartists.com

For a public demo of Expeditions: Viking you will find us at:

PC Gamer Weekender the 18/19 of February in London, England http://weekender.pcgamer.com/201-programme

PAX East the 10 -12 of March in Boston, USA
http://east.paxsite.com/

We will be taking media appointments at both PAX and the Weekender, if you’d like to reserve a time you can contact us at info@logicartists.com to arrange an appoinment or swing by the booth to say hello.

Stay tuned to the newsletter for information about the upcoming beta and release date info, not to mention a special release week gift for all newsletter subscribers!