Spilt Milk Studio were one of the people who have a developer session today at EGX, using the time to talk about their new free-to-play MMO that was in beta now - Lazarus.
Lazarus is a space MMO roguelike, with the unique property of the game world having a reset every week. This means from week to week the things needed to survive will change, and most stuff will not be permanent - although some elements will be and will be carried over from week to week.
During the session there was a lot of talk about how they came to be doing a free-to-play MMO in space, with references back to Spilt Milk's last well-known game release Tango Fiesta. They spoke about how they wanted to do early access and therefore wanted to have a game that would be better suited to this, as they had learned that Tango Fiesta was not the right sort of game for that. They also spoke about wanting to do multiplayer better this time around.
About the decision to introduce a weekly reset into the game, they spoke about how off-putting it could be to come into a big multiplayer world of an MMO late - something that I can see the point of. The weekly reset will ensure that no one is too far ahead of everyone else and will help the studio keep control of the game - after all as we were told throughout the session only 4 people are working on this new game. Those people? Andrew, Andrew, Andrew and... Steve.
As of yet the game is still being tweaked with feedback from the community the game is building during its alpha and now beta stage, so not everything is set in stone. One thing that has been said though is that unlocks for upgrades and bought credit balances will not be reset every week, and that as a free-to-play the game will be offering customisation and cosmetic items for real money purchase such as skins for player ships. In fact, signing up for the game on the game's site will net you one skin for free.
We were very interested in the look of this game, so we'll be keeping an eye on Lazarus.