Touring Through Trove
When I’m not in FFXIV working hardcore on leveling crafting on Zuri or working on getting Sol tomes to buy Tai tanking pants, I’ve been popping into Trove every now and then. This is thanks to the encouragement of Ironweakness and Kunzay, who have both shown a good deal of enthusiasm about Trove. In fact, they appear to be working together to build up a club, and I’m hoping to connect with them to help out eventually.
I picked up an alpha account for Trove last August when it went on $5 sale. Along the way, I’ve hopped in and out of the game, checking on the development and wondering what the heck this game was all about. In fact, after souring at Trion for the whole Arche Age mess, my curiosity for Trove was the only reason I kept Glyph installed on my PC.
What in the World am I Doing?
The biggest issue I had with Trove in alpha and early beta was the lack of any kind of direction. I get that it’s a sandbox and that you make your own goals. However, coupled with the lack of permanence, and I found myself lost as to what Trove was really all about.
Looking back at my first post about Trove, I see that I wrote:
I spent forever trying to find my way back to Firefly Party to find my Cornerstone. Never found it. After a bit of research, I found that you could just plop down an exact copy of your Cornerstone at any open Cornerstone spot on the map.
I’m not sure why, but this somewhat bothered me. If that’s really how it works, then (at this point), there’s no real feeling of consistent place to call home. On the other hand, maybe that’s not at all what they were trying to design for. There are “clubs” that — I think — work as a more permanent area to build. But I haven’t tried to make one yet.
After spending some more time with Trove, my mind has changed a good bit. Yes, clubs are the more permanent corner of the game for you to build. Somewhat a cross between instanced housing and a guild, it can be shared and added to by many people.
I’ve come to understand the benefit of having a portable Cornerstone now days, however. Especially when I need to refill my healing potion bottle!
Finding Direction in Trove
The devs recently added something called a Golden Thread, which is part tutorial and part feature exploration. This was a HUGE help, IMHO, in exposing a new player to the concepts that Trove wants us to explore. Not only does it reward the cubic currency, but it even helps you purchase your first alternate class!
Collecting Classes
Of course, I started out with and continue to love my Dracolyte, but it’s cool to unlock other classes, which you can switch to at any time. Collecting classes is actually one of the goals that you can work towards in Trove. Available from the game shop, you can purchase with the cubits you earn from in-game content or buy with credits (the real money currency). I think I’d much rather earn mine, though, because it gives something to work towards.
Collecting Styles
At heart, Trove is a collector’s dream. When the Golden Thread led me to creating a machine called the Deconstructor, I suddenly realized just how much there is to collect. When you gather weapons and armor you don’t need, you can toss them into the Deconstructor. This not only turns them into Flux (use this to upgrade items), but saves the look of the item you deconstructed in a huge style bank. At any time, you can cosmetically apply those styles to what you’re wearing for your own unique look.
There’s tons of looks to collect, some based on rarity and some based on biome theme. Collecting all these items and styles alone will take a lot of dedication and provide lots of goals to pursue.
Collecting Mounts
Mounts. Lots and lots of mounts, all obtained in different ways. So collectible.
I only have two mounts, the fastest being a little holiday raptor I got from beta, I guess. Kinda goes with the whole dragon theme, so I roll with it.
Collecting Allies
Allies are Trove’s version of pets. Like mounts, you can get them in many different ways. However, they can be useful to your character, as certain special allies can do things like buff your stats or provide healing.
Fishing
I don’t know a ton about fishing yet, but it seems fishing things up and throwing them in the deconstructor earns you items or points towards your mastery level. There’s different rods and fish to collect, so it seems like it could be a lot of fun.
Professions
I know nothing about professions other than fishing, but there’s a lot to choose from. Gardening, ringcrafting, and runecrafting are all explore-able professions.
Building & Crafting
Of course, there’s building and crafting, which go hand in hand. You can mine up materials to use for crafting and building. You can build up your little Cornerstone, or open a Club and build a much larger, more permanent area.
Leveling
The most obvious thing to do is level your classes. You do this by hopping through a level-appropriate portal to a randomly generated area created of several different biomes. Here, you wander across the land, defeating enimes and taking on public dungeons to defeat the bosses within. Defeating enough of these events during the day will earn you a cubit reward.
This whole process is much improved over what it used to be. I remember a time when you’d enter an area and there wasn’t a single un-defeated dungeon to take on, making the daily really hard to complete. Now, the lands are a lot larger and there’s more variety to the dungeons and landmarks. I haven’t had any trouble finding a boss to pick a fight with yet, which is so much better than what I remember.
Mastery
Over everything else is the Mastery system. Just about everything in Trove earn you mastery points, which is actually the true measure of your “level” in the game. Earning Mastery levels also reward you with all kinds of things, such as wings at level 20. My current far-off goal. 🙂
I’m sure there are other things in the game I’ve missed, but these are just some of the goals you can work toward in the world of Trove – a lot more than I gave the game credit for. I doubt I’ll ever make this a main MMO, but it’s a cute little romp to bounce around in from time to time and worth a look (or second look).