If anyone's curious, the game is Eterspire!
If you have any questions about the game feel free to ask in the comments :)
Hi everyone! Manu from the Eterspire team here.
Today I want to share how we revisited a system we had introduced to our indie MMORPG a very long time ago: Fishing.
Fishing is Eterspire’s first, and currently only, Lifeskill. Players did train it, but over time it became a bit too disconnected from the rest of the game. Progression was barebones, rewards were limited, and there wasn’t much incentive to do it if you were mainly focused on combat progression.
So, for our latest update, we reworked it from the ground up.
Fishing in Eterspire had a few major problems.
The skill had always been meant to be a fairly AFK/idle activity, with simple progression that we would expand on over time. However, as we kept updating combat, co-op modes, new classes, and new areas, fishing started falling more and more by the wayside. It only received small bits of content here and there, like a skill cloak for reaching level 100.
The Fishing Cloak was basically the only reward you got out of the skill.
So, while combat progression was being constantly iterated on and polished, fishing became something you did for dozens of hours mostly to watch a number go up, and eventually get a cloak if you were dedicated enough.
It was also very inconsistently present throughout the world. Some zones had several fishing spots, while others had none at all. You had no real reason to do it, you had to go out of your way to do it, and you got very little from hours and hours of training it.
-
Our vision for a fishing skill that felt good and worthwhile was one that was easy to jump into, had a better progression rhythm, clear requirements, actually interesting goals to work toward, and stronger connections to the game’s main progression.
We started creating concepts for rewards and tools pretty early on in the design process.
We want players to fish because they feel like they can get something out of it, or because it lets them access other non-fishing content that makes the time investment feel worth it.
So with that in mind, we started designing the new version of the skill. Our goal was not just to make fishing better, but also to create a foundation we could use for future Lifeskills.
1) Fishing progression is now spread across the world
Instead of having fishing concentrated in a few spots in early areas, we redistributed it across the entire world map.
Players can now catch a new type of fish every 5 levels up to level 100, and each one has its own fishing location.
Some of the new biome-specific catches we added! (My favorite is the Salamagmander)
We also added 10 new fishing tools, ranging from beginner nets to heat-resistant rods and drakonic harpoons. New fish and tools are now directly tied to different areas and environments, so players can fish in places like swamps, deserts, volcanic lands, and more.
2) We simplified the requirements
One thing we removed was bait.
Bait added an extra requirement players had to keep track of, but it didn’t add much actual decision-making. So now fishing progression is based on three things: your fishing level, your tool, and whether you can access the right location.
Players also now earn some combat EXP while fishing. It’s not meant to replace combat grinding, but we didn’t want character progression to completely stop whenever someone decided to train a Lifeskill.
3) Fish now have more value
Fish can now be exchanged for a new currency called Fish-Sticks.
Different fish give different amounts of Fish-Sticks, which can then be used to buy fishing tools, gear upgrade materials, and special cosmetics from vendors.
Some of the tools you can buy using Fish-Sticks
Fish also have increased gold value when sold to NPCs, so each catch feels more rewarding overall.
4) We added new fishing content
We introduced the Fishing Guild, a new map accessible at fishing level 55. It has high-level fishing spots, Fish-Stick vendors, tools, and two new cosmetic sets: the Fisher’s Set and the Anglerman’s Set.
On the quest side, we updated “Fishing for Compliments” to work better as a tutorial for the reworked skill, and added a new quest called “Piranha River Cookout,” which is our first quest with a fishing level requirement, set at level 35.
This is not all we have planned for fishing.
Our idea is to keep adding fishing content and quests that intertwine with the game’s main progression. For example, we could add a boss that you can only access after reaching a certain fishing level or completing a certain fishing quest. That way, if you want to complete the boss list, you’ll have a reason to level fishing too.
And once new Lifeskills like woodcutting, which is planned for August, come into play, all of these elements can start mixing together. Ideally, Lifeskills should add more gameplay variety, more sidetracking, and more diverse goals to work toward, instead of feeling like isolated side systems.
We also have more fishing content coming as soon as our next update on the 29th, but I don’t want to spoil too much in this post.
Let’s just say it has something to do with collecting and aquariums ;)
—
Well, that’s all I have to share for today. Thank you for reading this far, and if there’s any particular skills or professions that you would like to see in Eterspire feel free to share in the comments!
Hi everyone! Manu from the Eterspire team here.
Our game recently left Steam Early Access, and for our first update after that, we decided to go back and revisit a system we had introduced a very long time ago: Fishing.
Fishing is Eterspire’s first, and currently only, Lifeskill. Players did train it, but over time it became a bit too disconnected from the rest of the game. Progression was barebones, rewards were limited, and there wasn’t much incentive to do it if you were mainly focused on combat progression.
So, for our latest update, we reworked it from the ground up.
Fishing in Eterspire had a few major problems.
The skill had always been meant to be a fairly AFK/idle activity, with simple progression that we would expand on over time. However, as we kept updating combat, co-op modes, new classes, and new areas, fishing started falling more and more by the wayside. It only received small bits of content here and there, like a skill cloak for reaching level 100.
The Fishing Cloak was basically the only reward you got out of the skill.
So, while combat progression was being constantly iterated on and polished, fishing became something you did for dozens of hours mostly to watch a number go up, and eventually get a cloak if you were dedicated enough.
It was also very inconsistently present throughout the world. Some zones had several fishing spots, while others had none at all. You had no real reason to do it, you had to go out of your way to do it, and you got very little from hours and hours of training it.
-
Our vision for a fishing skill that felt good and worthwhile was one that was easy to jump into, had a better progression rhythm, clear requirements, actually interesting goals to work toward, and stronger connections to the game’s main progression.
We started creating concepts for rewards and tools pretty early on in the design process.
We want players to fish because they feel like they can get something out of it, or because it lets them access other non-fishing content that makes the time investment feel worth it.
So with that in mind, we started designing the new version of the skill. Our goal was not just to make fishing better, but also to create a foundation we could use for future Lifeskills.
1) Fishing progression is now spread across the world
Instead of having fishing concentrated in a few spots in early areas, we redistributed it across the entire world map.
Players can now catch a new type of fish every 5 levels up to level 100, and each one has its own fishing location.
Some of the new biome-specific catches we added! (My favorite is the Salamagmander)
We also added 10 new fishing tools, ranging from beginner nets to heat-resistant rods and drakonic harpoons. New fish and tools are now directly tied to different areas and environments, so players can fish in places like swamps, deserts, volcanic lands, and more.
2) We simplified the requirements
One thing we removed was bait.
Bait added an extra requirement players had to keep track of, but it didn’t add much actual decision-making. So now fishing progression is based on three things: your fishing level, your tool, and whether you can access the right location.
Players also now earn some combat EXP while fishing. It’s not meant to replace combat grinding, but we didn’t want character progression to completely stop whenever someone decided to train a Lifeskill.
3) Fish now have more value
Fish can now be exchanged for a new currency called Fish-Sticks.
Different fish give different amounts of Fish-Sticks, which can then be used to buy fishing tools, gear upgrade materials, and special cosmetics from vendors.
Some of the tools you can buy using Fish-Sticks
Fish also have increased gold value when sold to NPCs, so each catch feels more rewarding overall.
4) We added new fishing content
We introduced the Fishing Guild, a new map accessible at fishing level 55. It has high-level fishing spots, Fish-Stick vendors, tools, and two new cosmetic sets: the Fisher’s Set and the Anglerman’s Set.
On the quest side, we updated “Fishing for Compliments” to work better as a tutorial for the reworked skill, and added a new quest called “Piranha River Cookout,” which is our first quest with a fishing level requirement, set at level 35.
This is not all we have planned for fishing.
Our idea is to keep adding fishing content and quests that intertwine with the game’s main progression. For example, we could add a boss that you can only access after reaching a certain fishing level or completing a certain fishing quest. That way, if you want to complete the boss list, you’ll have a reason to level fishing too.
And once new Lifeskills like woodcutting, which is planned for August, come into play, all of these elements can start mixing together. Ideally, Lifeskills should add more gameplay variety, more sidetracking, and more diverse goals to work toward, instead of feeling like isolated side systems.
We also have more fishing content coming as soon as our next update on the 29th, but I don’t want to spoil too much in this post.
Let’s just say it has something to do with collecting and aquariums ;)
—
Well, that’s all I have to share for today. Thank you for reading this far, and if there’s any particular skills or professions that you would like to see in Eterspire feel free to share in the comments!
Buenas! Soy Manu del equipo de Eterspire, un MMORPG Indie hecho en argentina que acaba de salir de Early Access!
Eterspire arrancó como un proyecto "solo dev" allá por el 2021. Despues de varias alphas y betas, y algunos cambios de plataforma, salimos en mobile en 2023, y en Steam en 2025, con crossplay multiplataforma. Hoy ya somos 16 personas (todos argentinos) trabajando en el juego.
Es un MMOPRG simple pero super adictivo. Matás bichos, conseguis equipo, lo mejorás y matás bichos más fuertes. Hay un montón de cosas más obviamente, pero si son del palo de MMOs como el MU, es un gameplay loop que seguro les resulte familiar. Ah y tiene un mundo enorme, personajes muy graciosos, y una comunidad muy divertida.
Desde 2024 que venimos sacando actualizaciones nuevas cada 2 semanas, y nuestra comunidad fue creciendo lento pero seguro, hasta que a partir de 2025 empezó a explotar mucho más y ya hace rato pasamos el medio millon de jugadores registrados!
Acá van algunos detalles sobre el juego para los curiosos:
- Es Free-to-play y tiene una mejora de cuenta premium que se paga una sola vez y es para siempre. (obvio que hay precio regional para Arg en Steam).
- Podés jugar en PC, Android, iOS y Mac. Continuás el progeso de tu cuenta en cualquier plataforma, sin importar desde donde loguees.
- Tiene soporte para joystick y corre re bien en Steam Deck también (pronto vamos a meter unos detallecitos para poder estar en "verified")
Despues de 9 meses en Early Access en Steam, decidimos hacer el full release, asi que es un gran momento para arrancar a jugar. Podría hablar mucho más pero no quiero hacer un post larguísimo, si les copan los MMOs clásicos, y si jugaron RuneScape, MU o Tibia, les recomiendo que lo prueben!
Buenas! Soy Manu del equipo de Eterspire, un MMORPG Indie hecho en argentina que acaba de salir de Early Access!
Eterspire arrancó como un proyecto "solo dev" allá por el 2021. Despues de varias alphas y betas, y algunos cambios de plataforma, salimos en mobile en 2023, y en Steam en 2025, con crossplay multiplataforma. Hoy ya somos 16 personas (todos argentinos) trabajando en el juego.
Es un MMOPRG simple pero super adictivo. Matás bichos, conseguis equipo, lo mejorás y matás bichos más fuertes. Hay un montón de cosas más obviamente, pero si son del palo de MMOs como el MU, es un gameplay loop que seguro les resulte familiar. Ah y tiene un mundo enorme, personajes muy graciosos, y una comunidad muy divertida.
Desde 2024 que venimos sacando actualizaciones nuevas cada 2 semanas, y nuestra comunidad fue creciendo lento pero seguro, hasta que a partir de 2025 empezó a explotar mucho más y ya hace rato pasamos el medio millon de jugadores registrados!
Acá van algunos detalles sobre el juego para los curiosos:
- Es Free-to-play y tiene una mejora de cuenta premium que se paga una sola vez y es para siempre. (obvio que hay precio regional para Arg en Steam).
- Podés jugar en PC, Android, iOS y Mac. Continuás el progeso de tu cuenta en cualquier plataforma, sin importar desde donde loguees.
- Tiene soporte para joystick y corre re bien en Steam Deck también (pronto vamos a meter unos detallecitos para poder estar en "verified")
Despues de 9 meses en Early Access en Steam, decidimos hacer el full release, asi que es un gran momento para arrancar a jugar. Podría hablar mucho más pero no quiero hacer un post larguísimo, si les copan los MMOs clásicos, y si jugaron RuneScape, MU o Tibia, les recomiendo que lo prueben!
Hi everyone! Manu from Eterspire here.
We just revealed our new roadmap for the next quarter, and since a lot of the features on it are things people here have asked about in previous posts, I thought it would be worth sharing it with this sub too.
The roadmap covers our planned updates for June, July, and August. As always, dates can shift a bit depending on development, but this is the direction we’re working toward for the next few months.
Guilds
This is probably the most requested feature we’ve had for some time. It was originally planned for the tail end of our previous roadmap, but needed a bit more time. Players will be able to create, name, and manage their guilds, with cross-world guild chat included from the start. The features has a set release date of June 29.
Fishing Rework
The Fishing skill is getting a full rework with revamped progression, new fish, improved rewards, and better integration with the main game loop. More importantly, this will also serve as the foundation for how we build future lifeskills. It's set to release on our June 15th update.
New Endgame Content
We’re adding new co-op Trials, new best-in-slot gear, and some mechanics we haven’t used in previous endgame challenges.
Whisper Chat UI & Chat Improvements
We’re adding a dedicated whisper interface, along with other chat improvements.
Daily Quests
We’re adding a daily quest system designed to give regular players extra goals and rewards when they log in. The focus is on making dailies feel like a useful bonus to your normal progression, rather than a mandatory checklist or something that makes you feel behind for missing a day.
Endgame Hunts
Players who reach the level cap will get new hunt progression goals to work toward, including an exclusive cosmetic cloak reward.
Full Steam Deck Support
Eterspire is currently in the Steam Deck “Playable” category, and we’re working on the remaining changes needed to make it officially “Verified.” This should also greatly improve controller support across the game in general, not just on Steam Deck.
Woodcutting Lifeskill
We’re adding Woodcutting as a new gathering lifeskill. Alongside the Fishing rework, this is part of a larger push to make progression outside of combat more meaningful and to expand the game horizontally beyond questing and grinding mobs.
Mob Sharing for Parties
Party members will be able to share mobs in their instance, making group play feel much smoother and engaging!
These updates will roll out incrementally over the next three months as part of our regular bi-weekly update schedule, along with more quests, content, and other smaller improvements.
--
Let me know if you have any questions or comments about our roadmap. And if you have any other features you'd like to see in our game, feel free to share them in the comments
Hi everyone! Manu from Eterspire here.
We just revealed our new roadmap for the next quarter, and since a lot of the features on it are things people here have asked about in previous posts, I thought it would be worth sharing it with this sub too.
The roadmap covers our planned updates for June, July, and August. As always, dates can shift a bit depending on development, but this is the direction we’re working toward for the next few months.
Guilds
This is probably the most requested feature we’ve had for some time. It was originally planned for the tail end of our previous roadmap, but needed a bit more time. Players will be able to create, name, and manage their guilds, with cross-world guild chat included from the start. The features has a set release date of June 29.
Fishing Rework
The Fishing skill is getting a full rework with revamped progression, new fish, improved rewards, and better integration with the main game loop. More importantly, this will also serve as the foundation for how we build future lifeskills. It's set to release on our June 15th update.
New Endgame Content
We’re adding new co-op Trials, new best-in-slot gear, and some mechanics we haven’t used in previous endgame challenges.
Whisper Chat UI & Chat Improvements
We’re adding a dedicated whisper interface, along with other chat improvements.
Daily Quests
We’re adding a daily quest system designed to give regular players extra goals and rewards when they log in. The focus is on making dailies feel like a useful bonus to your normal progression, rather than a mandatory checklist or something that makes you feel behind for missing a day.
Endgame Hunts
Players who reach the level cap will get new hunt progression goals to work toward, including an exclusive cosmetic cloak reward.
Full Steam Deck Support
Eterspire is currently in the Steam Deck “Playable” category, and we’re working on the remaining changes needed to make it officially “Verified.” This should also greatly improve controller support across the game in general, not just on Steam Deck.
Woodcutting Lifeskill
We’re adding Woodcutting as a new gathering lifeskill. Alongside the Fishing rework, this is part of a larger push to make progression outside of combat more meaningful and to expand the game horizontally beyond questing and grinding mobs.
Mob Sharing for Parties
Party members will be able to share mobs in their instance, making group play feel much smoother and engaging!
These updates will roll out incrementally over the next three months as part of our regular bi-weekly update schedule, along with more quests, content, and other smaller improvements.
--
Let me know if you have any questions or comments about our roadmap. And if you have any other features you'd like to see in our game, feel free to share them in the comments
Hi everyone! Manu from Eterspire here.
We just revealed our new roadmap for the next quarter, and since a lot of the features on it are things people here have asked about in previous posts, I thought it would be worth sharing it with r/MMORPG too.
The roadmap covers our planned updates for June, July, and August. As always, dates can shift a bit depending on development, but this is the direction we’re working toward for the next few months.
Guilds
This is probably the most requested feature we’ve had for some time. It was originally planned for the tail end of our previous roadmap, but needed a bit more time. Players will be able to create, name, and manage their guilds, with cross-world guild chat included from the start. The features has a set release date of June 29.
Fishing Rework
The Fishing skill is getting a full rework with revamped progression, new fish, improved rewards, and better integration with the main game loop. More importantly, this will also serve as the foundation for how we build future lifeskills. It's set to release on our June 15th update.
New Endgame Content
We’re adding new co-op Trials, new best-in-slot gear, and some mechanics we haven’t used in previous endgame challenges.
Whisper Chat UI & Chat Improvements
We’re adding a dedicated whisper interface, along with other chat improvements.
Daily Quests
We’re adding a daily quest system designed to give regular players extra goals and rewards when they log in. The focus is on making dailies feel like a useful bonus to your normal progression, rather than a mandatory checklist or something that makes you feel behind for missing a day.
Endgame Hunts
Players who reach the level cap will get new hunt progression goals to work toward, including an exclusive cosmetic cloak reward.
Full Steam Deck Support
Eterspire is currently in the Steam Deck “Playable” category, and we’re working on the remaining changes needed to make it officially “Verified.” This should also greatly improve controller support across the game in general, not just on Steam Deck.
Woodcutting Lifeskill
We’re adding Woodcutting as a new gathering lifeskill. Alongside the Fishing rework, this is part of a larger push to make progression outside of combat more meaningful and to expand the game horizontally beyond questing and grinding mobs.
Mob Sharing for Parties
Party members will be able to share mobs in their instance, making group play feel much smoother and engaging!
These updates will roll out incrementally over the next three months as part of our regular bi-weekly update schedule, along with more quests, content, and other smaller improvements.
--
Let me know if you have any questions or comments about our roadmap. And if you have any other features you'd like to see in our game, feel free to share them in the comments
Hi everyone! Manu from the Eterspire team here.
Today I wanted to share a look at one of the new areas we recently added to our indie MMORPG: Bogtown Marsh, a swamp town run entirely by goblins.
This was a very fun update for us, but also an important one internally, because it represents a big step forward in how we’re building new areas for the game.
When Eterspire first launched, most of our areas were built by one or two people with a much faster pipeline. We were proud of them, but a lot of our earlier maps were simpler: fewer custom assets, less environmental storytelling, and less time to give each place its own personality.
As the game has grown, we’ve been able to expand our team. We now have a dedicated content team with concept art, 3D modeling, and level design, which has let us put a lot more care into the new areas we’ve been working on.
Bogtown Marsh is probably the best example of that so far!
Goblins have always been a favorite among our community. They have silly names, weird voices, strange personalities!
We actually had an early version of Bogtown back in one of our first betas. It was a small goblin town, much simpler than what we have now, and it eventually got scrapped before the official release.
Even after removing it, we always liked the idea of giving goblins a place that was truly theirs. So when we started planning new content for this year, we decided to bring Bogtown back properly instead of just remaking the old version.
The main goal was to make the town feel like it was actually built and inhabited by goblins, not just a swamp map with goblin NPCs placed around it.
One of the first ideas we landed on was building the town around a giant swamp tree, with its roots serving as the foundation for houses, and bridges. That gave the whole area a more organic layout, where the town feels like it grew around the environment instead of being placed on top of it.
We also tried to make the town’s logic feel very goblin-like.
For example, in Bogtown, living closer to the mud is considered prestigious. The most important goblins get the “best” houses near the swamp floor, while less fortunate goblins live higher up, farther away from the mud they love so much.
It’s a small detail, but those are the kinds of things we wanted more of in this area: little worldbuilding ideas that affect how the town is arranged, where NPCs live, and how the place feels when you walk through it.
Our concept artist also designed a set of traditional goblin masks, which ended up becoming both environmental/worldbuilding elements and cosmetics players can unlock.
From there, our 3D modeler created a lot of new assets from scratch, including huts, mushrooms, swamp boats, trees, props, and decorations that are specific to Bogtown rather than reused from older maps.
A swamp boat created from scratch by our 3D modeler!
We also wanted the quests to introduce the town through its people.
Your first trip to Bogtown starts with a mushroom delivery. Mellowknees, a mushroom collector, asks you to bring mushrooms to several goblins around town. Through that quest, you meet characters like Bighands the Blacksmith, Ancientfingers the town elder, and a few other residents who hopefully make the place feel more alive.
Bighands the Blacksmith and his... big hands.
Bogtown Marsh also connects to a few surrounding maps, like Hibiscus Manglar and Piranha River. These areas show more of the outskirts of the town, with extra goblin living spaces, swamp paths, and grinding zones with enemies.
More goblin huts in Piranha River
Compared to some of our older zones, the biggest difference with Bogtown is that we tried to put more thought into every corner: who lives there, why a structure is placed where it is, what kind of props should be around, and what small jokes or bits of lore players might notice while exploring.
It’s still a lighthearted area, but for us it was a chance to push our worldbuilding and level design further than before.
We even added a new login screen to highlight Bogtown as soon as you boot up the game!
And this is not all we have in store for Bogtown! We're also going to expand it with several new maps and quests in our next update this Thursday!
Oh, and if you’re wondering how Eterspire is doing in general, we recently wrote more about how the team has grown and what we’re planning for the future of Eterspire in our latest dev blog, and we’ll also be sharing a new roadmap for the next quarter soon!
--
Thanks for reading this far! I’d love to know what you think about the design of our new areas. If you have any questions about our design process or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments!
Hi Everyone! I'm excited to share that Eterspire, our indie MMORPG, is now available on macOS through Steam.
Eterspire was already playable on Mac through the Mac App Store, but we’ve now expanded to Steam so Mac players can enjoy the game on the platform they prefer.
For anyone hearing about it for the first time, Eterspire is a free-to-play indie MMORPG focused on classic adventure with straight forward and non-P2W character progression. The game has crossplay with mobile and PC, a very active and friendly community and new content updates every two weeks!
If you have any questions or comments about the game, feel free to leave them in the comments :)
Hi everyone! Eterspire is getting a big update this monday and I wanted to show our new loading screen.
The update is centered around Bogtown Marsh, a new goblin town!
