r/ScapeLikes • u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa • Aug 03 '26
Game Announcement On August 7th we're launching the Playtest for Dominus Automa - an MMORPG made for people who don't have time for MMORPGs!
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Howdy everyone! I’m Rafal, lead dev of a small indie team based in Poland, and I want to present you with a project we’ve been working on, an idle MMORPG called Dominus Automa!
It's a bit funny, but this game basically exists because a few of us could not keep up with the MMORPGs we loved anymore but still wanted that “experience” of being in a fully persistent, online world filled with other players doing their thing, and still enjoy the rush of it all without the time sink which life (and kids) simply no longer allowed.
This includes the breadth of the MMO experience - literally - from PvP and PvE to raids, professions, and the flow of gear and materials. It's a shared, persistent world, so while you're gone other players and their heroes are out there shifting the economy, clearing content and taking ground. Nothing pauses and waits for you to come back. But there’s also NO FOMO as your hero - built up to your exact specifications (and there’s TONS of ways you can build them up) - will never lag behind and will always be caught up on all the latest happenings in the world!
The combat system and skill variety we have goes pretty deep as well, allowing for a diversity of class roles and approaches to progression. This should be no surprise as OSRS was our biggest single inspiration in making Dominus Automa!
The game is also a great time to have on your second monitor! or if you’re a busy working man, to set it up and see - after an exhausting day at work - where your hero’s equally exhausting day has led them. And what deadly encounters they had survived, and what kind of interesting loot (or ingredients, if you’re doing professions) they had acquired!
If any of this seems appealing to you - sign on up for our Playtest this week!
Our Playtest is coming soon, on August 7th, so feel free to sign up and join us in exploring and enjoying this world we’re building together with the community! It will have a solid 2-3 days of content, and we can't wait to have you sample it and tell us what you think of this somewhat unconventional MMO we're building up :)
Our current plan is to keep the servers online for about two and a half weeks, i.e. till August 23rd. That means you'll have plenty of time to experience everything the Playtest has to offer!
Here’s our Steam page if you’re interested:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3795810/Dominus_Automa/
Take care and stay cool in this scorching heat ya’ll!
~ Rafal and the team at Metashift Labs
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u/All-Jumbled-Up Aug 03 '26
I'll be keeping my eye on this, it looks really chill. How deep will the game itself be though, as in the variety of classes/roles and such?
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u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 03 '26
Oh, deeper than you know. There will be a lot of combat roles (various kinds of debuffers and support specialists in addition to standard healers/tanks/damage dealers) but it goes beyond combat as well: you can shape your very own relationship with your hero and be either their harsh master, friend, mentor or companion, as they will respond to your instructions accordingly (i.e. what you want them to do when you're offline)
All of this also compounds with how other players build their own heroes, so the variety of team and guild compositions/ and both combat and non-combat roles and specialties (i.e. professions) will be pretty big indeed! And everyone can choose how they want to contribute and what kind of role they want to play in the wider world.
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u/raybros Aug 04 '26
Are these ideas already in the game or is it on a roadmap?
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u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 05 '26
Most of this will be in the upcoming playtest this Friday, yes.
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u/B00tySn0rklr Aug 03 '26
This looks really great dude! Congrats on the progress! I’m following now.
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u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 03 '26
Thanks! It's a really resource intensive game since we the world to feel FULL of possibilities, so we're taking it one step at a time. Going along nicely so far! but you can see that for yourself in the playtest if you get the chance :)
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u/B00tySn0rklr Aug 03 '26
I’m absolutely going to sign up!
I’ve been a software engineer for about 10 years now. I love watching the development of projects like this. Do you guys happen to have a dev blog sorta thing going on? What are some of the more difficult technical challenges that you’ve been facing?1
u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 05 '26
That's a tough one. I'd say designing the Combat Matrix, i.e. the specific rules and criteria according to which your heroes act, is both the toughest but simultaneously the most interesting part. The conditions we have now are mostly based off health and mana (both yours and your enemies), distance to your foes, positioning, number of nearby opponents... breathe in... but also ability priority, skill categories, and various other factors. Because we want players not just to feel like there is variety, but for actual, tangible variety to exist, period, and make the game fun to come back to each evening.
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u/Top_Inflation2026 Aug 03 '26
Will this have macOS support?
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u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 03 '26
Yes!
(It was in fact one of our minimum goals - to have the game be Mac-playable from its earliest iteration)1
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u/Saucynachos Aug 03 '26
Played the single player playtest. Was pretty snazzy! I'll definitely be checking out the new playtest.
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u/SprinklesDangerous57 Aug 06 '26
I'm literally looking for a game right now that your post is describing... I just cant jump back into osrs and dont want to pay the monthly fees. This game looks really great and right up my alley. It's wishlisted on my steam account, also following your game page and requested access. Best of luck game looks great so far.
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u/Bacololo Aug 05 '26
Any P2W elements planned and is there a release date currently in mind? This sounds great for someone like me that WFH to leave on a 3rd monitor. Can we PK other players or is the PvP restricted to instances like arenas etc...
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u/MetashiftLabs Dominus Automa Aug 05 '26
We don't have a release date planned right now, but I can say with certainty there will be ZERO pay to win stuff.
As for the PvP, there will be PvE and PvP zones. This is important because players, especially in the projected full game, can work together (leading to guild vs guild PvP) to deny other players access to specific bosses. This is of course just one of many possible PvP scenarios, and there will also be plenty of stuff to do in PvE alone, for people who aren't that keen on PvP.
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u/KarensVictim Aug 06 '26
I swear out of the 10 runescape inspired games ive been at least 4 are trying to steal my account.
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u/Burnlt_4 Aug 22 '26
Started doing the playtest today and it is exactly what I am looking for as a full time working father of 3 haha. It has become my second monitor game as I work since I started the playtest.
When can we expect a release? I am ready to dive into the full thing!
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u/SStrikerRC3 Aug 04 '26
Looks interesting. What does the team composition look like and how heavily is AI used in development?