Beta + Cancelled MMORPG Video Games - Page 3 of 11

Dragon Empires is a canceled fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game published and developed by Codemasters, exclusively for PC, at least from 2001 until 2004.

Dragon Empires was officially revealed in September 2001 as we can read on Gamezone:

Dragon Empires presents a world where magic is plentiful and the lives of humans and dragons intertwine. The world is made up of 100 lands spread over five empires, a world that can be ruled by player clans and a world whose strongholds are guarded and policed by fiercely protective dragons.
Dragon Empires is filled with embattled clans, each striving to prove their superiority in head-to-head group combat, as they aim to rule magnificent cities and, ultimately, empires. Dragon Empires breaks the mold by placing an emphasis on player-to-player combat and making it an integral part of the gaming experience. It is open season on all other players all the time, thereby enforcing the concept of player clans forming and ruling sprawling cities within the game’s world.
Although players start out on their own, as they become experienced they’ll be able to form their own clans and take control of entire cities or rule the seas between the lands and make profit and taxes from the land they rule. Cities can be owned by a clan or taken by force against other clans in real time wars and sieges. Combat is real time and engaging in an attack is as easy as walking up to a target and using spells or weapons on it. There are mechanisms to keep the world from turning into anarchy; with the basic rule being that, while a player can attack anyone, they risk becoming an outlaw if the attack is not warranted. Outlaws become an instant target and can be hunted down by other players or face the wrath of the city’s protectors – the dragons.
“Dragon Empires is a massive and important project as Codemasters continues to embrace new delivery platforms for gaming,” said Ted Carron, producer of Dragon Empires. “The always-on combative element is something we’re very excited about; the majority of existing MMORPGs are 99% co-operative and relatively slow paced – Dragon Empires is more intense and competitive, driving people into groups where the real benefit of online gaming lies. We’re confident no other MMORPG will provide the fiercely competitive balanced battles that Dragon Empires will create an arena for.”
For Dragon Empires, Codemasters is promising real progression in the world of MMORPGs and the game will be visually striking in a 3D real time rendered environment. The game is being developed at Codemasters’ online development facility in Oakhurst, California.
The English language version of Dragon Empires is scheduled to go online in Q2 2002 for PC gamers. The software will be launched as a boxed product with players subscribing on a monthly basis to play.

Using the Unreal Engine, the game was briefly showed during E3 2002 and was scheduled to go into beta in May 2003, as we can read on Gamespot:

In the latest of its newsletter updates on Dragon Empires, Codemasters has announced that the upcoming online role-playing game’s “period of planning has come to an end,” and that the game’s beta test will begin in May 2003, a bit later than was originally scheduled. The update attributes this delay to the addition of features that the game’s fan community requested, as well as graphical updates like improved textures and new character models.

In April 2003, Codemasters announced that the game will be present at E3 2003, alongside further details:

The game, slated for launch in Spring 2004, has already attracted a massive fan base, with more than 120,000 applications received for beta testing.
Dragon Empires delivers an online fantasy world that is both immersive and compelling, where thousands of players socialize, trade and fight individually or in clans, for control of the game’s 50 cities. At E3, Codemasters will highlight Dragon Empires’ stunning scenery, landscapes and buildings that form Fortitude, the game’s world of five unique mystical empires. Each empire is ruled by a mighty dragon whose personality shapes the individual look and feel of each empire and its respective cities. E3 will also mark the first showing of the game’s playable and non-playable characters. In Fortitude, the lives of humans, monsters and dragons have intertwined to form three playable races – the magical Humans, the heroic Dragonblood and the darker brood of Shadow.
In addition to these features, the game’s incredible climate engine, based on real weather models, will also play a prominent role throughout gameplay. With naturally evolving climactic effects, including lightning, rain, snow, blizzards, fog and rainbows, the climate model provides for naturally evolving environments across sandy deserts, hot plains, tropical forests and treacherous, ice-glistened mountains.
Players will be able to experience the world in third or first person. With the game’s draw distance at over a mile, it gives the player a feeling of seeing as far as the eye can see.

During E3 2003, the title was showed and RPGFan, alongside Loadedinc, wrote previews for the game. Thus, RPGFan wrote:

One of the more important gameplay aspects of an MMORPG is how player-vs-player (PvP) combat is handled. Each game in the genre has its own unique system and Dragon Empires is no exception. Bounty hunters, outlaws and contract traders are able to engage in inter-player combat, Civilians on the other hand, are free from all forms of player killing.
Bounty hunters will be free to attack any outlaw and will be rewarded if they successfully dispatch them. Players will begin as civilians and will need to get permits from non-player characters in cities in order to become bounty hunters. These slips have various durations and will likely be cancelled if the bounty hunter is killed. Bounty hunters who fail to complete their tasks become civilians and must renew their bounty-hunting permit.
Outlaws can attack any bounty hunter or trader for their contracted goods. There are many ways to become an outlaw, one of which is by murdering an empire’s venerated beast. These creatures are sacred to each empire and usually have their own treasure horde. Killing one of these creatures will result in becoming an outlaw of that empire and a bounty being placed on your head. Since each empire has different sacred beasts, players can hunt down these creatures, become filthy rich with their loot, and slither over the border to safely count their horde.
Traders will be free to defend themselves against any attacking outlaws to keep their contracted goods safe. Civilians can become traders by accepting contracts to transport goods between empires. These conditional “classes” will give different kinds of players the opportunity to participate in PvP and cooperative play on their own terms.

For its part, Loadedinc told us:

After the demo we asked Peter Tyson, Codemasters community manager, about the pushing back of the Beta and he said that the Beta had been delayed for various reasons including engine changes over the past few months. He did say that a very limited Beta will go live in June, perhaps 100 testers, and then more will roll out. Peter expects a long Beta period before the game is launched around May next year. Peter also stressed the importance of user feedback and Codemasters really want to take their time with this game to get things just right.
Peter was also rather excited about the game’s economy and trading model in which different cities are trying to undermine each other with a strong emphasis on manufacturing and trading. Players will be able to take resources from areas such as farms and mines to the cities where they can be sold for gold or just gain experience from trading. This means players are also open to attack from outlaws along trade routes making it a risky business. There’s also the ability to refine resources such as iron ore into iron and then manufacture swords, or alternatively you can sell that ore or give it to another player, who may be a trader, to move the resource around the game world. Once items such as swords are created they can be enhanced by adding other items to them such as a fiery ruby to create a fire sword. The game will feature automated production via manufacturing and also crafting of individual items to enhance them further. The game really is economy driven and it’s the one aspect of the game that should provide variety in the types of players and groups that populate the world. Peter expects clans to set themselves up as merchants and no doubt we’ll see groups of players moving goods around the world to drive that economy and city production.
While we didn’t get to see much of the actual gameplay this year, we did get a good look at the game engine and it was one of the most impressive engines powering an MMORPG at this year’s E3. The landscapes look gorgeous and the weather effects are nothing short of stunning making Dragon Empires a real stand-out title. Let’s hope next time we see the game we’ll be able to get deeper into the actual gameplay and player interaction.

However, after months of delay, Codemasters took the decision to cancel the project in September 2004, as Gamesindustry learned it:

British publisher Codemasters has announced that it has discontinued development on Dragon Empires, with the massively multiplayer RPG title being dropped due to “technical issues.”
The bulk of the development team on the game are being transferred to other parts of Codemasters’ operation, and no redundancies have been announced as a result of the cancellation.
Codemasters claims that it still has “long-term ambitions” in the massively multiplayer space, and says that the decision to cancel Dragon Empires is down to technical problems – with the company lauding the “incredible support” from the online community for the title to date.

On Gamezone, we could read further details:

Technical difficulties had been weighed and after deliberation it was decided that further development of Dragon Empires would be halted. It was a sad turn of events for the community, which had eagerly been looking forward to the title.
Gary Dunn, producer of the title, posted a message on the official Dragon Empires Web site, which stated: “We were experiencing unexpected obstacles with the server code, in particular our ability to serve clients at a scale which would have permitted us to launch the game as an MMO. The resolution of these issues was fundamental to the success of the project and ultimate release of the game. Due to the delays, a detailed analysis and review of the game was undertaken over the period of approximately six weeks in which a detailed study of the viability of the project was undertaken.”

After the cancellation of Dragon Empires, Codemasters devoted itself to publishing MMOGs by acquiring licenses from RF Online and Archlord in order to market them in the West. Both games didn’t meet the commercial expectations and Codemasters didn’t renew the licenses. The company then focused on the exploitation of American MMORPGs in Europe, notably signing with Turbine Inc. to market Dungeons and Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online.

However, Codemasters gradually withdrew from the MMORPGs ‘ sector, by aiming to refocus on the development of racing games, in particular through several emblematic licenses such as the F1, Dirt, GRID and Project Cars series. The studio was acquired by Electronic Arts in February 2021.

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Revival (IllFonic Ltd) [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

27-12-2022

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Revival is a canceled Free-To-Play Sandbox Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game developed from 2012 to 2016, exclusively for the PC, by IllFonic Ltd.

Set in a medieval fantasy world inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Revival was revealed in July 2013 by its developers as we can read on Engadget:

Revival’s recent reveal caught our attention with its promises to “revive the MMORPG” by way of a gorgeous sandbox. Developer IllFonic went on record stating, “It’s a genre that has a bad name. There are hardcore fans in the genre, but there’s no reason why the whole world shouldn’t be playing this genre. The genre has been locked out with a bad taste for a decade. It’s time to rethink it, go back to the drawing board, start from scratch and tell everyone that an MMO isn’t a stat-chasing, quest-ignoring snorefest.”
Music to sandbox fans’ ears! Naturally, we were keen to hear more, so we spoke with IllFonic Creative Director Kedhrin Gonzalez and surprisingly received very few “we can’t talk about that yet” responses. Just remember as you make your way through our interview: A lot can change between the prototype and final release version, so don’t unbridle your skepticism just yet.
Gonzalez explained that the point of Revival is right in its name: to “revive the MMORPG,” and by that they mean the sandbox MMO RPG. We separated those letters for for a reason. The game really is supposed to be story-driven, but think less Star Wars: The Old Republic or Guild Wars 2 or Elder Scrolls Online and more Asheron’s Call 2. The game is story-driven because of its real “live story” approach that utilizes real people: GMs.
“The live storytelling aspect is like playing Skyrim, but imagine someone is playing as the dungeon master, opening and closing things all over the place,” he told us. “The game is 100% non-linear, so there are no useless quests. You won’t encounter something that’s not really worth your time as a character. Sure, we may have some bland quests like the “kill x for me please” quests, but that’s filler, and it’s good to have those. Most of our quests will have serious sit-down-and-think scenarios.”
What kind of scenarios? Gonzalez said that the current prototype has missions to help the devs study how karma works in an MMO setting. One mission involves a lord concerned about a wraith in a nearby crypt, and it demonstrates a whole range of reactions based on your character’s karma. “If you have good karma before you approach the city, the guards love you and welcome you in; you can go right up to the lord of the kingdom and talk to her about her plight,” he explained. “But if you’re neutral, the guards are cautious of you and won’t let you go near her until you prove your worth with a sub task. If you’re red, the guards won’t even let you in the city, and if you are severely red, the guards will attack you on sight.”
The monsters have their own reactions: “If you’re blue and go to the crypt, all of the creatures will attack you. If you’re grey and go to the crypt, the wraith’s slaves will stand by and watch you with caution as you move throughout the crypt; the wraith will talk to you and give you a mission, but if you deny it in the dialogue, she’ll attack you. If you’re red, the creatures will be on guard still, but the wraith will talk to you with more open arms and won’t attack you if you deny the quest. At the same time, if you are blue originally but somehow turn grey or red on the way to the crypt, the wraith will adjust and have dialogue based around these new decisions you have made. You could be a red player normally but a blue player in areas that matter to the lord, who will therefore talk to you.”

Gonzalez also promises there won’t be any exclamation points telling you where all the quests are. “There is barely a linear track in Revival. I would say the only linear track that exists in Revival is that of your individual skills,” he said.
The game certainly sounds much more dangerous than other MMORPGs. For starters, you can kill anyone, even important NPCs. Granted, if the NPC dies, GMs might conduct an event in which players need to revive the NPC, or a relative might replace her, but it is something you can do. Thieves, you can steal anything from anyone, both player and NPC, as well as from shops run by players or NPCs. You can just kill and loot people too.
Of course, for your crimes, you might be sent to jail. “Blue” towns (with positive karma) will have more guards who will try to protect people, though they can be killed. Then you have “blessings,” items that protect you from PvP, looting, and thievery. The game is free-to-play, and players can both earn and buy “standing points,” the game’s currency, but IllFonic wants “penny play,” so blessings themselves are supposed to be cheap and accessible. Guilds in blue towns can even work toward granting blessings for whole regions. However, you can’t just buy a “get out of jail free card.” As the name implies, blessings come from the gods, and if your actions offend them, you may find that they won’t offer you their protection.
So just how do you accrue karma? We’ll let Gonzalez explain.
Karma is measured on a lot of different layers. Your karma as a player is definitely on a blue-grey-red system, with shades in between. However, that is general karma. Every NPC, town, guild, kingdom, god, monster, animal, etc. you interact with will have its own karma rating for you as an individual. Every single thing you do in the game from the moment you create your character (including what city you choose as your starting place) will affect your karma. If you mine ore non-stop all day, grinding it, depleting resources all over the place, the god of nature will dislike you. Wild animals are more likely to just randomly attack you. If you mine ore, being mindful of what you’re taking from the planet, the god of nature will reward you. Even the amount of time you play has an impact. And some quests are available only to people of certain karma levels. You’ll even have access to dialogue choices from certain individuals based on your karma. Sometimes, NPCs will randomly say bad things to you or offer you things that other players would not receive, depending on your various karma standings.
City karma is something based on real-world factors. Economy and crime play massive roles in Revival. I’ll use the example of a city that doesn’t get much trade. When the economy goes down, the count of the guards goes down. You’ll visually see the city start to decay. When this happens, red players can move in and start killing NPCs/players, looting, stealing… eventually, if the city is unable to heal itself, the karma of the city will turn red. That means it’s a city that welcomes red players.
Not all red players are murderers and thieves, though. Red players can be merchants, craftsman, and more. We have a carefully orchestrated system where players can be good or evil and still play the way they want to. This system goes very far in depth, and it’s one of the main thing’s we’re prototyping right now. There will always be a city that is on the three major poles of the karma system and permanently locked in so players of a specific playstyle aren’t forced out, and if you choose a very good karma city to start in, you will start with very good karma.
We didn’t get too many more details on how crafting works, but we might assume that like a lot of interactions in the game — from stealing to lockpicking — it involves minigames. Stealing is simple; a dice roll lets you know whether you were successful or not, but your window of opportunity to actually steal closes quickly, such that if you take too long to look through items you shouldn’t be looking at, a quest NPC may get mad and maybe even call a guard on you. You need to get in, find what to take, and get away. We also learned that some repetition may be involved in skilling up crafting and related skills, but books can also teach you skills and there’s a hint that watching master crafters can help you learn too. And master craftsman can also customize decals and items to a certain degree. Use-based item decay is still under consideration.
What about the visuals? The game is being made with Unreal Engine 4, and there is a lot of focus right now on how much the game can handle in terms of not just quality graphics but animations and sounds. Unless you have the right magic or skill, you have to look at the way people move to determine how strong they are or how low on health they are. A fighter with his hands at his sides will probably be easier to take on than someone holding her arms up and bouncing around where she stands. The game, in some ways, is supposed to be intuitive. While there are skill-ups, the idea is that an FPS pro should theoretically be able to pick up a bow and be pretty good at it because of natural player skill, not stats. Stats are supposed to help when it comes to equipping certain items, but you won’t be shooting arrows at someone point blank and seeing “miss!”
The game will be free to play; beta, Gonzalez tells us, will hopefully begin when the game is 35% complete.

Over the months, several other features were announced, and in July 2015, Massivelyop got an interview with Kedhrin Gonzalez:

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Aries (First Eye Interactive) [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

29-11-2022

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Aries is a cancelled Free to Play futuristic sci-fi Massively Multiplayer Online First-Person Shooter developed from 2010 to 2012 at least, by First Eye Interactive, exclusively for the PC. The game was officially revealed during Spring 2012 on Kickstarter:

The game takes place during Earth’s destruction the human race began an expedition to a new habitable planet they could call home. However, they were detoured during their travels and crashed landed on an unknown planet soon named Aries. During their time on Aries, civil rivalry between ranks broke out and sides were chosen on who should lead. Earth survivors soon realize many of their own technologies were found on Aries and a bigger story for the destruction of Earth starts to surface. The objective now for survival is to find resources to help rebuild the survival ships and to get back on course to the second Earth in the mean time surviving the dangers that Aries presents to Earth’s survivors.
Aries is a massive multiplayer online game filled with the latest weapons and vehicles. Players will be able to dictate their own reputation through weapon choice, class abilities and profession. Play as several class abilities that are unique in there own ways from Special Forces, Sniper, Naturalist, Artillery, Engineer, Medic, Spy, and many more to master in the world of Aries; not only will there be hundreds of weapons you can choose from, there will also be vehicles, alien domestic creatures that can be driven or ridden. You will have to use your skills and wits with strategic tactics to do well. To avoid getting conquered in the player versus player in this game you should go through the top secret missions and raid missions.
Aries brings amazing scenery and destructive scenarios from town battles to remote locations hidden in the forest and jungles. Players will need to know what the advantages and disadvantages of weapons, vehicles and professions.
Team strategy and tactics is a major key to this game. Squad leaders will be able to call all the shots, call out enemy movements, and call in supplies, reinforcements, air support and artillery. You will need to use each team’s profession tactically when in battle
Gaining rank in Aries will bring you more rewards and influence with the side you choose. Gain General status and become your leaders go to unit. Rank can provide better missions for better rewards. Develop bases to be known in Aries and for refugees to seek out for safety. Establish your own special unit to be known in the world of Aries and build your own base to defend.
Aries will be operating on the Unreal 3 engine – a stable and proven medium for games with breathtaking visuals and visceral combat. Players will be able to experience both First and Third-Person Shooter gameplay, made possible by the Unreal 3 engine. This allows player to enjoy a combat experience similar to hit games like Mass Effect or Gears of War.
Aries’ game world is one of mysterious alien ruins, monstrous creatures, and inhospitable jungles. First Eye Interactive is committed to creating a game that is both accessible and incredibly immersive. Aries will achieve cinematic quality in both visual interaction and sound design. Players will be amazed by a lifelike and realistic world they can interact with in ways that have not been explored in other contemporary MMOs. Collision detection, visual degradation and destruction of both environments and items is all possible with Unreal Technology.

However, their first crowdfunding campaign didn’t work, the project only collecting 951 U.S.$ on a total sum of 275.000 U.S.$, Nonetheless, another Kickstarter campaign was launched by First Eye:

Does not look like we will reach our goal. However, I will repost ad at a lower amount to work on things in phases.

During this second crowdfunding campaign, some more information regarding the background had been shared:

Faction Choice
Choose the side of Solace, Kyridian, and Ghost. These legendary leaders from the old world Earth have their own plans to help protect the survival of the human race.
Solace
Solace is a man of action. For him, power is directly correlated with brute strength and the iron fist. Solace forces tend to exhibit many of his traits. Combat forces can acquire heavier armor than their alter-faction counterparts, and all Solace’s troops have access to weaponry that can pack a serious punch.
Kyridian
Doctor Kyridian’s forces make up a more gruesome side of war. He has embraced the art of biological and surgical enhancement to make his forces more powerful. Though the extremes of his experiments have led many to suspect that his mind has crossed into madness, no one can argue his results. Kyridian troops are bioengineered super soldiers, enhanced and modified to fill their roles perfectly. Doctor Kyridian uses an amazing array of implants, prosthetics, bio-engines and chemicals to increase performance
Ghost
Ghost’s troops are true to their nature, they are ghosts. Lethal and deadly assassins preferring to strike from the shadows and disappear just as quickly. They use their stealth as a tactical advantage over bombarding their enemy in open combat. Ghost’s forces tend to use highly coordinated strikes to disable and dismember their enemies.Ghost forces tend to shy away from heavy or clumsy armor and focus on training and equipment that aids them in fighting with smart tactics versus pure brawn.

First Eye also planned this time to launch the title first on mobile devices, then, eventually, on PC.

However, it was another fail, the title collected this time 437 U.S.$ on a total of 10.000 U.S.$. Despite this second attempt, developer announced that they planned a third campaign:

We thank you so much for your support. We are not stopping development at all. We will open up another Kickstarter page soon. However, we want to get a lot of our followers aware of our facebook page and twitter page. Check us out there to get up-to-date info every week. New art work and information about the game.

However, it didn’t materialize and the last glimpse about the game was on November 2012 on the project’s Facebook profile. Since then, main developer Derrick Smith turned into a fantasy author and has written two books.

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Twilight War: After the Fall [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

27-11-2022

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Twilight War: After the Fall is a cancelled futuristic post-apocalyptic Massively Multiplayer Online First-Person Shooter developed by Smiling Gator Productions, then General Computers Inc, from 2003 to 2007 at least, exclusively for the PC. As we can read on the old defunct website, the game took place in 2296 after a cataclysmic catastrophe called “the fall” by the survivors have wiped out most civilizations from the planet. It was pretty similar to the Fallout series.

Twilight War: After the Fall is an Extreme Online Roleplaying Game (XORG): a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) with an integrated First Person Shooter (FPS) style combat system, where thousands of online players come together in an expansive and immersive three dimensional world. Twilight War takes place on a unique world where vast areas of the planet have been reformed following a catastrophe of cataclysmic proportions called The Fall by survivors.
Some areas of the World remain relatively untouched, but the ravaged areas are mixtures of wastelands, wilderness, mutant and alien biology. Nomad tribes, lawless brigands, and mutants roam the ruined Outlands, and in the darker places twisted animals and horrible creatures prowl. Bioengineered creatures and mutants resulting from radiation make the world dangerous to traverse. The remnants of Human civilization are scattered and divided both by vast stretches of wilderness, and by ideological rifts.
Another race lives alongside the remaining Humans, a dying alien race desperate to find a new home world. The Skel came with advanced technology, genetically manipulated warriors, and the will to conquer. These aliens lurk in the wilderness, adding to the danger.
Seek shelter and a more orderly existence in the pockets of civilization that remain, or explore kilometers of wild Outlands and ruined cities. Find, buy, or create a vehicle to suit your needs – but remember that fuel and spare parts are rare. Find and train, or purchase, a mount – more vulnerable than a vehicle but more affordable and nearly self-sustaining. Think you have the perfect high tech rifle? It is the bullets that are sometimes hard to obtain. Battle among the ruins against creatures and brigands. Scavenge Pre-Fall materials and sell them for a profit. Join an allegiance and fight against their enemies, or remain neutral and indifferent to everyone but yourself.
There are four types of character associations in the game – factions, alliances, allegiances and clans.
Factions refer to in-game groups of associated characters, such as the Silics or the Hell Riders. Factions are not player-controlled entities, though player activity can influence them. Every character has a faction rating with each of the factions, based on many factors such as race (Human or Mutant), how many of the faction members they have slain or wounded, and the results of faction-based missions that they choose and complete. How other characters react to you is based on your faction rating with them, as well as on your actions (if you shoot a friendly character, you take negative faction hits and the character may defend themselves or run away).
All characters start the game “neutral,” though faction ratings are adjusted based on whether or not the character is a Human or Mutant. Characters can eventually join an alliance, if they like. To declare allegiance to a faction, characters work toward the common goals of the faction. For example, to become a member of the Silic Republic, one would take Silic missions, hunt down and destroy Silic enemies, or exterminate local nuisance creatures. Once a character declares an allegiance to a faction, they can gain faction ranks, which in turn allow the character to use special faction items, take special faction-only missions, provides access to faction-only areas, own property on faction land, etc.
Characters can only join one faction at a time, though you can nullify your allegiance and join a new one after a period of time – but beware! Leaving a faction will to some degree hurt your faction rating with your former friends. Also, if your faction rating drops below a certain point, you may find yourself forcibly removed from your faction!
Clans are player-created and controlled entities like you find in any MMORPG. A clan can be formed by player characters wanting to make their own in-game community. The clan leader’s character determines what kind of other characters can join the clan. Members of enemy or warring factions will not be able to join, and if an existing clan member’s faction rating drops far enough, they could be automatically ejected from the clan. Though clans are player-created and controlled, they still have to abide by faction restrictions. If your faction ratings are neutral enough, you will probably be able to join any clan. If a clan becomes large and influential, they may have an impact on the in-game factions and story plot.

Using the Source Engine, development was progressing quite well during the first two years and Smiling Gator’s members Matthew Simmons and Kingsley Montgomery were interviewed on RPG Vault:

R.A.: What is the game’s basic underlying concept or premise, and what are the core gameplay elements we can expect?
K.M.: Twilight War takes place in Earth’s future, with a virtual environment encompassing over 1,000 square kilometers of total terrain on release, with plenty of expansion space. In the late 21st century, a recently united Earth is devastated by a war with an alien race called the Skel, a war that, over the course of several years, utterly destroys civilization and most of Earth’s inhabitants. Two centuries after this Doomsday War, remnants of humanity, a new breed of biogenetically and radioactively altered mutants, and the descendants of the Skel fight to survive in a hostile world. Skirmishes are fought over scavenging rights in the skeletal remains of once great cities, and over the limited resources and remaining technology that litter the landscape. Exploration and scavenging will be a large part of the game. There will be far fewer resources compared to most games, so in many ways the game will be a quest for resources.
R.A.: How much of a backstory and story element are you planning, and to what extent will the latter be ongoing?
K.M.: The setting takes place in 2296, 200 years after the Doomsday War and The Fall destroyed human civilization. A number of survivor factions have emerged to stake their claims on the remaining resources and hidden technology left behind. Player characters can join many of these factions, and fight for their supremacy, or choose to remain aloof and forge their own destiny in the wastelands.
R.A.: Aside from post-apocalyptic settings being relatively uncommon, how do you intend for Twilight War to differ from other upcoming online worlds?
K.M.: First, the combat system will be a true merging of RPG and FPS – you will point and shoot, and move more like you do in a shooter game, but the effectiveness of your attacks will be partially based on your character’s skill with the weapon. We are also going for realism and depth – there will be complete systems for encumbrance, item decay, economics, item modification and exploration.
R.A.: Will the gameworld be varied in terms of having different types of terrain and architecture? And what means of travel will be available to cover long distances?
M.S.: The world will be large and diverse, with areas of alien forests, volcanoes, seas, wastelands, old battlegrounds and ruined cities. Travel and exploration will come in many forms. Players will be able to train and own mounts, and find and modify vehicles, each with advantages and disadvantages. Driving an armored buggy may be superior to riding a destrier, until you run out of gas or blow a tire in the middle of the wastelands! Most long distance travel is expected to involve mounts and vehicles, since there will be encumbrance restrictions placed on carrying items. But there are also skills that allow the adventurous types to live off the land and explore areas inaccessible to vehicles and most mounts.
R.A.: Just how combat-oriented will the gameplay be, and what are your primary goals what will obviously be a pretty major element?
K.M.: The game is highly combat-oriented. The future is all about survival. This also plays into the FPS-style combat system, which will make combat very intense. There are many reasons to fight other than outright survival. You may choose a faction and fight for its ideals. You may fight over scavenging rights, fuel, ammunition or that fine-looking, partially rusted 2291 model year sedan that still has a working fuel cell engine. You may fight over drugs, or you may fight to destroy a nest of energy vipers to make the nearby village a safer place. You may also take bounties out on Outlaw player characters.
R.A.: What kinds of computer-controlled enemies will players encounter? Will they face a large assortment, and what are some interesting examples?
K.M.: Outlander vagrants, biker gangs, wasteland wanderers, bandits, brigands, slavers, drug runners, cannibals and faction soldiers will be some of the main challenges you will meet. There are also many creatures, most of which are either alien in origin or the descendants of 21st century genetic engineering, which was all the rage before The Fall. One such creature is the Colossus, which is about the size of a house. Another is the Smilodon, one of several prehistoric animals recreated originally to entertain the masses but who now more often prey on the masses!
R.A.: At this point in development, what can you tell us about weapons, armor, items in general, how they” be acquired and how important they’ll be?
K.M.: Weapons and armor are very important. There will be everything from scale mail to advanced composite power armor, from crossbows to plasma weapons, as some of the survivor cultures have more tech capability than others. Most equipment will be usable halfway up the skill progression tree. Most of the advanced equipment will be rare, and it will need expensive maintenance. Equipment can be acquired many ways – through spoils of combat, scavenging in ruins, rewards for completed missions, trading with other characters – player characters and NPCs – and as a reward for faction service.
M.S.: Also, all items will degrade with use. Keeping the game world from filling up with tens of thousands of items is one of our goals, and maintaining equipment to keep it from falling apart fits with the genre. This will also help to maintain a realistic in-game economy, so there will never be a glut of something and most everything will have some value.

Unfortunately, troubles occured on January 3rd, 2006 with the closure of Smiling Gator:

Unfortunately, the end of 2005 is also the end of SGP’s development effort for Twilight War. Our committed funds have run dry and we were not successful in the hunt for additional investment. Thanks again to our fantastic forums community for all the support and contributions! We hope you find another project and give them the devotion and incisive comments we’ve enjoyed reading for the past 17 months.

Only a month later, a new developer was found to help completing Twilight War, the Chinese studio General Computers:

We are very pleased to announce that Smiling Gator has concluded an agreement to license the Twilight War concept and sub-license Valve’s Source engine to a new partner company, General Computers, to fund and continue development on our behalf.
General Computers is an independent information technology vendor with offices in Long Island, NY and Beijing, China. Founded in March 2001 to build customized IT products, it is rapidly growing and expanding into new areas. The agreement with Smiling Gator marks the company’s entry into the gaming world.

Following this announcement, Gamecloud got in touch with General Computers president Junhua Chang in order to know a bit more:

GC – How did the deal to continue work on Twilight War come about?
J.C. – After we have made the decision to enter the area of game development in early 2005, we have investigated several ways to start our new business. One of the first thoughts came to our minds was to develop a MMORPG using Valve’s Source Engine. Since Valve’s huge success with Half Life 2, a new MMORPG employing Valve’s technology would be a natural choice for Half Life 2 fans if they want to meet lots of people and play large-scale online games. We wanted to be the first company in the world to make this happen. However, after some closer investigation, we were very frustrated that somebody else (Smiling Gator Productions) already had the same idea (Twilight War: After The Fall). However, things totally changed when the year 2006 came, and SGP announced the discontinuation of Twilight War. We made the decision the same week to partner with SGP and continue the original idea.
GC – Does General Computers have plans to change the game play of Twilight War or does it intend to continue to stay the game’s course?
J.C. – Smiling Gator Productions has contributed many original ideas and content to the project, and we certainly want to continue to stay on the game’s original course. However, because of the dynamic nature of MMORPG, there will be some modifications and we will implement some new features when it’s necessary.
GC – When does General Computers plan to announce more about their plans for Twilight War?
J.C. – We are currently investigating the existing content and source code, so it will be about 1 or 2 months before we can get up to speed and contribute any original work. We plan to push a playable version monthly for internal testing purposes once we start to add more content, so there will be monthly updates and new screenshots starting from as early as April 2006.

But the game still went silent for a whole year, and it seems from this point on, that a closed beta was launched around 2007. However, Twilight War quietly vanished and was never mentionned again thereafter. We can speculate that something went wrong during the development, and General Computers had to take the decision to cancel the title. The very short gameplay sequence available below was from 2008, the beta could have been playable at least until that year.

Video:

Images:

PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3)

Ramayan 3392 A.D. [PS3,PC – Cancelled]

IGOR

22-07-2022

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In 2007 Sony announced that they will add a new MMO to its collection on MMOs released to that time (Everquest).
On 10th August 2007 Sony announced that they will be developing new MMO in partnership with Virgin Comics. Game will be based on Ramayan 3392 A.D. comics released under Virgin Comics. It is a futuristic reinterpretation of indian mythology.
Sony signed a multiyear cooperation with the team behind the comics.

Virgin Comics cofounder and CEO Sharad Devarajan explained that the game’s cultural roots will help bring a fresh perspective to the genre.”

Ramayan 3392 A.D. is based on the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana. The story follows a
battle between humans and demons in a post-apocalyptic world. The comic was written by
Shamik Dasgupta with illustrations by Abhishek Singh, and was based on a story by author
Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth (1998) director Shekhar Kapur.

Ramayan 3392 A.D. was aimed for 2010 release. Until today, the game hasn’t been released and on most sites can be found its status on release date only as TBD.