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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Dragon Empires Cancelled! |
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The following announcement has been posted at Codemasters' <a href="http://www.codemasters.com/dragonempires/index.php?id=510" target="_blank">Dragon Empires</a> site:<blockquote><em><b>Dragon Empires development ceased due to technical issues</b>
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<br>Codemasters has taken the decision to cancel further development of Dragon Empires, the company’s massively multiplayer online role playing project.
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<br>Dragon Empires received incredible support from its online community and won acclaim from PC and online media while in development. However, technical issues have resulted in the project’s discontinuation.
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<br>Many of the game’s development team, including programmers and artists, are being transferred to Codemasters’ internal development studios to work on current and future titles.
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<br>The decision to close Dragon Empires’ development does not impact on Codemasters’ long-term ambitions in the massively multiplayer online gaming market and the company remains very active in evaluating future opportunities.
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<br>The Dragon Empires website and its popular community forums will remain live at www.codemasters.com/dragonempires for the immediate future.</em></blockquote>Thanks, Anonymous. |
Fri Sep 03, 2004 2:41 pm |
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Guest
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Technical issues. Financial is spelled F-i-n-a-n-c-i-a-l. |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 2:43 pm |
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Skarra
Guest
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Wow - what a bombshell. Not a close follower of the game, but they never seemed to be out of the news with new screenshots/chats etc. Great shame really because despite the huge amount of time they seemed to be spending developing the game, they had some nice ideas, an excellent PR team and a thriving community of would-be players. Guess the behemoths of WoW and EQ2 looming on the horizon proved too daunting. |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:11 pm |
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Stormwaltz
Village Dweller
Joined: 15 Dec 2003
Posts: 15
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From what I've heard on the inside, "technical" is accurate. Publically, all I can note is that the game has been in development hell for a looooong time.
_________________
Former Dev: Asheron's Call, AC:DM, AC2
Current Dev: Dragon Age |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 5:00 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
NOOO !!!  |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 7:08 pm |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
no surprise...larger publishers than Codemasters (e.g. MS) cancelled online titles...the market is not as big as companies thought...finally people understand it...I hope for more good SP RPGs again *runs way from the mad MMOG community ducking*
Last edited by Garrett on Sat Sep 04, 2004 3:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 7:32 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by Skarra
Wow - what a bombshell. Not a close follower of the game, but they never seemed to be out of the news with new screenshots/chats etc. Great shame really because despite the huge amount of time they seemed to be spending developing the game, they had some nice ideas, an excellent PR team and a thriving community of would-be players. Guess the behemoths of WoW and EQ2 looming on the horizon proved too daunting.
/Ekim takes a break from changing diapers to point to an editorial of his from the beginning of the year
This is neither a bomb shell, or a surprise. Expect other titles to bow out of the race even before they are released by the end of this year. We told you so when MS canceled their title (I shamefully forget the titel, and can't find it in the heaps of baby stuff lying on my desk...). Expect only a few to come through, even from the big boys. At this point I wouldn't be surpised if they'd cancel Middle Earth Online, or even The Matrix Online.
_________________
=Proud Father of a new gamer GIRL!=
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Worshiper of the Written Word= |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:36 pm |
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RPGPorkster
Head Merchant
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Location: Melbourne |
Why dont they release what is done as a free (let it be known, beta) release for uploading (say on p2p) and then maybe make some money on hosting/subscriptions.
If players know the game will be improved then they wil be happy to pay for it per month. The RPG community hates when they are fibbed to.
Weird, to spend all that money on developing the game and now to can it.
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:46 pm |
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RPGPorkster
Head Merchant
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Location: Melbourne |
quote:
Originally posted by Garrett
no surprise...larger publishers than Codemasters (e.g. MS) cancelled online titles...the market is not as big as companies thought...finally people understand it...I hope for more good SP RPGs again *runs way from teh amd MMOG community ducking* 
The market is big. I wonder if accountants are being told different though.
Everyone of my friends that are into mmorpg's are currently after the next game to try and there are no offering$.
I think the biggest problem at the moment for the gamming industry is the management and styles of people being employed.
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:50 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by RPGPorkster
Why dont they release what is done as a free (let it be known, beta) release for uploading (say on p2p) and then maybe make some money on hosting/subscriptions.
erm... I don't know which rock you've been living under these days, but that's exactly what they have been doing for years now In fact, even games that are assured of success have been offering free play time through beta to large amounts of players. They even make it available to pretty much everyone when they do a stress-test in the last few weeks of development.
The problem is that companies realize that they will be losing money for months even after the release of a game. And they realize this sometimes late in the development. Some developers/publishers can't afford to lose money after the release of a game, and so they rather choose to stop it there and accept the loss they've already taken.
And if you're saying they should open up the beta to everyone instead of a few thousand players, think about the bandwidth costs that would spell for them. The pre-release losses would be multiplied by two if a significant amount of players answered. And what if the initial response is negative? Do you seriously think that players would give the game a second chance even if it does get better later in the production? I'm sorry but players are an unforgiving lot, and for good reason too since we have been fibbed (as you put it) all too often. Players would log on for two weeks and then quit without even a second thought and never come back to that game again. That is not a solution at all.
_________________
=Proud Father of a new gamer GIRL!=
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Worshiper of the Written Word= |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:59 pm |
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RPGPorkster
Head Merchant
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Location: Melbourne |
quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
...And if you're saying they should open up the beta to everyone instead of a few thousand players, think about the bandwidth costs that would spell for them.....
Who said anything about free bandwidth? I think people would be willing to pay to test the game out for a month, even if it was beta style. Also if the game isn't ready for even basic play then it would have been worth it for Codemasters to just spend that little extra and polish it up for beta type release.
WHAT DO YOU THINK, POST A YES OR NO, IF YOU WOULD PAY TO SUBSCRIBE/TEST DRAGON EMPIRES FOR A MONTH ????
If the technical issue is patent conflicts then they could have ignored the USA market (direct sales), since they are one of the only countries with software/math concept patents. USA citizens would just buy the game indirectly if they wanted to play it.
Here is the other RPGDot thread on the same topic. grrrr I wish RPGDot would make sure these are merged in future (note, said to be a different origin from the 'comment' type).
http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=140869&f=43
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Last edited by RPGPorkster on Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:08 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by RPGPorkster
Who said anything about free bandwidth? I think people would be willing to pay to test the game out for a month, even if it was beta. Also if the game isn't ready for even basic playing then it would ahve been worth it for Codemasters to just spend that little extra and polish it up for beta type release.
 ... have you ever played an mmorpg? 99% of them feel like they are released as beta games, and most of the early adopters complain that they are paying for a beta... Now you tell me that many people would be willing to pay to be in a beta?!  Sorry, but that won't happen in my lifetime. If you just hang out in the mmorpgdot forums for just a few weeks you'll mostly encounter people wanting to know where to find mmorpgs that you don't need to pay for, so I would think that charging for beta would be considered a crime in the community 
quote:
Originally posted by RPGPorkster
HERE IS THE OTHER THREAD, OF THE SAME TOPIC. grrrr I wish RPGDot would make sure there is only one.
http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=140869&f=43
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Now please calm down... these are two completely different topics. This here topic is about the cancellation of the game, while the one you're pointing at is a discussion about the game itself. Sorry if the two have kind of merged, but we couldn't predict that the game would be canceled when the first thread was created.... Every newsbit creates its own thread, and I think that it's a good system.
_________________
=Proud Father of a new gamer GIRL!=
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Worshiper of the Written Word= |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:18 pm |
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RPGPorkster
Head Merchant
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Location: Melbourne |
quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
...have you ever played an mmorpg? 99% of them feel like they are released as beta games...
Yes (eq, m59, UO, mud's, mail-rpg's), like 30K-300,000 other people I played beta style EQ from day dot and was very happy with the game.
Dragon Empires was near release, as far as I know a few years back, but they decided to put in dungeons knowing it was critical for a successful release, so the game must have been in some way playable.
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:36 pm |
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Test
Guest
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I told ya this one was a goner months ago (I even remember being mocked by Ammon77 ..
The writing was on the wall, it was taking way too long, it was very amibitous, and the competition from WoW (which having just gotten into the stress test, I can tell you this one is killer) and EQII is pretty much gonna crush most of the smaller guys.
Had it gotten out the door earlier this year, it might have had a chance...
All and all, it's too bad, it really looked like a good one. |
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Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:01 pm |
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Gabboflabbo
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 49
Location: Toronto, Canada |
Looking through some Old DE Emails:
October 4th, 2002:
quote:
The server was completely rebuilt to improve it and with much of that code complete we again have a somewhat playable build.
October 18th, 2002:
quote:
Beta date announced
Our period of planning has come to an end and we have currently determined that beta will start some time in May 2003. While this is later than we had originally planned it does mean we can bring you the very best game possible.
I'd been following it for 2 years. It's pretty sad to see so much effort go to waste.
Oh well, the WoW closed stress test is rockin!
-- Gabbo |
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Sat Sep 04, 2004 12:08 am |
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