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E3'05 Preview: Hero's Journey
Hero's Journey is the MMO/RPG in development from Simutronics, the game company which created the original GemStone and DragonRealms for us old timers that used to pay hourly subscription fee's to be on the internet on services such as AOL, Prodigy and Genie back in the day.
Hero's Journey has been in development for a little more than two years and marks Simutronics first graphical RPG with an expected release date of 2006.
E3'05 Preview: Hero's Journey - Div Devlin (05-23-05)
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| Sunset
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Deep within the bowels of the LA Conventions Center's Kentia Hall, buried against the farthest wall away from the crowds and the gals in skimpy outfits promoting games without substance was the booth with a simple white sign above the door announcing the home of Simutronics. Within the cubicle was the first showing to media of Hero's Journey, a game which had vanished off the radar a year ago. Rumors abound as to what actually caused the abrupt silence on the game, but during imposed quiet time the team was hard at work, and I was given my first introduction to the game.
For those unfamiliar with Hero's Journey the game takes place in the known lands of Elanthia, a land divided between four kingdoms after an apocalypse. Each of the four kingdoms is in the process of trying to rebuild and revive their civilization which is divided into four major races each with a sub-race, including a feline race of lion type men akin to the Aslan race from the classic paper game Traveler, and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Entering into the booth and greeted by Melissa Meyer along with Chris Moore we quickly jumped into an introduction of the game mechanics, graphics, game play, and design. Character creation will be the most advanced system for an avatars physical appearance from any game to date. My daughter currently plays MMO games and she comments that if she does not look like a real girl she has no interest in playing. Melissa is one who agrees with this sentiment and shared her thoughts while walking us through character creation.
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| Suwari in camp
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Players can choose each physical characteristic for their appearance with sliding scales for skin tone color, upper and lower body size, distinguishing marks, etc. For those familiar with Eve Online or Star Wars Galaxies character creation imagine a much more refined system. In addition, players can enter the game with an attachment to their avatar as every aspect of clothing can be defined. Hats, jackets, pants, shoes, colors, weapons, etc. When you are done playing dress up with your Barbie doll, you have a fully fleshed out and imagined role-play for your characters personality ready to go. Each player will stand out from within a crowd of bank sitters, all easily identifiable over looking the same as everyone else that are begging for newbie items.
Upon entering the game you are brought directly into the games storyline with a quest driven system so you have something to do other than killing rats. It's refreshing to finally see developers have realized that killing rats for hours on end does nothing for us as players. We want to see your imagined world and take part within in. Game play just draws you in. Taking place in both zones and instanced areas, each area is unique and with the quest system requires thought for trigger-able events along with destructible objects, and for boss mobs in the combat system teamwork can play a vital role.
While no ninja's are available as a class, during a combat demo one player character went into a crouching position while the tank ran over his back and leapt onto a creature they were attacking to strike a critical blow. That just blew me away and we can't wait for that scene to be available on a downloadable trailer to show you, which are listed as coming soon from the official website.
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| Dashing and yet, Dapper
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Spell casting in combat also has a unique quality which just blew us away. For classic MMO gamers, recall how fire fields were always in a straight line. Times have changed. Now, a fire field spell can bank and arch with the AI being smart enough to stay on the other side or runaway from the heat, "Fire bad." In addition to fire fields, area of effect spells have a targeting circle which overlay on the ground to show you how many targets you can nuke in one shot bringing combat to an all new level while accessible to solo players.
Screenshots do not do the game justice.
One of the concerns we had was on how content would be handled once players hit end-game. Simutronics has already thought ahead and revealed to us that players are literally in control of the games development. How many times have we heard players gripe that they can do better if the tools were available to them? Simutronics understands the modding community and has actually brought the power to the people. The game's engine while designed in-house has been made available to the Game Master team who are actually creating the content in the design process stages.
The only aspect missing from the game is a challenging player versus player combat system, as there are no arenas and dueling. For the explorer and role-playing gamers though this game just jumps out and says, play me now. While still in development it blows away the major games with big budgets and large design teams, and provides a more playable game then titles we have seen release commercially.
Hero's Journey is a game to watch.
Edited by Div Devlin 5-24-05
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