By Jim Rossignol on February 8th, 2010 at 10:03 am.
Reverie World Studios haven’t exactly managed to come up with the most excitingly original name for their new MMORTS – it’s called “Dawn Of Fantasy” – but other elements of the game give us reason to murmur to each other over the internet, and surreptitiously keep an eye on things in the months leading up to release. Dawn Of Fantasy is a traditional orks vs humans type strategy in the style of the Total War games (so it’s a big old campaign map punctuated with 3D combat), and most interesting of all, it’s going to be a single player campaign and skirmish game with an option to turn it into an online game if you wish. Most recently they’ve revealed elements of the game map and, well, I’m just a sucker for maps at the worst of time, and this lures me in. If this can work as a single player game and an MMO then Reverie will have hit the jackpot. Naturally we’re sceptical that anyone can pull this off quite so readily, but I guess we’ll find out when the game turns up later this year. Slightly dodgy trailer below.
08/02/2010 at 10:12 tomeoftom says:
This is the fantasy I’ve been waiting for!
The trailer is very 90s–with-better-graphics, but persistent constructions in an MMO world is kind of a game-idea wet dream for me. I just wish the game built around it wasn’t so flagrantly embarrassing.
08/02/2010 at 16:33 Chris says:
Yes, I’ve always wanted to see this but in a balanced way so that no one person can really hold onto power for say more than a month. Just to keep the game interesting. Some sort of coruption/decay/insurection mechanic is in order, especially to break the major alliances. Reward for back-stabbery of allies would be a plus :)
A good in-game log of achievements could somewhat stay off the annoyance basically this game being a constant losing struggle to be the best. Having the bragging rights to being able to claw your way back to the top endlessly says far more than just being the top dog by getting in early (ala ogame etc.) and being blessed by good fortune.
08/02/2010 at 10:34 Bobsy says:
And the argument for actually spending your money on a PR company becomes readily apparent.
08/02/2010 at 10:41 ThePinkNinja says:
“The Fantasy you have been waiting for”
Bwhahahahahahahahahahaha
*Wipes tear from eye and listens some more*
“Hundreds of enemy solider suuuuuuuuuuurgiiiiiiiing fooooooooorwaaaaaaaaard”
*Falls off chair*
Sounds like it will ahve a masturbation mini-game. Still, been waiting for a strategy MMO for a while.
08/02/2010 at 10:47 ThePinkNinja says:
What’s really wierd is the video on their main site is good. No words, just generic war drums and celtic wailing with flaming catapulting firing at night (In the rain no less).
No exactly informative but neither is this one other than the game is cheesy and involves FIGHTIN
08/02/2010 at 14:23 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
I’m all for cheesy games.. serious fantasy stuff can be so boring…
08/02/2010 at 16:52 The Pink Ninja says:
Cheese is delicious but thoughtless cliché is like dried cat shit.
08/02/2010 at 20:39 Jeremy says:
Everything in the world is either cliche, or built specifically to not be cliche. Either way its fabricated.
09/02/2010 at 01:17 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
But there’s still merit in doing a cliche well.
08/02/2010 at 10:48 Out Reach says:
The wierd thing is Alex (the press release guy from the link) is on my MSN friends list…
08/02/2010 at 10:54 Sp4rkR4t says:
Ok, that’s a terrible trailer but I can’t help but get my hopes up that they might actually be onto something great here. Plus by the law of trailers this game should be awesome.
08/02/2010 at 10:58 kyrieee says:
Someone should tell him that you edit the audio to make the narrators voice sound really deep. It’s not a sound you should actually try to achieve just using your vocal chords
08/02/2010 at 11:07 Larington says:
They get as far as the section of the trailer where they go on about empire being expanded through war with other players and my instant reaction is: “Nah, that’s not the sort of thing I’m looking for right now”, fortunately I have wierd tastes so. The thing is, this just makes me think of Evony, but in 3D with (hopefully) more solid game mechanics.
08/02/2010 at 11:18 Escalus says:
human, elf, orc and FIRE-BREATHING CASTLE-RAPING DRAGGGGOOOOOONNNNNNNSSSS
08/02/2010 at 11:55 Web Cole says:
Just slightly?
Man, I lol’d.
08/02/2010 at 12:02 Pzykozis says:
haha.. wow, that guys voice completely destroys any semblance of credibility.
The game (attempted gruff voice aside) does pique my interest though, guess i’ll have to keep an out for this.
08/02/2010 at 12:13 ThePinkNinja says:
I have concerns after looking this game over:
1) It’s basically an traditional RTS with some persistant online elements
2) That even if it is properly online, it will be too straightforward to allow true strategy or any kind of flexibility beyond having a big city that gets bigger and big armies that get bigger
My test of this game is whether or not I can open up a centrally located city as a neutrally aligned trade centre and start raking in the cash : /
08/02/2010 at 12:17 Senethro says:
Dawn of X is the new X of War.
08/02/2010 at 15:25 Dave says:
Looking forward to Dawn of Gears.
09/02/2010 at 00:44 Manley Pointer says:
Some of these taglines make it sound like Dawn of Evony…the fantasy I’ve been waiting for? For some reason the narrator sounds like a raging pervert to me.
08/02/2010 at 12:23 Wednesday says:
Human, Orc, Elf and “Dragon”?
That can’t be bloody fair.
08/02/2010 at 18:09 Wulf says:
Oh, I don’t know… Dragons mingled pretty well with the more ordinary bipeds in Horizons: Empires of Istaria.
/sigh … Horizons, I miss you, your glorious Dragons, and how characterful those Dragons were with their custom animations, battle, crafting, and emotes alike.
RPS people need to stop making me want to play things, I have too much to play right now as it is!
…still, the monthly sub is off-putting, so I doubt I’ll ever go back.
08/02/2010 at 12:38 Clovis says:
Wow, they are really expecting a big response to this for an MMO, with “HUNDREDS of other players”.
08/02/2010 at 12:44 MadMatty says:
Yeah the trailer was pretty funny for unintended reasons :D
The game doesn´t look bad at all tho- but i´ll have to see how they end up balancing out this proposed mish mash of offline and online play.
And the general balancing.
The games i´ve continued to play for a longer period, have allways been fineley balanced ordeals, with multiple valid tactics (instead of just 1 really overpowered one as is the case sometimes).
08/02/2010 at 12:45 Okami says:
Love the voice over, it reminds me of this..
08/02/2010 at 12:51 baby_clanger says:
You forgot that the word immeidately afer SURGING FORWARD was MOUNNNTINNNNG!
08/02/2010 at 13:01 Tomski says:
Hilarious trailer aside, it sounds quite interesting. I’m curious how it works though as your stuck in your castle and its vacinity so you’ll always be attacking and countered by the same neighbours surely?
08/02/2010 at 13:56 scott ossington says:
They had me up until, coming to pc and XBOX!!! Has anyone actually made a good rts for a console? This to me sounds like made for xbox, ported to pc……crappy game. But I could be wrong. I was wrong about star wars.
08/02/2010 at 14:00 HexagonalBolts says:
What a horrific trailer, but those cities are seriously sexy. Why have cities always been done so awkwardly and unlike-a-real-city before?
08/02/2010 at 14:05 Andrew Dunn says:
They’ve been making this since 2001 and everything that’s been revealed of the game mechanics is pretty much Empire Earth crossed with Warcraft 3 but with an MMORPG slant. The beta-testing ‘previews’ that the devs have posted on their site are worth looking over if only for the tragicomic “Hello? Is anyone there?” monologue in the chat window, as it appears none of the beta testers ever actually play it.
Add to that the painfully generic, well, to use the word ‘setting’ is being charitable… I wouldn’t hold out hope of anything very good.
08/02/2010 at 15:01 Cooper says:
I call this picture
“an abstract hallucination in purple and brown I had last Sunday evening when mowing the lawn and reading Proust whilst on a methadone comedown”
Seriously, I can’t make -anything- out. Other than a keep in the bottom right. Is it one of those ‘Magic Eye’ thingies?
08/02/2010 at 15:04 DMJ says:
Human, elf, Orc, or dragon?
Sounds like a choice between lettuce, tomato, celery or chocolate.
08/02/2010 at 15:43 Hmm-Hmm. says:
I -hate- chocolate. Why, don’t we all?
08/02/2010 at 15:05 jph wacheski says:
it’s not so much the cheesy voice acting as it is the SUPER cheesy script he is reading,. hope that writer is not writing the story for the single player stuff!,. game sounds interesting though.
08/02/2010 at 16:10 K.Boogle says:
There’ve been several attempts already for an MMORTS, haven’t there? I can’t remember the names off the top of my head.
I think an MMO [i]T[/i]BS would fare better than an RTS.
08/02/2010 at 18:28 Zombat says:
Time of Defiance was one of them, possibly the first, which actually appears to gone free to play.
God knows if anyone actually plays it though.
There’s also about 50-odd browser based games too, but there’s hardly any actual strategy in them, more swam the much weaker players with over wealming odds to nick their settlement and add it to your own bloated empire.
I don’t get the point to MMO RTSes. You build a big empire then some dick attacks you whilst you’re asleep
08/02/2010 at 19:52 Biz says:
the MMO component is a big question mark as far how it will end up
but the rest of the game is probably very solid. the editor seems like the greatest thing around. i guess we’ll see how blizzard’s promises about starcraf 2 end up, but i find that game’s setting to be less useful for mod work than medieval/fantasy. when you look at the stuff people have managed to create with crappy AoE2 and AoM editors, and then you look at this game’s you can imagine the possibilities.
i reference those games because that’s what it’s mostly like. the team was formed from AoK modders and the game is a very ensemble style RTS with other elements added onto it. i’m pretty sure most of the guys hung out at heavengames as well
i hope it fills the void of RTS games after stainless steel, big huge, and ensemble died out. the genre is kind of in a sad state if you look outside of futuristic stuff.
0 AD is the other game to follow. less ambitious game, but it’s a free open source volunteer-based development.
09/02/2010 at 03:23 James says:
I wouldn’t hold my breath on the “rest of the game” being very “solid”. Call it a hunch if you’d like.
09/02/2010 at 07:03 Agnocrat says:
I honestly don’t see how a MMORTS could work. Either you have some sort of mechanic artificially creating parity (which makes growing rather pointless), or those who spend 14 hours a day playing swallow those who have real life commitments (which kills 95% of the player base). The tick system in most browser based multiplayer strategies is one way of allowing roughly the same amount of commitment from everyone, but it makes for painfully slow gameplay.
With an MMORPG you may not advance as quickly as other players, but you don’t have to worry about someone taking away your hard earned accomplishments. PvP is just annoying when you lose, not destructive. In an MMORTS, presumably you attempt to conquer your neighbors (unless you conquer Computer players or something, but then it makes the actual online portion essentially a prettied-up ladder system.) I know I’d be pretty pissed if I spend a month building my empire only to have some Germany or Russia swallow up my Poland.