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In a world still rocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, gamers looked for escape in the promise of a new online fantasy world. But the first six months proved to be the most turbulent period in the game's development ...
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| September 7, 2001 | dragonempires.com registered |
| September 11, 2001 | First Rumours and Discussions |
| September 20, 2001 | Press Release: Dragon Empires Gets Announced + First Screens |
| September 24, 2001 | First Dragon Empires Questions Answered |
| October 2, 2001 | First Dragon Empires Forum opens on The Realm's forums |
| October 3, 2001 | First Dragon Empires Fansite created |
| October 16, 2001 | Stephen hands in his two week notice to persue other interests |
| November 14, 2001 | First official Dragon Empires site revealed |
| November 21, 2001 | www.dragonempires.com address points to it’s proper web page |
| December 4, 2001 | The forums move to a new, better server |
| January 17, 2002 | David Solari predicts a close relationship with the community in Codemasters' Community Plan |
| January 31, 2002 | First Dragon Empires Devchat |
| February 11, 2002 | First Dragon Empires Newsletter sent out |
| February 18, 2002 | Vini Holden's Sad Story |
| March 1, 2002 | Piers Anthony writes DE Backstory! |
The domain name "www.dragonempires.com" is registered.
The name "DragonEmpires" is discussed in private chats in the game "The Realm" and fans begin to watch the domain for developments.
After much speculation Codemasters release details of their online game, Dragon Empires, through press releases. A webpage showing only the DE logo with no information is linked to from the Codemasters site.
Discussion starts on The Realm's Town Hall message board and some very early screenshots make the rounds.
A Press Release about DE is also posted on the Realmserver.com site:
Quote from Blue's News:Lead a clan to rule the world as Codemasters confirms groundbreaking persistent world game - Dragon Empires.
September 20 2001: Codemasters today reveals one of its most tightly guarded development projects - the creation an online fantasy world that will raise the bar in persistent-world gaming. Its key progression is that the world will be 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.
It is the world of Dragon Empires, Codemasters' groundbreaking Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). Dragon Empires is due for colonisation Q2 2002 by PC gamers seeking advancement over the MMORPGs currently available.
Dragon Empires will create a world set when magic is plentiful and the lives of humans and dragons intertwined. Its world is one of 100 lands spread over five empires, a world that can be ruled by player clans, one where, uniquely, player-to-player combat is always possible and a world whose strongholds are guarded and policed by fiercely protective dragons.
Dragon Empires breaks the mould with the importance of player to player combat to the game - it's open season on all the other players all the time - and introduces the concept of player clans ruling sprawling cities within the game's world.
The game is being developed at Codemasters' online development facility in Oakhurst, California. Developers at the facility have much experience in the field as creators of The Realm, one of the earliest MMORPGs and one that still retains a loyal fan base.
For Dragon Empires, Codemasters is promising real progression in the world of MMORPGs and the game will be visually striking with the world brought to life in a 3D real time rendered environment. Dragon Empires makes for a perfectly honed fantasy adventure and innovates with its player-to-player combat. Combat is real time and engaging an attack is as easy as walking up to a target and using spells or weapons on them.
There are mechanisms to stop the world turning into anarchy; the basic rule is that, while a player can attack anyone, they risk becoming an outlaw. Outlaws become an instant target and can be hunted down by other players or face the wrath of the city's protectors - the dragons.
As players become experienced they'll be able to form their own clans to 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.
Says Ted Carron, producer of Dragon Empires: "Dragon Empires is a massive and important project as Codemasters continues to embrace new delivery platforms for gaming. The always-on combative element is something we're very excited about; the majority of existing MMORPG s 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."
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.
Game Developer Stephen Nichols posts information on Dragon Empires on The Realm’s Town Hall Message Board. He is responding to queries from players PJ and Andos:
Subject Re: Dragon Empires - a First Cut
Posted by Stephen (Despothes' Grove)
Posted on 9/24/01 07:14 PMPJ:
Let me respond as I can at this point:
- Dragon Empires is not The Realm.
- Full time PvP is a fundamental part of Dragon Empires. The game is balanced to support this feature. This is the primary reason why PvP is not a viable option in existing games... combat is simply not a balanced affair. Player killing will exist, but it will be controllable.
- Real time combat can be strategic (and will be in Dragon Empires). I don't want to rehash this either, but I will restate that it is possible to have pressured strategy.
- Clans are vital for engaging in the city battles that will be at the center of the gameplay. While you can still adventure in small groups to gain levels and power, the true fun of the game is rooted in the clan conflicts.
Again, more information about the game will be released as we close in on finishing it.
Andos:
And now, for your points... ;)
- Real-time combat is not a revokable feature of Dragon Empires. It will work, or the game won't ship. The same goes for universal PvP. The game design is predicated on player/player conflict. It's not feasible to remove it.
- Yes, The Realm started as PvP and real-time. However, the game was not designed to handle that sort of play (heck, it was barely designed at all back then). Dragon Empires is designed from the ground up to handle PvP and real-time combat.
- Real-time combat will be terrible for you if you play with a poor connection, that's true. If you can manage 500ms connection speeds, then you'll be in good shape.
- The battle cloud was added to The Realm because of technical issues with the game's client. It works, but it is not the best solution to the combat problem.
No real parallel between Dragon Empires and The Realm can be drawn (except for the social features). They are different games with different goals. You may well not find Dragon Empires to your liking. I hope that you do, but you may not. As to how The Realm and Dragon Empires relate in the future, I cannot say. Codemasters will release information about that in the near future.
Steve
Official Discussion board created on the realmserver.com site, taking discussion away from Town Hall.
Sandman27 creates the first Dragon Empires fansite posting what screenshots are available. A discussion board he hosted was used for chatting until the DE board on realmserver.com was created.
Stephen shocks everyone by announcing he had given in his two-week notice with Codemasters. He states on the message board:
Yes, I've given my two-week notice to Codemasters. I've decided to pursue other opportunities in the industry.
I have nothing bad to say about Codemasters... it's a great company that I will sorely miss. It's just that the time seemed right for me to move on to other things. The Realm should be unaffected by my departure, as I have had very little involvement with it for the past six months. Well, besides the odd question from Bryan as he has learned the systems. I'm sure that things will continue smoothly once Bryan finishes up with his billing system torture, er... maintenance.Dragon Empires will be more affected by my departure, but I doubt the disruption will be long-lived.
Codemasters is a robust company that will have little difficulty rebounding from the loss. I wish them lots of luck in their endeavors. I'll be the first in line to buy a copy of that groundbreaking game!I hope that The Realm will continue to flourish under the careful guidance of Codemasters. They are committed to the game, that much is certain. I am confident that the future is bright for this game!
Steve
The first official Dragon Empires website is revealed.
Christobal makes announcement on the Realm’s Dragon Empires Board. Says Dragonempires.com to be operational soon. DE artist “Monkey” pretty much acts as moderator.
The site could be accessed by going to the www.Codemasters.co.uk site and selecting DE in “Select a Game”. It had discussion forums and beta sign-up.
www.dragonempires.com address points to it’s proper web page.
The forums move to a new server which enables many features that weren't previously there such as emailing and PM'ing others.
An official notice by David Solari outlines the way Codemasters would approach its community relations. Here is a small excerpt:
Dragon Empires Community Plan
By way of introduction my name is David Solari and I am part of the team working on Dragon Empires at Codemasters.
We want to build as strong a relationship as possible with the community which is growing around the game.
To this end we have developed a plan which will deliver information and assets to the community at regular intervals.
What follows is a rough schedule for the next few months. We would appreciate any feedback which you might have with regards to the following plan. For feedback please use the forum on dragonempires.com.
The complete Community Plan can be read here.
The first Dragon Empires Developers Chat is held on the Xnet server. Attending are Hatman, markz, sigma, darius and jona. Later, Dragon Empires HoC would move to the Stratics IRC Server irc.stratics.com and become a Stratics hosted event, even up to now.
The first newsletter goes out. It announces a new Community Liaison Manager.
The sad story of Dragon Empires’ first community liaison manager begins. Vini Holden begins work at Codemasters however he does not last the week.
Vini posted on the DE forum as Treoraich. He was a Realmer known in Realm through his character name Sheallaidh, However when it became known that Vini and Sheallaidh were the same, his appointment was contested by some Realm GMs and (allegedly) a programmer. There were some allegations about conduct in The Ream against him which, while were widely known, were not made public so it would be inappropriate to cover them here. Vini strenuously denied the allegations.
Vini lost his job and many board regulars began a push to have him re-hired however this lost steam when it became evident that the situation was final. Vini’s last post on the board was on February 26..
"Monkey" announces on the forum that Piers Anthony was the fantasy author to write the backstory for Dragon Empires. And we learn the name of the world is "Fortitude" for the first time. He posts:
Piers Anthony & Dragon Empires
Codemasters' Dragon Empires, an upcoming high fantasy MMORPG, will get a bit of a boost thanks to the creative talents of Piers Anthony. Today Anthony has dubbed the world in Dragon Empires as Fortitude, and will pen a short story based on the game. Here's a rip from the PR about this interesting collaboration:
The world of Dragon Empires, Codemasters' massively multiplayer online RPG of incredible fantasy and clan rule, has been named "Fortitude" by the renowned science fiction and fantasy author Piers Anthony.
Piers, author of over 100 novels, is to collaborate on the creation of the game world's history and on giving names and placement to the many islands, provinces, empires and cultures that together form Fortitude.
The author, best known for Xanth series of fantasy novels, was approached to work on Dragon Empires after thousands of members of Code M, Codemasters' privilege online community, voted him as a favorite science fiction and fantasy author in an poll consisting of 20 famous novelists.
Creating a world of intriguing fantasy ready for the game's prospective inhabitants, Piers will author a short story, exclusively for Dragon Empires. The short story will provide players with an insight into Fortitude's inhabitants and the dragons that inhabit the world as the city peacekeepers.
Says Ted Carron, the producer of Dragon Empires: "We are delighted to be working with Piers. His creativity is perfectly suited to shape the history, cultures and lands of Dragon Empires. The naming of the world as Fortitude reflects the attitude to succeed in the world - the name means strength, a firmness of mind, courage, determination, and guts!"
The departure of Lead Designer Nichols and the sacking of the first Community Liaison Manager leaves the community fractured, and future changes in the game's vision will disillusion more, however the introduction of a new Community Liaison Manager begins a new period of the game's development with a focus on community healing, communication and consultation. We begin... The Calistas Years.
