The Dragon Empires world of Fortitude is a refreshingly new and richly imagined milieu, however the hidden strength of the game lies in its long and distinguished ancestry.

Unlike most “concept” MMORPGs of today, conceived of a popular fiction franchises and rushed out to a disappointed public, Dragon Empires, when released, will have an ancestry of development reaching back for almost a decade. It is a game which has a long, but little-known legacy.

This legacy began in the earliest generations of the MMO genre almost a decade ago with the inception of “The Realm Online” by Sierra in 1995. This brought those early developers a great depth of experience and helped mold the future of many MMORPGs that followed. Through a tangled path of development and changing ownership for the rest of the decade, ideas and expertise continued to flourish with The Realm and Sierra’s early development of the Middle-Earth Online project and eventually culminated with Codemasters taking the experience and vision on board to announce their own groundbreaking game in 2001 – Dragon Empires.

The Beginning

Some time in 1995, a programmer for Yosemite Entertainment (Sierra), was driving to work in Oakhurst CA and thinking about the potential of Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) in the newly expanding Internet. In particular, he thought it would be a great idea to raise the bar significantly in the fledgling area of Graphical MUDs, conceiving a an animated, massively-multiplayer, Tolkien-esque world.

The idea was put before the then owners of Sierra, the legendary Ken and Roberta Williams who were renowned for their groundbreaking games and for putting their faith in the vision of their people. And so, in late 1995 development of The Realm Online began, bringing on board developers Steve Nichols and Mark Zechiel among others. The Realm went through alpha and beta testing through 1995-96 to be launched commercially in December 1996. This period was one of steep learning for Zechiel and Nichols as the aspects of online RP gaming were investigated, developed and lessons often learnt hard.

The Realm flourished through 1997 and 1998 until Sierra gained the license to make the Holy Grail of MMORPGs, Middle-Earth Online. Zechiel, Nichols, and Janus Anderson from The Realm and newcomer Daniel James (among others) were put on the project and as it advanced, there was much debate in the MEO forums – often heated – in areas such as PvP, death penalty, the economy, magic, travel etc.

As the development of MEO progressed, Sierra lost focus on The Realm which began to stagnate and so they sold the game to Codemasters in 2000.

Through disagreements in vision at high levels, the Middle-Earth Online project at Sierra stalled and Codemasters were able to bring on board the cream of the talent from that project, and so Zechiel and Nichols joined their team. (Anderson went on to “Earth & Beyond”, James to launch “Puzzle Pirates”, but I digress.)
In late 2000, Codemasters were planning an upgrade to The Realm to Version 4.x, but this was limited to an unambitious upgrade to their two-dimensional graphics. However when Nichols joined Codemasters, he was put on a plane to the UK to attend a developers' conference and meet the Codemasters owners with an outline for plans for a new MMORPG, and liking what they saw, Codemasters approved upgrading The Realm V4.x, to a totally new, fully 3D rendered game. Various ideas were considered with an early favourite being an Ancient Egypt-themed MMORPG, however a more fantasy-based world emerged in late 2001 with the announcement of the ambitious Dragon Empires project.

This history echoes in Dragon Empires to present day, Mark Zechiel is still a driving force behind Dragon Empires. The legacies to be passed down from The Realm Online can only be guessed at during this current (pre-beta) time of writing, however it can be assumed Realm’s strong communication and chat system will remain along with the excellent player-housing system, the core of the character creation engine, anti-hacking server and client architecture, and the routing and upgrade connection cycle. What would have come from the days of Middle-Earth Online development can only be guessed at, however this writer recognizes elements of PvP, economy and world mechanics from the discussions of those days, but most importantly, the MEO experience instilled in the developers the utmost necessity of a powerful story, compelling world and rich lore.
So in late 2001, already with a strong and interested player following, the game is announced…