Sony's MMORPG "Sovereign" Dead

Gudlyf writes "Although the main site for this massive-multiplayer game by Sony (once known as Verant) was updated at some point late last year, it seems that according to CNN Money, it's gone quietly dead after 4.5 years in development (reminds me of why I posted my vote in a previous story on vaporware): "Work on 'Sovereign,' a massively multiplayer real time strategy game, has been terminated after more than four-and-a-half years of development. Ambitious in nature, the game had hoped to replicate a continuous global war that supported up to 500 players. Diplomacy would have played as significant a role as the player's tactical abilities. 'We came to a decision that it was not going to be what we wanted it to be,' said McDaniel. 'It never really had the magic.'""

Comments

Bah! Who need that?

[camt]

Who needs that when you have Earth 2025?!

Saw it at E3 2000

[Washizu]

I saw Sovereign at E3 2000 and the graphics looked like ass back then. It scaled up from a single tank to an entire planet, though. The game had some neat features, but it didn't seem to solve any of the obvious problems a MM strategy game would have. In most current persistant world games you don't regress if you haven't been logged on in a while. That doesn't work in a strategy game, so what do you do?

Re:Bah! Who need that?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm personally partial to Utopia.

Re:"Once known as..."

[$$$$$exyGal]

Sony actually bought Verant

--sex

4.5 years dev means..

[Whitecloud]

Sorry but thats just to long. 4.5 years ago (1998 July)the tools to develop (geforce?) and the platforms available (win98 etc)limit the possibilites available to the dev team. We see this currently with games like Duke Nukem, (..waiting...) and Doom3 where the stated goal for system compatibility is GF3 and higher.

I am sure some elements of the game are able to be reused, however all the coding and optimization would have to be redone to suit current systems, meaning more time spent waiting. "the magic wasnt really there" is a shocker statement though...was the concept good or not? If it wasnt scratch the game. 4.5 years sheesh, the intial code is obselete before the 4th years even begun!

more about .HACK

[mattwolfewvu]

http://ps2.ign.com/objects/017/017477.html

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/385/385585p1.html

MMORPG != MMORTS

[LazJen]

MMORPG is for roleplaying games.

This was for a real time strategy game. MMORPG is incorrect. Not all massively multiplayer games are roleplaying games.

Sounds like Eschaton

[srichman]

Global warfare with diplomacy sounds a bit like Eschaton. (Fingers crossed that that game doesn't meet a similar fate...)