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Dragon Empires Cancelled

Posted by michael on from the everyone-knows-dragons-aren't-real dept.

Darniaq writes "Today, Codemasters announced they are discontinuing development of their massive online game Dragon Empires. They had this to say about it: 'The decision to close Dragon Empires' development does not impact on Codemasters' long-term ambitions in the massively multiplayer online gaming market and the company remains very active in evaluating future opportunities.' It appears yet another studio has realized a persistent virtual world requires more time and effort than they wish to expend. Regardless of the true reason, I applaud the move. The massive online gaming genre does not need more games from companies unwilling to focus themselves on them."

2 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Subscriptions - what would you pay? by Lightwarrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Let's have some names. Running a MMOG costs huge amounts of cash for hardware and bandwidth alone. I'm willing to bet that the so-called "Free MMORPGs" are in no way massively multiplayer or persistant.

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  2. Technical Issues by crashdavis · · Score: 2, Interesting
    In the press release, there is this quote:
    However, technical issues have resulted in the project's discontinuation.
    Anyone know what this means exactly?

    Possible explanations I can think of are:

    1) Servers weren't scalable enough and had insurmountable lag problems.
    2) Games like EQ2 have insanely cool gfx and models, especially on high-end hardware, and DE would have had to redo their engine AND all their models to compete, given their release date.
    3) It was purely financial and blaming "technology" is just a way to save face and retreat.
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