duplex
12-03-2008, 04:22 AM
Face of Mankind – The Road Ahead
It’s time for me to leave a few more words about this relaunch of “Face of Mankind”. I’d like to talk a little about the history, the why’s, our expectations and plans for the future.
Face of Mankind is the first massively multiplayer online game we have created. It is the first one for us that went through the entire software development curve: Development, long betas, commercial release, downfall, cancellation and hopefully a promising revival. Not to forget all sorts of problems, both caused by ourselves and rained upon us from others.
We have learned a lot and will never stop to do so.
We are doing this revival for many reasons, but mostly because we lost a lot of blood on the project and put all our souls into it. I believe many of you can see that if you look beyond all the bugs and issues.
We are doing it also for financial reasons. Although it is sometimes better to draw a line, quit on something and start something else from scratch, we had resources lying waste. For a small company like us, this is significant money.
Only a big deal of re-development made this relaunch possible. The server has been rebuilt from the ground up, with completely new architecture, networking and general concept for the game universe. We would not be able to realize running the game independently, without a big publisher supporting us, with the old architecture. We also had to streamline the game concept, cut many things out and focus on the central Faction vs. Faction concept. Only by doing that a relaunch is possible and reasonable in terms of “cost and efforts” vs. “gains”.
I needed to point that out clearly to you, because you maybe won’t understand the reasoning of a few decisions that you will be presented with during the next weeks and months. There will (most likely) be unpopular decisions, and before you start to flame on and question them, please consider that they are necessary, from a technical or financial perspective.
We are listening to your suggestions, but we cannot and will not implement all of them or even the majority of them. There might be a chance we will not implement even one of your suggestions, if it doesn’t fit to our concept or we don’t have the resources to realize it. That doesn’t mean we don’t consider them. We are reading and considering all your input, and we appreciate it, because it gives valuable data and can and will influence our decision making process. Your input will be most definitely helpful (and needed) during the balancing process.
All that being said, let me present a few major decisions, a broad schedule and generally how this relaunch will work out.
We will start small and grow big. What does that mean? Initially, we will launch with a reduced amount of worlds available. From the 30 worlds we had in FoM Retail, we will use 6 and the cloning facility. We are going to add more worlds if it becomes necessary. So there is enough room for updates in the future.
There will be a new closed beta, followed by an open beta. When they start or how long they last will not be announced before it is safe to make solid predictions. Final developments are still going on, so we are not able to make safe predictions yet. News and updates will be announced when we see them necessary. They might be irregular, but we try our best (also in cooperation with our partners at Nexeon) to keep you updated on the most critical topics in a timely manner. There will most likely more updates in these forums than on the Face of Mankind portal.
As laid out in our recent announcement, neXeon is our partner for billing, server hosting and forums. We appreciate this partnership a lot, since it will reduce our workload and makes us focus on game development and in-game support.
We are going to present you with all the game changes and new features step by step, not all at once. We feel we should be responsible and care for your state of health. ;-)
You will be supplied with all the information in smaller, healthier portions. Remember, it’s better to eat small pieces instead of having one big meal. Plus, we obviously want to sustain a level of suspense and anticipation.
So keep up your discussions here at these fine forums, shape your future game characters and play with possible faction relationships. It cannot hurt to jump into the game prepared, once it’s live.
-duplex
Edit: Discuss this announcement here: http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=197
It’s time for me to leave a few more words about this relaunch of “Face of Mankind”. I’d like to talk a little about the history, the why’s, our expectations and plans for the future.
Face of Mankind is the first massively multiplayer online game we have created. It is the first one for us that went through the entire software development curve: Development, long betas, commercial release, downfall, cancellation and hopefully a promising revival. Not to forget all sorts of problems, both caused by ourselves and rained upon us from others.
We have learned a lot and will never stop to do so.
We are doing this revival for many reasons, but mostly because we lost a lot of blood on the project and put all our souls into it. I believe many of you can see that if you look beyond all the bugs and issues.
We are doing it also for financial reasons. Although it is sometimes better to draw a line, quit on something and start something else from scratch, we had resources lying waste. For a small company like us, this is significant money.
Only a big deal of re-development made this relaunch possible. The server has been rebuilt from the ground up, with completely new architecture, networking and general concept for the game universe. We would not be able to realize running the game independently, without a big publisher supporting us, with the old architecture. We also had to streamline the game concept, cut many things out and focus on the central Faction vs. Faction concept. Only by doing that a relaunch is possible and reasonable in terms of “cost and efforts” vs. “gains”.
I needed to point that out clearly to you, because you maybe won’t understand the reasoning of a few decisions that you will be presented with during the next weeks and months. There will (most likely) be unpopular decisions, and before you start to flame on and question them, please consider that they are necessary, from a technical or financial perspective.
We are listening to your suggestions, but we cannot and will not implement all of them or even the majority of them. There might be a chance we will not implement even one of your suggestions, if it doesn’t fit to our concept or we don’t have the resources to realize it. That doesn’t mean we don’t consider them. We are reading and considering all your input, and we appreciate it, because it gives valuable data and can and will influence our decision making process. Your input will be most definitely helpful (and needed) during the balancing process.
All that being said, let me present a few major decisions, a broad schedule and generally how this relaunch will work out.
We will start small and grow big. What does that mean? Initially, we will launch with a reduced amount of worlds available. From the 30 worlds we had in FoM Retail, we will use 6 and the cloning facility. We are going to add more worlds if it becomes necessary. So there is enough room for updates in the future.
There will be a new closed beta, followed by an open beta. When they start or how long they last will not be announced before it is safe to make solid predictions. Final developments are still going on, so we are not able to make safe predictions yet. News and updates will be announced when we see them necessary. They might be irregular, but we try our best (also in cooperation with our partners at Nexeon) to keep you updated on the most critical topics in a timely manner. There will most likely more updates in these forums than on the Face of Mankind portal.
As laid out in our recent announcement, neXeon is our partner for billing, server hosting and forums. We appreciate this partnership a lot, since it will reduce our workload and makes us focus on game development and in-game support.
We are going to present you with all the game changes and new features step by step, not all at once. We feel we should be responsible and care for your state of health. ;-)
You will be supplied with all the information in smaller, healthier portions. Remember, it’s better to eat small pieces instead of having one big meal. Plus, we obviously want to sustain a level of suspense and anticipation.
So keep up your discussions here at these fine forums, shape your future game characters and play with possible faction relationships. It cannot hurt to jump into the game prepared, once it’s live.
-duplex
Edit: Discuss this announcement here: http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=197