Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Gods and Heroes - Why it matters

I believe it was almost two years ago when I had a chance to beta test Gods and Heroes. A new MMO in the works by the fledgling Perpetual Entertainment. The game had a lot of potential. With a setting in an ancient styled roman empire. Satyrs walked in the fields, old columns from broken down buildings littered the fields of high grasses and wheat...


It truly had potential as it was something unique and different to see than the standard elf, dwarf high fantasy.

The potential lay within several features.

First, a Diety who you gained powers from when you leveled, which most games do not do. My son the other day for example asked why no MMO's had a feature like this. Gods and Heroes did.
Second, an NPC system that would allow players to build small armies for later skirmishes (as we can see in the image above). This also would allow for solo play if so desired. You had control of their gear as well, ala Guild Wars Heroes.

But, a beta schedule of two hours a day; Fridays and Saturdays, which during those times you were guaranteed a server outage, lagginess or various bugs breaking combat or quests; it just could not get off the ground.

So, the doors closed.

But, it seems the license and technology associated with the game has fallen into new hands.

Austin studio Heatwave Interactive have bought the rights to all aspects of the game. Even the tech to run an MMO from the ground up. You can read more about this here.

Gamespot news on Gods and Heroes acquisition.

I for one am pretty excited about this.

And this year is the perfect time to hear of Roman/Greek styled games. With a multitude (resurgence if you will) of Roman-Greco styled media. From Spartacus on Starz (a hit for that pay for station), to Percy Jackson in theaters now (the Lightning thief series) and of course, the ultimate remake...Clash of the Titans...done in full CGI glory.

Of course, this year also sees the launch of God of War 3, which has a lot of hype behind it.

Now is the time of the Greek tragedy. Lets see if this phoenix of an MMO can rise from the ashes and not be a tragedy of it's own fate no more.

Enjoy my slideshow of the few images I was able to capture from beta...

Cheers



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Played in the beta as well. It was a bit rough and buggy then of course and some crashes - but the concept was quite nice.

I would love to see that the game was brought to life again in a working version.