The first part of a two part interview discussing Empire of the Eclipse is now up on Pocket Gamer UK - we discuss the game in depth in addition to supported devices and our pricing model. http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Various/Empire+of+the+Eclipse/news.asp?c=26588
Looks very good, the mmo ideea is good for such games, as for the single player part as long as the game was intended for mp only don't stick it in just because you will lose some sales to people wanting sp if you have to neglect some parts of the mmo for this.
Hey, so we'll be posting more about release plans early next week but in the meantime we are opening up our beta to outside testers. We have a limited number of slots open due to our provisioning profile limits with Apple so PM me and I'll hand them out on a first come first serve basis.
Oh, also in case people didn't see it the write up TA did on Empire along with game play video can be found here - http://toucharcade.com/2011/03/07/gdc-2011-upcoming-empire-of-the-eclipse/
So we're now at the end of Q1 2011 and some of you have been wondering where Empire of the Eclipse is. The answer is that we've decided to delay the game but we think it's definitely for a good cause. The the game is simply huge and we're doing our best to make sure that everything gets properly tested before launch but more over after all the responses from GDC it really seemed clear that making battle feel more visceral was the big thing the game was missing and that it's definitely something that needs to be done for launch. So the bad news is we're delaying the game to an undetermined date but we'll definitely be out this summer. The good news is that the combat has gotten a lot more engaging and to that end I've included a brief demo video of where we're headed with the combat display. Basically battles are presented in a manner similar to Advance Wars except that you're seeing large scale battles instead of single units and the battles take time to play out giving players time to move reinforcements or for friends to join into the fray if they're close enough. Below we've included a video of where we're headed with the combat display along with a sample of the 40 min soundtrack that was made for the game by the very talented Christian Andersson ( http://www.craze.se/ ) Thank you for your patience, we look forward to playing the game with you all as soon as it's ready. Battle Preview Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjhTu8oR1N0
Loving the overall theme and gameplay. Not being quite an MMO gamer though, I hope down the road a stand-alone spin-off strategy game will be developed. But ya, game looks wonderful. Great job! I'm sure it'll do well in the App Store.
Wow, from the details and videos so far it looks like I may end up spending a long time with something like this. Brilliant concept, hope the end product is as good as it sounds!
Game definitely looks good, and charging for subscription rather than unlimited iAP is good, one thing I didnt see mentioned, how are we going to find other players? I was hoping for a massive server filled with random players, or if you had to use friends, game center friends... Whatever it is, no facebook i hope.
I'm really interested in this. You mentioned in a post earlier that you will allow players to host their own server. Does this mean I can put it on a VPS Linux distro like Ubuntu?
h1976 - When you start you pick an available game that's waiting to begin. When that game reaches the player cap (1500 players currently) or a time limit is reached (we're still experimenting with this but currently it's 24 hours) a new server is created and a galaxy is generated to match the number of players in that game. So yeah, a bunch of servers with random players. If you want to play with your friends all they need to do is join the same server. Also, while you're waiting for a game to begin you can always log onto one of the tutorial servers that are always there and open.
twick - Sorry, what I meant was that players will be able to create their own private games which technically means that a virtual server is spawned for that specific game. If we were to give people access to the server executables / data that would open us up to all kinds of hacking / exploits that we'd rather avoid.
Hi there, I got a beta invite quite some time ago, registered my iPhone with this testflight app but haven't received anything else so far... No instructions, no game.
Ernesto - I'm not sure what happened there but it may be that you registered after we put out a build so you didn't get the notification / download link.
Just a heads up to let everyone know what's been going on behind the scenes here. We're getting really close now with the last three remaining large tasks to complete the IAP/Subscription code, Push notifications and a collection of video tutorials to help ease people into the game. One these items are done we'll do a limited region launch in January followed by a full international launch. You can see the first seven video tutorials at the link below. Map Navigation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV9RryJtilI Moving Ships http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-wSNX2Aw98 Local Planet Menu and Ship Building http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAOwR9ASm0w Resource Collection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUr3gC5Jgb0 Global Planet Menu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_FssyWVw4 Global Fleet Menu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SuAtOJM2KI Research and Specialties http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F3yi6Tsezo
I just wanted to throw out a quick update and say that at long last Empire of the Eclipse has been submitted to Apple and will be available world-wide in a matter of weeks!
Wilbair - Empire costs $1.99 /mo so we can offer our players a truly competitive online experience where no one can buy their way to victory. Emos - Awesome, we're looking forward to folks playing the game too.