Update

Sorry for the delay in an update here. We moved our blogs to our company's official forums where we can each have our own space to post and respond to our followers and supporters. Please visit our website to find out how to gain access to our forums!

If anyone desires to see this blog continue, please respond and let us know! If there is enough interest I will be sure to continue updates on this blog on a regular basis!

Thanks for all of your support!

MMO Gaming is not dead. When over 10 million people across the globe are involved in 1 title alone, it is indisputable whether or not the industry still has a pulse.

There have been fairly large debates in recent years over the need for pay-to-play experiences vs. the new age free-to-play / 'freemium' models available. When you observe the majority of what is considered 'hardcore' MMO gamers or simply midcore long-term fans, the greatest percentage of these players are tied to a P2P title.

F2P if done very carefully and very.. well, right can work for the right type of game and the right audience. The model works really well for matchmaking type games and MOBA's.

As a developer it baffles me how some seem to think that it is robbery to have a pay / subscription-based structure for a title. 6 months of work on a moderate content update can cost a company hundreds of thousands and into millions of dollars to produce and market. For one-off titles and games that release smaller content updates, and much more infrequent 'new' game play elements freemium is fine in some cases.

Don't expect AAA MMO's to turn free to play, and make sure your developers actually get paid so they can continue to provide you with meaningful and robust content for years to come. If you buy into a game and find that it isn't for you take what you learned from your experience playing the game and help narrow your search to find the title that is more to your liking.

Yes, tactics come into play occasionally where some devs give you a first month free but only if a CC is attached for the second month and it raises some eyebrows and can make an individual feel shaky and untrustful. But it doesn't change the fact that large MMO's take years of development and millions of dollars to develop, produce, and market. It can be a little insulting when some players just expect free access. If the games content is not to your satisfaction and you deem it unworthy of your financial investment the answer is simple: Don't invest your hard earned money. This principal alone will trend to making companies more responsible for their content and quality assurance policies.

Yes, some titles that are Free to Play and advertise as such may be free, and some of them may give you access to a lot or most all of the games areas. However they will gate content behind a pay wall, and some games like ToR and... TFIR (get it?) have a great disparity between its paying and non paying customers for what they can actually do in the game.

I encourage and advise those wanting to try a game to insist on trial periods for MMO's, or limited free access days to give players a chance to look at the game unhindered. But do not jump straight to the option that denies developers an income and potentially reduces the games population because you want everything to be free.

Step by step

We've definitely had a lot of fun recently getting to show off some of our materials and we are definitely pumped for Illuxcon this weekend. Two of our artists will be attending this con with a very extremely limited free gift for visitors to their booth, as well as having a very special poster on display we've prepared just for this event!

We're hopeful that everyone will fall in love with our characters and art as much as we have, and it truly is thanks to the hard work, dedication, and many hours put in not only by our team: but especially by our wonderful conceptual artist Perry Santulli. None of our characters would have the life they do without his creative mind!

We are about to enter the last stages of our preparations for our funding campaign, and we hope that those of you who have been following us will be some of the key foundations of our supporters.

On a different note: I do want to briefly touch on some of the recent blogs, debates, and general rage going around the internet about "Gamers are dead" etc etc. I do not believe this is true at all. I believe some poor decisions have been made in the industry especially regarding walled content, selling off critical / core content as console exclusives, and the general spam of trash games due to the ease of publication.

We could have easily taken the route of publishing a small mobile game, or just an easy one-off project to make a few bucks and hope it doesn't ruin our reputation. This is not our path.

We have chosen to aim for greatness, we have made the first steps towards delivering something truly magical and wonderful into the world. It's highly ambitious, very robust, a veritable sh17-ton of work, and ya know what? I believe wholeheartedly every moment, every model, every meeting, every ounce of hope we have instilled in this venture will be well rewarded and received - especially in this time of chaos among sects of the gaming community.

When a publisher releases trash and someone buys it, then spreads the word it's trash it is a step towards looking bad on developers as a whole. When it happens to be an independent developer the result and the impact it has on us in a very big way.

We have to prove our worth and our value to our fans and our consumers: We aim to exceed this goal in our presentation, our quality, and our content.

I believe the heart of gaming and gamers will outlast, and we truly believe that we can be a reason that hope endures for the future of the industry. However, we can only do that and make those steps with your support.

Thank you all so much for your excitement, and dedication to both us and to the very heart of gaming as an industry and as the source of our ambition.

To show a bit of thanks, I'm going to be both very nice and yet very very mean. Not as mean as that puzzle we released.. that was a doozy to even create. Here is a sneak very mean peek at our Illuxcon items just for you blog followers:

A Story for the Ages...

Our first title - which I am deviously updating one letter at a time via our site, is something I've dreamt of for years now. I've already mentioned some of and particularly 'the' game that has been the largest source of inspiration thus far, but I cannot emphasize how much passion is being put forth into this most glorious Arc. We are truly pushing our own limits with a lot of ambition driving us along to bring this world and these characters to life. The charisma between them, the journey they are about to take, the obstacles and enemies they will face in the world and with each other are that of something truly special.

I needed to break the mold and deliver a truly deep story that is something both unique and very moving. There are some subjects / topics covered that are fairly intense and thought provoking. Player choices that have serious weight and long term effects on the rest of your experience through the story are absolutely essential. I'm posting another teaser picture today, and we're working up to more and more reveals over the course of the Fall / Winter.

Two of our artists will be in attendance at Illuxcon in September so BE SURE you seek out their booth. We're planning to have some handouts, and a very very big reveal there!

Also, myself and possibly 1~2 other team members are planning to attend Seige con this October in Atlanta if possible. We will confirm these details via our official twitter, but if we are able to be there - be sure to seek us out there as well as we will have a special character reveal for those that find us at the show!

Exciting stuff is happening! Stay tuned!

The History Behind Myriam, The Gamer

Art fanatic, music lover, food aficionado, and maybe a little crazy, but I’m ok with that. I suppose my slight obsession with video games stems partially to the fact that I’m an only child. When you find yourself in such a state, it’s natural that you find things to occupy your time with. For me, one of those things became video games. I remember the first time I played one at my cousin’s house when I was young -  Duck Hunt on the NES along with the bright orange gun you had to shoot at the screen. From there I got my first system – the Super NES, along with Super Mario. Unlocked ALL the levels. Yup. Endless gaming with only breaks for food and bathroom breaks. It helped that my father was a bit of a game fanatic himself at the time. I probably got my love of shiny gadgets and technology from him.

Since I was an only child, became very close to my older cousins – Uziel, David, & Josue. These boys had about 10 years on me so I remember sitting down in the living room watching them play RPGs and thinking to myself “Wow, look how cool that looks. Look at those fights! Look at that artwork! I LOVE this music! This is so complicated I need more!”. It was only a matter of time before I graduated to the Sony Playstation and got myself involved in those worlds myself. Ah…Sony. My great love. We were united at last. 

First game I owned on the Sony Playstation? Tomb Raider. There was just something about a strong female character (albeit with a very pixilated bosom and awkward movements), guns blazing into danger, and puzzling levels that really captivated me. I couldn’t get enough. This would spawn my following of the series and led me to play every single Tomb Raider game out there – including all the remakes. Yes. It’s consuming. Do I regret it? Never. 

I was probably around 12 or 13 when I picked up my first RPG title. Military base yard sale = big savings on expensive games and an awesome gift from a ever-spoiling uncle. I thus became engrossed in Xenogears. A massive world with magic, giant fighting mechs, and anime-styled animated cut scenes. I was in Heaven! The storyline might have been a little complicated for someone of my age, but I put enough hours into that puppy to absorb it all. That final boss couldn’t hold his own against my mighty level 99 characters. All of them. 

From there I decided that I wanted more of this RPG genre. So I started picking up those games that I grew up watching my cousins play and that I was finally old enough to play and understand myself. Many of the titles that followed included Chrono Cross and an extensive coverage of the Final Fantasy  Franchise (FF7, FF8, FF9, FFX, FFX-2, FF12, & FF13). 

As I got a bit older and found myself lacking 150 hours + to invest in gameplay I discovered the joys of Prince of Persia, the Uncharted Franchise (which is amazing), and even ventured into the realm of XBOX 360 for some good “shoot-em-ups” like Gears of War. 

So what do I think about where games are now and where they’re heading? I think the future holds great things. So many advancements can be seen in game tech in just the last two decades that there is really nothing holding us back but ourselves. The main things that should always remain a constant? Great stories, believable characters, fantastic worlds, and captivating gameplay. 

This is Myriam, signing off.

History, Strategy, & Hope for the future

Most of the Dev Blogs posted here will be project related, especially as we start revealing new information. Getting to show off our first character concept is really exciting for us, and especially me. Being able to weave this story and watch it grow, develop, and come to life has been truly inspiring. Until we start releasing more and more information however, I'd like to share some of my own experiences and background in gaming and try to be as transparent with our audience as possible. (Ya know, as much as I can get away with without getting evil stares.)

Please feel free to respond to posts, ask questions, and start some discussion if something comes up. While I may not always be able to answer project related topics as openly as I'd like this early on I'll be happy to answer most anything else.

I've been fairly obsessed with strategy titles since I was a kid. I loved playing Final Fantasy, Star Ocean, Xenogears, etc. I am also a fairly huge turn-based fan as well. Disgaea is probably my favorite series while I have played the occasional Fire Emblem and the like. While I truly do love RPG's my largest love comes from MMO's. Technically the first I ever played was Everquest on the PS2 and was pretty amazed at the possibilities. Yet, it was FFXI that turned my world upside down. Having access to every class on the same character was amazing, the endgame was varied and deep, the world was massive, danger truly was at every turn, and it became increasingly rare to see casual players and really anyone without a fairly deep amount of patience even past level 20. Every 10 levels it seemed to weed out more and more players who didn't have the time / patience and the Limit Breaks were extremely daunting for a lot of players. If you could not perform your role in the party properly toward the end it would directly affect your ability to group with others at all.

The most recent MMO that truly captivated me and really stole my heart was FFX|V. I played from Beta all the way through 2.1. Yes, Beta and release were rough and the latency was almost always a hinderance especially through 1.2. I stayed out of loyalty to the transparency that Yoshida brought to the Development team and in 1.23 I felt truly rewarded for my faith. Cutters Cry, Aurum Vale, Garuda (hard), Rivenroad normal and especially hard, Ifrit EX, and legendaries. 1.23b ~ the end of 1.0 as a whole was a truly awesome endgame experience in strategy requirements, execution, and story. These few months before the game closed were some of the most intense MMO experiences I've had in the last 5~6 years. ARR is a fairly interesting experience. I continued to lead my FC into the fray, and we were among the server first 5 and world first 10 to take down the mighty Twintania in turn 5 / Binding Coil of Bahamut. We were at the top, but the challenge was just not the same. The Crystal Tower came as a joke compared to FF's history of large-scale raids as well.

Recent MMO's and dungeon finders have given way to more of the 'elitist' mentalities who drop out of instances in the first couple of minutes if everything isn't perfectly prepared / executed. It sucks, and is not courteous at all yet a large part of the problem is many of these players are seeking high-intensity content but the games themselves have tried so hard to cater to 'everyone' that players are not as prepared upon reaching the group content. Being able to choose your leveling path where at least 1 or 2 of those are done entirely solo is nice for some, but if you are not prepared to deal with party roles you end up with unfavorable chaos. The situation is then perpetuated because these 'Hardcore' players are aiming to push their limits and more casual players feel entitled to be able to participate and try. There's nothing wrong with just playing the game and trying to overcome the content despite the challenge, but when a lower skilled player insists on being able to beat all content and the company is willing to cater to this only a few things can happen: 1) The difficulty is reduced which in turn frustrates the players seeking more challenging content and directly causes rifts between the player-base. 2) The company reduces the difficulty after a time has passed which cheapens the experience for those who have overcome the obstacle and really only renders the value of the win as who did it first. That content then no longer stands as a trial for new players that engage the content later on.

The end result is simply frustration sadly but it comes packaged with a realization that things need to change. When designing a game, especially a strategy game, you have to decide early on 'who' your audience will be and you have to stick to it. You lose faith in your fans by changing paths in ways that are contradictory to your mission / purpose. If you want to make a simpler game that is accessible to 'everyone' then anyone who plays it has to understand what that means for them and the content. When a Developer decides they want to create a daunting and challenging experience, less skilled players need to understand that they have to make friends, and try their best - but not all content will be possible to overcome without an increase in dedication, time, and patience.

You may fall short in an attempt to do something great, but if you never try you will always fail.

Stay tuned with us. We're just getting started.

Building a Legacy

Strategy, challenge, depth, emotion, execution. Outside of the basic joy and that comes from a healthy blend of them, these are the building blocks of a solid game for me. We could argue for days and list many other things that a good game doth make, but for the sake of time and avoiding a novel lets stick with these for now.

My first love of games started with Zelda, it grew and expanded through Romance of the Three Kingdoms and before long Diablo 1 & 2 came and took several years of my life away. My very first true love for RPG’s however really started with Final Fantasy IX. This is the game that really brought it all home and ignited my passion for the genre. The playfulness of the characters, the depth of the story, the plot twists and engaging combat – they all added up to a very beautiful equation. I went a little retro and played previous entries in the series, but the single most captivating title of my life has been Final Fantasy XI. 6 long years of traversing that incredible world, taking on the challenges of leveling, grinding, exploration and eventually the quite daunting endgame. Dynamis truly opened my eyes to the vast possibilities of community gaming. The danger of your environment was always present and traveling to a new area came with high risk and a true investment of time that really and truly connected you with your character.

New is not always better, and this is a bright shining star for us as a development team. New idea’s and elements can be great, but you do not always have to intentionally deviate so far from the path to be unique that you end up with a flaming bag of crap. Sure, it is in fact unique – but it is still crap.

We have journeyed and played through the years of Role-Playing Games, we have the same heartaches that thousands have cried out for a change, and we have risen to the challenge to actually do something about it. We will make the games we want to make and we will answer the call for making deep characters and stories, vast worlds, intense customization, and proven game-play techniques that will add up to journeys like you have never experienced. We will wake the seemingly dead elements that many have declared lost and we will tirelessly pursue our goals until they have come to fruition. There is a reason ROM sites still exist, there is a reason that private servers are undertaken by very small teams for MMO’s during their golden age.

RPG fans, we know your cries and have felt your pain over the years..
Fantasy MMO fans, there is still hope..
World, we’re comin for ya!