[MUD-Dev] Dragon Empires is cancelled

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

dienw at gamedevid.org wrote:

> Another one is falling down:

>   http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=dragon+empires

They put a tad more detail up :

  "We were experiencing unexpected obstacles with the server code,
  in particular our ability to serve clients at a scale which would
  have permitted us to launch the game as an MMO. The resolution of
  these issues was fundamental to the success of the project and
  ultimate release of the game. Due to the delays, a detailed
  analysis and review of the game was undertaken over the period of
  approximately six weeks in which a detailed study of the viability
  of the project was undertaken. Every possible route was
  considered, which included seeking external help and expertise to
  assist us with this troublesome area. Sadly for all of us, the
  time and money required to resolve these issues to the high
  standards that Codemasters requires and its fans expect, posed
  risks that outweighed the benefits. In the end, the scales were
  tipped in the direction of a halt to development.  Let me assure
  that this was a decision that was laboured on for a long time and
  was not taken at all lightly."

Seems like they didn't have the expertise to get the serverside
working properly. I wonder if they were using game devs to write the
serverside stuff and they just didn't know enough about scalability?
I know one of the network programmers did post here a few times and
he came from a university background having worked on this type of
technology there.

I'm not convinced there is room for another big budget fantasy MMO
at the moment anyway. Between WoW and EQ2 the market looks pretty
sewn up. Lots more info about EQ2 is available now, and it seems set
to address a lot of the problems with the first game. I'm pretty
excited.

It is very sad that both UK developed MMOs cancelled though, my
dreams of working on an MMO here are thwarted :(

Dan
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