Embers of Caerus is about as far under the radar as you can get. It’s an MMO that exists mainly as a collection of concepts and tech demos, and it has a (very loosely) estimated release of 2015-16. In fact, I’m not sure if anyone at Forsaken Studios has any professional development experience – if any experience at all. To be quite blunt, I have very little faith that Embers of Caerus will ever become a reality.
So, why bother even mentioning Embers of Caerus?
I tend to enjoy smaller MMOs. Without millions of players to analyze and perfect every possible approach to the game, there is a greater sense of personal discovery. Additionally, the bigger an MMO gets, the more it tends to get whitewashed and fall in line with everything else, and the less incentive I feel to play it. Forsaken Studios understands me and what I want in an MMO. Perhaps Forsaken Studios will succeed, but if not, my hope is that someone will be there to pick up the torch.
Embers of Caerus will feature aspects such as skill-based combat (opposed to purely stat-based) and fully lootable player-corpses, but don’t mistake this for another Darkfall or Mortal Online. The developers are keenly aware that many players looking for a hardcore MMO have zero interest in PVP. I actually love PVP, but exploration and crafting trump all, which is why I am especially excited about the prospect of some very ambitious features:
– a shifting array of artifacts and secret places to uncover.
– form a religion, call a deity into existence, and then work to appease it.
– mix spells or create your own.
– an actual player-driven economy (ie crafting is important to the world).
Read Rob Steele’s post, “The Vision”, for a more thorough idea of what Embers of Caerus is intended to become. Of course, there is no guarantee that any of this will happen. MMOs are among the most difficult projects for small development studios. I think it’s quite likely that we will see some of these ideas implemented, while others will prove too difficult.
The video below is the first developer diary from Forsaken Studios, in which Dave Belcher discusses possible plans for Kickstarter and Siege Warfare. The latter concept is certainly not original, but the team at Forsaken Studios is acutely aware of the many problems faced by games such as Conan and Darkfall.
P.S. Some of that Kickstarter money needs to pay for a proper website. It’s not that hard to get some $5 hosting and install wordpress. That forum setup is abysmal, and sorely needs an introduction, or at least some mention that Embers of Caerus is an MMO.
