For a long time now people have been hassling me and asking when MechScape will arrive. Only now can I say with any confidence: Jagex intend for MechScape to be released next year.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?artic...2934&page=2

Rob Purchese interviewed Jagex content boss Imre Jele for EuroGamerMMO. In the article entitled The Great Digital Gold-Rush and dated 4th of February 2008 he is asked the following question:
"Eurogamer: If you want to tackle it at a core level, is there an argument for getting rid of the inherent grind mechanics of the genre that real-world trading has grown up around trying to "cheat"?"

He responds:
"Imre Jele: That's a very, very interesting idea, and the only thing I can tell you now is that we have some amazing products going live next year - a new MMO - and we are tackling this issue at a core design level. I think you summed up a very reasonable way to approach this."

Didn't read the article but it looks like great news! Can't wait until I read it when I have more time. Mechscape 2009 ^_^

huh? so we have to wait another year?!

ffs

Sooner would be better, but at least we know what year it should be coming.

yay!!! now i can stop getting my hopes up.

meh another year in production means another year of getting the bugs worked out

i read somewhere, cant remember where, that jagex are releasing "a number of mmos in 2008" - so whats that about?

so if i recall properly "Jagex have been working on mechscape as early as 2003"

they need 6 years for a java based mmorpg?

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=c...1&Itemid=57
"In the next year, we are looking to release a number more major products, adding to our unrivalled success."

http://www.reed.co.uk/job/details.aspx?job...867&pro=rss
"Over the next year, we shall release a number more major products, adding to our unrivalled success."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/...000/7090490.stm
"in 2008 it plans to launch a couple of new titles"


The evidence suggests they didn't start working on it until 2005 but they thought of the name 2003 or before.

Am I the only one disappointed?

No more 'MechScape is going to be released this month?' threads for a year? :/

++ to Ren for the info

Fantikerz

One more year isn't too bad...No matter when it comes out, I can't wait!

This is bad news
Well what other products could they be releasing in 2008. Mobile phone service and something else...

Thanks for breaking the bad news :( but thanks.

i think this news is going to lose mechscapeworld loads of members but nearly everyone thought it was coming in 2008, now they might switch their atentions to some other mmorpg

i cant wait.....

Sounds good.

Slightly disheartened at the prospect of waiting the best part of a year for Mechscape... Time to turn my attentions to other things methinks.

At least from that interview it pretty much confirms Mechscape will have completely different gameplay dynamics to Runescape; in that there'll either be some sort of legal real world trading option, or none of the "inherent grind mechanics of the genre" as the interview puts it. The latter being more appealing I'd say.

wow that was a real let down on the game

Lol, Ren's going to run everyone off until next year.
But nonetheless - it was a great find.

WOOOOO 2009-the year of the mech

so Why did is it taking jagex 8 years to produce a game square enix and other game companies only take 2 years
why is this one taking so long?

8 years? You mean around 3 - 5 years.
Anyway i think its delayed because they just put the anti rwt things in halfway through production.
Nevertheless im still gutted that we have to wait another whole year for the game to be released.

8 years? they started work on it around 2003 so around 5 years but still that is long for an mmorpg, usually it takes maximum of 2 years

Lets hope that the beta comes this year.

The earliest we can find evidence that they were working on it was April 2005 when John Seru became lead modeller. 2003 is when the domain was registered.

whats all this talk about them starting it in 1999

1999 was when Jagex released CyberWars, which isn't MechScape.

Wait cyber wars is the sister game of mechscape right so from what ive heard when cyber wars released they were starting production of mechscape right after

Based on the word of a Jagex employee I don't think MechScape is based on Cyber Wars. However, CyberWars shows Andrew Gower's interest in such things.

It's a pain to have to wait a year... I hope this means when it comes out it's good!

it has to be, its 3 years in the making and it will be four next year!

In november I was told that mech would come out in March 08 so now 09...

The way RS has been going, you'd hope it's getting better. If they do what they did to RS to MS, they have a recipe for disaster.

I agree with John, if they make it similar to RS, then it won't be very good at all.

one more year ..... oh well time to play halo

if they don't people will think that they ruined RuneScape to promote MechScape

runescape isnt ruined it just needs
work and mechscape will take quite a number of members from runescape

i really doubt it because runescape is medieval, mechscape is Sci-fi, two completely different games.

dude you played runescape and you quit who knows if you secretly play and you might quit again to go mechscape and think about it 15% of the runescape players went to fun orb. now think if mechscape comes out a mmorpg just like runescape but sci fi comes out think of the total empty worlds there will be

Any proof that 15% of the runescape players went to funorb and never came back? Thats what you mean right...



There wont be any empty worlds. Maybe a small percentage will leave but its always getting new players.

small.........

You think people are gonna stay in runescape when 40% of the economy knows that are gonna quit the site in 5 years

They (probably) arent gonna quit the site in 5 years, it just wont be their main priority. And yes i think people will stay in runescape.

thaty sucks another year runescape is boring how can we live with another year to wait ?

this is horrible i have to go on noob accounts waiting and now another year ffs

I got bored in RuneScape so MechScape could be the thing i want :)

it will be everything you want and more

so why don't you stick with one account, train it and it won't be a noob account anymore and you are not allowed to double post btw

If they make it for so long time then it's gona be much better than Rs. So that makes me want to play it even more :D

I don't think it will be better than RuneScape, where it was a few months ago.
But it will be better than how RuneScape to come out, because it does take
years after a game to come out like this to be really good. MechScape will
just be starting off better than RuneScape did and probably even develop
faster than RuneScape did.

let me say this one last thing for this thread on the first month of mechscape there will
be so many bugs and glitches that people will find and there will be too many
items that will give a little too much exp for skills but after that everything will be
fine the first month is always the hardest.

RuneScape isn't the only free MMORPG in the world, you know.


OT: It seems Imre has a very weird idea of what "very few" means. He said that very few members quit because of the updates, yet it has been confirmed that at least 60,000 members had quit because of them.

Also, what he said at the very end was really intelligent, all that about how MMOs should be fun while you're getting to where you want as well as when you've reached your goals.

Lastly, there's nothing unusual about MechScape being delayed. Development didn't start until at least 2005, remember, and it was probably very slow, with only a handful of people working on it, until Iddison came along in late 2007. In fact, the delay is probably a good sign, because it's apparent now that Jagex will be putting a lot of effort into MechScape.