Courtesy of Jagex.

Is Jagex really working on a new, sci-fi game? What can you tell us about it?

Yes, we are and have been for some years now. We won't tell you much as this time in order to not spoil the surprise! Remember our CEO's, Mark Gerhard, post about preparing surprises for our players?
As soon as we're ready to give away information, you will be the first to know straight from us. Don't fall for scamming sites or people who pretend to know a lot about the game: they're either wrong or trying to get hold of your personal details. We never told anyone what the game is about, it's being kept as a closely guarded secret by lasers, missiles, energy shields and the like. And a dog, a huge rabid frothing dog.

When is the new title coming out?

One of the biggest problems with MMOGs these days is how rushed they are launched, invariably letting players down due to excessive bugs or half-baked design decisions. We want to make it right, fun, huge, amazing. When it has all these ingredients, we'll invite you to try it out and tell us what you think of it. Forget about any dates you might have heard for its launch, we're not bound to them but to quality and excellence. The game will be released when we feel it has reached maturity, as simple as that.

Will the release of the new game affect RuneScape development, updates, team or future?

No, never. The game has had its own dedicated team for years now, totally independent from RuneScape. Once it is launched, the current team might expand with new talent to take care of the game's updates, but again not overlapping or affecting RuneScape in any shape or form. If anything, RuneScape has and will continue to benefit from the development of the new title: some of the novel features recently implemented in RS are a result of technology improvements triggered by the development of the new game.

Would it be worth switching to the new game?

Switch? Why not play both?
We're putting all our heart and know-how into the game, expecting it to be ground-breaking. Only you will be able to tell if the end result is worth playing or not. We hope it will – and it should sit nicely alongside RuneScape!

Is this new game a futuristic version of RuneScape?

‘This is not RuneScape in space’ has been our motto since day one on the development front. It's a completely different game, from every possible perspective, not only from RuneScape but from other MMOGs out there.
It's not a secret that sci-fi MMOGs are not the most successful if compared with fantasy settings, despite the genre being extremely popular for single-player games, TV, films and comics. There's surely a reason for this, and we believe we know what it is... But that's for another time!


PS
Geoff Iddison spoke about a release in Q1 2009. I don't think they meant exactly that. Jagex business year ends March 31st, Q1 would therefore mean between April 1st and June 30th.

If it feels like mech warrior then i'l be hooked.

That means your part of jagex no?

It means she copied and pasted.

Well said fruity. Have they revealed anyone on the development team yet?

Yes they did, but i forgot where.

A few names of those working on MechScape are known, though the only name confirmed by Jagex is that of Henrique Olifiers as 'head of mechscape'.

Among those working for Jagex at this moment known are: Samantha H. (concept artist/illistrator), Matthew B. (3d-modeller), Alex J. (Content developper team leader).

Former employees working on MechScape include: Thomas Woode and John Seru. The latter one will update his own website after the release of MechScape.

ooooo the suspense!

It's definately going to be epic. Do you think they will announce small spoilers via the Runescape website before it is released, and then one big announcement when it is released, along with massively underpopulated RS worlds?

Or will they just let it all go in one bang?

Why would they release spoilers on the RuneScape website? MechScape is most likely not going to have anything to do with RS, so where are they going to release those spoilers? I think they're just gonna announce it.

Sorry to say this but it has a whole lot to do with RuneScape. For starters one of the remarks made by Henrique Olifiers was that it is going to be a few steps beyond what is presently available in RS. Technically that is. Thus the game-engine that is used (the same one RS uses) is going to be pushed to the limits. If anything it will give an insight what is possible with the engine and what kind of changes we can expect when playing RS.

The second thing has to do with the business model Jagex used when introducing FunOrb. All RuneScape accounts automatically became FunOrb accounts. It is likely that will happen again: All RS accounts becoming F2p acounts in MechScape. That way players can try the game with no trouble at all: No new account generation, just login on a different screen. If and when you like the game it is pretty easy to upgrade to members because all RS members know the drill.

The third thing that can/probably will happen is this: Those players with an interest in Sci-Fi will switch to MechScape and that would mean less members in RuneScape.

As for announcing it: It probably will come in one big bang. They did the same thing with FunOrb.

I was just thinking about how Jagex brought out the graphics update for RS, giving us small tasters to build the suspense.
And to keep players thinking 'oooo, it looks so good. I can't wait' etc. Then word spreads a lot faster too because it is talked about a lot more.

Play both? How is that possible? And it seems kinda pointless too me for one company to make multiple MMOs, if their entire premise to make money off of them is for players to play both then I don't know. It sounds like a waste of time, and unlike console games MMOs are designed for people to not tire of them in a week or month so you don't have people activly looking for new MMOs. I'm also pretty certain everybody who would play an MMO is already playing them, so I wonder what the whole point is. To steal customers away from other sci-fi MMOs? It would have to be a pretty bad MMO for people to give up all the work they've put into their characters. Imo.

OK, not everyone likes a MMO based in medieval times, some like futuristic ones.


If everyone thought that way, no one would ever makes another MMO. That doesn't even make any sense.