Hello everyone, In light of a few things I said on the Audyssey mailing list over the past couple days or so I’ve done a lot of thinking about the future of Mysteries of the Ancients. It is no secret I’ve never been fully satisfied about it being a side-scroller, and it is also no secret I promised the community a side-scroller in place of Montezuma’s Revenge. So I thought about the problem, and I have decided upon a course of action that I believe not only will satisfy everyone involved it might actually increase the number of sales for this title too. So what’s the plan? Well, the plan is really quite simple. Beginning with beta 13 or beta 14 I’m going to offer two different downloadable versions of Mysteries of the Ancients. One in the original side-scroller format all of you currently have, and an all new 3d first-person version more like what I had originally planned on creating to begin with. This way it is up to the customer to decide which version he or she likes and can purchase either version from the USA Games store when the game is ready for sale. One of the reasons I have decided to go ahead and do this is that since MOTA beta 12 the Genesis Engine has proven itself to be fairly stable for game development now. I’ve fixed a few things here and there, updated some things, and beta 13 looks really stable. So taking that into account it really wouldn’t be that hard to go ahead and create an all new 3d first-person game using the engine as most of the functionality is already there. All of the basic functions like jumping, running, walking, etc is already in the engine. It is simply a matter of mapping the right 2d or 3d functions to the right keys. As for the game levels those would have to be redrawn for the fps version, of course, but that’s nothing compared to writing an entire engine like Genesis from scratch. I’d say within two weeks, tops, I could have a 3d fps version of the same game sitting up there on the website along side the side-scroller. So why not go ahead and do it right? The other reason is that this way will satisfy everyone including me. This allows the customer to buy and download exactly the version they want. If side-scrollers are your thing go for it. If you are like me and want a full 3d fps type format for the game that will be available too. If you want both you can buy both. The sky is the limit as they say. The only other developer I know who has tried this was Edos Interactive. Back when they released Tomb Raider Legend they released two different versions of the same game. They released a side-scroller version for mobile phones, and they also released a complete 3d third-person perspective version for the Play Station and PC. I’m sure they did it for different reasons, but the idea is that this has been done before, and apparently the marketing ploy worked. People purchased both because they could have the full 3d version on their PC and then take the mobile version of the game with them on their mobile to play on their coffee break. It was a pretty good idea as far as I am conserned and so I've decided to follow in their footsteps. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. I know this is surprising even for me. However, I think this is the best of both worlds as far as I am concerned. It is one of those cases where you can have your cake and eat it too.
Sincerely, Thomas Ward President of USA Games Interactive --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.