StarPeace (PC Game)
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| StarPeace | |
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| Developer(s) | Oceanus Communications |
| Publisher(s) | Monte Cristo Multimedia (2000 launch) Oceanus Communications (2001 launch) Sega (2003 launch) Pugland (2005 launch) |
| Designer(s) | Miguel Cepero |
| Release date(s) | December, 2000 (EU) March, 2001 Worldwide June 16, 2003 as Legacy Online |
| Genre(s) | Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | MMO |
| Platform(s) | Windows 98/ME/2K/XP |
| Media | CD (First launch) Online (subsequent launches) |
StarPeace is a very popular MMORTS (Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) PC game, in which players help build up the development of a massive world along with thousands of other players. Very similar to SimCity 4, StarPeace is fully online, and players must work together to build industrial, residential, retail markets, and more on a single planet, whilst at the same time gaining a steady income in which to fund their future expansion. As in true fashion, the game never ends. The planet continues to grow in an eternally-evolving state as each player adds more buildings to it each day, and each user can choose between a large selection of planets on which to play on. With very in-depth aspects in each field, this game is sure to have a very high lastability.
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[edit] Gameplay
The game starts out with you selecting the planet you want to play on. Mars and Aries are the retro worlds, for those players that either played Starpeace in the past or for players that want to see what the game used to be like. There are also player-created planets that have different stats than the official worlds. These may include things like cheats being enabled.
After you select your planet, you'll be given the option for either an Tycoon's visa, which includes a $100,000,000 loan for you to get started, or a Visitor's visa, to let you check out the planet before commiting to build there.
[edit] Planets
Official Worlds
Chrisalya - The standard world
Mars - Retro world with the old style buildings
Tournament - A tournament world with changing settings for each tournament
Zyrane - The free world accessed by the free client
Aries - Retro world
Players Worlds
Chipango - Run by loophole
Antigua - Run by marcum
Hell - Run by junk
Solodrone - Run by notrevo
[edit] History
The game was developed by Oceanus Communications, and originally published and released by Monte Cristo Multimedia in 2000. Despite good reviews and a dedicated fan community, it turned out to be a commercial disaster. While Monte Cristo managed to sell 50,000 copies to its distributors, less than a thousand games were sold to final customers in Europe. Besides, the complex economic nature of the game required much higher server power per user than MMORPGs. Monte Cristo's investors believed in the potential of MMOs, therefore, the company prepared infrastructures to welcome tens of thousands of users. At launch time (December 2000), Monte Cristo were facing humongous hosting and customer service costs.
Monte Cristo needed 20,000 users just to cover its hosting costs, but one month after the launch, it had just over 500 subscribers. It then tried to disengage from its relationship with Oceanus, who, incidentally, never agreed with the expensive hosting and e-commerce strategy. In March 2001, the two came to an agreement. Oceanus got to keep the rights on the game and would be hosting it themselves for the next year. Eventually, the developers at Oceanus showed their stuff at E3 2002 hoping to gain a new publisher. They caught the eye of video game giants Sega, who quickly became very interested in the game.
By late 2002, Sega became its new official publisher, and also took over development of the game. They changed the name of the game to "Legacy Online", and re-released it as a free-download subscription based game. Players no longer needed to buy the game, but a subscription of $10 per month was required. There were quite a lot of problems with Sega's administration of the game, with users often complaining about login issues, server issues, or other such incidences on the new client and updates. It seems Sega themselves were having a lot of problems setting the game on their own servers, and making the necessary changes to the client. In 2003, the game (and the website, and server access) disappeared into thin air. It seemed Sega has ceased to host and develop the game due to too many technical difficulties, and not enough interest (they weren't making enough money from it).
In April of 2004 (after nearly a year of being down), a hardcore fan named Puggy (with his newly created title "Pugland Games"), approaced Oceanus Communications (the original developer and owner) asking for permission to re-release StarPeace. Since "OC" wern't doing anything with it, they gave him the rights, and he has since taken control of the game and ran it on his own server for free, under its original name. This was welcomed by tens of die-hard fans who hadn't played the game in nearly a year, and were very upset at Sega's poor administration (and abandonment) of the game. Puggy has since implemented a $10 per month fee for play on Exclusive servers, but still has the free server and worlds set-up for everyone, which are supported by ads.
