Post by Morreion on Nov 26, 2014 16:23:54 GMT -5
The Game Archaeologist: Four online sci-fi titles no one remembers (Massively)
Seed
For the very longest of time, I thought my mind had made up this game. I remember reading about it in a magazine and then promptly forgetting the name and never hearing of it again. But the concept of an actual roleplaying MMO that prized cooperation and community projects while completely eschewing combat was notable enough so that I wanted to dig it back up.
That game was Seed by Runestone Game Development, and the reason you probably have never heard of it is that it went into beta, launched, and was shut down all over the span of a few short months in 2006. Even so, it was an intriguing title in which players were "seeded" colonists who awake to discover that their station's terraformer isn't working properly and that they need to band together to help make this place livable. Crafting, projects, and political maneuvering were the cornerstones of the game instead of combat, and all of this took place in an environment that was portrayed with lush cel-shaded graphics.
Seed never received a proper publisher and certainly needed more testing to be a fully polished experience. Even so, Runestone CEO Kroll Kristensen maintained that the idea of the game has merit in this combat-happy industry: "I am still fully convinced that a role play-centric game is not only a good idea: It's a great idea. It just needs to be better executed. Seed has many of the right qualities for such a game, and I still firmly believe that, given sufficient funding, we could have created a great game. Unfortunately, we will never know."
Seed
For the very longest of time, I thought my mind had made up this game. I remember reading about it in a magazine and then promptly forgetting the name and never hearing of it again. But the concept of an actual roleplaying MMO that prized cooperation and community projects while completely eschewing combat was notable enough so that I wanted to dig it back up.
That game was Seed by Runestone Game Development, and the reason you probably have never heard of it is that it went into beta, launched, and was shut down all over the span of a few short months in 2006. Even so, it was an intriguing title in which players were "seeded" colonists who awake to discover that their station's terraformer isn't working properly and that they need to band together to help make this place livable. Crafting, projects, and political maneuvering were the cornerstones of the game instead of combat, and all of this took place in an environment that was portrayed with lush cel-shaded graphics.
Seed never received a proper publisher and certainly needed more testing to be a fully polished experience. Even so, Runestone CEO Kroll Kristensen maintained that the idea of the game has merit in this combat-happy industry: "I am still fully convinced that a role play-centric game is not only a good idea: It's a great idea. It just needs to be better executed. Seed has many of the right qualities for such a game, and I still firmly believe that, given sufficient funding, we could have created a great game. Unfortunately, we will never know."
