Dawn of Fantasy Goes Indie

[Alex Walz]

Reverie World Studios and their MMORTS Dawn of Fantasy are taking another turn this week with some recent developments in the studio's business model, but at the same time, Reverie, the game's developers, is incredibly excited about the road ahead as Dawn of Fantasy returns to its roots and its community! Reverie World Studios and publisher 505 Games have decided that a split is in the best interest of both parties (and the fans!), allowing 505 to reevaluate the market and Reverie to better assure the game's quality and focus on community relations.

This news is accompanied by three developments in Dawn of Fantasy's availability and gameplay:

• DOF is now available directly from the developer - meaning that the developer receives all of the revenue, which can then be reinvested into the studio to fund future work.
• In a huge patch set for release within the next 24 hours, PVP army vs. stronghold battles will be introduced to the Online Kingdom along with an improved unit micromanagement/levelling system and over 20 bug fixes.
• Reverie has begun work on a dwarven promo (similar to the Halloween promo) a new unit pathfinding system that will significantly reduce in-game lag - information to come later this week.

MMORTS Dawn of Fantasy goes Independent
Dawn of Fantasy is available on sale directly from the Developer

Toronto, Canada – 22/11/2011 – One month following Dawn of Fantasy’s release, the game’s developer, Reverie World Studios, and publisher, 505 Games, can look back with pride. Together, we have released a very ambitious game localized into six languages and sold worldwide. However, after negotiations between the two parties, Reverie World Studios and 505 Games have agreed that a split would be in the best interest of the project and the community. Reverie World will continue to hold the players interests above all else and we believe that this move will greatly benefit the longevity of the game and the player community. Reverie World will be taking some deadline-free time to better assure the quality of the game before shifting work to new features and downloadable content. In addition, with the developers now receiving all the game’s revenue, Reverie World Studios will have the financial stability to expand and continuously support Dawn of Fantasy for years to come.

Originally established as a small indie company, Reverie World sought to create quality games “for the players, from the players.” For after all, as Executive Producer Konstantin Fomenko points out, “our commitment is not to some transnational corporation, but to you, our fans.” With this new move, Reverie will be able to cut back the barriers and transparency, and bring an unparalleled level of dev/fan communication to the gaming world. We will now be interacting directly with our fans at every level – from making the game you want to play, to marketing, to retail, to customer service, to game maintenance, to community events.

The road ahead of Reverie World is, no doubt, full of twists and turns but we are confident that Dawn of Fantasy will emerge stronger and better as a result of each trial. However, it’s in moments like this when we reach out to our fans the most: If you like the game, please tell your friends; If you have any suggestions for how we can improve as a studio or for how Dawn of Fantasy can improve as a game, we would love to hear from you.

Dawn of Fantasy is truly blessed to have the most amazing fans in the world, and we will always seek to uphold the same level of support that our fans have given us over these many years!

Best regards,
Reverie World Studios,
An Independent Studio

Stay up to date with the latest game assets and information at the official website: http://www.dawnoffantasy.com/ and Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/hy9mQs

About Reverie World Studios, INC.
Based in Toronto, Ontario, Reverie World Studios is set to take full advantage of the rapidly expanding market for interactive entertainment media. Boasting a next-generation game engine, a completed MMORTS - Dawn of Fantasy, and a team of talented and experienced designers, the scene is set for Reverie to become a leading Canadian exporter of interactive media and retain a concentrated talent pool capable of pushing the boundaries of the industry.

To recap, we feel that this move will only benefit Dawn of Fantasy and its players. It will take a while to start up our own marketing campaign and to produce new content with limited resources, but we have already begun work on both of these to become a completely self-sufficient studio, and we are in current negotiations with other publishers should we decide that that route is best for Dawn of Fantasy.

The only foreseen possible loss to the fan is that, at the current time, we have no plans to produce more physical copies of Dawn of Fantasy. The game will still be available via digital download through a number of vendors including ourselves, but if you fancy a box copy, I recommend picking one up as soon as possible as store shelves will not be replenished.

[GPS51]

Wow big changes but I forsee a step in the right direction. Best of luck in the future RWS.

[Dreamwalker]

MMORTS Dawn of Fantasy goes Independent

Oh, so that's what indie means, hehe.

But this seriously surprised me (the news, I mean). But, hey; if the split works out for the better, then I can't really be sorry, can I?

When I think about it now, it does make sense that this split happened; after all, DOF isn't really a finished game right now, and even the most understanding publishers will get a bit annoyed when the devs take forever (as they see it) to make a game market-worthy.

Looking forward to that dwarf promo, too!

[Alex Walz]

I'm not going to get into the exact reasons, but the split had nothing to do with 505 feeling dissatisfied with Reverie's performance.

[Dreamwalker]

Oh.

...Well, looking forward to the dwarf promo anyway, lol. And the new pathfinding, too.

[Sunleader]

Well in the first place most Publishers demand the Game to and other stuff to be put out ASAP without regard for Quality

So in most cases the Deadlines are Impossible to Keep
(actually I know not even one Game which were released within Deadline demanded from Publisher)


Seeing at which Speed the Dev Team here is Working with Patches and other Stuff I also dont think thats the Reason


If I see a Problem it would be that Publishers will usually only get Money by Publishing
means a Game with a One Time Fee and no Immediate need to Spend any more Money
is most likely not in the interest of a larger scale Publisher as the Income is more Stable in long term as new Free Users get the taste to buy Something in the Store even long after release
but its also much less in the short term as most users wont spend large sums immediatly



If I had to Guess I would say one of the Following


1. Income of the Game Selling is not enough to Support a Publisher

2. The Publisher demanded something along the lines of Paid Addons or Monthly Fees or some other sort of Money Income from the Game aside from just selling it.

3. The Contract was Designed to only last for actual Publishing and not beyond that and thus was lifted now (not a rare case escpecially smaller Games tend to Publish their Game Official and then part with the Publisher after building a small userbase which will ensure advertising)




Well of course all of that are just hunches on my part ^^
the True Reason wont come into light unless someone tells us :P





I look forward to the Patch
Especially to Promo for Dwarfes

With Mercenarys from the Dwarfes my Army will be Completed



What I look forward to as well is that Dragonkin
as it would be something new :P


Well we will see what the time brings


Greetz

[Alex Walz]

I wouldn't look into it that much. ;) The issue is more regarding 505's own approach and some mistakes they made on their end with DOF - such as the many delays to the marketing campaign and the North American retail shipments. Their marketing campaign still never came and they weren't prepared to deliver it, so they decided to just back out and focus on their unreleased games. So it's not that DOF is unpublishable by any means (we've been pitching it again for the last two weeks and received very positive comments) but 505 is taking some time to evaluate the PC and RTS markets and how to target those audiences - they're more of a console game publisher, and unfortunately both parties noticed that a little too late.

[VALKYRIE_VAESIR]

"more of a console game publisher" "505 is taking some time to evaluate the PC and RTS markets and how to target those audiences" HAHAHA WHAT!? no offense but maybe it's you that needs to do your research or is that just the excuse 505 gave you, opf, arma, arma QG, arma 2,
all on pc, men of war too a very popular fanbase/modding community rts game........


"Dawn of Fantasy is truly blessed to have the most amazing fans in the world"
Oh wow i love this game to bits but its hard to sometimes with the army eating, game crashing, crown losing, server disconnecting bug fest the plagues all us "amazing fans" if only your bug fixing was as good as your arse kissing, we get it! you are a small company trying to make your way...... sure, fine but you don't even offer players any form of compensation for the loss of all their hard work after your mistakes eat our heroes, army, towns and quests :(

At the moment DOF is great but totally unplayable to all reasonable sense or with any hope of long term progress/achievement, especially to those new players who sit there pleading for help in game as to why their entire army just vanished along with all their resources to which we explain over and over that's how it is and the devs are not bug fixing because they said it is thanks F**king giving and they are not going to do (and I quote) "much"!

[andreicde]

Originally Posted by VALKYRIE_VAESIR

"more of a console game publisher" "505 is taking some time to evaluate the PC and RTS markets and how to target those audiences" HAHAHA WHAT!? no offense but maybe it's you that needs to do your research or is that just the excuse 505 gave you, opf, arma, arma QG, arma 2,
all on pc, men of war too a very popular fanbase/modding community rts game........


"Dawn of Fantasy is truly blessed to have the most amazing fans in the world"
Oh wow i love this game to bits but its hard to sometimes with the army eating, game crashing, crown losing, server disconnecting bug fest the plagues all us "amazing fans" if only your bug fixing was as good as your arse kissing, we get it! you are a small company trying to make your way...... sure, fine but you don't even offer players any form of compensation for the loss of all their hard work after your mistakes eat our heroes, army, towns and quests :(

At the moment DOF is great but totally unplayable to all reasonable sense or with any hope of long term progress/achievement, especially to those new players who sit there pleading for help in game as to why their entire army just vanished along with all their resources to which we explain over and over that's how it is and the devs are not bug fixing because they said it is thanks F**king giving and they are not going to do (and I quote) "much"!

Well having 1 post totally shows why you don't know squat about the game. As for devs not fixing bugs that's bs again. But then again you couldn't know since you haven't been around for long.
edit: and no copycat, we already got a Valkyrie, a nice one too

[Alex Walz]

I appreciate your opinion, but I believe you might be misinformed. We've been more than sufficiently compensating those who have reported losses due to game bugs or crashes and have released 20 patches to fix reported bugs (what other studio can say that?). As for taking Thanksgiving off... I'm not sure where you're getting this from either. Reverie is a Canadian studio - Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, not November. Yet, we still wanted all of our American fans to have a fun Thanksgiving so we all put in extra hours to offer a free promo event. As for the split, you can take it however you want. It did set us back, I'm not going to lie but we hope to sign with a more reliable publisher in the near future.

As for claims of ignoring the community, know this - the devs are not getting paid any time soon. We're doing this because it's our passion and we've come to really like this studio. But for our actual profits, the bulk is going to paying for the server and third party advertising. The average employer's probably gotten paid 1/3 of what they're owed for several years of work. We're all struggling and most of us have second jobs just to make ends meet, which is why we haven't been able to be quite as active and are really hoping that our work will began to pay off shortly, but we're still dedicated to providing a very affordable experience. If you don't like the game, so be it, but please do not take it out on the studio.