Empires development

APRIL FOOLS JOKE:


I'm proud to announce that we've finally come to an agreement with Valve on future development of Empires. Through back and forth emails with Gabe Newell, I finally convinced him to seriously try Empires a few weeks ago. He loved it, and sees great potential in our ideas! All current developers have officially been offered a 3-year contract with Valve to complete Empires. With this new funding, we will be able to develop Empires full-time! The offer was also extended to Krenzo, who has expressed interest on returning to Empires after his term with Smashball is up.

There is one downside to this: Empires will only be free for a few more months. To achieve a return on their investment, Valve has stipulated a small (~$10) price for the next major release (probably 3.0). As part of the agreement, we must meet certain feature requirements including:

• aircraft
• 2 additional player classes
• support for up to 64 players in a server
• complete soundtrack (we'll probably get some help from Valve on this)
• More detailed maps (again, Valve will probably help us out a bit)

Now some people may be skeptical about paying for Empires, but I personally guarantee that it'll be worth it. Thanks to the entire community for all your support during these rough times.

 

You forgot to mention the stats.

 

That was already announced previously, but I guess I'll reiterate for completeness. In the near future, Empires will support Steamworks. This means the ability to store stats, achievements, and the like. Valve didn't specify this as a requirement, but we'll probably do it anyway.

 

Gasp! GASP!

 

It's like a small part of my life is complete.

 

!!!!!!!!! 2 ... additional classes AND an sound track this is probably the best thing i've heard in a long time, especially given recent events *cough* 2.23 *cough* needless to say AWSOME!

 

wow, bought time ya'll got on the ball. Jeez took what 5-6 years? lol

Looks like the future is good

 

Oh for fucks sakes....


The game is as broken in terms of balance as it is....

Now the devs are going to pull two new player classes out of their asses, when the current ones are still unbalanced and add aircraft, when tanks are still unbalanced.

And what two new classes can they add?

We already have a anti-vehicle class(gren), a anti-infantry class (rifleman), a anti-building class (scout) and a general all-purpose class(engineers). Do we need more? Seriously, what more can we add? Will random, unnecessary, classes start popping up? Great job Steam.

Have they even researched and studied the game? Or did they just look at the pretty pictures? How can they suggest aircraft with tanks being as imbalanced as they are. Great job again Steam.

AND NOW WE HAVE TO FUCKING PAY????

 

They could add pilots, being the only ones that could only fly aircraft, get some weak weaponry, but would prevent people buying aircraft as a scout or grenadier only to jump out above enemy base.

 

i also like the sound of the pilot class. Also there may be a missle trooper class (anti air only) with an actual tracking missle to shoot down aircraft

only thing i don't like is pay 2 play aspect, as a result i may not be able to play anymore. Anyways congratz guys

 

Come on dude lighten up. If u bother to read it it says "WILL BE WORKED ON FULL TIME" which means that they will be able to sort balance out numb nuts. :p

anyway:

OMFG!!!! THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING!!!! FIRST KILLING FLOOR!!! AND NOW EMPIRES!!!!!! THE 2 MOST GAMES I PLAY!!!!! THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

 

Congratulations.

$10 isnt much to play such a good game - especially now it's a full-time job we can definately see more comitment and better releases in terms of enthusiasm from the devs.

I'd personally like to see a Pilot class (pistol only?) and a Commando (can breath underwater (wetsuit), but not as uber as the name suggests - maybe an adapted SMG?)

Or you could rename pilot to some kind of driver and give them various tank/ship/aircraft bonuses and eliminate the problem of having anti-infantry infantry drive tanks?

 

Will aircraft include lighter than air vessels as well as heavier than air ones?

 

Will we FINALLY have blimb warfare?

 

Unfortunately, Empires will not be going retail. We will, however, continue working on implementing Steamworks into Empires and when it is done, we will be distributed via Steam and hopefully implement some pretty cool achievements. And best of all, it won't cost you a dime.

Deleted posts to keep the joke running for this long: 55

 

I'm surprised by all the hate, those were my actual long-term goals

... and by long term, I don't mean next version.