Duplex draws Face of Mankind
A new MMORPG with a bit of business acumen
Frankfurt-based developer Duplex Systems is working on an MMORPG called Face of Mankind, which threatens to demand thinking without first dressing it up as something other than business. Face of Mankind will be played from the first person perspective and is being built on top of the Lithtech engine, with networking from Lyra Studios. Duplex is promising a non-linear storyline dictated by the economy and events of the game as they occur, in a world of five huge (zoned) cities and distant colonies beyond the stars. 10 individual organisations (three government institutions, four companies, and three clans) will be in place, all controlled by players and each of them with its own back-story of relations with the others. Driving these organisations will be a bona fide economy, based on mining, production and sales. A sophisticated ranking system will offer structured stages to work through instead of plain ole' experience points to accrue. Although experience is still said to play a part in improving your rank, complex, multi-layered missions will need to be undertaken, and Duplex claims that many of these could take longer than a week to overcome. Although no release date has been discussed, a couple of small, indistinct screenshots appear and some concept art appear on the new Face of Mankind website, so the game has obviously been underway for a while.