Warrior Epic

European MMO publisher GOA has "with great regret" decided to pull the plug on Warrior Epic.

The launch of a game can be a blurred affair. This is particularly true of direct download games, even more so if you've been involved in a beta. After closed betas, open betas, then a nominal "launch", then an ongoing series of patches, bug fixes, tweaks and adjustments, the finished product is a fluid thing. And often the finished product doesn't even feel finished. Such is the case with Warrior Epic, which ostensibly launched on 19th May after not one but two closed betas.

This launch proved something of a false start, however, as one really rather fundamental area of this free-to-play online RPG wasn't implemented: the item store. And there were still significant server issues. On 9th June, European publisher GOA announced, "the merchants of Providence have finally opened their stalls". By 11th June, GOA's partner on Warrior Epic, True Games Interactive, sent out an email announcing another official launch, accompanied by the news that server instability issues had been resolved. Huzzah! Except that, although you could visit the GOA site and buy gold - Warrior Epic's microtransaction currency - you still couldn't actually spend it in the item shop. In fact, come the end of the month, the item shop still isn't implemented.

Warrior Epic is a free-to-play action-RPG that Gage Galinger, founder of developer Possibility Space and a veteran of Age of Empires, Age of Mythology and StarCraft, has referred to as "Diablo meets the Sims". At a time when such games are increasingly trying to muscle in on the territory dominated by the MMORPG big boys, Warrior Epic is taking a slightly less steroidal approach. This is no fully-fledged MMO - in fact, you could arguably lop off that first "M". Although the servers have the potential to host thousands of players, the game itself is played more intimately with teams of one to five.

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Possibility Space's free-to-play online RPG Warrior Epic is to expand in July, its European operator GOA has announced.

GOA has announced a 19th May release date for Warrior Epic, a promising free-to-play MMO described as "Diablo meets The Sims".

Warrior Epic, a free-to-play online RPG for PC from GOA and developer Possibility Space, has gone into closed beta testing.

There are still slots available, and you can register on the the game's official website.

Warrior Epic is a Diablo-style multiplayer RPG set in an MMO metagame, in which you can collect dozens of different characters, and choose to either resurrect them or bring them back as spirits to power-up and assist your living warriors.

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In simple terms, GOA is a games publisher - but it's more accurate to picture the French outfit as a service provider. That makes sense when you consider its parent company, Orange, but it still sounds like a foreign concept in videogaming. It really shouldn't, however, and it won't for much longer.