Vapourware Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen - Chaos Chronicles reborn and dead again

[KeighnMcDeath]

What the fuck are we even discussing now?

 

[:Flash:]

What the fuck are we even discussing now?

If the game had come out, would there have been a quest about meeting Hitler in the astral plane?

 

[Kruyurk]

Honestly, I think I got my money's worth by just looking at the screenshots. I'm glad I financed all those wonderful jpegs.

 

[Alex]

Speaking of getting hopes up, this:

(...) and then I use public servers for niche games like Gloomhaven, the M&M5.5 mod(...)

Made me rush to check on this so called M&M 5.5 mod only to see it is a HoMM 5 mod.

 

[almondblight]

So Demons Age ended up being the better game?

 

[Gromoer]

You guys know that there’s a demo (alpha, beta) version of this game available in high seas, right?

 

[Abu Antar]

So Demons Age ended up being the better game?

It was at least released.

 

[Butter]

So Demons Age ended up being the better game?

It was at least released.

So was Underworld Ascendant.

 

[The Wall]

Game Producer is to be blamed for this whole shitshow. HobGoblin69, or something like that. Dude could have at least released game engine, which is 100% owned by him and isn't disputed in court of German clown justice. But nooo. That alone tells you everything

What was learnt: Game development is art, work AND business. By business I primarily mean basic organizational skills coupled with basic logic that you will not make brainchild of Arcanum and Baldur's Gate 2 for 100k euros in Germany. In Balkans? Possible. In Germoney? Impossible

Good programmer ! == good game designer !== good businessman !== good person. HobGoblin69 was only one good thing: Good Goblin

 

[JarlFrank]

What the fuck are we even discussing now?

If the game had come out, would there have been a quest about meeting Hitler in the astral plane?

No, but a hidden quest about finding the remains of a legendary ancient queen whose story references the theme of Eternal Return:

And you could, of course, find her sandals
They had six jewels embedded in the straps, all pried out by graverobbers.
You could hunt down all six jewels, each in a different place somewhere in the world, and then put them back into the sandals one by one (like Diablo 2's socketed items), and each jewel would add another enchantment to the item.
Broken down items that could be recombined was a major aspect of artifact hunting, inspired by BG2's Flail of Ages.

Finding Queen Mirvala's real tomb would have involved learning the extinct language of Virduris completely on your own, without any in-game help. You could find inscriptions in that language in several places:

And there would be ONE massive bilingual inscription to allow you to piece together the language, like archaeologists pieced together Egyptian with the Rosetta Stone.

Some notes written in Virdurian would reveal the specific ritual required to open the portal to Mirvala's real tomb...

That quest was largely inspired by two of the best (and most obscure) quests in Arcanum: finding the legendary Iron Clan, and finding the real tomb of Mannox, both of which required the player to think for himself and which had absolutely no handholding to string you along.

Sadly, it was not to be.
I hope whoever came up with that cool questline is working on other RPGs now

 

[:Flash:]

I hope whoever came up with that cool questline is working on other RPGs now

Is he? Perhaps pseudonymously?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I hope whoever came up with that cool questline is working on other RPGs now

Is he? Perhaps pseudonymously?

No I think he'd want a lunch break sometime or the other.

 

[Orud]

Good programmer ! == good game designer !== good businessman !== good person.

Please don't post Javascript filth.

 

[JarlFrank]

I hope whoever came up with that cool questline is working on other RPGs now

Is he? Perhaps pseudonymously?

Perhaps.

But he also assured me that, regrettably, Realms Beyond is completely dead at this point due to internal management shenanigans.
The chances of salvaging anything from this are slim.

It's very unlikely for another Chaos Chronicles -> Realms Beyond style revival attempt due to what happened with management.

 

[Konjad]

Okay, it's probably old news to some of you, but I was not aware of this before, so I'd like to share if there are any other people who wondered what happened in the end:

RB is not currently being worked on because the business manager / level designer who owns 50% of the company & was supposed to be finding the game a publisher basically abandoned the project in late 2020. This year he has been unresponsive when Hobgoblin42 the programmer (other 50% owner) contacted him with anything pertaining to the company. Unfortunately as 50% owner they require his approval to sign with a publisher or make any business decisions (he could legally shut down any attempts to sell anything related to RB).

Ceres is expected to go bankrupt very soon. Why? The company received a portion of a government grant in 2019. But they are expected to show progress and release a finished product. Since they cannot, Ceres is required to pay back what they've received... as some of the money has been spent, the company will be forced to declare bankruptcy. Then assets & IP of the game will be auctioned off to pay down company debts. The programmer personally owns the RB game engine so he will retain that no matter what.

After bankruptcy, the programmer and the lead writer plan to form a new company and attempt to buy the assets back with personal funds. If all goes well, the programmer and writer will resume work on the project with the new plan of first making smaller adventure modules that can be made in a relatively short time period with a small budget. These would be standalone stories (similar to some of the premium Neverwinter Nights modules). They will give the small module/s to RB backers and sell to anyone else interested. If it sells well, then they will probably make some more small modules, with the eventual goal of resuming work on the larger "Ashes of the Fallen" game as originally pitched.

If they are not able to get back the RB assets & IP from the auction, then they still hope to create a new game project with the RB engine. It would likely still be similar in many ways (turn-based party cRPG with 3.5e rules). But obviously this would be a major setback as they'd have to commission or acquire new art, music, etc. and start from scratch with the lore & world-building.

So is the game cancelled? Vaporware? Call it what you'd like. For now, I'd call it development limbo or Hell. We'll hopefully get more definite news later this year.

As the lead writer said on the RB Discord channel

On 26.02.2020 a manager named "Peter Ohlmann" left the position as manager. The last manager named is Timothy Drude. Peter Ohlmann also was involved in a company "Coreplay GmbH" together with "Robert Andreas Drude". Coreplay got liquidated 13.11.2013.
Well .........

Source:
https://www.northdata.com/Ceres+Games+GmbH,+München/HRB+229809
https://www.handelsregister.de/

HRB number is 229809 (needed to find the official information on www.handelsregister.de)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/762550/discussions/0/3052860266925540752/

 

[Konjad]

The drama Circus continues. I don't even know what to say right now. Something stinks here more then Hobo that just sat next to me in public transport

Shit, I need to read this topic before posting

 

[Jeskis]

As much as I am frustrated because of all this mess (and my dreams being broken again) I feel sorry for the guy more than anything. This was obviously his passion project. I see no ill in being an incompetent businessman and relying on others to do the money stuff. It rarely ends well, but I can’t blame someone for trying. If you’ll happen to read this Hob don’t give up man.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Hob, if you happen to read this, imma kick you in the balls if I ever meet you.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I just looked at that Demons Age on steam

“2017 time stamp”

Announcement: Store Page
As you might have already noticed, Demons Age’s store page has been removed from Steam due to a DMCA claim. The claim has been made by a company unbeknownst to us, stating that “Demons Age” uses assets from “Chaos Chronicles”. That is indeed true, since part of our team worked on the development of “Chaos Chronicles” project, back in 2014, and under an agreement signed in July 8th of the same year, a part of the payment to Bigmoon Studios included assets of “Chaos Chronicles”. Everything perfectly legal.

We’ve already provided that information to those entitled and we just need to wait for their acknowledgement. Unfortunately, due to the holiday season, the store will not be restored in 2017, but it should be available in early January.

As far as we know, Bigmoon holds all the necessary rights, however, if we have received and used an asset that, for any reason, unknown to us, shouldn't have been used, we expect this to be clarified soon and we have the team ready to create new assets and replace them in the game. What we would like to ensure our gamers is that the game will return to sales as soon as we get the clearance and in the meantime we’ll keep developing the new patch to support our community, fixing what is necessary to fix and adding the content we already promised.

For those of you who already have the game, do keep enjoying it. We value your meaningful feedback and input. If you need assistance, please send us an email to support@bigmoonstudios.com. We will be enjoying some short holidays here, but we will do our best to keep supporting the community.

Explanations aside, we’d like to apologize for the inconvenience this might cause to those that wished to buy the game.

The Bigmoon Team wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Years Eve!

Guess I never knew ya game. I saw a GamingGodFluent post there.

 

[NJClaw]

but I can’t blame someone for trying

How many times does the same exact thing have to happen before you can blame someone for trying?

 

[mediocrepoet]

but I can’t blame someone for trying

How many times does the same exact thing have to happen before you can blame someone for trying?

N+1 obvs.

 

[Tavernking]

Just saw the trailer, this loooks amazing! But I'm having trouble finding the game, can somone tell me where it is? Thanks!

 

[AwesomeButton]

Thanks for bumping the thread mate.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Asshole

 

[ArchAngel]

Just saw the trailer, this loooks amazing! But I'm having trouble finding the game, can somone tell me where it is? Thanks!

View attachment 46000

That is a wrong question. The real one is When it is? And as you can see it is in 2020. So find a way to go back then.