heroes-of-telara posts

It seems like today is the day for lawsuits to be filed against online game developers. Our sister site Massively reports that Trion Worlds, which recently renamed its upcoming fantasy MMO Heroes of Telera to Rift: Planes of Telera is being sued by Palladium Books, the owners of the long running Rifts pen-and-paper RPG series.

Details are sketchy but Palladium''s lawsuit seems to center on what they feel is "trademark infringement" of Rifts. Their game centers on inter-dimensional "rifts" that open to different space and time locations which is very similar to some of the game features in Trion Worlds' MMO title. So far Trion has not responded to the lawsuit.

Three years after Trion World Networks announced their presence, the MMO game developer finally showed off their first game, the fantasy themed Heroes of Telera, at E3 last June. However after E3 the company chose to once again go into stealth mode on the title's development. Today the newly renamed Trion Worlds has also renamed their flagship game. Goodbye Heroes of Telera; hello Rift: Planes of Telera.

The name change is not just cosmetic; it also points out a big gameplay feature in the MMO. The game itself is set in a multiverse (or "nexus of planes" as the developer calls it) and players will be able to summon portals that serve as rift to these different planes anytime or place in the game world they wish. Rift: Planes of Telera is scheduled for a 2011 launch. You can get more info on the newly rechristened game at our sister site Massively.

Last June at E3, the MMO game company Trion World Network broke their cone of silence and gave members of the press a first glimpse of gameplay of their first title Heroes of Telera. Since then, well, there's been nothing. No updates, no new footage or screenhots, not much of anything from the company about the game.

However this week they did announce a couple of new people they have added to their executive team. One is David Reid who takes over as the company's senior vice president of publishing. He previously was the president of NCSoft West. In addition Scott Hartsman has been hired as Trion's chief creative officer and general manager of their Redwood Shores dev studios. He was previously an exec at Sony Online Entertainment.

June's E3 appearance remains the press's only public demo of Heroes of Telera, three years after the company announced its formation. It also has a sci-fi MMO project that is a co-production with the cable TV network SyFy as well as an RTS MMO that's being developed by Petroglyph.

This trailer for Heroes of Telara was shown at E3 2009 and provides a first look at the upcoming fantasy MMORPG. To learn more about the game, check out our impressions here.

"Long after the Age of Legend, when centuries of conflict devastated the fair kingdoms of Telara, the world teeters on the edge of darkness. Now, four rival factions grapple for control of the land as the struggle rages on in the wild territories. Arising from these ashes is Port Scion, a mighty city inhabited by survivors of the old empires. Only the brave and stalwart citizens of Port Scion can restore peace, and change the very course of history, for it is home to the Heroes of Telara."

Download HD Heroes of Telara E3 2009 Trailer (301 MB)

Trion World Network has been working in near stealth mode since it was first launched three years ago but at E3 2009 last week we finally got a chance to check out an actual playable build (hands-off unfortunately) for the company's first product Heroes of Telara. It's an fantasy MMO game that on the surface at least seems like every other fantasy MMO released but when you dig deeper there are some interesting new features.

One of those cool features is the way the game handles your playable character. Normally you pick your character class (Warrior, Mage, Cleric and Rogue) and you are stuck with it unless you make another character. Heroes of Telara lets you actually switch your character class. Yep you can be all those classes in one person. You still have to advance each class individually and there's no real explanation, story-wise, for why your character can suddenly morph from a warrior to a mage but it is pretty cool.

Ahead of showing off the game to the public for the first time at E3 2009 on Tuesday, Trion World Network has launched the official web site for their long awaited first MMO project, the fantasy game Heroes of Telara. The web site has the first screenshots from the game which we have reproduced in our gallery

The screenshots look, well, like a very generic fantasy game but Trion World Network insists that Heroes of Telara is different than the average MMO. One person's action could in theory affect the entire fantasy world. We will get lots more info on the game when we get our E3 2009 demo later this week.

Big Download is still counting down to the start of E3 2009 (less than a week to go now) with a series of features spotlighting the titles we want (or at least wish) we could see at the LA Convention Center. We have already given our wish lists for the FPS and action categories and today we look at the RPGs and MMO games that we would hope to catch a glimpse at during the show.

E3 2009 will not have appearances by NCsoft, Atari or Blizzard which means no demos of Aion , Guild Wars 2, Champions Online, Star Trek Online or (sniff) Diablo III. However we should have plenty in the RPG and MMO space to check out at the show. Come back later this week as we offer our final list of the rest of the game we want to see at the show.

Click on the image above to continue reading Countdown to E3 2009: The RPGs and MMO Games We Want To See

Well, it's certainly about time. After years of press releases and hints, the MMO game developer Trion World Network has finally announced that it will reveal its first game at next month's E3 event. They even gave us the name of the game in today's press release: Heroes of Telara,

Details about the game are still pretty vague with the press release saying that " . . . Heroes of Telara will feature an unprecedented level of rich and dynamic gameplay, driven by recurring events, unexpected challenges and limitless new content." This sounds like the same game that was being directed by Trion World Network founder Jon Van Caneghem. However he has since left the company under a cloud of . . . something so it will be interesting to see how Trion spins this game at E3. The company is also working on an MMO in collaboration with the Sci-Fi Channel (soon to be SyFy . . . ugh) and just announced plans to work with third party developer Petroglyph on an unnnamed MMORTS game.