stargate-worlds posts

The financially troubled MMO developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is still working on their long-in-development game Stargate Worlds. However the studio is now working on the game without its original studio head. TenTonHammer.com reports that the company's studio head Dan Elggrens has left for a new position at another MMO developer Gazillion Entertainment.

The info was found on a family blog of Elggrens (which has since been locked out) where it was revealed that he has decided to leave after basically not being paid for his work. The post stated that Stargate Worlds "was within several months of being ready to ship" before he left. Cheyanne Mountain Entertainment has since posted a statement saying, "Dan's guidance has been crucial to getting Stargate Worlds to this point, but we believe fresh eyes may find ways to improve the game moving forward." Rod Nakamoto, the company's senior VP of product development, will take over Elggrens's work on the game.

[Via Massively]

Last weekend we reported on comments first posted on the Stargate fan site Gateworld.net in which the TV show franchise's head man Brad Wright expressed disappointment in the progress made by Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in the making of Stargate Worlds. Today the dev team fired back, saying basically that the team is still hard at work on the long-in-development MMO.

In a statement from the company's Senior Marketing Manager Kevin Balentine he says, "Our official response is that the lights here are still on and the development team is working hard every day to get this game built. Team members are in the office seven days a week to deliver Stargate Worlds. Brad Wright is the Stargate expert and a creative consultant on Stargate Worlds who advises us on the story; unfortunately we had not recently updated him on our progress or the impact from the current global economic crisis, and he was not fully aware of the continuing progress on our game."

The statement adds that funding for the game from angel investors is still keeping the development team working but they are still negotiating a number of deals that if successful will allow the team to finish development of the game. There's still no word yet on how far Stargate Worlds is from completion.

A few months ago we reported that the developer of Stargate Worlds, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, was experiencing financial problems. While the company has continued to develop the long awaited MMO title during their financial crisis and released a handful of new screenshots, there's been no real news on its current status, much less a release date.

In a chat over at Gateworld.net it's clear Brad Wright, who has been the head producer of MGM's Stargate franchise since the launch of the Stargate SG-1 TV series, is not happy with Cheyenne Mountain's issues with finishing the game. He states, "They had an opportunity and they got our support, and they obviously had significant funding, and it didn't happen. It's kind of a drag for the fans and the time that we invested - what little of it there really was, in comparison to what they did - was still a shame that it was wasted, because it should have happened."

This isnt the first time a Stargate-based game has hit development troubles. A Stargate SG-1 FPS was canceled midway in its production in 2005 by its publisher JoWood. It had issues with how its developer handled the game. Wright feels that the sci-fi franchise has not been served well by all of these problems. He states, "Now MGM is back in a position where they don't have a product in that marketplace that they should. There should be a shiny Stargate game on the shelves right now and there isn't, and it's wrong."

Gallery: Stargate Worlds

Late last year rumors hit the Internet that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the developer of the TV-based MMO Stargate Worlds was in financial trouble, with claims that employees at the studio had not been paid in some time. Representatives from the company would only admit they were seeking new financial sources to complete the game.

This week the game's official web site posted up two new screenshots from the title, showing off one of the characters in the title. The description states that it is a "Soldier wearing Tier 4 Ablative Armor armed with the never before seen in public Tier 5 PVK Advanced Sub-Machine Gun". Which is nice and all but there is still no real status update on the game's development at this stage. Has the company found that new source of money or are they still looking? Stay tuned.

While Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment continues to work on their long-in-development MMO Stargate Worlds, the company has scored a major coup in having an entire racing team show their logo on their car and (as you can see in the picture) the transport trailer.

Even odder, the racing team has former actor Frankie Muniz as one of the drivers. The star of the late Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle (still running endlessly in syndication) left the acting business to race cars full time about three years ago. For the 2009 season of the Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship Series, Muniz and his racing partner Simona De Silvestro will have the Stagate Worlds logo displayed and shown to the racing fans that attend the events. The note on the Stargate Worlds' web site says Cheyenne paid no up front money for the sponsorship which is good considering the company's recent financial issues.

The folks at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment have been working on their TV show based MMO Stargate Worlds for some time but late in 2008 rumors began to fly that the developer had run out of money to pay their development team. It was a situation that the developer didn't confirm but didn't deny either, saying at the time they were looking into new ways to fund the game before its release.

However the game's official web site is still being updated and today they posted a new screenshot from Stargate Worlds, showing off an NPC team that will look familiar to the fans of the franchise.There's still no word yet from Cheyenne on the status of their fund raising for the game but they seem determined to continue to develop the title, pay or no pay.

The poor economic climate is hitting everywhere, even well established game developers like Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment. The Arizona based developer has been working for a few years now on Stargate Worlds, the Unreal Engine 3 powered MMO based on the long running sci-fi movie-TV franchise.

However, a web site posted up by an anonymous person claims that it has been three weeks since anyone at Cheyanne has been paid. Ten Ton Hammer has posted up a comment from a Cheyenne spokesperson who, while not admitting to the payroll problems, does say, "...the new economic realities are forcing us to seek out additional sources of funding and that's what we're doing." The spokesperson added that they are continuing to develop Stargate Worlds and plan to launch a new round of closed beta testing in early 2009. Ten Ton Hammer's story also mentioned word from anonymous sources that a number of Cheyenne team members have left the company but specific numbers were not mentioned.

[Via Blue's News]

The iris is about to open on the closed beta test of Stargate Worlds. The upcoming sci-fi MMO based on the long running movie and TV franchise will start inviting its first beta testers to try out the game on Oct. 15. You can still sign up to be a part of the beta at the game's official web site.

Developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and publisher Firesky also sent over some new acreenshots from the game showing off the Unreal Engine 3 powered graphics of the title. The game is scheduled to officially launch sometime in 2009. In the meantime more beta testers will be invited into the game in the months before the launch.

Last week we had a feature article that took a look at many PC games that are currently being developed in near secrecy with little to no info on what those games are actually like. However, there also also a number of games that have been fully announced, with screenshots, trailers and more and yet even after years of waiting (and in case of one game over a decade) we are still awaiting those titles to finally be released. These are the games that we have decided to put in our Vaporware Vault.

Sometimes a game is officially announced and can ship to stores inside of a year (in a very quick turnaround, Electronic Arts officially announced Need For Speed Undercover in August and it's set for release in November). Sometime it can be two years between the game's reveal and its appearance in stores. However we have seen games take much, much longer. For example the original Max Payne game was announced in 1997 but wasn't released until 2001. The just released Spore was first revealed in March 2005. Valve's Team Fortress 2 was first announced in 1998 but the final, and much changed, version didn't get released until 2007.

So what PC games are we still waiting on? Quite a few and they come from developers both big and small. Our criteria for inclusion in our list of tardy games is that they must have been officially revealed in 2006 or later and that they are not scheduled for release until at least 2009. Many of these games have had little to no info on their status since their initial announcement. The reasons for their delays are sometimes unknown. Yet they all have one thing in common besides having their release dates pushed back. They all could be terrific games. We begin our feature with the grand champion of delayed PC games, Duke Nukem Forever

Click on the image above to continue reading "The PC Games We Are Still Waiting On"

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment has been keeping the actual gameplay experience of their long-in-development MMO Stargate Worlds under lock and key for the most part, showing only in-game trailers to the public. That changed this weekend at the San Diego Comic Con as the developer finally let outsiders folks play the game at the massive pop culture show.

IGN has a hands-on report on playing the build, going into detail on the combat, the game's cover system, the beginning of one of the game's playable races (OP-CORE), mini-games like puzzles and sliders and more. In fact you can even complete mini-games for other players (in exchange for experience points and an in-game montary value) so they can move on. (you of course can also ask other players to complete mini-games for you). At the moment Stargate Worlds is being schedule for an early 2008 launch.