Ensemble Studios werkt aan MMO?

Steven (Steeven)
Ensemble Studios, bekend van de Age of Empires-serie, is naast Age of Empires III ook bezig met een ander project. Op de fansite Age of Empires III Heaven denkt men dat ze weten waar de ontwikkelaar aan werkt. Dit baseren ze op de vacatures van Ensemble Studios die te vinden waren op de website van de ontwikkelaar. Het gerucht is echter allesbehalve bevestigd. Ook was er al bekend dat Ensemble Studios tijdens het ontwikkelen van Age of Mythology werkte aan een RPG. Die game is toen gecancelled, maar het zou kunnen dat het project weer is opgepikt.

Dit zijn berichten van de fansite:

quote
I really really wish I could say I'm a diligent news poster and found this succulent morsel first, but credits go to my friend Xiphoid at PlanetAgeofEmpires, who stumbled across this news in the ES job listings page. Turns out the second project ES has been working on is something that I suspect is expected to be a World of Warcraft/Everquest 2 killer for Microsoft, as Asheron's Call 2 didn't fare especially well. And this was all gleaned from this sentence:

"Experience with shipping an existing massively multiplayer game is a must."

Massively Multiplayer Game doesn't mean it'll be an RPG like its Blizzard counterpart, ES may go for a more quasi-RTS route to set the game apart from its competition while still staying within something that they know they can do well. However, since they want someone who can do "3D graphics programming," (scroll down the page) I'm not thinking it'll be any kind of game we're too familiar with in the Age of genre.

PAoE noticed one rather interesting thing, the fact that they mention consoles several time in the job listings page. If they do manage to properly make a game that works for both PC and consoles (well, the Xbox360, at least), that could be the thing that gives them a chance against the giants that are WoW and EQ2. Check it out, fellas:

The senior programmer is a hardcore programmer with the ability to work in any area of the code base on any project that Ensemble Studios is working on. The senior programmer is a core member of the technical staff who understands the direction of Ensemble Studios and its projects and actively works to support those goals.