Hero's Journey Taking Longer Than Expected

Speaking of heroes, it appears that Simutronics's MMORPG Hero's Journey has suffered a major delay. Whereas up until recently it was expected to come out this year, the game's official FAQ now sets the release date for 2007, while also pointing out that "play testing will ultimately determine when HJ is ready to go". The news will surely come as a letdown for everyone who's been waiting for it, especially considering the fact that Hero's Journey pleasently surprised a lot of people at E3 2005, only to return at this year's show with even better graphics and user interface.

MMORPG.com got a chance to see the game in action at E3 2006, and although their preview isn't quite as superlative as last year's (when they gave it the Best of Show Award), it does reveal some new things about the game. Simutronics' demonstration focused a lot on the so-called "Wyr" system, through which players can plug (or "socket", if you will) special abilities into their items and themselves. There are all kinds of Wyr, some giving extra fire damage, while reducing cold damage, and others - more special ones - can even be combined for special bonuses. Players are not expressly told the outcome of such wyr combinations, so they'll have to experiment and discover a lot.

So far, the devs managed to implement three races: Humans, Ilvari (elvan) and a feline race, with a neat character creation process that even allows your character to have a hybryd look (half-Human, half-Ilvari for instance). And at the same time, Hero Journey's class system will also allow for hybryd new classes: out of the game's nine classes (Warrior, Gearknight, Rogue, Ranger Wizard, Necromancer, Cleric, Bard and Healer), the players will choose a primary and a seconday one, with different results - such as an Occultist from the Cleric / Necromancer combination, or a Diabolist from the opposing Necromancer / Cleric setup.

The game also supports AGEIA physics, has plenty of common areas and non-instanced content, and some interesting game systems, so fans of the fantasy MMO genre should definitely keep an eye on it.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)