I wonder if any other companies have looked at buying this off Codemasters?

The game premise sounds excellent (from MMORPG.com):

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Dragon Empires was a fantasy MMORPG in development by Codemasters. Game features included over 500 quests, crafting, dungeon raids, and a PvP focus. The game contained 50 cities spread over five lands, each of which is ruled over by a fearsome dragon. All cities within these empires were subject to player versus player battles for control of land and resources. In fact, the game was very PvP centric, and players had control over the economic and social realities within each city their guild possessed. A special system of "pending experience points" existed, which would award experience upon one's return from adventuring in lands outside your own race's terrain. The more daring you were, the more potential you had to earn this bonus, but bounty hunters could claim these points if they killed you on their side. Other features allowed for customization with skills and gear such that even two characters of the same race and class could still be distinct. Trade was also a large part of the game. All players had access to their own artisan and workshop, where gathered resources could be crafted into valuable goods. Those goods could be transported to other cities for experience as well as money, but traders were subject to sacking, risking loss of both product and experience. Codemasters tried to make a realistic experience. Dragon Empires went into beta, but serious technical issues emerged, and after a six-week analysis of the problems, Codemasters determined that it would cost too much money to overhaul the game, and announced its cancellation instead.

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I recall being really excited about this game at the time. The PvP nature of it, the bounty hunting, 50 different cities fighting or allying, politics, combat - all looked very good.

Did anyone actually get to beta test it and if so could they let us know what it was like please.

It lost funding and was canceled, I was soooo looking forward to it. They changed the name and released it as Arch Lord. Which was a half ass complete game.

This became Arch Lord? How the hell?

Arch Lord was the biggest pile of turd I ever played. It was just bad and as about original as a WOW clone.

What a shame.

Oh well.

Still the original concept for Dragon Empires still stands good.

Sounded a lot like the Dragon Lance book series with the dragons ruling cities lol

I wonder if they ever made a Dragon Lance mmo.. they've made one for everything else xD

I do agree pile of dog turd, but the concept for the original game was awesome.

The base core game was used for Arch Lord, you could see how they had a very limited budget when going from one to the next, it became like any other Asian Game, Kill bears from 1-10, spiders, 11-15....etc. it was extremely boring.

Oh well......but if anyone knows of a game similar to Dragon Empires concept, or even clase to modern day Shadowbane let me know, I'm all ears!

Your ownly friends in the shadowbane category are:

- Darkfall
- Mortal Online
- Xsyon

Of all of them Darkfall is the most polished but Mortal is the one with the most potential. Xsyon is well frankly boring !

I am sure you have tried the first two already though...