Q&A with Generations Team

[Mahdi]

Here it is, the first event of DunesDay!  Enjoy!

1)  Did Mobious base any of his unit designs on the work he did on Jadorowski's failed Dune feature film?

      No, he insprired brand new designs for the game.

2)  What is the responsibility of the Quebec company that is involved in this game?

      They are reponsible of sales and marketing in North America.

3)  After the recent lack of success of both Emperor: Battle For Dune and Frank Herberts Dune, is your company wary at all about releasing another game set in the same fictional universe, and have they decided to  change their approach to marketing the game at all due to the unexpected lack of sales of those two games?

      Licence alone doesn't make a success. We based our game on this universe cause it is wonderfull, very rich, and perfect for an on-line strategy game, but we want the success to come from the quality of the game.

4)  Up until November, the beta test had been set for December.  Why was it pushed back to February?

5)  What is the estimated date of Dune Generations going gold?

4/5) Dune Generations was initially announced for the end of 2001. Since then, the interest aroused by our game has allowed us to establish new alliances with important partners who will be in charge of the publication and operation of Dune Generations. Given these new opportunities, we decided to postpone the launching of Dune Generations: our goal is to achieve a game of such high quality that it will become the standard in its field.

   

      Dune Generations is currently undergoing what we call "closed alpha" testing, that is, very limited access. We will not proceed from alpha to beta testing before meeting a certain number of specific criteria (both in terms of game functionality and server stability and load). Similarly, the game's commercial launch date will depend on the results of the beta test phase. For the moment, this date is not exactly fixed, and probably won't occur before the second quarter of 2002.

This is only a taste of whats coming!  A mere sampling of the cornucopia of Arrakis shattering events that are to occur over the next 24 hours!  Enjoy!