Etherea is a high-fantasy, gaming experience that will feature enjoyable and rewarding gameplay on many levels - from solitary adventuring and extensive crafting to nation-state governance and player-driven economies to civ-like empire-building to massive interplanetary or inter-system strategic space battles, it will have something for everyone to enjoy.

In addition to the all-original storyline and universe, it will run on a next-generation, custom C++ game engine with a number of innovative and groundbreaking new features. The game will not be roleplay-enforced, but there will be a number of systems in place to encourage and reward in-character behavior - which in and of itself will have enough niches and variations that it should be an enjoyable pursuit for most anyone.

It is a commercial venture, eventually aiming to compete with the likes of IRE and Simutronics. (And hopefully taking a nice chunk out of Mercthievia along the way.) Revenue will be derived solely from flat-rate monthly subscriptions; although they obviously haven't been fixed yet, think somewhere in the neighborhood of $9.95/month per account.

The project roster currently consists of myself as the company founder and lead systems architect, and Edward Falconer of fame as the Creative Director and head of world development.

If you are interested in following our development progress, engaging in discussion, offering feedback or making suggestions, check out our website .

Thanks folks. Look forward to seeing some of you over there.

Judas! Juuuuuuuuuudas! Traitor! Turncloak!

*flame flame flame*

Good luck with your new commercial venture! It is always good to see some more competition out there and it's great that there will be another great (hopefully) game out there to spread the word about MUDs.

In perusing your website I chuckled when I found this as 2 of your "policies" in guiding the game:
Well, good luck with that. By your scheduled release date of 2007, Medievia V will have been completed, another PC Gamer ad (or 2) will have been placed, and we will have been around for over 15 years. I'm not sure these goals of running us out of business will be realized. But, as I said above, the more successful MUDs there are out there, the better it is for us all in the genre.

Bonne Chance

Awesome project, excellent team. I know you can do it (and the other thing too).

Good luck Traithe!

Best of luck, Traithe. I'm not aware of any (large) MUDs in the Spelljammer-esque genre, and it's cool to see someone branching out.

Hey this sounds very, very interesting. I am really looking forward to seeing the crafting system. I've never heard of the Cathyle Project, so now I guess, I'm waiting to hear more on that as well.

Anyways, good luck on the project!

Thanks for all of the well-wishing, folks.  We'll be keeping you apprised of our progress and any major developments through this thread.  As always, your input is welcome at - where we've decided upon a highly accessible and transparent development process.

Thank you, again, for the support.