The Alchemist Guild has released a demo version of its long awaited massively multiplayer online role playing game for the Mac (or, as they’re known in gamer lingo, MMORPG). The game is called Lance, and the demo can be downloaded from The Alchemist Guild’s Web site.
Lance has been in development for several years, and has undergone several iterations. Its primary developer, Ryan Joseph, recently suggested that he would release a demo of the game to stir interest in the hopes of generating subscribers — with enough registration revenue, he said, he’d be encouraged to finish development on the game. The game will be published by Realmz publisher Fantasoft when it’s done.
“Keep in mind this demo is primarily to excite potential customers enough to subscribe so I can get the project off the ground, it will be dull so don’t get your hopes up,” says a note on the Lance Web site, presumably written by Joseph. “Because I don’t have the central server up and running yet you will only be able to play single player (with a fixed demo character) so there won’t be much to do. For security reasons the server is also a demo so it will only allow you to connect 2 times per session then will expire. When this happens quit the server and re-open it.”
Joseph is candid in the online documentation for Lance, asking potential subscribers to put their money up to help motivate him to finish the project. “It’s either this or no Lance at all. I can’t afford to spend all my time making a video game with out some way to pay the rent,” said Joseph. “Plus it’s really not that bad, I’m just trying to prepare you for the worst, it may all go a-ok.”
The game renders graphics in an overhead 2D perspective that will be immediately familiar to fans of “classic” Mac role playing games. Don’t judge a book by its cover, though — the game sports in-depth player data; with more than 30 statistics to manage and improve; 14 different player classes; more than 30 races, player versus player real-time combat; the ability to start and join guilds; more than 100 different weapons and 70 different kinds of armor; and much more.