@jcomm I merged your post to this one since we already had a running thread on the topic.

Microprose B17 model render:

Edited May 5, 20206 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, Sethos said:

Then you have a brand new team, working on 3 titles at once? That means we won't see any of the golden era MicroProse magic and worse, few developers can work on 3 games simultaneously and still maintain a modicum of quality standards.

I am more than ready to be proven wrong though. 

And i am more than happy to prove you wrong. 😄
If you check the titles on Steam you'll find that they are developed by different software houses, and Microprose is acting as a editor/producer.

Edited May 5, 20206 yr by Pastaiolo

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-06-the-resurrection-of-microprose-and-return-of-wild-bill-stealey?fbclid=IwAR1BLBd7k4WaYQ2mfPfDH2TzxZOPcg3JyRaS9FyAUSFBj3OcGHlAKFJx8Yw

@HiFlyer - What a great story!

I met Stealey once, and Sid Meier, too - a little over three decades ago.  Still remember it.

I really hope the new company can get back to that level.

Tangential to the revival of Microprose is of course TitanIM, and Tangential to that is Outera and the Outerra world engine.

Regarding that, one of the developers Cameni, mentioned today:

Quote

Ok guys, sorry for the lack of updates. Things went even more quiet than usual in the second half of 2019, thanks to a couple of things happening.

First a large, long term project we participated on ended, technically successful but with no subsequent big deals materializing. That participation cost us a lot of time and resources, and while the funds from it allowed us to continue working on and enhancing the engine and the world data it needs, it didn't fruit into what we hoped for - a situation that would allow us expanding and freeing our hands to focus on our own game development plans, in addition to the work that continuously needs to go into the engine itself.

Still, the outcomes of the project were useful in bringing several things into OT, that would be otherwise much harder to come by, for example the 10m imagery and forest mask data, worth >$100k.

Subsequently, a few of the old devs also felt exhaustion from the complex and never ending effort of building the world engine, and left in pursuit of easier targets.

***

But ultimately all these things led to positive changes.

We've updated our licensing deals with our existing partners. It means that you can (possibly) expect to see entertainment games and/or simulators based on the OT engine in the future, but the deal also includes measures to make our licensees less dependent on us and considerably lower the amount of support we have to provide. We still need to support and develop the engine and the world, but we now have a lot more space for our own development on top of the engine.

Also very importantly, the working atmosphere in our rejuvenated team is also a lot brighter now.

***

So, what's coming? New x64-only release is around the corner, with new Earth8 datasets including imagery and forest data and global buildings, 3D trees (wip species coverage), global weather, cloud shadows, scriptable scenery objects, character stuff etc.

At the moment we are still fixing some glaring bugs and preparing servers to handle the new data. There's also a plan to release the full data as a DLC on Steam for people who do not want to have the data downloaded progressively, but the whole package for reduced resolution data (40m color, 20m tree map) is currently ~160GB (10m full data package would be around 500GB).

Anteworld stays to be a sandbox game for enthusiasts, but like I said we've now got much more time to work on our game stuff, and a better aligned team as well.

At last, I thank you all for your unbelievable patience 

TLDR: We are still alive and stubbornly working on the thing.

 

Edited May 20, 20206 yr by HiFlyer