Unfortunately i highly doubt a true sequel will ever be made and if it is it will more likely take the path of ether DOW2 were its sole tactical or the Total War series. I personally enjoyed rise of legends, it had a surprisingly good campaign but i can see why it didn't sell well.

I know that it is almost definitely not going to happen. But I wouldn't mind if they did something similar to Total War, even though that is also quite unlikely.

[This message has been edited by super7700 (edited 04-11-2012 @ 03:56 AM).]

Yeah it definitely isn't an AOE copy at all. Much deeper really. Also thrones and patriots was one of the best expansions to an RTS ever imo.

I played Rise of Legends. It was an extremely well crafted game and deserved to be better known but oh well. I guess it wasn't mainstream enough and the reduction to 3 mythological nations bothered a lot of RON players I geuss.

Well they went from Historically accurate RTS to a AOM like game style with less RoN features in RoL, that definitely kinda alienated the RoN fan base a lot.

RoN was a semi-mainstream game back in the day, it was named Game of the Year in like 2003 or 2004, and sold about 1 million copies, but after that, BHG just kinda dropped the ball, and the community kinda had to step up for it

BHG took too long to make RoL itself, it was different from RoN, then they gave up, almost went bankrupt, and then their chief programmer Brian Reynolds left... yea kinda sucked

So, no, I think (unless some company wants to bring it back up again), there will be no other Rise of Nation games (unless someone wants to program it for like 3+ years). The new version would need to have graphics to keep up with newer RTS's like SCII and AOEIII and AOE Online. I mean the graphics for RoN are good (in terms of 2003), but it wouldn't cut it in today's gaming market.

So with this, we just have to appreciate RoN for what it is, and we can improve RoN ourselves through modding, scenario crafting, forums here on RoNHeaven, and keeping multiplayer alive (which there is a good community, and there are new players coming on still).

At some point RoN will die out, theres no if/ands/buts about it. However, people have said RoN died a LONG time ago, and they've been wrong, because RoN has a smaller, but very committed, fanbase following still.

Take my Clan for example, AS. Right now we are in Diablo II (soon to be Diablo III), Combat Arms, and soon to be on the PSN network. However, we never leave RoN since that is our first game we were founded on.

So in conclusion, although RoN post-delivery maintenance is over, the enjoyment by its countless number of fans is not, and that is why we are still able to enjoy it!

I think they were actually attempting to reach a wider audience by making the interface/gameplay simpler in Rise of Legends while still retaining a few of the unique features like territory/attrition etc. But they really should have put the money and development into a RON II.

Can you imagine RON with its breadth and depth of content and variety, engrossing gameplay, mod-ability, with improved AI and current graphics? Wow. Really it's too good for SOMEONE not to include some of its strong points in future games....

So with this, we just have to appreciate RoN for what it is, and we can improve RoN ourselves through modding, scenario crafting, forums here on RoNHeaven, and keeping multiplayer alive (which there is a good community, and there are new players coming on still).

Yeah nice to log in to multiplayer and there is almost always a few people playing at least.

RoN just doesn't sell well. But for a game that gravitates between the arcade generation and the fulltime grognards, it's well worth it. I already downloaded Empire Total War on Steam, but the only thing I now play there is naval battles.

I am fine with the graphics. They lend a great deal to the site ambience, and experiences with South Americans and Europeans on Multiply have taught me the benefits of not ODing on the glitter and animated gifs.

Lastly I doubt that BHG or 38Studios would ever dream of doing RTS. The fact that we now have a free-to-play RTS, 0 AD, already shows that if you want to continue in that line, you must have a good brand that will sell, such as Blizzard's Starcraft - otherwise, expect no profits at all.

To be honest, with the images of RoN2, I was both interested and deterred at the same time - interested, because I'm a graphics artist and I'm all into art (my own mod, Rise of the Moderns, plans to place more into building perfect cities than rushing). Yet deterred at the same time: has anyone heard of Empire Earth 3 before?

[This message has been edited by VelvetClaw (edited 04-12-2012 @ 08:23 PM).]

What happened with Empire Earth 3? I'm guessing that it had great art yet failed miserably, mainly because I haven't really heard of it or seen it in stores.

Well, as we know (in reverse chron order):

EE3 totally went against the grain of the EE series. It tried to swallow RoN's CtW (which by then even found its way into Command and Conquer 3), and tried to remove the complexity of resource-gathering, but completely gutted the historical accuracy. From what I've seen and heard, the graphics were, while hi-tech, were also NOT that great because they DETRACTED from the game as opposed to enhancing it.

EE2 was just EE, struggling to copy RoN, with more historically accurate factions (but where's France and Rome?), rare resources, and so-called "districts" or territories that you could capture.

EE was a best-selling hit that allowed you to DIY your own civs, just as how any real-life civ would. RoN kinda supplanted EE because (1), it took the complication out of EE, (2), it didn't want to recreate history, it wanted to simulate it, and (3) it was far more relevant. EE still has a fanbase of people wanting crazy death bots in the fashion of Civ V, which I know you have.

I personally would rather see an MMORPG based off the Rise of Legends franchise (until I deal with the shipping crap for Rise of Kings). The ability to have rationality vs mysticality vs mysterious science is just too good to simply throw away. Who wouldn't have wanted to be a Vinci tinkerer with abilities like a Gadgeteer from Twilight Herores?

[This message has been edited by VelvetClaw (edited 04-12-2012 @ 09:26 PM).]

I'm sure if Rise of Nations just added a little more complexity when it comes to historically accurate nations and realistic concepts (mainly troop transport and walls) and used improved graphics, it would look amazing. A fully 3d system would be great because people would actually be able to appreciate the detail in good textures (currently the only way you can get units to look really good in screen shots is by changing the unit sizes). Of course, this would raise the benchmark for modders. It seems that Empire Earth took it too far, making it too complex for the casual gamer and then too simple for their to be any accuracy.

I think it would be better if they made an improved Rise of Nations than a MMORPG. But with the Rise of Legends concepts, it would be quite cool. What about a historically accurate MMORPG? Are there any of those around?

The fact that we now have a free-to-play RTS, 0 AD

That game is still pretty far from being done. It shows great promise, but I hardly think the free RTS genre has sounded the death knell of profit-making RTS games just yet. :P

I'm sure if Rise of Nations just added a little more complexity when it comes to historically accurate nations and realistic concepts (mainly troop transport and walls) and used improved graphics, it would look amazing. A fully 3d system would be great because people would actually be able to appreciate the detail in good textures (currently the only way you can get units to look really good in screen shots is by changing the unit sizes). Of course, this would raise the benchmark for modders. It seems that Empire Earth took it too far, making it too complex for the casual gamer and then too simple for their to be any accuracy.

Agree on all points.

"That game is still pretty far from being done. It shows great promise, but I hardly think the free RTS genre has sounded the death knell of profit-making RTS games just yet."

See my comment on Starcraft.

"I think it would be better if they made an improved Rise of Nations than a MMORPG. But with the Rise of Legends concepts, it would be quite cool. What about a historically accurate MMORPG? Are there any of those around?"

That depends....I have heard of A Tale in the Desert, but that one is more like Runescape than say, the Real Life Gamebooks series.
Then there is the Chinese-produced Silk Road RPG, which basically isn't very historically accurate, even Minecraft with Millenaire 2.4.6 does a better job at that.
Finally, I have heard of Iranian-produced RPGs set in the early modern era. I remember stumbling upon one while doing research for Rise of the Moderns, but I can't seem to remember where it was. There's also another one produced seemingly by a Turkish company, too, featuring ancient Turkish history....

Walls? well, for Rise of Nations I have always accepted that towers and castles represented walls....perhaps, with that in mind I could create a Great Wall scenario, but I'm not sure how it'd work.

I agree that transports are necessary, but I'd rather go with air transports as opposed to water. I always hated AoE and Red Alert because I discovered that the logistics for transferring units from place to place was insanely costly. Well, if you're playing Carthage on a river or water map for AoE there's little worth complaining about. But still...

[This message has been edited by VelvetClaw (edited 04-12-2012 @ 11:58 PM).]

Its a shame really in my opinion Rts games simply seem to be dying out, FPS seem to be the only thing componys seem willing to invest in. There are very few "True" rts games on the market right know. To me many of them have forsaken reasorce gathering to focus only on battle or simply taken the TBS route and kept real time battles. No BHG simply are not going to risk making an other rts, the money these days seems to be in shooters and Rpgs

The reason why RTS is dying out is because of the nature of gaming. These days, people prefer a more intimate and more immserive experience - that's something that MMORPGs and FPS games do pretty well with. Moreover, to note, many MMORPGs designed for men are often played by women as well. That probably is a vital point why the RTS genre suddenly dwindled down after the mid 00s.

Thats why they've made like 3000 Call of Duty Versions that are all like the same thing. Doesnt matter what you put out these days, as long as you get intimate with the user and ALL users, then itll sell. Something RTS isnt the best at...

Speaking as someone who just came here a minute ago and being his first post, I did have the impression that he site was dead when the last piece of news was in 2010. Also when I proceeded to the forums most of the sections haven't been posted on since 2010, I think starting up a smaller community might be more favorable .

The only solution to this dawning issue of the end of Rise Of Nations is that the aspiring members who are capable of coding buddy up and save the game by raising it to modern standards. This would also likely spark similar events in other dying communities accross the gaming industry and would be quite an achievment. The question is, do we still have enough capable people left to do this or will we have to learn?

Rise of nations, despite it's age is an amazing game with a unique taste to RTS. Simply upgrading the graphical qualities and injecting it with tons of new content would do the trick for a sequel. But to truly make it amazing is to keep the ideas and charm that it currently has and enter it into a new dynamic RTS game engine, one where the world is dynamic and both the key to your survival as well as the hidden adversary. What I mean is imagine pumpign RON into a game engine with the same tactics and such but with the added level of terrain control and manipulation.

Masterflex, hindos: unsure if that can be achieved - to begin with, following Rise of Legends business wasn't too good for the BHG team. Last time I checked, they've hung up their tools and were working on a few RPG projects (unsure about that now).

As you know, there was some talk of Rise of Nations 2. But given the experience with Rise of Legends (some people actually HATED it) it's not difficult to see why it'd be impossible to have RoN 2.

I'm not suggesting to convince the BHG team to work on it. I'm suggesting that we convince them to give us permission to resurrect the game.Get together all the modders and use their talents to create a RoN 2! Please re-read the post more carefully

For now let us discuss ideas to increase it's potential, moments in history that should be highlighted(perhaps world war 1 trench wars could be one), and new intresting game mechanics and units. One of the game mechanics I suggested before was the ability to edit the terrain using certain structures or tools mid-game to your advantage. E.g. placing your city on a hill will give it a strategic advantage in a large plain. Another suggestion could be making the game 3 dimensional , with the same interface and structures but giving the ability to look at things at all angles.

Currently we're trying to save a dying game in vain, all your work and effort will be and likely is in vain as there are little players to enjoy it. The only way all that hard work could be noted and serve a purpose is if we were to combine all of them, combine the amazing features of various major(perhaps also minor) mods and inject them into a brand new engine. That would be working for a purpose, the purpose to resurrect the game as Rise Of Nations 2. A worthy sucessor created not by BHG but by the users themselves, filled with grand new features of countless creative minds one that shows what the community wants more then any game creating company can ever create as we are the community.

Edit: Created a new thread : [url=http://ron.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,5773,,10][/url] Please go there and suggest ideas for the new engine , volunteer to join the project, ect.

[This message has been edited by hindos (edited 04-22-2012 @ 09:09 PM).]

I admire your zeal hindos but i very much doubt BHG would ever be willing to part with the rights and permissions of the RON franchise, not to mention that the making of a game is a huge endeavor requiring both time and money. I also dont think there are enough of us with the required skills. But thats just me being a skeptic.

I do agree with you on the lack of news! I think some new news should be posted even if all it says is that we are still alive. Perhaps we can talk about some of the active mods such as "A wrong turn" "The End of Days" "Kings and Conquerors" "Rise of Kings" "World In Conflict" Maybe a showcase of these mods would make visitors more interested in looking through the site and potentially joining the forms.

Well the ideas have changed, and now we're just trying to make an official expansion. This will be much like a mod, but we are hoping to receive permission and help from BHG to access the hardcoded files and remove some of the limits and make some other small changes.

I wasn't aware of some topics in the RON forum until recently so I wish I had posted earlier.

As for Rise of Nations, it's a great game but for me personally I got bored after a while because it's too simple in some ways, which is a similar problem with Age of Empires and similar rts games. After a while you get bored and try something new, either a mod or new game. Another issue was the infinite resources which is unrealistic. I realize it is a videogame but games could drag on forever and end in stalemates often, so it would be interesting to see more diverse and realistic resource usage in a future game. RON has many interesting concepts like capturing cities and territory, research paths and resource bonuses, but at it's core it's primarily a military war strategy game. It would be interesting if they made a game combined with some economic, artistic and city builder features such as that of the Impressions Games city building series and trade, diplomacy, and political features of other games. That would probably be complicated to make in a balanced way but also give you more options and paths to choose while playing. Also some kind of multiplayer option might also be difficult but would be interesting.
Also RON is probably more than 10 years old, if we include the development time it could be near 15 years which before you know it will be 20 Some people here have mentioned Empire Earth 3 and other game series, I've searched around and it seems like there has been a pattern where game series became oversimplified, unreleased or forgotten. Maybe the era of classic rts games is already over, I don't know. I found some related thoughts on a game developer forum here.

For example as of 5/2012:

Rise of Nations - Rise of Legends - Rise of Nations 2 (cancelled)
Age of Empires - Age of Empires 2 - Age of Mythology - Age of Empires 3 - Age of Empires Online - 0AD (in progress)
Command and Conquer - C&C Tiberian Sun - C&C 3 Tiberium Wars - C&C 4 - C&C 5 (in progress)
C&C Red Alert - C&C Red Alert 2 - C&C Red Alert 3
C&C Generals - C&C Generals 2 (in progress)
Empire Earth - Empire Earth 2 - Empire Earth 3
Simcity - Simcity 2000 - Simcity 3000 - Simcity 4 - Simcity Societies - Simcity 5 (in progress)
Caesar 2 - Caesar 3 - Pharaoh - Zeus - Emperor - Children of the Nile - Caesar 4 - Nile Online
The Settlers - The Settlers 2 - The Settlers 3 - The Settlers 4 - The Settlers 5 - The Settlers 2 10th Anniversary - The Settlers 6 - The Settlers 7
Anno 1602 - Anno 1503 - Anno 1701 - Anno 1404 - Anno 2070
Port Royale - Port Royale 2 - Port Royale 3
Stronghold - Stronghold 2 - - Stronghold Legends - Stronghold Crusader Extreme - Stronghold 3
Lords of the Realm - Lords of the Realm 2 - Lords of the Realm 3
Tropico - Tropico 2 - Tropico 3 - Tropico 4
Patrician 2 - Patrician 3 - Patrician 4
Populous 2 - Populous 3 - Populous 4 (on hold) - From Dust
Warcraft - Warcraft 2 - Warcraft 3 - Warcraft 4 (rumored)
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds - Star Wars Empire At War
Civil War - Civil War 2 - America - American Conquest
Cossacks - Cossacks 2
Starcraft - Starcraft 2

I haven't played every single game above, some of them I own and others just the demo; but it seems Empire Earth 3, C&C Red Alert 3, C&C 4 and others were watered-down or simplified versions of their series. Tilted Mill made Hinterland instead of a new city builder and has been quiet since. Simcity Societies had an interesting concept but was also limited and The Sims and Spore continued afterwards. The Age of Empires and many other series got ported and simplified into online games. A Rise of Legends expansion, Rise of Nations 2 and other BHG games all got cancelled as they now work on the Kingdoms of Amalur world. Then there are the companies like Blizzard whose games like Starcraft and Warcraft are still going strong all these years. And series like Anno got a new timeframe with Anno 2070 which reminds me of how Rise of Legends was a departure from its original setting.

Some fans have tried to make sequel games such as for Populous 3: the Beginning which had an expansion Undiscovered Worlds and fan made levels. Populous 4 was going to be a fan made sequel but it seems to have been put on hold indefinitely. However Ubisoft recently made From Dust which was described as a "spiritual successor" to Populous 3, just like Rise of Legends was described in regards to Rise of Nations. Tobias Scheuer is gradually working on a medieval city builder Villages and Cities in the style of the Impressions Games series, and there have been some discussions to make a similar game here at Heavengames which I'm trying to stimulate so it seems there are many fans who have the same feelings about games and would like to see something that is new but has some good classic elements of gameplay that they know and like from each series. I've also posted similar threads at City Builders and at Simtropolis here and here.

Recently C&C 5, C&C Generals 2, Simcity 5, and Port Royale 3 were announced as in development and Warcraft 4 is rumored. Who knows how these will turn out, and as mentioned 0AD looks promising as a fan made independent game and could be considered as a continuation of the Age of Empires series. If you haven't checked out the Mobygames database yet, it's a great resource to find old and new games to try out. For example, I wasn't aware of the Chinese, Islamic, Aztec, Mongolian and Portuguese rts war games that were out a while ago. I have also made a list of various sci-fi/fantasy rts games here for any interested as there are some old and new gems there.

I'm guessing Rise of Nations 2 could have used the 3d engine that Rise of Legends had - imagine that, that would have looked amazing! It really is too bad that we were never given full modding capability in Rise of Legends, otherwise fans could have made RON2 as a mod at least. It's also possible a AOE2, RON2, etc mods could be made inside of 0AD which will be very mod friendly. Which brings me to my last point about modding and making a new RON game which I will post in the Project Resurrection threads.

So I'm guessing it's always possible another company could make a RON2 or similar sequel, as From Dust and 0AD show that other developers have some good ideas and we don't have to wait for the same team to make a similar game. Plus Starcraft 2 came out 12 years later, the Alexandria expansion for Children of the Nile came out 4 years later, Simcity 5 is coming out 10 years later than their original games so anything is possible. If they do make a RON2 however I think in today's gaming world they will need to do more than update the graphics to 3d, it will have to have more unique and complex features to set it apart from the usual history of the rts genre. I've been making threads in forums and post ideas for games since that's all I can do as a fan for now, if we had millions of dollars we could offer BHG to make some games with our input

[This message has been edited by alincarpetman (edited 06-04-2012 @ 05:27 PM).]