Recently, Ddaanniiellh was nice enough to point out that the folks over at MMOHub scored yet another interview with Mark Gerhard, the current CEO of Jagex Ltd. Instead of regurgitating the [great] interview on this post, I’ll hash out the important stuff in a neat list. I still encourage you to read the whole thing if you have a few minutes though. Some of the points mentioned in the interview have already been revealed in the past before – but it’s always nice to review.

• MechScape is around 4 years in the making
• MechScape was created because they wanted to make changes to RuneScape – but it was already far into the fantasy genre to warrant any major changes
• The game was only meant to be a year long project, with the launch date somewhere in 2006
• Supposedly it’s done and currently in testing
• The developers are giddy (like us!) for the beta release
• Mark says the game shouldn’t be classified as a traditional sci-fi MMO
• There are four factions – one of them being mech
• MechScape still isn’t guaranteed to be the name of the game
• The game, whatever it’ll be called, will not be as hardcore as other MMOs *cough* EVE *cough* WoW *cough*
• Gameplay will be unique compared to other current MMOs

Once again, I reccomend you read the whole interview here to get a little grasp as to how they run their operation… it’s kind of interesting!

Once you’ve done that you can run over to the forum and discuss it here!

The winners of the slogan contest have been decided!

• 1st place: “Shake Off That Rust!” by Jester
• 2nd place: “The Future Before it Happens: MechSociety keeps you up to date on all things MechScape!” by Hardk0re
• 3rd place: “It’s the Future!” by Lawliet

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all who submitted entries! We’ll be rewarding the winners shortly.

You can go and congratulate them on our forum here.

Some news has surfaced recently that may endanger some MechScape fansites, including ours. Hopefully a name change won’t really take place – but it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

From Mark Gerhard, Jagex CEO:

Hello everyone,

In a recent press release we stated that our upcoming sci-fi title was code named “MechScape”. Many people have been looking for clarification regarding the name of this new game, so we decided it would be best to attempt to clarify this matter.

When we first came up with the idea for our new game it was primarily focused on robots known as “mechs”, hence the name MechScape made perfect sense. It drew on the main theme of the game, and also played on the “-scape” brand which we had established with RuneScape. Okay, we thought, we have the name sorted, so now let’s get on with the exciting bit of development.

And so we grew fond of the name, and some fans found out about it and many of them got invested in the name too, and therefore we believed that the name was definitely going to be MechScape. But recently we decided to re-evaluate it, which is why we referred to it as just a “code name”. There are various reasons for us to stick with the original name, and it is possible that we might end up doing just that, but there are also reasons why we might still want to change it.

During the game’s early evolution we became a lot more ambitious, and substantially widened our vision beyond just robots to encompass the wider possibilities of the sci-fi genre. This meant that the first half of the MechScape name could give people an overly narrow view of what the game is about. Similarly, if we drew on the RuneScape brand by using the “-Scape” suffix then it could make people think the game was essentially RuneScape in space, which it defiantly is not. Whatever name we go with we will be using for a very long time, so we want to get it right and that is why it is back on the table for discussion.

So the honest answer to the question of what the game will be called is that we don’t know yet. We have a number of ideas, one of which is just to stick with the initial name. We understand that many people would have liked to have known earlier that the name wasn’t set in stone. In response to this we would like to make it clear that it was only very recently that we seriously began reconsidering the name again. However, I admit that we should have told our fans as soon as we were unsure about it. We are aware that the name of our title is a very emotive area, and whatever decision we ultimately make we will not make lightly.

Please don’t take this statement to mean that the game is now done and all we have to worry about now is what to call it. There is still a fair amount of development work left for us to do. We can’t give you a release date at the moment because large complex game development projects such as this one are extremely hard to estimate. The last thing we want after spending so much time and energy on this project is a rushed release, which is why we won’t launch it until we are confident that it is ready.

I do hope this clarifies matters a little bit more and that you remain as excited about the game as we are.

If a change does indeed happen, MechSociety will still exist, albeit under a different name.

You can discuss this news on our forum with other members here.

Hey there! I’m pleased to introduce you to v3 of MechSociety! It’s still a work in progress, but it’s finally reached the point where it is able to be used by everyone. The last version was created around 8 months ago, which is a long time when it comes to the internet. Things just wern’t quite user-friendly, or even decent looking when the decision was made to rework the site a month or so ago. Now, it’s time to look over what’s new, and what to expect in this new reincarnation.

• Integration with the forum (complete)
• An item database (completed – not put into action yet – thanks Martyj and Summer Sabre!)
• A quest/guide database (completed – thanks Josh!)
• User submitted content (not in place yet)
• Different colour schemes for the site (in the works)
• More to come…

This is all done to prepare for the release of MechScape, which is widely believed to be coming up soon. We ask that you let your friends know about the site, and when the game comes around we hope to have a thriving community.

Thanks for using MechSociety and making it what it is. ;D

The name MechScape.co.cc was frankly a bit corny, so we donned our creative suits, and came up with a list of Mech-y names. One of those, MechSociety, which was #2 on the list of 15, was chosen by various unknowing voters. So, without further ado….

Most of us here feel this change is long overdue, and we can finally concentrate on our initial goal, world peace.

Also: you may still access most of the site (excluding the forum) from the old domain, mechscape.co.cc. It is, however, suggested you update your bookmarks.

Fant