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Women are a major marketing target for Ever, Jane
Maybe you're not quite the target market for Ever, Jane. You may not like the works of Jane Austen, for example; that would be a major deterrent. But according to project head Judy L. Tyrer, one of the major areas she wants to target is the women's market, which she feels is neglected by companies as a whole. She feels that one of the major failings of game companies is failing to realize how large the game market is for women. Tyrer goes into more depth about the game's mechanics, noting that what appealed to her as a designer was the rigid stratification of social classes in Austen's work. Social movement is a major element of the gameplay, with most of players' time devoted to attending balls and gossiping about one another. No word on endgame raids against Mister Darcy or whether or not wit will be seen as an overpowered stat.
The Queue: Jane Austen for Warlord
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. This isn't a joke about Warlords needing lady characters. I swear. erebhir asked: Now that Ever Jane, the Jane Austen MMO, has reached its Kickstarter goals, do you think we'll see Blizzard add ballroom dancing to compete before the end of WoD? I don't think they have a choice. If Blizzard doesn't keep up with the enormous strides Ever, Jane is making in gossip-based gameplay, we have a new WoW killer on our hands.
Jane Austen-inspired MMO 'Ever, Jane' uses gossip as a weapon
If you ever wanted to tell Mr. Darcy to take a long walk off a short cliff, here's your chance. Ever, Jane, an MMO based in Jane Austen's universe, has been successfully funded, closing with $109,563 of a requested $100,000 on Kickstarter. In Ever, Jane, the main weapon is gossip; players will live and die by how the strict social hierarchy perceives their actions. The game includes traditional RPG stats such as strength, dexterity and intelligence, and a party invitation system allows players to alter their reputations. If a person of a higher status accepts your invitation, your status goes up, but whether it was accepted out of duty or happiness determines how much of a boost you'll get. If the invitation is rejected, your status drops. It sounds like a lot of smack talk, manipulation and false flattery. Ah, high school. The prototype is available to download now for PC and Mac, free for at least another two weeks while developer 3 Turn Productions wraps up Kickstarter things. The studio is headed up by Judy Tyrer, former Lead Engineer at Sony Online Entertainment and Senior Engineering Manager at Linden Labs, where she worked on Second Life. Ever, Jane is 3 Turn's first attempt at turning historically accurate, literary worlds into digital reality.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for iPhone: Fun, but faulty
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a franchise in possession of a large fanbase must be in want of a video game adaptation. However hasty or flawed the execution of said game may be, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of media conglomerates that a video game is considered the rightful final step in a multimedia enterprise. "My dear gamers," said Freeverse to us one day, "have you heard that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is available for the iPhone at last?" We replied that we had not heard so, but, being great admirers of the zombie-slaying genre in general and Seth Grahame-Smith's ingenious adaptation of the Jane Austen classic in particular, we resolved to examine said game with alacrity. With a heavy heart, dearest readers, I must tell you that although the wry concept of the game is beyond reproach, its execution is wanting in many respects. Most grievous of all, I have been unable to carry the game to its proper conclusion; not because I did not wish to do so, for the game is in most regards diverting and congenial, but rather owing to a game-halting fault for which I was unable to find resolution. Read on to discover not only the merits of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for the iPhone (US$2.99), but also the inauspicious traits it possesses which, to my sorrow, render it unworthy of either praise or recommendation unless resolved with haste.
