Planetarion

Last updated
Planetarion
Developer(s) Fifth Season A.S.
Publisher(s) Jagex
Platform(s) Any Internet Browser
Release2000
Genre(s) MMOG, Tick-based game
Mode(s) Single-player

Planetarion is a browser-based massively multiplayer online game. Created by Fifth Season AS in early 2000, bought by Jolt in 2003, and purchased by Renegade Games in 2009; it is owned by Jagex. The game places players in control of a planet, with the ability to mine its asteroids for resources, enabling them to construct a fleet of spaceships to attack other players' planets. Although its popularity has declined with the emergence of other similar games and the introduction of a pay-to-play model, which has since been changed to a freemium format, the game is active, and as such is one of the oldest running internet games of its genre.

Contents

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to attain a higher score than the other players, which can be achieved primarily by stealing their asteroids and destroying their fleets. The game offers a player the choice between five races, each with their own types ships and advantages, allowing for a variety of strategies. Every few months, the game is reset, at which point winners are declared and a new round of play starts, commonly with a number of new features and updates to keep the gameplay balanced.

The game updates once per hour, which is called a tick in-game. Every action within the game, from the construction of a factory to the attack of another planet, takes a set number of these ticks, which gives the game a unique mix between turn-based and real-time gameplay, as it allows players only a limited window of time to react to other players' actions. Because of this, cooperation and communication between planets is a necessity, which leads to a strong sense of community play as the players organise themselves into alliances. Alliances use a variety of communications platforms, including IRC, Discord and Telegram.

The game takes place in so-called rounds, the length of which has varied throughout history, but which is currently at approximately two months in length. At that time, the winners are declared and the game is reset, upon which everyone can sign up for a brand new planet. New rounds generally also bring changes in gameplay, ship statistics or even universe makeup, as a result of feedback from the players during the active round.

In between rounds, speedgames are frequently held over weekends which generally run at one-minute ticks, instead of hourly ones for more fast-paced action. In the past, these speedgames have been run at LAN events such as The Gathering in Norway and the Multiplay i-Series in the United Kingdom, and have also been used for competitions such as the Planetarion World Cup.

Development

Whilst originally free, the crash of the dotcom bubble also meant a decline in advertising revenue for Fifth Season AS, the Norwegian company behind Planetarion. As a result, the move was made to a pay-to-play model with the start of Round 5. [1] This led to a sharp decline in the game's userbase.

In 2003, Planetarion was sold by Fifth Season AS to the UK-based company SimTech Ltd., a daughter company of Jolt, who provide hosting for the game.

In 2007, round 22 ("Shards of Infinity") once again was a free round. A notable feature is that inactive players will automatically be moved to an inactive part of the universe.

On 16 January 2009, it was announced that OMAC, the company that bought Jolt, had decided to discontinue Planetarion after round 30. [2]

On 6 February 2009, Peter Zaborszky from Renegade Games Limited confirmed that they had purchased the rights to Planetarion and that they would continue to run the game. [3]

On 26 July 2010, it was confirmed that Jagex had purchased Planetarion. [4]

In August 2013, Jagex allowed a newly formed company called Ranul Tech Ltd the licence to operate and manage the game, whilst still maintaining ownership. [5]

In July 2021, in reaction to the impending shutdown of the Netgamers IRC network, Planetarion migrated to Discord for its official communications.

Reception

PC Zone reviewed version 2 of Planetarion in October 2000, at which point, there were over 30,000 players. PC Zone described the gameplay as having a "charm and subtle addiction that is a pleasant change of pace" and highlighted the quality of support available for the game via volunteer staffed IRC channels. The game was awarded a score of 72%. [6]

Michael Dougherty reviewed Planetarion on 28 August 2007 and awarded a score of 7.0/10, stating that "if you sit in front of your PC twitching uncontrollably when you do not kill a PC/NPC or blow something up on a regular basis then this is definitely not the game for you. However, if you are a strategist who enjoys a slow-paced, turn-based game then you will not find anything better than Planetarion. The keys to this game are strategy and patience, couple this with the proper player base and the right frame of mind when entering the game and you just might find yourself pleasantly surprised and extremely addicted." [7]

Awards and accomplishments

When the game was launched in 2000 it achieved popularity, receiving eleven Multiplayer Online Games Directory Game of the Month Awards. [8] Planetarion has won the MPOGD game of the month award 13 times, most recently in January 2012. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Tux Racer</i> Computer game

Tux Racer is a 2000 open-source winter sports racing video game starring the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin. It was originally developed by Jasmin Patry as a computer graphics project at the University of Waterloo. Later on, Patry and the newly founded Sunspire Studios, composed of several former students of the university, expanded it. In the game, the player controls Tux as he slides down a course of snow and ice collecting herrings.

<i>Star Trek: Bridge Commander</i> 2002 video game

Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a space combat simulation video game for Microsoft Windows, developed by Totally Games and published by Activision in 2002, based in the Star Trek universe.

RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. RuneScape was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was largely replaced by a standalone C++ client in 2016. The game has had over 300 million accounts created and was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the largest and most-updated free MMORPG.

<i>Battlefield 1942</i> 2002 video game

Battlefield 1942 is a 2002 first-person shooter video game developed by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game can be played in single-player mode against the video game AI or in multiplayer mode against players on the Internet or in a local area network. It is a popular platform for mod developers, with many released modifications that alter the gameplay and theme.

<i>Unreal Tournament 2004</i> 2004 first-person shooter video game

Unreal Tournament 2004 is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. Part of the Unreal franchise, it is the third game in the Unreal Tournament series and the updated version of Unreal Tournament 2003.

Jagex Limited is a British video game developer and publisher based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. It is best known for RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, both free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The company's name is derived from the company's original slogan, "Java Gaming Experts".

Tribes is a series of five science fiction first-person shooter video games released between 1998 and 2024. The game plot is set in the far future. The series includes Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, Tribes: Aerial Assault, Tribes: Vengeance, Tribes: Ascend, and Tribes 3: Rivals. Tribes is a spin-off series from the mecha simulation series Metaltech.

Robinson Technologies is a Japanese video game developer founded by Seth Robinson. The company produced the BBS door games Legend of the Red Dragon, Planets: The Exploration of Space and Growtopia, an experimental multiplayer creative sandbox created as a collaboration with Hamumu Software, released in 2013 for iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows, and macOS.

<i>Z</i> (video game) 1996 video game

Z is a 1996 real-time strategy computer game by The Bitmap Brothers. It is about two armies of robots battling to conquer different planets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jolt Online Gaming</span> Defunct video game website (1999-2012)

Jolt Online Gaming was an online gaming company hosted in Ireland. Its main site provided news, reviews, and interviews concerning upcoming games on consoles and computers, while its gaming network Jolt Online Gaming Network hosted and published free-to-play browser-based games. Notable works included Utopia, Utopia Kingdoms, Legends of Zork, and NationStates 2.

Half-Life 2: Capture The Flag is a multiplayer team-based capture the flag mod developed around Half-Life 2. The public beta version was released on February 23, 2005. The latest version of the mod was released to the public on December 8, 2011. On October 16, 2013, Half-Life 2: Capture The Flag was greenlit on Steam Greenlight. As of 2022, the mod has yet to be released on Steam.

<i>Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron</i> 2007 video game

Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron is a third-person shooter video game based on the Star Wars franchise. It is the third entry in the Star Wars: Battlefront series and the first handheld exclusive. It was released on October 9, 2007, in North America and later in Australia and Europe, as a PlayStation Portable (PSP) exclusive. Renegade Squadron was one of the first games available in a bundle pack with the newly released PSP redesign.

Star Wars: Battlefront is a series of first- and third-person shooter video games based on the Star Wars franchise. Players take the role of characters from the franchise in either of two opposing factions in different time periods of the Star Wars universe. The series was launched in 2004 by LucasArts with Star Wars: Battlefront, developed by Pandemic Studios for LucasArts. The game received positive reviews and sold well. In 2005 Pandemic developed a sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, which was also critically and commercially successful.

In video games and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based.

FunOrb was a casual gaming site created by Jagex. Launched on 27 February 2008, and closed on 7 August 2018, it was the company's first major release after their successful MMORPG, RuneScape. All of the games were programmed in Java.

<i>Reset Generation</i> 2008 video game

Reset Generation is a cross-platform action-puzzle video game by RedLynx for Windows and N-Gage 2.0 compatible devices. Soundtrack for the game was composed by 8 Bit Weapon. The Windows version of the game is available free whereas the N-Gage version costs £8/€10 for the full game - with limited-time licenses available at lower prices and a free trial version. The game was developed - in part - by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, a well known author and game critic.

<i>War of Legends</i> 2010 video game

War of Legends was a massively multiplayer online strategy game set in "a world of ancient Chinese mythology" and was published by Jagex on January 19, 2010. It was the company's first full online strategy game, the first game to be published by the company rather than produced by them, the first game published by Jagex not to be written in Java, and the company's first microtransaction game. On January 29, 2015, Jagex announced that the game would be permanently closed effective immediately, following a security issue that took the game offline over a month earlier on December 22, 2014.

<i>8Realms</i> 2011 video game

8realms was a Browser based empire-building massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game developed by Jagex. It is the company's first internally developed MMORTS, and second published MMORTS, after War of Legends.

<i>Broken Picture Telephone</i> Multiplayer online drawing and writing game

Broken Picture Telephone, sometimes abbreviated BPT, was a collaborative multiplayer online drawing and writing game invented in 2007, based on the pen-and-paper game Telephone Pictionary.

<i>Valorant</i> 2020 video game by Riot Games

Valorant is a free-to-play first-person tactical hero shooter developed and published by Riot Games, for Windows. Teased under the codename Project A in October 2019, the game began a closed beta period with limited access on April 7, 2020, followed by a release on June 2, 2020. The development of the game started in 2014. Valorant takes inspiration from the Counter-Strike series, borrowing several mechanics such as the buy menu, spray patterns, and inaccuracy while moving.

References

  1. ↑ "Planetarion going all pay to play?". boards.ie. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  2. ↑ "Planetarion Portal > News > Read > Round 30 signups". Planetarion.com. 16 January 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  3. ↑ "Planetarion Portal > News > Read > The future of planetarion". Planetarion.com. 6 February 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  4. ↑ "Planetarion Portal > News > Read > Jagex purchases planetarion". Planetarion.com. 26 July 2010. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  5. ↑ "Planetarion Portal > News > Read > Planetarion Shall Continue!". Planetarion.com. 30 August 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  6. ↑ Jed Norton (October 2000). "Planetarion review". PC Zone (94): 72.
  7. ↑ "Planetarion Review - MPOGD News". mpogd.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  8. ↑ "Multiplayer Online Games Directory / GOTM". Mpogd.com. Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 2012-09-24.
  9. ↑ "MPOGD's GAME OF THE MONTH". Multiplayer Online Game Directory. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.