Petroglyph is a company best known for real-time strategy games. The company was founded by veterans of the now-defunct Westwood Studios, which created the Command & Conquer series. Since forming in 2003, Petroglyph has released Wars: Empire at War and Universe at War: Earth Assault, both RTS games. But with Mytheon, Petroglyph (in conjunction with True Games) is making the jump into the persistent online games market.
Mytheon is described as a blend of action, strategy, and RPG gameplay, but to find out more, IGN caught up with Peter Cesario, director of product development at True Games, and Chris Rubyor, the lead designer of Petroglyph.
The life cycle of an online rpg is normally rather straightforward. After the game is initially envisioned, it'll be developed and go through several alpha and beta testing phases. Once such testing is complete, the online game is released to the masses to enjoy. Some mmos last for an extremely long time, but quite a few peak and then fade away after a short period. There are even those that don't even make it out of beta testing, as the recent news for Triad Wars can attest to. Once an mmo has shut down, it's considered dead and buried, never to see the light of day again. Yet, one such game, Mytheon, has done that. There has been a Mytheon rebirth as the once free mmo has been transformed into a pay-to-play game for sale on Steam.
A few users exploring the wonders of the Steam MMO library today stumbled upon a new entry as a surprise move has seen Petroglyph re-release their once-thought-dead MMO game back on the open market, Mytheon.
Producer Keren Kang leads you through the basics – the Greco-Roman mythology, the instance-based maps centered on the player city of Argos that require no overland travel, and the powerstones that cast spells or summon temporary minions.
