The Hero's Journey team is once again accepting applications for content writers!

Have a knack for creative writing? Enjoy writing quests, stories, lore, and more? Perhaps you should head over and submit an application today!

Read more here.

    Posted by - Naeya

Part two of their three-part series highlighting the classes of Hero's Journey! This time around, they're discussing the Ranged group: Necromancer, Ranger, and Wizard!

Ranger, Necromancer, and Wizard!


    

    Posted by - Navarre

Stephanie Shaver, the Lead Designer for Hero's Journey, drops by to help debut this new home for Hero's Journey on the WarCry Network. In this exclusive interview, the first in quite some time for Simutronics, we learn about what's going on with the game - not the engine - and how things have evolved in recent months.



Read More Here!

    Posted by - Navarre

"Over the last year, the team has developed the resources to support both the HeroEngine and their proof of concept MMORPG Hero's Journey. Before, it always seemed like they had to pick one or the other. Their St. Louis studio now has 45 to 50 people on site and at work on the two projects simultaneously. This is nothing compared to the roughly 200 people on EA Mythic's Warhammer Online, but it crosses the line from independent production to a well-funded player."



Read More Here!

    Posted by - Navarre

MMORPG.com Managing Editor, Jon Wood, had the opportunity to talk to Eric Slick, the Technology Director for Simutronics, about the progress of their upcoming MMORPG, Hero's Journey

Read the interview

    Posted by - Navarre

Hero's Journey - GDC 2007 VIDEO and Update with Eric Slick

Simutronics Tech Director Eric Slick catches us up on the latest from this storied online RPG developer




Watch the Video and Read the interview HERE!


    Posted by - Navarre

Simutronics today announced its three latest licensees for HeroEngine, the industry leading technology platform for development of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

A World of My Own (AWOMO) is a virtual island where gamers meet and explore, and which uses HeroEngine as its technology platform. The island serves as a portal for a growing series of high-end 3D games that are downloaded and played together. AWOMO is published by Games Domain International in partnership with Virgin Games UK with software development by Trianit in Germany. AWOMO is being hailed by Sir Richard Branson as "the iTunes of PC Gaming."

In addition, two US developers are also licensing HeroEngine: Stray Bullet Games of Texas and Colony Studios of California. More details about these projects will be announced in the near future.

"We welcome our new licensees. After massive technology diligence they all saw how using HeroEngine's advanced features and revolutionary workflow will bring to market leading edge MMO games faster than ever before," said David Whatley, CEO of Simutronics and HeroEngine's visionary.

HeroEngine is on exhibit this week at the San Francisco Game Developers Conference in booth 144. The HeroEngine website is www.heroengine.com.


    Posted by - Navarre

Game Info Update!

In part one of a three part series, Simutronics has released tidbits about the classes you can play in Hero's Journey, beginning with the Melee group: Gearknight, Rogue, and Warrior!

    

    Posted by - Navarre

How well do you know Hero's Journey?

Make no mistake, Hero's Journey is no 'coat tail' MMORPG, hastily rushed into production to ride the wave of success created by games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft.

Here is a look back at the history of Hero's Journey. It is a project which has been a developing concept since 1984 and which finally began production back in 1996, long before the likes of EverQuest and Asheron's Call and before Trip Hawkins (co-founder of Electronic Arts) first made use of the term, 'Massively Multiplayer.'

News of Hero's Journey was kept quiet from the public until 1999, where a now antiquated version of the game was met with much fanfare. Here is a timeline of events, followed by a number of interviews from back in 1999 and 2000. This game has been a long time coming. It will be well worth the wait.

"[Hero's Journey] is clearly the most ambitious project we've ever undertaken and our goal is to create nothing less than the Magnum Opus of massively multiplayer online Fantasy Roleplaying Games." - David Whatley - 1999



We also have a number of Screenshots and a Video from the first iteration of Hero's Journey, back in 1999. Enjoy!

Read More Here!
HJ 1999 Screenshots
HJ 1999 Video

    Posted by - Navarre

GoLevel.com has once again upgraded it's servers. With that you should notice faster load times, quicker downloads, and newer content being delivered daily!

    Posted by - Frosty

There is a new article in the latest issue of Computer Games magazine

Hero's Journey has made their list of Most Anticipated Games of 2007!



Read the article!

    Posted by - Navarre

Here is a new article from our friends over at IGN's RPG Vault.

Hero's Journey First View

The intriguing fantasy-themed persistent state world from Simutronics, one of the pioneer companies in the category...

Read all about it... Here!

    Posted by - Navarre

The return of concept art! Simu Artist Ryan Bowlin humbly depicts for us three concepts of the Burian males: Warrior, Gearknight, and Rogue! And in desktops, we have a minion of the Agonar, the nefarious Mindslave, by Josh Stover! Enjoy!

    




Hero's Hall Wallpaper page
Hero's Hall Concept Art

    Posted by - Navarre

Just in time for the holidays! This month Simutronics brings you two new desktops featuring art by Josh Stover and Ryan Bowlin:

Suri Utra, the leader of the Arcanum, and Alvaril Willowson, the leader of the Kinnaes. Enjoy!


Visit the Hero's Hall Wallpaper page to download them.


  


Suri Utra is the Arcanum leader. She's a descendant of the Ilvari House associated with ice (Utra), hence the crystals all over her design.

Alvaril Willowson is the Kinnaes leader, and the second person ever to be so. Needless to say, he's old. His father (the first person ever to lead the Kinnaes) was a student of the heretic Willowdaughter who founded the Kinnaes and introduced Nature magic to Elanthia.

Next month, Simutronics hopes to give us a glimpse of Regas Quill (Lord of Quillmore) and Barak Irongut (Gearsmith Leader).

    Posted by - Navarre

Simutronics' HeroEngine has been nominated for the 2006 Game Developer Front Line Awards. They are one of 5 finalists for the award for best gaming engine and are up against such competition as the Unreal Engine 3 and Valve's Source engine.

Winners will be announced in the January 2007 issue of Game Developer magazine. Stay tuned for the results as we learn about them!

Game Developer Reveals 9th Front Line Award Finalists


    Posted by - Navarre

Congratulations! Just minutes ago I sent out invitations to ten lucky individuals who are recieving the chance to participate in a HJ MUD hosted by Hero's Hall. In anticipation for Hero's Journey, we've decided it's time to get the ball rolling with your character.

For those of you who are to accept this invite, you will be participating in an epic struggle that occured years before HJ every started. You will face tasks, quests, adventure that leads into the heart of political struggles and struggles for uncompromising wealth. You will find yourself before the images of all shades of emotion, and behold the rise and fall of a empire that will soon after its fall be forgotten and tossed into the way side by the conflicts of the future. Darkness will sweep the lands, and Great Guilds will rise from the amber to tackle such obstacles. We welcome you to the World of Elanthia, and welcome you to become part of its past.

Special Features, the story and the history of HJ will be respected within this MUD, minus a few alterations. Two race options have been added, Kyastrian and Hybrid which later in history become extinct due to some catastrophic event which you as the adventurer will be able to witness. The world's cleansing you will see as the people become centered around there own cultures.

• Expansive adventure awaits those who accept this invite.


• Extensive character customization, and extensive individuality.


• Work as a team to accomplish your goals or go solo, your choice.


• Engulf yourself within the plot and make choices that may make you appear good or evil.


• Various NPC characters will interact with your character, creating a sub-story for your character alone.


• Encouraging strong roleplaying abilities, make them as real as you want, from feelings to thoughts.


• A unique system that uses dice; your actions can give you bonuses within battle!

Follow your fellow forum members journeys here!

* Again, the goal is for entertainment. The story being told is the story of the mind of what may have happend, and what could have. This may not be the story that the game wishes to depict; or wants to depict but again it is one of many probably out there.

    Posted by - Frosty

As most of you have probalby noticed, today has been a rough day for our server. We're still trying to fix the problems that we are having, and expect things to be normal tommorow. As for now, we're sorry for slight lag that you'll be experiencing.

    Posted by - Frosty

Getting bored of the same old desktop? Spice it up with one of the four new Hero's Journey desktops!

Visit the Hero's Hall Wallpaper page to download them. Enjoy!

  

  


    Posted by - Navarre

The Grenmeer Lowlands is Quillmore's breadbasket, its primary source of nourishment -- which is what makes the looming threat to it all the more dire.





Click here to see hundreds of other Hero's Journey screenshots.

Read more about the Grenmeer Lowlands and other areas in our Updated Lore Section!

    Posted by - Navarre

Definitely check out the Hero's Journey website if you are looking to be employed by Simutronics! They have updated their applications and are looking for new recruits. You could be one of them!

Updated GM Applications!

    Posted by - Frosty

Massive Magazine - "Your Ultimate Guide To The World Of MMOS!" - has a new overview of Hero's Journey in their premier issue. MMO fans finally have a magazine to call their own!

Thanks to WatchMaker for locating this article!

Hero's Journey Article
Massive Magazine

    Posted by - Navarre

If you look to the menu on the left you will see a New Lore Category with 5 new links.

I have compiled all of the Lore information we have thus far
for Hero's Journey into one convenient resource.

New Lore Pages include:

General & Societal
Racial & Cultural
Cities & Lands
Bestiary
Gods & Religion

This is a work in progress. We will continue to update and add information as we receive it!

    Posted by - Navarre

Simutronics has released a new, 12-page brochure about the HeroEngine. The brochure contains screenshots from Hero's Journey and the HeroBlade developer toolset!

Download it directly from Hero's Hall or from the HeroEngine web site.

HeroEngine Brochure
HeroEngine Web Site

    Posted by - Navarre

HeroEngine, Simutronics' proprietary game development tool, is getting a lot of notice these days! Neil Harris is tapped once again by the good folks at RPG Vault to talk more about it!

HeroEngine Interview

    Posted by - Navarre

As a surprise to everyone, Hero's Hall has recently released an article talking about the features of Hero's Journey. Enjoy the read, and a special thanks to Thaos Nightwind, and Shadow001 for putting this article out.

Everyone is Unique



    Posted by - Frosty

Thanks to Deserttfoxx for this update. A recent article composed by firingsquad discusses the recent Bioware deal, and a bit more information about the Hero Engine.

Hopefully with these huge deals we can see Hero's Journey coming out sooner!

Link can be found below, and can also be found in our database of articles also linked.

Firing Squad Hero Engine Article
Hero's Hall Article Database

    Posted by - Frosty

Sweet, more info on Hero's Journey Lore!

Thanks Daax, for pointing this one out to us.

Check it out on Hero's Hall here

    Posted by - Presto

Big News! Simutronics announced on 8/8/06 the licensing of their homegrown game development tool "HeroEngine" to BioWare.

Simutronics' HeroEngine, in development for over 5 years, has been praised by many members of the staff for its ease of use and feature-rich programming tools. Bioware, creator of the legendary "Baldur's Gate" series has leased the software for development of their own MMORPG title.

This is good news for us - hopefully with the pressure relieved to sign a big-name corporate player Simutronics can now focus most of its resources on Hero's Journey and the upcoming beta release!

Hero's Journey Press Release

    Posted by - Shadow

Sorry for the late post, but make sure everyone checks out the IGN.com Sneak Peek #28, and the new GM blogs posted by TenTonHammer!

Links can be found below.

IGN.com Sneak Peak #28
Ten Ton Hammer GM Blogs

    Posted by - Frosty

Currently we are working on the forums. If you experience any errors, or problems don't worry about it! We know what is going on. We are just trying to get the old theme up.

Thanks for your support, and hopefully everything will be working fine, and looking good in no time.

    Posted by - Frosty

Wow, what a surprise this was for me. To wake up, check my e-mail and notice that we have definitely reached our donation request to purchase vB.

I know in every donation service, the person who put it on says, "Thanks everyone for your support.", and it gets generic, and old. I would rather do something different.

First, I would like to say thanks, and we here at Hero's Hall truly do appreciate the amount of support we have received in less than 24 hours. I would also like to pledge that Hero's Hall will be your #1 source for everything in Hero's Journey. Some of you I think will be amazed at what we are planning, and will truly enjoy the features that come with it.

Again! Thank you again everyone for what you have done. I truly cannot express how awesome that made me feel this morning.

    Posted by - Frosty

Hero's Hall has added a few new pages for everyone to read. However, we'll start off with the most recent MMORPG.com Dev Journal. This article features a bit more information on the Wyr. Make sure you check it out by clicking the link below.

MMORPG.com Dev Journal #11

Next on our agenda during this update is the recently created Hero's Hall job oppurtunities page! We'll update this page whenever a job oppurtunity closes, or we open a new one up. So make sure you keep checking back on this page. As a recent promotion to get the best, we are also going to start paying some of our staff pending on what they accomplish. So make sure you check out the page to see if you could earn some extra $$$. To find out more about our job oppurtunities click the link below.

Job Oppurtunities.

Lastly, some of you may have noticed on the right hand side a Paypal donate button. Some may know, but others not. Hero's Hall makes almost $0 revenue. All of us here at Hero's Hall are volunteers, and we are not paid to make this fansite. We have yet to see any money come even through the Google ads. So with the recent hacking of the forums, we have decided it is necessary to upgrade to a more safer forum. We have all decided to use vB. However, the license to purchase one is $160. I plan on making a large sum of that, but I do not have $160 to throw out. I'm in college, and don't have a lot of excess money.

I pledge to only use this money to purchase the vB forum, but please. Be generous. The faster we can get the $160, the faster we get new forums.

If you wish to donate, click the button on the right to donate, or the one below.

    Posted by - Frosty

I need everyone to go to this link, and read it. Hero's Hall has been hacked. We are working are hardest to get things back up, and running to what they were, but some things have been lost. Including post counts, but that's about it.

http://www.heroshall.com/forums/

    Posted by - Frosty

I am still in the process of moving, and getting to know my new surroundings here in Phoenix. Hopefully after I get my internet connection, this Wednesday, things will start looking more back to normal.

Still be looking for updates here at Hero's Hall as the staff here is working its hardest to make sure everything gets updated, and HJ news gets posted.

    Posted by - Frosty

  We've completed our second interview! This time we're interviewing.. ME! Check it out here!

    Posted by - Tasoli

  IGN's Sneek Peek #27 which talks about The Executioners of Quillmore has been updated and added into the articles database, you can find it here.

    Posted by - Tasoli

  We've updated the site with MMORPG.com's 10th Dev Journal, which you can check out here

    Posted by - Tasoli

We here at Hero's Hall had the idea to start interviewing the community. We figure that the community builds the game, so why not interview them? So every week from here on we will be interviewing someone from the forums, and finding a bit more about them.

Our first interview is with Morneblade. A lot of people probably know who Morneblade is, and know about his stance on raiding. This interview will throw a few surprises your way, so definatly give this a read.

A special thanks to Cordy for conducting this interview as well! The link can be found below.

Morneblade Interview

    Posted by - Frosty

Me, and Tasoli have been working hard lately on a new screenshots browser! Well mostly Tasoli, I just ruined things, and made more work for Tasoli. However, it is finnally completed!

Check it out in the link below, and let us know what you think of it in the forums!

Screenshots, and Concept Art

Their are still a few bugs, so please ignore those for now.

    Posted by - Frosty

Well I for one though we solved the problems, but I guess not. Hero's Hall, and the entire GoLevel network is having problems with our server. Nothing will be going offline, but things will load a bit slow when it comes to php scripts.

Sorry! We're trying to fix it as soon as possible.

    Posted by - Frosty

IGN has recently conducted another article on Hero's Journey. This time, it is based around the Quillmore and the Grenmeer Lowlands.

You can read this article by clicking the link below.

Link.

Also, in a way to help our forum members navigate Hero's Hall more we have included new RSS feeds.

    Posted by - Frosty

The articles page has been updated with the latest Developer Journals from MMORPG.com (#8 & #9).

If you find any articles we should post and/or link to, please drop us a note on the forums, and we'll do our best to post them as soon as we can!

    Posted by - Jaraeth

And this is what he has to say :)

Check it out here

    Posted by - Presto

So, are you looking to see a little bit about what Hero's Journey is all about? Then why not register on the forums, and download one of our many movie downloads?! You'll download a fast .zip file, and you'll soon get a feel for what Hero's Journey will be like.

Already registered on the forums? Here is the link below.

Link

    Posted by - Frosty

Hero's Hall has had yet another oppurtunity to talk to the Simutronics staff about Hero's Journey. This time it was with the art director Tracy Butler!

You can find the entire interview here.

Oh yea, I completely destroyed the articles.php page. I'll have it back up tommorow though! Sorry!

    Posted by - Frosty

Special thanks to crisisfox for pointing this one out to us.

Check it out here

    Posted by - Presto

Stephanie Shaver has given some of her insights on Role Playing to our friends over at MMORPG.com.

Check it out here

    Posted by - Presto

IGN released their Sneak Peek #24, introducing the deity Lorstra. You can find more info by reading the news article.

    Posted by - Jaraeth

Hero's Hall movies are being uploaded at this moment! In order to download them, you must register on the forums, by following this link, and then going to the Hero's Journey Movies forum, or by following this link.

    Posted by - Jaraeth

Sorry for the long downtime everyone! However, be expecting Hero's Hall to become even more amazing! Movies will come back online, more screenshots, faster downloads, and more content!

Sorry for the downtime everyone, but I invite everyone to jump back into Hero's Hall, and let's get started where we left off!

    Posted by - Frosty

I would like to invite everyone to join the #herosjourney IRC channel located on the gamesurget.net server. If you are not familiar with IRC, or would like further instructions on getting into this IRC channel, just click the 'IRC' button to the right!

It's really easy, and we have been getting some awsome conversations going. Make sure to check it out.

Enjoy!

    Posted by - Frosty

From our friends over at MMORPG.com, an article about Service Abilities, services that each player can provide to other players that makes them needed and unique.

Check it out here

    Posted by - Presto

Special