The “Fury” Hath Been Unleashed
By Steve on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 11:08 PM PST In Computer, Game Platforms, Games
After a so-called “150 man years of effort”, Auran have set loose their highly anticipated PvP focused MMORPG (based on Unreal 3 Technology, no less), Fury, to the masses. If you were a participant in the open beta of Fury, you probably caught wind of the Fury Challenge held September 14 through October 7. It seems over $2 million in prizes were given away in what I would call one heck of a marketing ploy to get people interested in their drop in a seemingly ocean of prospective MMOs. If you missed out on the event, no big deal. Supposedly, Auran plan on offering future challenge events on a regular basis.
In the wake of Fury’s launch, Auran’s CEO, Tony Hilliam, summed up his thoughts in a “Day One Report Card“. It’s a long read, but it does give some insight as to the ambition of this Australian based MMO developer.
For those not in-the-know, Fury is not your ordinary PvP MMO (although, many would compare it to Guild Wars). For example, spell-casting in Fury has no cool-down period, effectively making the combat more frenzied than most other MMOs; you know the type: stand still, cast spell, tap foot, & fruitlessly die because someone was wailing on your frozen character. Auran hopes to liven the PvP experience by offering a multitude of combat modes and battlegrounds, with more promised on the way. Auran’s long-term ambition is to ultimately keep Fury a fresh MMO by constantly providing more content and game types in its expected 5 year lifespan.
Looks like if you love MMOs, and more specifically, love PvP, this might be one online game worth checking out. The Fury website states it will be launching hundreds of these so-called ladders at the end of the month, as well as offering a personal statistics at such time. Right now it looks like Fury is going through a slow population growth due to either players’ disinterest in purchasing it through online digital distribution, or the fact that the hardcopies aren’t exactly making it into stores as quickly as Auran hoped. So if you can’t seem to find the game at your local retailer, give it a little more time.
Gamestop currently shows Fury listed as $49.99, or if you can’t wait, you can try your luck with an online digital distribution purchase at Auran’s Online Shop. Keep in mind that if plan on purchasing Fury, you’ll have to fork over $9.95 a month to keep your subscription status going. You can technically play the game for “free” at the price of a severely gimped mode (how gimped remains to be seen). If you are morbidly curious as to what “free” brings you, there’s a download link for the client via Fury’s official forums. YMMV.
