In the first free content upgrade for the game, Age of the Chosen (available December 14), players will have the option of getting furious for free.

Tony Hilliam, CEO of Auran said in a press release:

FURY was built around giving players options that suit their play style and their wallet. With the AotC update, we are introducing a new player category called “Chosen”. As one of the Chosen, players can access all game types, equip all weapons and unlock all 400 abilities – and they can play as much as they like absolutely free.

Players who choose to go the free route will get less money and essence and will not be able to trade with other players, but will get the opportunity to use all weapons and unlock all skills.

Of course, for a fee, players can upgrade their account to “Hero” status. (You get to be a hero by saving the game from its lackluster sales and poor reviews). Throwing down a 20 spot at your local games retailer will net you the Hero pack, and a free month of the “Immortal” subscription, a $30 value.

It looks like clear cut case of a game desperate for a life line. Auran is opening up free content to generate some more players, hoping people will jump on the bandwagon and salvage the sinking ship, and maybe offering some free play will be just the thing this game needs to get a solid base.

It may not be huge, but at least it might slow the bleeding.

In reviewing our incoming links this morning, we came across one titled “And Now For A Taste Of Things To Come”. We of course clicked it out of curiosity, and were surprised at what we found.

The incoming link pointed to our review of Fury, developed by Auron, and was part of what appeared to be a resignation announcement by one of their developers.

In this announcement, “Doolwind” states the following…

“We had a great new game coming up, great people and some awesome tech made by the engine programmer. It’s a shame that I’ll no longer be working with the team, but unfortunately there are some things I just can’t change.”

The words “just can’t change” were linked to our review, which scored the game a 4.0 out of 10. Good or bad, a review is simply one individual’s opinion of a game, and while some may agree with it, others will often criticize it.

Whether the “things I can’t change” comment was referring to the negative press the game was receiving overall, or the actual issues listed in our review is unclear. Below is the post in its entirety.

And Now For A Taste Of Things To Come

I finally resigned from Auran a couple of weeks ago. I’ve wanted to try running my own software development company for a while now and I’ve been asked to write a book based on my programming personality test. I thought I was going to be contracting at Auran; however it seems they’ve run out of money, or projects or something and I’ll now be contracting 3 days per week at the company I used to work with, MVH. While I’m glad to be leaving Auran, I’m going to miss the team I was working with. We had a great new game coming up, great people and some awesome tech made by the engine programmer. It’s a shame that I’ll no longer be working with the team, but unfortunately there are some things I just can’t change.

As fate would have it, my 4th anniversary for being in the games industry comes up tomorrow. While I’ll still be working on games tech as a contractor, I’m officially no longer a full-time game programmer. I’ve now moved into the realm of entrepreneur and business owner. I’ve also just moved into my new home and am more over moving than I’ve ever been. I’ve set up a small home office with a few computers, whiteboard etc ready for the business to begin. I’ll keep you posted with how things go, however I’ll still keep this blog primarily game related.

A game’s music has the power to completely immerse the player, or drive him totally insane. A well-placed song can turn a regular gaming experience into something deeper, even spiritual.

Portuguese composer Pedro Macedo Camacho recognizes that a game’s music should augment its environment, not pollute it. With several awards to his name and a varied resume that includes Autumn Moon’s upcoming Vampyre Story, it’s not surprising that Pedro was picked up to compose the music for Auran’s Fury.

With its fast-paced PvP matches, Fury needed background music that players would be happy to bust heads to, and according to Producer Paul Whipp, they found it with Pedro:

“We’ve agonized over getting the perfect music for Fury for well over a year now. Pedro nailed it with his well paced, sharp and beautifully themed compositions. We’re delighted to have such a talented composer working with us.”

Ripten was fortunate enough to net an interview with Pedro. He talks to us about how he achieved Fury’s intense sound, his inspirations, and a little bit about upcoming projects.

Q: Since Fury boasts some of the fastest gameplay ever presented in a PvP game (with less lag before or after characters cast spells, etc), did you compose the game with a tribal hunt in mind? There’s a lot of heavy percussion in some of the pieces that really stirs the blood.

A: Fury is all about hardcore and fast action gameplay and working for the game completely changed my own concept of “battle music”. In Fury, normal battle music would not have enough power for a warm up. I still remember my surprised reaction when I submitted my first composition for a battle track on this game.

I did the most active music I thought possible to suit any game and the feedback was that is was too soft! Imagine that. A day later I had a new version made with the most aggressive and powerful percussion I ever used (with a lot of care in terms of theme development and overall art direction of course) and that one finally was approved.

Screen image from “Fury”

The game is about 4 combat schools (Growth – Earth Element; Life – Water element; Death – Fire element, Decay – Air Element) So in the each of the combat pieces I gave them a different setting to fit the school in question. Tribal Hunt, as you mentioned, was really in my mind for Growth School.

Q: Of course, there are pieces that are calming and beautiful–but still menacing. Did you find it difficult to strike a balance between melody and urgency?

A: It is not an easy thing but I was glad everything came out very natural from me. Apart from the first combat piece, all my other pieces came out suiting the game quite well and quickly. I am a melodic composer and I think music in the end should always serve a melody. If you notice, most soundtracks that you can remember from the past are the ones you can sing the melody in your brain. With this in mind, I always make sure melodies are not compromised at all by the orchestration, so ‘urgency elements’ in the orchestrations are added with a lot of care.

Still in the melody subject, I shared in all tracks a common main theme melodic motif. This motif was used and reused in the most different ways you can imagine so you might not catch every time the motif comes in.

Screen image from “Fury”

Also in this game Life and Death are distant in terms of setting (Fire vs Water) but very close since heroes never actually die. With this in mind I used a second melodic motif to share in all Life and Death school tracks. The main difference is that Death school track were composed in 5/4 time signature with a dark mood and Life school tracks in the usual 4/4 time signature with a lighter mood.

Q: How far along was Fury when you began composing for it? Was the game still an idea on paper? Were several environments already built? Or were you just given an extensive idea of what Auran was looking for in terms of music?

A: I came into the game quite late in the production process so things were already in mid alpha but for me the most important thing is to understand the world I am working in and take some days to read the story of the game for at least three times. Then I was given a precious written description of each piece. Having some screenshots and being able to test the game was a plus but I never actually needed that to compose. Music is extremely important for a videogame and it must “paint” what you can and cannot see in your monitor.

Q: You’re also working on “A Vampyre Story” by Autumn Moon, which is a little more lighthearted than Fury–but still carries a bit of a dark theme. Though the soundtrack likely won’t be as urgent as Fury’s, are you still aiming towards a more ghoulish sound, or something a little less serious?

A: Let me tell you, A Vampyre Story is going to be really great game! For starters it is being done by the same art team that did all Monkey Islands while at Lucas Arts. Music in this game has absolutely nothing to do with Fury. In Fury I did an epic soundtrack mixed with a lot of ethnic and some electronic sounds. A Vampyre Story is a really funny and spooky pure orchestral soundtrack. The soundtrack will be a mix of my own composing language with a bit of inspiration on John Williams’ work in Harry Potter, some groovy pieces that remind me of the Monkey Island setting and folk music from around the world.

Screen image from “A Vampyre Story”

Q: Do you have a preference for composing haunting, serious music over more lighthearted fare?

A: I have a preference in being able to work at the same time for different kinds of projects that enable me to explore an orchestra under a complete opposite angle and orchestration. I love variety because that each time I switch project I feel like I am breathing fresh air. Something I would not like to do would be to compose epic music for many games one after the other all of them with a similar story setting.

Because I am a classical trained composer I must say I love to use orchestra but I love to mix it with several other types of sounds. For example, I wish I have a project in a near future of a hardcore fast paced racing game so I could make an electronica / experimental soundtrack with some orchestral elements.

Q: Your biography on Autumn Moon’s website mentions that you started composing music at the age of fifteen, an age where average kids are still having trouble dressing in matching clothes. What inspired you to start writing music? What were some of your earliest projects like?

A: I always loved music and games a lot, just like my father, but I only decided to start composing around that age. I am not sure if it is directly linked but that was as soon as my father got extremely sick.
In the last months of his life I composed my first music ever and showed it to him. He liked it a lot and praised it and that meant a lot to me. Some days after that he got worse and I would never be able to show him any music again.

It was made in the computer that marked my life the most, the Amiga in a program called OctaMED Pro that came in a coverdisk of a magazine. I can go around things like this quite easily but I am sure music helped a lot on this one because it kept my mind busy all the time and made me quite determined that I wanted make music for games when I was older.

My earliest projects were making music just for the sake of doing them and composing for live ensembles as part of my composition studies.

After years of studying composition, harmony, orchestration, counterpoint and more than a decade sequencing on my own I decided it was time to accept my first game project. This happened only 1 year ago.

Q: Obligatory question: What/who are your inspirations today? Are there any specific games that you feel have particularly inspiring music?

A: The composers that most influenced me were: Johann Sebastian Bach, Josquin des Prez, Johannes Ockeghem, Palestrina, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Eurico Carrapatoso, Luís Tinoco, Claude Debussy, Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, Matt Uelmann, Richard Wagner and John Williams,.

Also, in general, World Ethnic Music and Old School Amiga Demo Scene Music and metal, influenced me a lot.

My favorite music pieces are The Firebird and Rite of Spring from Stravinsky, Tristan and Isolde from Wagner, St. Mathew Passion and so many other incredible works from Bach, Quator pour la fin du temps from Olivier Messiaen.

Elvira’s game music served as an inspiration

Some games that were musically inspiring were: Shadows of the Beast, Flashback, Another World, Project X, Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3, James Pond, Elvira Mistress of Dark, Diablo 2, Dragon’s Breath (aka Dragon Lord), Wipeout, Zack Mckracken, StarCraft, Speedball 2 and The Chaos Engine.

"Pretty sure the big flaming "F" on the box stands for failure."

As an avid MMO player with three level 70s in World of Warcraft, I always hated the idea of grinding for experience. It seems so archaic. There is little fun to be had in killing the same thing over and over just to increase your numerical value by one digit. Fury appeals to the idea that grinding is for suckers. So when I heard that a company was claiming they had a game that would redefine PvP, I jumped at the chance to review it.

Auran, the games developer, is attempting to cater to the gamers who tried titles like WoW and Guild Wars only to be disappointed due to boredom, or did not want to invest the time it takes to get a high level character. In fact the city chat in Fury is filled almost exclusively with people bashing WoW.

It is this type of gamer that Fury seems to be catering to, as the game offers absolutely no leveling in terms of character progression. The idea behind this is that the characters in Fury are all legendary figures brought back to fight and collect essence to power their respective sanctuary. However, I felt that this message was poorly conveyed and felt more like an excuse than a fleshed out storyline.

The first thing you must tackle after installing the game is the account set up process. After reading on the box that the game was "free", I was very surprised to find out they offer an optional subscription service. There is a somewhat long list of features that are only offered in the subscription plan.

The pricing structure is very similar to Hellgate London, in that players can opt to get a few extra perks, and a little bit more content each month if they elect to pay a small monthly fee. In other words, while the game can be played for free, you won't get the full experience that way. Fury Costs $9.99 a month, and for fans of the game, it seems like a pretty fair deal.

After downloading and installing the necessary patches, you'll be prompted to create your first character. Make sure you like the name, because there are no extra character slots. Additionally you can never delete your character. When asked to comment on this, Lead Developer Adam Carpenter went on to say, "Really at the end of the day there's no reason to have a second character, since your avatar can have as many as a dozen items, and you can learn every single ability in the game. So having a second character doesn't really afford you any opportunities." Additionally, players can also modify the appearance of their characters anytime during gameplay.

The first thing you'll notice upon starting the tutorial and walking around the game world is the graphics. It really looks like the engine could have used a few more months in development. Running on a high end system that can play Bioshock with settings turned on high, Fury brought framerates to a grinding halt. The visuals just don't seem proportionate to the performance. In addition the overall aesthetics could have used some work. There really isn't anything unique in the art direction for Fury. It looks boring and drab, there is nothing here to differentiate it from any other Fantasy RPG.

While wrapping up the tutorial portion of the game, one thought seared through my mind like the flames surrounding the games four letter logo: "I know these guys are from Australia, but did they really need to hire Nicole Kidman to do the voice over?" Now, I am pretty sure the VO was not Nicole Kidman, but my point is that it was dry, repetitive, and at times excruciatingly annoying as it stated "Please choose your archetype....Please choose your archetype...Please choose your archetype" over and over again. You could say that this aspect of the game left me FURY-ious (Yeah, I said it). Thinking of this woman being mauled by a bear was probably the single highest moment I experienced while playing this game.

After the tutorial you are asked to choose your archetype (sound familiar?), and your choices are as follows: life, growth, death, decay, as well as melee, or spiritual. Choose quickly, though, because in case you forget, you will be prodded relentlessly to do so by Nicole's evil twin.

You gain new skills as well as essence as you perform your chosen archetype's attacks in combat. For instance, if you kill three people with a death spell, you will then gain death essence to spend on new skills. Each new skill requires that you go through a trial in order to obtain it. Don't worry though, you won't actually have to do anything complicated in these trials. Simply click through the cliché fantasy dialogue and bam, you have a new fireball spell!

This brings me to one of the most promising features in Fury-- the ability to switch your incarnation (character class) on the fly. For instance, say your group needs a life archetype, all you need to do is spend some equipment points, and throw a few healing spells onto your "hotbar".

Players have 1,000 equipment points at their disposal, and each piece of armor, as well as every weapon in the game will cost you a certain amount of equipment points to add on. This mechanic works well, as it gives you the option to change your class, but also makes sure you don't load up your characters hotbar with every Archetype specific spell available in the game at once.

Actual image of me playing in the game

Considering the difficulty of getting a healing class in almost any other MMO, Fury's approach to this aspect of gameplay is refreshing. Sadly though, very few players that I came across were actually using the life archetype. After all, who wants to run around healing, when they could be killing instead?

The game's PvP arenas are set in epic landscapes, with Unreal Tournament style powerups strewn throughout. All character progression is earned in these battlefields, spanning from Icy Villages to Ancient Ruins. This is the bread and butter of Fury.

If they nailed one thing about Fury, it would hands-down be the environments. It's a shame however, that the combat system makes for confrontations that are nowhere near as interesting as the surroundings they take place in.

About one third of the attack animations never seemed to materialize on screen. It often ended up looking like you were running around staring at your enemies, waiting to get slaughtered. When they did work, it felt very similar to the new style of combat regurgitated onto Star Wars Galaxies. This is NOT a good system to model your game after.

Auran tried to make actions feel fast, and twitch based. However it turned into a button mashing bout, as the poor use of on-screen cues meant to highlight "cooldown" periods often left you unsure about which attacks were available. The idea was for you to look at the bar on the bottom of the screen, but doing so in a fast paced battle type environment just doesn't work. A better approach may have been to apply a thin border to the screen edges that changed color based on what attacks you had available.

When it comes to options, the inclusion of only three types of PvP modes, Vortex (Capture the Flag), Elimination (Team Deathmatch), and Bloodbath (Deathmatch) is simply inexcusable. They get old very quickly, and not being able to implement different objectives for each warzone, something that you think would be a no-brainer, was very disappointing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Actual footage of me playing in the game

Getting slaughtered seems to be the theme of combat in Fury. The customer service rep assured me that the matchmaking feature was in place and working properly, however, it seemed to match up players at random. Every warzone I went into had people with far better gear than I did, which meant three or four hits would constantly put me out of commission. I discussed this with Adam, and he stated, "You can get decent matches right now, but they're harder to come by because populations are low."

When you're not getting your ass kicked in the warzones, you will be taken to a sanctuary, Sanctarum, the game's one and only city. Here you can meet up with other players to buy and sell items won on the battlefield, and to make pre-made PvP groups. Sadly there is very little positive interaction here, as most of the chat boils down to how WoW is for babies. However, I did manage to pin down a well-geared, high-ranked player for a short interview. Meet Merr!

Me: Can you please state your title and incarnation (character class) for our readers?

Merr: My name is Merr and I am an Overlord.

Me: What games, specifically MMOs, have you played in the past?

Merr: I have played WoW and Guild Wars.

Me: What aspects of Fury interested you before you bought the game, then to follow up, have your expectations been met?

Merr: I expected a PvP game and maybe a little more, but mostly my expectations have been met. It's a casual in-between game.(Between two big games)

Me: Fury as a whole wasn't on a lot of gamers' radar, do you think this title has the potential to be a sleeper hit? Or do you see it fizzling out after a few months?

Merr: I think it will be an under the radar hit, but might fizzle out in about a year.

Me: Have you experienced any technical problems? Such as rubber banding, or frame rate issues?

Merr: Not so far, however I think this game will experience some problems, because there's probably going to be a lot of patches.

Me: If you could change one thing about the game, what would it be?

Merr: I would add more PvP types, because if its based on PvP there should be more than three types of gameplay.

My hats goes off to Merr, as the Overlord was clearly able to stomach much more than I could in regards to this game.

So what happened to Fury? Was it doomed since they announced the price point was going to be 50$? Especially seeing as how most other MMOs in the same price range have PVE content to go along with the PvP experience. I asked Adam what factors they considered when deciding on a price. "Primarily so that the box price point is competitive with WoW and Guild Wars, and also with FPS games and other things from that genre. So we figured that it would be appropriate to charge that much at retail since we're offering the same value you would get from your typical FPS, with the additional value of persistence from an MMO."

How can a game like Fury compete in an extremely competitive market? What makes this game different from WoW and Guild Wars, Fury's main competition? Mr. Carpenter went on to state, "Primarily that we are one hundred percent pure PvP. Where as those two are hybrid games, and many times I think of them as bi-polar games. Because the developers are constantly having to focus on whether some aspect of PvP is impacting PvE and vice versa. How we're planning on competing is just too keep ourselves distinct, and now we can focus on making things as fun as possible for PvP without having to make sacrifices for PvE."

Can any game hope to compete against the 9 million strong cultural Phenomenon that is World of Warcraft? Not if they turn out like Fury. I couldn't even recommend this game to those who don't enjoy the traditional MMO. There simply isn't enough game here to sink your teeth into. I could run around most MMORPGs for weeks and not come close to seeing all the content implemented. Alternatively, you could play Fury for about three days, and see all the content the game has to offer.

The games box features a quote stating "This is PvP Reborn", well if that's the case, safe sex would have been a better way to go. One can only hope the Australian-based development company learns from the mistakes they made this time around, and improves upon what, in theory, has the potential to be a nice addition for fans of this genre.

Your parents may have told you that the countless hours you spent gaming in front of your monitor would amount to nothing, well here is your chance to at least try to prove them wrong.

Australia based Auran Games and Gamecock Media Group in association with Codemasters Online have announced the world’s first open beta event for their upcoming PVP MMO — FURY.

The event dubbed “Fury Challenge” will be awarding an excess of $1,000,000 in prizes and is being billed as the richest prize pool ever for an online role-playing event.

“We believe that FURY will be the start of a PVP revolution, so why not create a revolutionary Open Beta event to show the world that we have arrived,” stated Tony Hilliam, Auran CEO.

The event will kick off on September 14th and be available over the course of three consecutive weekends. The first will be dedicated to practice, leveling up, unlocking abilities, and experimentation — not the kind you did in your parents basement.

In weeks two and three, the gloves come off and players will compete for real. There will be three game types in all on seven different ladders. The ladders will be based on a specific game types and each gamer will receive a cumulative score based on the ten best games they played that given weekend.

“We’ve lined up a huge array of prizes from our sponsors including NVidia, Dell, IGN, GameStop, Harvey Norman, FHM, Logitech and ZBoard,” said Brian Cooke, Auran Marketing Director.

The list of sponsors and prizes is still growing and will be continually updated via the www.furychallenge.com.

For the full rules and conditions of entry, visit www.FuryChallenge.com/Rules.

Fury will be hitting retail stores in USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on October 9th and throughout Europe on October 12th.