About
The realm is in chaos. Armies clash on every battlefield. Enemies scheme in every shadow, maneuvering for power. Their eyes and ears are upon you, watching your every move. Some plot against you. Some plot with you. Some do both. Do you have the strength and the wits it will takes to conquer them all and ascend to power?
Kingdom Ascent (KA) is an online game based on an updated version of the highly popular game engine used to create Game of Thrones Ascent. In it, you will swear allegiance to a kingdom that draws upon an alternate, high-fantasy version of medieval Europe, combining many of the most expansive mythological aspects of pan-European history and lore. Magic, dragons, giants, and other fantastic beasts walk the land. You must harness their power and strategically form both military and political alliances with and against other noble houses to pursue the ultimate goal of ruling them all.
Kingdom Ascent will be the first free-to-play game of its kind, unique among free-to-play games in its offer of an unprecedented level of player inclusion, involvement and transparency in governing its roadmap and features. Look to the FAQs for more information about the House of Patrons and the Chamber of Players that, together, will constitute Kingdom Ascent’s Player Parliament.
More information about the game system upon which Kingdom Ascent will be based can be found by visiting http://gota.disruptorbeam.com. Players who have previously played Game of Thrones Ascent will be able to port their Disruptor Beam account into Kingdom Ascent, preserving their inventories and progress (subject to certain limitations explained in the FAQs.)
Kingdom Ascent will be marketed and operated by a new game publishing entity, A Curious Enterprise (ACE). Disruptor Beam, the original developer of Game of Thrones Ascent, is licensing its game platform to ACE for this purpose, and will be responsible for development and technical work necessary to relaunch the new game.
Art Style of Kingdom Ascent
The original artists who worked on Game of Thrones Ascent are working on Kingdom Ascent. For an example of the art style, see how Jon Radoff looks in his all-new character artwork below. If you select one of the reward-tiers that includes an original piece of art made based on your likeness, you can expect yours to be of similar quality:
The Developer & Publisher
Disruptor Beam Inc. has developed a number of games based on leading entertainment franchises including Game of Thrones, Star Trek and The Walking Dead. Jon Radoff, the CEO of Disruptor Beam, is a long-time game developer. He got his start writing BBS-style "door" games when he was in high school--some of the earliest multiplayer online games, including classic Space Empire. At 19, he met his future wife Angela in an online game and the two of them decided to start a game company together. Since then, Jon has also had the opportunity to create technology companies (Eprise, a Web content management company that went public on NASDAQ) and GamerDNA, an ad network for the PC/console game industry. Jon & Angela formed Disruptor Beam several years ago because they wanted to bring deep, story-driven and socially-connected games to the world of mobile and Web.
A Curious Enterprise is a new game publisher formed to launch and market Kingdom Ascent, led by a long-time player of Game of Thrones Ascent, along with his partners from the telecommunications industry.
Risks and challenges
Game of Thrones Ascent was previously played by over 11 million people, so there's a large audience out there--but today, the audience is relatively small: only about 10,000 players per day. As a result, there's a small audience to draw upon for Kingdom Ascent. However, this audience is very loyal and engaged, and we believe that if most come over to Kingdom Ascent they'll love the experience even more than the original.
In addition, the game will be published by a new publisher: A Curious Enterprise (ACE). ACE will be responsible for marketing & growth of the new game. However, since ACE is a new business that hasn't operated a game before, this introduces the usual risks as with any new company. However, ACE will be working closely with the team at Disruptor Beam to transfer the necessary operating knowledge to the new venture.
There are a number of game systems that didn't work that well in Game of Thrones Ascent. In these cases, we're optimistic that we can fix the underlying issues to systems such as Alliance-vs-Alliance (AvA) gameplay. However, game development is inherently risky and it is possible (and even likely) we won't do everything we hoped. We intend to mitigate this risk by working closely with the community, listening carefully, and testing new versions of AvA before it launches.
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