Lane was responsible for the development of Dark Reign and Trainz as well as the early Auran Jet Graphics Engine of Trainz V1.x, Trainz Virtual Railway and the Ultimate Trainz Collection the upgraded Jet technology (JET 2) of Trainz 2004 and Trainz 2006 and evolutionarily, is still at the heart of all Trainz releases through TS2009. In late 2005, after overseeing the stabilization (four service packs released in one year) of the Trainz 2004 and Trainz 2006 retail releases, one of the company's founders, Greg Lane, left, saying publicly it was time to move on. Prior to that and the Trainz series of simulators, Auran had published a number of Auran Jet based games for the Australian market, including Shadowgrounds and Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday. In the ensuing bankruptcy the company lost most of its development staff. Success of Dark Reign spurred interest in the game engine from other games developers, and Auran began in-house development of a generalized version of the graphics engine for licensing to third-party companies based on its self-developed middleware game engine called the Auran JET and in 1998 began development of a more specialized version for what became the game engine for the Trainz series of train simulator products-beta tested with Trainz 0.9 in 2000 amongst railfans, and with a major new release about every 2½ years.Īuran grew steadily on the Trainz revenues and, in 2007, invested heavily and overextended its finances developing the Fury video game, a player versus player (PvP) based massively multiplayer online game which never recouped its costs. ) Since 2007, the re-titled N3V Games has taken over primary day to day operation, development, and management of the Auran/N3V panoply of resources, websites, holdings, and software. When Auran overextended backing the wrong product in early 2007, Hilliam bought in, and initially brought out several republished or rebundled packaged releases as new product titles to boost cash flow ( Trainz Routes, Trainz Complete Collection and eventually the regionally focused Trainz Classics and Europe only releases. The game received a 9.2 rating on GameSpot and was called "one of the most impressive games released this year in any genre." īy the mid-2000s, Tony Hilliam had established a video game company 'N3VrF41L Games' while occasionally participating on the Auran forums as a Trainz fan. Dark Reign sold over 685,000 units and was rated in the top ten real-time strategy games by the US magazine Game Developer. Auran is now operated as a holding company, with operations and development ceded to N3V Games, a different closely held company.Īuran was established by Greg Lane and Graham Edelsten in 1995, and released its first game, Dark Reign: The Future of War, in 1997. N3V Games (formerly Auran Development and later n3vrf41l Publishing) is an Australian video game developer and publisher based in Helensvale, Queensland, Australia. For for the Marvel comics character, see Auran (comics).ġ995 28 years ago ( 1995) (as Auran Development) Visit the game's Web site for more details."Auran" redirects here. A closed beta test for the game will start this June. The game will initially be distributed online, and Auran will announce retail publishing deals in the future. Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004 is scheduled for release at the end of this year. "With TRS 2004, we've made sure that installing this new content will be even easier so that you don't have to be a computer expert to experience all the extra fun." "We have experienced more than 1 million downloads of custom content already from our Trainz Download Station," Hilliam said. We've also significantly enhanced the graphics utilizing the new Auran Jet V2 game engine."Īuran says that the amount of downloadable custom content will double, to roughly 20,000 items. We've put a tremendous amount of work into things such as steam locomotives and driving physics and are offering users a far greater sense of purpose with animated industries that use resources and output goods. "We have listened to what the market wants and made everything even more realistic. "Based on two years of continual product refinement and customer feedback, we believe Auran is poised to gain a major share of this rapidly growing new genre," said Tony Hilliam, Auran's marketing director. In addition to using the game's prebuilt environments, players can build train routes and environments by choosing from thousands of objects and using built-in tools to customize them. Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004 will feature a selection of steam, diesel, and electric locomotives, as well as a large variety of freight and passenger cars. Unlike Microsoft's Train Simulator, which focuses on driving real-world locomotives, Auran's train games focus on the construction and control of miniature trains. Auran Games has announced that it has a sequel to Trainz called Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004 in the works.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |