Co-Chairman and President of Perpetual Entertainment Chris McKibbin has announced that they will be putting Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising on hold indefinitely to focus on Star Trek Online. According to him, they made this decision after evaluating the current competitive landscape, the game's state, and the company's goals. 

McKibbin pointed out that they would still need to make a "significant investment" if they want Gods & Heroes to reach the level of quality and polishing they want. Apparently, they don't have the resources to do that at the moment so they decided to shift their focus to Star Trek Online.

Fans of the Gods & Heroes will undoubtedly be disappointed by this move by Perpetual Entertainment. It was pretty surprising considering it was only recently when they started asking for more beta testers for a stress test. On the bright side, the company hasn't completely abandoned the game and may choose to go back to developing it after they have finished Star Trek Online.

Gamasutra reports that the release of Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, the upcoming MMORPG from developer Perpetual Entertainment, has once again been pushed back, this time due to the need for further beta testing. The game was already delayed back in December 2006.

Perpetual will also reportedly be laying off around 30 to 40 people, similar to what happened when the game was first delayed. In an interview with Gamasutra, Perpetual CEO Chris McKibbin said that while content creation requires a sizable team, "the process of really play-tuning and balancing takes a much smaller, more focused and agile team", hence the layoffs.

McKibbin further stated that the company will be helping its former employees in finding new jobs within Perpetual or with other developers. McKibbin declined to give a specific release date for Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, but mentioned that the company is looking at an early 2008 release.

In the MMO video game Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, players are tasked to venture to an epic journey and help save Rome and the Olympian Gods themselves. With this kind of endeavor in hand, players sure do need some practice.

That's why Perpetual Entertainment just announced the closed beta testing for the title. Now, closed beta doesn't always mean the community gets left out. You can actually participate as the developers put up an official dedicated sign up page.

All you have to do is go to Rome Rising's official site, register, and pray to the gods that you get chosen. Perpetual Entertainment Co-Chairman and President Chris McKibbin said,

By identifying what works and what does not, our closed beta testers will help shape the final version of the game. It's an exclusive opportunity to help us polish the final version of Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, thus making it a truly legendary experience.

One of the good things about Rome Rising is its rather unique squad combat system. Here, players will have the ability to command the powers of the gods and their own custom squad to battle larger-than-life enemies such as Cyclops, Minotaur, Hydra, Medusa, and the other creatures from the Roman pantheon.

What are you waiting for would-be heroes of Rome? The sign up page awaits via our Read link below!

There have been reports that Perpetual Entertainment allegedly laid off 35 of its employees, citing budget issues related to the delay of its MMORPG Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, or so says an anonymous employee. Gamasutra reports that the delay of the MMO release was believed to be an estimated six to ten months.

The layoffs are supposedly a cost-saving measure to accommodate the increase in the development time. The terminations also included several members of the development team of Star Trek Online.

Contrary to earlier reports, an official statement on behalf of Perpetual president and co-founder Chris McKibbin was posted on the God & Heroes community forums. It says that the delay of the game is related to feedback from beta testers, and that the Gods and Heroes development team remains over 80 people strong. The statement reads:

As some of you may have heard we have made some staffing changes at Perpetual. We are proud to announce that we are within a month of being content complete on Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, our upcoming AAA MMO title. As we achieve this major development milestone, a number of content production roles come to an end. The Gods & Heroes team remains over 80 talented people strong as we enter the final phase prior to launch -- play-testing and tuning to deliver the highest quality game possible.

In addition, because we value the feedback our beta testers have been giving us, and because we want to ship the highest quality game possible, we have moved our target ship date from the spring to the summer of 2007. This extension of the testing and tuning phase of the project will allow us to focus entirely on making a great game – which is our #1 goal.

Perpetual remains 100% committed to shipping a fantastic Gods & Heroes game and to continuing development of the much-anticipated Star Trek Online.

Community response regarding the delay seems positive. Apparently people just want the game polished really well. For more info on the Official Statement and player response feel free to use our read-link below