Founded in 1998, Infantry Online is the world's first 2D MMO isometric shooter that revolutionized online gaming by facilitating instantaneous battle for thousands of players around the globe, who each connected with 28.8K modems.
As the 22nd anniversary of the game approaches, Free Infantry (http://www.freeinfantry.com/) is still running and catering to a growing audience. While at one point the game has seen over 140,000 active players, today things are different with the advent of game publishing platforms such as Valve’s Steam, EA’s Origin and others.
As of today Free Infantry is operating as the "benevolent custodian" of Infantry Online, a not-for-profit, player driven community with development and operating costs covered by the staff members since the official shutdown of Sony Online Entertainment servers in March 2012.
Today the community behind Free Infantry is reaching out to Daybreak Game Company to help save this 22-year-old MMO. They are seeking a similar written agreement reached by Daybreak Game Company and Classic Everquest project named “Project 1999” which has seen its community continue on, actively and lively, after official server shutdown as well.
“While the project is active and the player base is growing in numbers, we are seeing new issues crop up as a result of us using the original client”, said project coordinator Jovan. “Recent Windows 10 updates are causing the players to have a suboptimal experience. We do what we can to assist them in getting the client to work, but it isn’t ideal, and we are unsure of when Windows will pull the plug on the underlying technology that this client relies on.”
A recent open letter (http://www.freeinfantry.com/an-open-letter-to-daybreak-game-company-leadership.html) to Daybreak Game Company leadership team (including it’s CEO Ji Ham) penned by FreeInfantry.com lists the ways in which Daybreak could assist:
Looking into the future, there are a number of opportunities that we would like to explore:
- The game client that Free Infantry uses is still the original Infantry Online client. It uses DirectDraw which has more compatibility issues with each new Windows version since the client was released.
- Some of the tools used also require the zone developers to run them in compatibility mode which may not always work. We are unsure how much longer the game client will remain usable, and would like to maintain and update it.
- Infantry Online is not present on the premier game publishing platform Steam, which we believe would help further grow and promote the community. We would like to get Infantry Online published on Steam.
With your guidance and assistance, we are eager to make the above happen.
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About Free Infantry:
Free Infantry is a MMO combat video game. Originally released in 1999, the game was taken offline by Sony Online Entertainment and the servers shut down in March 2012. The Infantry community subsequently took control of the game and re-launched it independently at freeinfantry.com.
Press Contact:
contact@freeinfantry.com