History
From CoCWiki
Contents |
2am Games: The Company That Started It All
2am’s goal was to "bring together as many people as possible in the world’s greatest gaming rooms." Using the game development platform CREATION, they were able to do just that.
In 1994, the president of 2am, Eli Ehrman, started development on CREATION. CREATION was a tool used to create 2am’s online games, which could be played across the world. It had a fast animation engine, a communication layer for bringing people together, and an advanced scripting language that enabled designers to quickly create games. CREATION allowed ideas to turn into realities.
On November 1st 1996, 2am released its first online game for testing. The game Alliance and Defiance. During November of 1996, three games were currently available, and three more were planned to be released that month. And by the end of 1997, four to six additional games were scheduled to be released. 2am’s games were, in no particular order: Animated Chess, Poker, Entrepreneur, Alliance & Defiance, Chain of Command, Backgammon, Total War, Checkers, and The Invisible Hand.
One person aspiring to make an online game was Mark Granat (also known as “mgg”). After his military experience, he was determined to bring his war game ideas to life. He soon joined 2am as Director of Game Design, and began building his game: Chain of Command.
By June 1st 1997, Chain of Command was ready to be tested by 2am’s "Founding Members." In March of 1999, Chain of Command was released into beta.
There were many planned additions to the game that were never implemented. Some of these were:
- Expanding of the terrain varieties
- Available weapon types
- Armored (and unarmored) fighting vehicles
- Artillery and air support
- New theaters of operations
- Different military forces
Since the 2am Game Club was freeware, it soon began to fall into a financial hole. 2am used banners to provide them with the money they needed to keep the club alive. However, the money they were receiving from the banners was not meeting the requirements to pay the bills. 2am was soon forced to fire all of their employees, since they were not able to pay them. Chain of Command was soon shut down, never to be seen again (April 2001).
The spirit of 2am’s games lived on. The hundreds of disgruntled players that used to play 2am’s various games stayed in contact with each other, specifically the Chain of Command players. In the old forums they cried out for the game they all loved to return. Some of the wealthier players that worked in business in real life even tried buying the game and code, but that plan soon faltered as the investment price was too high and the technology was fading.
Some of the more serious players had enough. In October of 2001, a new project was announced that gave CoC players hope and would ease the pains and urges to play the great game. It was called “Sons of Glory,” and begun creation by CoC player “BishopCLS” (aka CSchetter). SoG was to include many of the features that the old 2am programmers had in store for CoC but never got around to… multi-floored structures, varied terrain, and different weapon types just to name a few.
But when June 2002 rolled around, little had been accomplished with SoG. At this time, CoC veteran “KAding” announced and began work on a game of his own. It was dubbed “Call of Combat,” and KAding’s original intentions were to create it as identical as possible to 2am’s game. Soon after, an announcement was made that the two projects, SoG and Call, were merging. The developers, programmers, and others associated with both the games joined forces to help KAding with Call of Combat. The SoG developers promised their game would be out soon after Call of Combat was released.
This happened shortly… in September 2002, Call of Combat was available to the public. Its Java platform though made Chain of Command difficult to replicate and thus it failed as a clone in many respects. Nevertheless, its announcement date months in advance, combined with the long wait on SoG, had many veterans eager to play anything similar to CoC… so the game was popular in the beginning.
Then things began to falter… the long wait time also had a negative impact, and many of the old 2am players lost interest entirely and never stuck around. KAding came online less and less, and the game’s updates came to a halt. Some new people showed up and took control of much of the game including administrative and moderating duties, without any consent whatsoever by the community and formerly respected veterans. The Sons of Glory project also fell apart, after CSchetter left the Call of Combat team prematurely and seemingly ended his programming days. Schetter’s departure worsened the SoG situation, as their developers’ numbers were already dwindling. They never moved on to their own game, and stuck with the Call of Combat team.
At this time Call of Combat’s bedrock philosophy of a Chain of Command clone also changed; its new “Staff” labeled Call of Combat as a game of its own, completely unrelated to the old Chain of Command or the community. They steered the game away… and the community split. Arguments broke out, threats were made, enemies formed. Many of 2am’s veterans stayed only to support the game because of close ties with KAding, while others moved on. Due to these reasons and others, much hatred and division arose between the two communities that can be seen even to this day.
2am Games: The Last Days
2am officially closed their doors on December 31, 2000. This was due to a variety of reasons, but most importantly lack of funds due to their system of revenue. 2am also became interested in opportunities that did not include the Game Club. As many of you know, the Chain of Command servers did not begin to shut down until early April 2001. This extension of the game was because of a group of four employees who tried to save the game, but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Well, why did 2am’s system of revenue (clicking on advertisements) fail? One main reason was their system itself. It consisted of a Free-Time Meter. This meter was built into the software, and could be seen in the Game Club lobby and every game room while playing 2am games (it is still there today, but no longer serves its original purpose). Basically, in order to play games, you would have to fill up on free time. You fill up on free time by visiting the advertisements (the banners) that were located at the top of the screen. Users would have to click on three banners per hour to fill their meter. For each 20 or 30 minutes you played a game, it went down a few notches. Of course, each time you clicked on a banner, the advertiser would pay 2am. This system worked well for many months because they had a large player base (several thousand unique players). 2am averaged about $60,000 per month in a five-month period, with revenues certainly going higher after that.
The problem, though, lied in that 2am was forcing its users to click on banners (or else they would not be allowed to play games… remember the free-time meter). This went against the advertisement company’s policies, and they found out about it when many users began to complain. The ad company requested that 2am stop forcing users to click on banners, but obviously 2am could not do that since it was their only flow of income.
Adding to this mess was the severe drop in the price-per-click that these ad companies were offering. This could be explained simply because a lot of companies were doing it. Where 2am used to be paid $0.25 per click, it went down to about $0.02 per click. So for the example above, 2am went from getting paid $0.75 per user per hour, to $0.06 per user per hour… this is quite a significant drop and was a huge setback for 2am. This was also a big reason why free services and ISP’s went under so fast.
In a nutshell, there were so many companies relying on ads for at least a supplemental income that it had brought the price down.
As was stated before, 2am was also interested in future avenues that didn’t include the Game Club. Its peer-to-peer technology at the time was innovative, and many companies were interested in buying that technology from 2am. No companies had desired to buy the games though.
In October of 2000, 2am began preparations to go public with its new peer-to-peer technology. The Game Club was to serve mainly as a “show room” for how the new technology could be implemented. The game site became less of a priority than it was before. In addition was 2am’s involvement with other gaming sites and their projects. Many of the developers at 2am started seeing the Game Club as their funding for other projects.
In these dark times it was Mark and his hard work that kept at least CoC alive. If it had not been for him, Javert, and a few others like them, the Game Club would have probably gone down in August of 2000, after it had stopped showing profits. That December when 2am shut down, CoC was pretty much on its own.
This is when that previously mentioned group of four from 2am tried to save or at least extend the game’s life. They got Warenet to run all the servers and take all the money that the ads brought in for a limited time. The fact was that the ads didn't bring in enough according to Warenet, so they decided to start disabling servers in early April. With CoC gone, the legacy of 2am Games came to an end.
The games of 2am were never intended to make money, but rather to beta test the CREATION technology. 2am’s peer-to-peer technology never even ended up on the market, due to the fact that it was unstable. The company that abandoned its Game Club, Chain of Command, and thousands of loyal players to concentrate on flaunting its over-hyped, flagship technology to other companies, made no profit worth mentioning off it.
2am was a failure.
Call of Combat:Gameplay
Call of Combat gameplay is largely based upon Chain of Command, where the biggest difference being that Call of Combat is 3D, whereas Chain of Command is 2D. The games have similar command menus, as well as the similar objectives. However, Call of Combat has expanded upon this older game by offering campaign scenarios, more frequent updates, grenade exchanges between players and more game types.
First AG's(Army Groups)
The first army groups were launched in February 2004. TBC, NSD, NBK, BIA were picked. They were chosen by staff (MegaG was the head of staff) from BHB, BIA, NBK, TBC, NSD, RAM, and RMC. The number of Ag's has changed over the years. See today's AGs.
See Also
1. Army Groups
2. Old AGs
3. Lobby
4. Map vote
