In the newspost of the release of Summoning Upgrade and Hairstyles, there was a mentioning of a project that was going to be released next week.

As you’ll notice, this set of updates isn’t as large as you might have hoped, for which we apologise. A project we were hoping to release this week was found to have bugs, and so has been delayed until next week. While we’re aware that these are relatively small fixes, we hope that you’ll appreciate them nonetheless.
http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=1810

Some people thought this would be the release of MechScape, however it has since been confirmed on the Jagex twitter that it isn’t MechScape, but that MechScape will be released soon.

Sorry to disappoint but the “project delayed until next week” mentioned in today’s RS update isn’t MechScape. Soon though, we promise Ajd
http://twitter.com/OfficialJagex/statuses/1639118512

Of course we could argue that soon doesn’t mean anything, since such promises have been made before by other game companies and by Jagex as well (mobilising armies anyone?).

I’ve been looking at the mechscape.de domain name and I found out that it redirects to mechscape.com/l=1/. If you haven’t already noticed at runescape.com, jagex is using runescape.com/l=1/ for German, runescape.com/l=2/ for French and runescape.com/l=3/.

Other domains registered by Jagex for other languages are:

• mechscape.fr
• mechscape.com.br
• stellardawn.de
• stellardawn.fr
• stellardawn.com.br

All these domains redirect to mechscape.com for MechScape related domains and to funorb.com for Stellar Dawn related domains respectively. unlike mechscape.de all redirect without the /l=1/ in it. This could point to serious plans for MechScape to be in German from release and that it could have been planned well before the other languages. It could aswell mean nothing at all.

Hey everyone I found this image that looked pretty interesting, from looking at it you can infer quite a few things. [must enlarge to see all details]

• Mining Can or will be done with lasers.

• There’s a possible area name denaco crater.

You can also see somethings on it.

• A Camera
• Mining Lasers
• Engine
• Tracks

I hope this interests you as much as me and inspires you to learn more about mechscape.

MechScape World has been releasing editorials on MechScape since the beginning of March. If you want further reading on MechScape I recommend you read these articles.

In the latest editorial Simba takes a look at the MechScape release date, the mistake Jagex made by announcing a release date and his ideas how Jagex should release it.

MechScape Post #5: The Hype Surrounding the Release Date of MechScape

The previous MechScape World editorials:

MechScape Post #4: Gerhard’s Influence on MechScape and Jagex
MechScape Post #3: A Great MechScape Flood?
MechScape Post #2: The MechScape Environment and Concepts
MechScape Post #1: MechScape Clan Leadership

Jagex made an official statement on the code name issue, which they send to Ren of MechScape World.

Hello everyone,

In a recent press release we stated that our upcoming sci-fi title was code named “MechScape”. Many people have been looking for clarification regarding the name of this new game, so we decided it would be best to attempt to clarify this matter.

When we first came up with the idea for our new game it was primarily focused on robots known as “mechs”, hence the name MechScape made perfect sense. It drew on the main theme of the game, and also played on the “-scape” brand which we had established with RuneScape. Okay, we thought, we have the name sorted, so now let’s get on with the exciting bit of development.

And so we grew fond of the name, and some fans found out about it and many of them got invested in the name too, and therefore we believed that the name was definitely going to be MechScape. But recently we decided to re-evaluate it, which is why we referred to it as just a “code name”. There are various reasons for us to stick with the original name, and it is possible that we might end up doing just that, but there are also reasons why we might still want to change it.

During the game’s early evolution we became a lot more ambitious, and substantially widened our vision beyond just robots to encompass the wider possibilities of the sci-fi genre. This meant that the first half of the MechScape name could give people an overly narrow view of what the game is about. Similarly, if we drew on the RuneScape brand by using the “-Scape” suffix then it could make people think the game was essentially RuneScape in space, which it defiantly is not. Whatever name we go with we will be using for a very long time, so we want to get it right and that is why it is back on the table for discussion.

So the honest answer to the question of what the game will be called is that we don’t know yet. We have a number of ideas, one of which is just to stick with the initial name. We understand that many people would have liked to have known earlier that the name wasn’t set in stone. In response to this we would like to make it clear that it was only very recently that we seriously began reconsidering the name again. However, I admit that we should have told our fans as soon as we were unsure about it. We are aware that the name of our title is a very emotive area, and whatever decision we ultimately make we will not make lightly.

Please don’t take this statement to mean that the game is now done and all we have to worry about now is what to call it. There is still a fair amount of development work left for us to do. We can’t give you a release date at the moment because large complex game development projects such as this one are extremely hard to estimate. The last thing we want after spending so much time and energy on this project is a rushed release, which is why we won’t launch it until we are confident that it is ready.

I do hope this clarifies matters a little bit more and that you remain as excited about the game as we are.
Source: http://www.mechscapeworld.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6075

Basically they’re not sure yet what name they will use it might be MechScape, Stellar Dawn or even a different name. The amount of commotion created by the possible change of the name might be the trigger for Jagex to reconsider their decision to name it something else than MechScape. Also this message by Jagex tells us that MechScape will still be in development for a significant amount of time and they have not yet picked a release date yet.

In yesterday’s interview by massively.com, GDC09: What Jagex has in store with MechScape, MechScape is said to be the project’s code name and not the actual game name.

So what is MechScape? Well, first off, it’s important to note that MechScape is not the game’s name, only the project’s code name.

In a recent article I speculated that Stellar Dawn might be the actual name of the game, since in a press release MechScape was referred to as a code name. However not as explicit as in this interview. A lot of people didn’t believe me, since it could be a mistake by a Jagex employee or some didn’t find it logical. So how did I come with the idea? I noticed that Stellar Dawn was the only trademark owned by Jagex other than MechScape, FunOrb and RuneScape that had a logo.

Stellar Dawn seems like a good name for a MechScape related game, so why not?

Visit the trademark pages of Stellar Dawn:
Stellar Dawn trademark filed by Jagex on 28 January 2009
Stellar Dawn logo filed by Jagex on 12 March 2009

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Of course you know that mechscape will have humans, but did you know that it will have other playable creatures. Such as the Pliigi. The pliigi is the only confirmed one at this moment, but there are topic’s arising of another “Mortiga” race.

Pliigi Concept Art

Proof of Pliigi

You can see that the Pliigi look like an organic race, made up of monster like flesh, with of course monster skin (green like a goblin), But they look like a strong built race, if you look at the form of the legs and arms on both types of pliigi.

Mortiga Concept Art

You might have noticed that the “Mortiga” have no head, thus this tells you it’s control mechanism or brain is somewhere else, most likely the “Core Orb” or the red orb in the center of it. You can also see the “Obsidian Like rock” (black rock above the feet area.) So that confirms that obsidian will be in this game.

Who knows maybe there’s even more species or “races” in mechscape that we don’t know about, but we will just have to wait and see.

Edit: On the original source a discussion has started about the validity of the image. Since the hitpoints and prayer of the image have been altered. Also no other images like this have been popped up so there is high doubt that this image is actually real.

Mod Stevew was spotted on the MechScape servers a few days ago by a player on the Zybez Mechscape forums. Take a look at the topic here: Mod Stevew Logged In On Mechscape!

This could mean that MechScape is near to the release and also proof that it’s actually going to be called MechScape and not Stellar Dawn. Ofcourse it’s still possible that MechScape is just there as the name of the test server to protect the actual name of the game. Then the question still remains what Stellar Dawn is going to be, we can only wait until more information is known.

Full credit goes to basilm21 on Zybez, so make sure to check out his topic: Mod Stevew Logged In On Mechscape!

Jagex released a press release today, officially announcing MechScape to the press. Even though the press release doesn’t really carry any release date for MechScape. It does contain one very interesting line.

The game — under the code name MechScape — has already generated significant buzz among gaming enthusiasts

They are referring to MechScape as a codename and not as the actual game name. Which is something that is possible since Jagex also owns a trademark for Stellar Dawn. I think the name is a lot better than MechScape to be honest, MechScape sounds too much like RuneScape in space. Jagex doesn’t want that, so they might have decided to change the name. Since the trademark application Stellar Dawn has always been discarded as a FunOrb game. But not every FunOrb game has been trademarked or had their domain registered. If it will be Stellar Dawn or just MechScape is something we will see in the future.

Read the full article for the complete press release.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Mar 25 (MARKET WIRE) –
2009 Game Developer’s Conference — Jagex, Ltd., the largest independent
game developer in United Kingdom, has achieved rapid acceleration in its
business as 2009 progresses, emerging from the two most profitable
quarters in company history and growth among its existing game
properties, RuneScape and FunOrb. On the heels of this momentum, Jagex
will be launching its second, highly anticipated massively multiplayer
online game (MMOG) later this year. The game — under the code name
MechScape — has already generated significant buzz among gaming
enthusiasts, and will appeal to both existing RuneScape players and an
entirely new audience of online gamers.
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