Face of Mankind

Description
Face of Mankind is a first and third person Massively Multiplayer Online Action Role Playing Game set in a futuristic persistent world. The game was played from a variety of points of view. It was designed to emphasize roleplay and community, using a faction system and player-driven politics.

Players interact with each other in a freeform universe, consisting in a series of locations spread across various planets. Major roleplaying-based storylines, purely optional, are started and run by Duplex staff. Players in a position of power may also affect gameplay by setting a faction's agenda, creating long-term political, economic, or military goals, which are broken up into missions handed down through a faction's hierarchy in the form of player generated and driven missions.

History and important changes

 * Closed Beta testing started in April 2004, and the first phase of Open Beta started in February 2005. The second phase of Open Beta testing ran from 9 December 2005 to March 23, 2006, ready for the launch on March 27, 2006.


 * Face of Mankind was shipped for retail sale on 31 August 2006; both downloadable and retail versions were available.


 * The Face of Mankind official portal was hit by a series of DDoS attacks during the month of May 2007; The attacks made the official portal unavailable throughout the month. These attacks were cited as playing a part in the eventual closure of Face of Mankind as a financial venture. The perpetrators were eventually arrested after an investigation by the Scotland Yard Computer Crime Unit.


 * November 2, 2007, Face of Mankind publisher Ojom ceased support for the development and operation of the game. Duplex announced an attempt to continue the game without a publisher; further news and developments were announced on November 14, 2007, detailing how Duplex is going to be reworking the game mechanics in order to be able to fund it. The game would later be scrapped and reworked into a new game titled Face of Mankind Rebirth.


 * June, 2008, Marko Dieckmann declared on the official website that development of Face of Mankind Rebirth has been cancelled.


 * December 1, 2008, www.faceofmankind.com was launched as well as forums.Face of Mankind will be developed in cooperation between Duplex Systems and Nexeon Technologies, the same company that would have provided hosting for the ill-fated emulation.


 * On February 20, 2009, Duplex and NeXeon launch the Closed Beta version of the game.


 * On December 29, 2009, Face of Mankind is released, introducing both free and premium accounts. Free accounts have multiple restrictions; such as limited storage, amount of items simultaneously on the market, the inability to gain higher than rank 4, and the inability to use Apartments and Civilian clothing (a later patch allowed free accounts to access apartments owned by premium accounts). The Premium account cost is $9.99 USD per month.