The Saga servers were shut down on October 30th in preparation for the final beta phase; Saga will receive a complete graphical overhaul as well as a host of new features. Some of the upcoming enhancements include a new terrain system, new chat interface, automated tournaments and many other exciting features. Players are currently invited to sign up. A select group will be invited into the closed Beta test starting later this month and all players who sign up prior to November 30th will be granted access to the final Beta 2 stress test.

    Some quest lines will be designed for single play while many others will end in epic boss encounters that require cooperation and expert execution from multiple players for a true MMO experience. Of special note is the new storyline based quest system. For the first time in RTS history thousands of players will be able to group together to experience campaigns that reveal the history of the Saga world.

    Saga received favorable reviews from IGN, pcgamezone.com, gamepro.com and many others proclaiming the persistent world RTS as the next step in the evolution of the RTS genre. Beta 2 builds on Saga's strengths and introduces many new features as a direct result of player feedback. Saga is a persistent world RTS in an epic fantasy setting. Players collect troops, build armies, conquer new lands and build up kingdoms, complete with resource collection, city building and peasant management.

    "We're a small, agile independent studio; we improve our design quickly as we see what works. We knew it wouldn't be easy merging MMO and RTS-the two most popular game genres-but we did it and it's spectacular," says Jason Faller, Saga Creator and Executive Producer. Saga's features include massive armies, multiplayer questing, an auction house for trading troops and spells, guild wars and espionage.

    Saga has no subscription fees. Players pay as little or as much as they decide, by purchasing 'booster packs' of random troops and spells, which are traded and customized to create the strategic army of choice for each player. Before the Saga began, the Elder Gods reigned in the heavens. One of the Elder gods, Goth-Azul, rebelled against the established order and the Gods created a prison orb, called Gaia, and imprisoned Goth-Azul deep within its core.

    But before being imprisoned, Goth-Azul gave the secret of the power of the Elders to a lesser god, Xethos Nom. Together with four other lesser Gods, Xethos used the secret to destroy the Elders, and they claimed the heavens for themselves. The new gods fought bitterly over who was to rule in the heavens. After much destruction, an agreement was reached. Each god would create a race. These beings would battle away from the heavens, on the surface of Gaia, and whichever race was victorious, their god would reign in the heavens.