Dream of Mirror Online

Dream of Mirror Online
Developer(s)	Softstar
Publisher(s)	Chinese: Softstar English: Suba Games
Platform(s)	Windows XP, Windows Vista,Windows 7,8,10
Release date(s)	EU: September 12, 2007 NA: November 12, 2007 NA (Suba): February 13, 2015
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Massively multiplayer
Media	1.5 GB
System requirements	1 GHz Intel Pentium III or equivalent 512 MB memory 2 GB hard drive space GeForce2 MX/Radeon 7500 (or equivalent) with 64 MB VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card 56 Kbps Internet connection

Dream of Mirror Online (DOMO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Softstar. It is the second online game in the Xuanyuan Jian series.

Free-to-play history

Language	Publisher	Closed beta date	Open beta date	Closure date
Chinese	Joypark	2006/09/20	2006/10/04	--
Japanese	Gamania Digital Entertainment	2006/03/13	2006/04/04	2011/02/28
Indonesian	PT. Datakom Wijaya Pratama	2007/06/25	2007/07/23	2010/04/01
Thai	Goldensoft	2007/08/24	2007/10/02	2010/10/25
English	Game Media Networks	2007/09/12	2007/12/03	2009/12/31
English	Aeria Games & Entertainment	2007/11/12	2007/11/30	2012/06/30
Chinese	GameCyber Technology Limited	2013/06/18	2013/06/26	--
English	Suba Games	2015/02/13	--	--

About the game

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Aeria Games

The Aeria version of the game was launched in November 2007 and had two servers: Onyx (opened at launch) and Sapphire (opened April 2008). It shut down in June 2012. It was the last non-Chinese version of DoMO to shut down until Suba Games revived it in 2015.

Closed beta

Aeria testers were rewarded with a "Closed Beta" Flag. Because of a bug which wiped item inventories following during open beta, several players lost their flag among other items. A thread was started by a staff member in September 2008 to send the flags to closed beta players who requested them. With the May 18, 2010 patch, a 14 day version of this flag was added to the in-game item mall for 75 AP.

DOMO US' decline

Following the departures of both GMShan and PMVentSol, DOMO US began a long and steady decline. GM events were quickly shuttered and a content patch that added [a glitched] Sneaky Peak would turn out to be its last; nearly 2 years before it had shut down. After much player speculation regarding the game's fate, on March 30, 2011, the GMs announced that Aeria extended their contract with Softstar to publish DoMO. GMShan stated, "DOMO is not going anywhere (December and beyond)". The GMs pledged to expand on Aeria-based events, and push for content and support from Softstar, though they were "unsure as to any release schedule."

Despite DOMO's contract continuing to be renwed, SoftStar seemed uninterested in fixing glitches or adding new content, thus causing the community to fear the worst and slowly start to abandon the game. The decline in active players brought about talks of a server merge by mid 2011. An October 2011 target was given for the merge; Which would ultimately never happen, partially due to new server configurations to accomodate the merge rendering the game unstable.

Even without the aid of a full-time GM, Aeria assured the community that they were still looking after the game and that it would be around as long as possible. At the same time, the company was rapidly adding to its repritoire, which included merging with ijji games, and was starting to strain under the pressure. Multiple games, not just DOMO, were being denied full-time GMs, and support tickets took days, weeks, or even months to get to. In the final months of operation, DOMO was assigned product manager aeria.samael, along with GMHadouken, to work part-time on the game alongside Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online. (They would have their duties switched to Aeria Now following Megaten's move to Atlus.) However, the game continued to suffer with almost no support from SoftStar and minimal GM presence. In March, DOMO's last round of GameSage applications were held, which was believed to have been a sign that Aeria was planning on keeping the game running. Jail powers had already been relegated to two GSes (-=*Angel*=- and AKFrost) from VentSol's days, and with the surge of gold bots in March, more sages (Clefairi, EvangelineAKMcDowell, Moofey, SolarCataclysm, Frozensun99, DaathlyHero and Zenea) were given the ability to discipline gold spammers and abusive players, with the PK freezing incident still in the heads of many veteran players.

In May 2012, a user made a thread in DOMO's general discussion forum, calling Aeria out for their lack of adequate support over the game, which community manager Superman0X responded to with "We should be making clear what standards DOMO is held to, as it is not the same as the rest." This made it clear that, despite their intentions to keep the game running, DOMO had dwindled over the years and thus didn't require the same upkeep. Later that month, when the monthly feedback thread was posted, a handful of players, along with the majority of the GameSage team, spoke out in concern about the supposed fate of the game, citing the lack of support as well as a number of other factors. Only a couple of days later, the public outcry was shot dead as a sudden, inevitable announcement was made regarding DOMO's fate.

DOMO US shutdown

On May 31st, 2012, it was announced that the Aeria Games version of DoMO would be shutting down on June 30th, 2012:

Greetings DOMOers!

We are writing this post to announce that as of June 30th , 2012, DOMO servers will go offline for good. All purchases made in June will receive a 100% AP rebate that will be sent to the email on the account in the form of redeemable E-Pins. So please make sure your email is up to date and you don't have Aeria marked as spam :)

We want to thank you all for the love and dedication you have shown Dream of Mirror Online all these years. The fun times and the bad all contribute to the rich history and amazing community you've created here at Aeria. We’ve seen friends go and we’ve met new friends along the way (and also managed to endure some diehard trolls). All the while our little game has kept on, supported by all of you.

We know many of you are saddened by this news, as am I. DOMO has been a part of Aeria for many years, and we greatly appreciate all the love and support the player base has given this game. You will always have a place at Aeria, and we hope you will remain with us and begin an adventure in one of our other games (and we still have a month together in DOMO!). Thank you all very much, it has been our honor.

Team DOMO!

Aeria DOMO servers went down officially on June 30, 2012, 4:57 PM PST. Aeria DOMO's General discussion forum was officially hidden in September 2012. The Aeria DOMO website was removed on July 23rd, 2012.

The true reason for DOMO's shutdown was never given, though likely reasons include the lack of support from SoftStar over the last two years, or that SoftStar themselves decided not to renew the contract. Many users migrated to the International Chinese version of DOMO. Instructions from AKFrost on how to register for the IC version of DOMO can be found here.

Suba Games: English revival

Two years after Aeria Games shutdown, Suba Games announced on Oct 3, 2014 that DOMO would be revived (thanks to this forum petition). There will be no IP blocks and the servers will be new (no Aeria information transferred).

Closed beta

On February 2, 2015, they announced closed beta would begin February 13, 2015 and released the client on February 12, 2015. It has one server named DOMO. All accounts involved in closed beta will receive a reward.

Open beta

Open beta has not been released yet. The item mall in open beta will have costumes, but not all items that were released in the Aeria Games version.

GameTribe

GameTribe was a website owned by Game Media Networks. The GameTribe version of DoMO was the first English language one, serving players residing in Europe. An IP block was used for registration on GameTribe's website, but did not prevent a player outside the block from using the game client. The GameTribe version only had one server called "PuPu". GameTribe closed beta players were rewarded with the "Ancient Soul" title.

GameTribe closure

Digital Bros, the parent company of Game Media Networks, announced on September 10, 2009 that due to an annual loss of €2.6 million, they would be closing GameTribe. Game Media Networks was liquidated, with activities suspended on October 31, 2009. On November 25, 2009, administrator PrimePaladin announced that "on the day December 31, ’09, www.gametribe.com will be closed together with all the games hosted." On December 31, 2009 the following message was posted on GameTribe's site:

Effectively starting from 2009, December the 31th, this portal, GameTribe.com, as much as the related services and games (Dream of Mirror online aka Domo; Infinity online and Kicks online) have been discontinued.If you need to get in touch with us for any kind of technical or commercial information you can send an E-mail at this address: info@gametribe.com Thanks for being with us in this adventure, sincerely Gametribe Team

In January 2010, the PuPu server was no longer accessible and the forums were closed. With the IP block lifted on Aeria, many former GameTribe players began to play on the Aeria version. A forum exists for ex-PuPu server players to stay in touch.

Indonesian version closure

On December 5, 2009, the Indonesian version of DOMO announced that their license to operate the game would be expiring and they had no plans to renew. The official date for the server closure was April 1, 2010. Like with GameTribe, many Indo players migrated to the Aeria Games version.

Thai version closure

After a meeting on June 30, 2010, it was announced on July 7, 2010 that the Thai version of DOMO would be closing October 25, 2010. Their 3 year contract with Softstar was not renewed, and GMs had previously cited difficulties in communicating with Softstar.

Japanese version closure

On December 13, 2010, Gamania Japan announced that due to the expiration of the game license, their version of DOMO would be closed on February 28, 2011. On December 22, 2010, all items in the cash shop were made available for free and all site pages had a closure message on February 28.

Pay-to-play history

Taiwan

The Taiwan P2P version of DoMO started off with three closed betas, the first starting on February 22, 2005, and eventually went into open beta on June 29, 2005. The last content update for the P2P version was on July 7, 2006. It included the Arena, Marriage and Mail systems, among other major features. In September 2006, P2P players could transfer their accounts to the F2P version. Its closure was announced on September 6, 2010 and shut down on October 12, 2010.

External links

• Official site (English)
• Official site (Chinese)
• List of In-Depth Differences between P2P DOMO and F2P DOMO by AKFrost (archive)
• Developers answers (Oct 2008, archived as PDF)