The Gods and Heroes Beta Key Giveaway!
Historically, Rome was certainly a place of intrigue. Unfortunately, the development of Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising has had more than it’s own fair share of mysterious developments. First, developer Perpetual got a substantial number of investors. Then they hired a bunch of programmers and artists and game-making people. They they announced that the game was content complete, then they fired a lot of their own people, then they pushed back the release date of their ‘content complete’ game.

Thanks for working so hard to develop this great game! BTW, you’re all fired.
At just the right time, when everything was looking up, Perpetual got more investors, became involved in a baffling business partnership, pushed the release date back another time, sent out the pre-order boxes for people to buy, launched beta, fired more of their own employees to make the beta better (yes, really), changed their relationship with their publisher, and then, at the worst possible moment, suddenly and inexplicably cancelled the game.
Rome sure was a confusing place.
In the month since this all came crashing down, we here at Wandering Goblin have been tracking fan reaction to all this. Generally speaking, it ranges from pissed to saddened to disappointed to frustrated to really, really pissed. And that’s why, when Gods and Heroes fanbois and fangurls are at their lowest, when they feel they’ve been kicked, when they have no hope their game will ever sit contentedly on their hard drives, it’s time for WanderingGoblin.com to lift their spirits. And what better way to do this than to announce the official Gods and Heroes Beta Key Giveaway Contest, sponsored by WanderingGoblin.comTM!
That’s right, we don’t care what McKibbon and crew over at Perpetual are up to: we’re giving away our beta keys. We acquired 10 beta keys for Gods and Heroes this past summer, and we waited patiently for the proper phase of beta to give them to our faithful readers. Well, that phase never came. But we goblins are promise keepers, and since we promised to give them to our readers, we’re going to do exactly that.
Besides, we can’t have these worthless pieces of cardboard valuable collector’s items taking up space on our executive editor’s desk, now can we? Something simply has to be done.
What could be better than beta keys to a defunct game? Absolutely nothing in the world!
So here’s how the contest works: all you have to do to win is email us at GoblinStaff [at] WanderingGoblin [dot] com, explaining why you think you deserve a Gods and Heroes beta key. If we like your explanation, you’ll be one of our 10 oh-so-lucky winners! And if you win (and you really want the key), we’ll be happy to pop your beta key in an envelope and send it to you postage-paid. It’s all absolutely free.
What you’ll win:
1. A genuine Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising beta card.
2. A real never-been-used beta key, printed right on the card.
3. The exclusive right to participate in an event unknown anywhere else in the MMO genre: the beta for a game that no longer exists.
4. Early access to innovative features of Gods and Heroes, including the minion system, which no one (including you) will ever see.
5. Your progress (up to level 15) will be saved, and your characters will continue onto the live servers when the game launches. Though this will never actually occur, it’s fun to have something to look forward to!
I know what you’re thinking: this is the greatest contest ever! But don’t thank us; it’s one of the many services we provide here at Wandering Goblin. We live to serve needs of the MMO community.
And stop by next week when we give away beta keys to Motor City Online and Asheron’s Call II. Remember, even when everyone else hurts you, fails you, and disappoints you, we here at WanderingGoblin.com are here for you. 
Copyright 2007 by WanderingGoblin.com. All rights, even to a strange contest no one wants to win (like this one), are reserved.
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