nmanguy

September 17, 2010 at 12:38am

What's happening to the source code? The models/textures/sounds? This would be a great project.

mesiah

September 16, 2010 at 11:35pm

Its this crap that is dooming the mmo genre. Since every company who has even thought about making a software title saw how much money blizzard rakes in every month from their WoW subscription they have all been trying to get in on the action. They aren't interested in game sales, they are interested in subscription fees. A regular game gives a big blast of profit at release and then fizzles out. Successful MMOs are the gift that keeps on giving. These companies are going into things with just enough capitol to get the ball rolling and expecting customers to fund their game development and testing through subscription fees.

Companies are quickly figuring out that the consumer isn't going to continue to pay for non-functional products. They can't just close their eyes and pray they hit one out of the park in the bottom of the ninth. Final Fantasy XIV is set to release next week and that game barely has functional controls. When big companies like Squeenix, which is known for delaying titles until they are perfect,  are rushing titles out the door we are in trouble.

The one beacon of hope shining in the distance is Bioware. A lot of people are frustrated with the extremely slow time-line that bioware has been following on The Old Republic. But to me it shows that they are dedicated to putting out a masterpiece, not something that slowly morphs into a playable game over the course of a couple years, and certainly not something that goes belly up after 3 months.

noobstix

September 16, 2010 at 10:11pm

At least Hellgate: London lasted for more than a year before the servers were dumped.

Jox

September 16, 2010 at 6:27pm

"Together we were building an absolutely amazing game..."

And this is the friggin' problem summarized in half a sentence.  The game was released UNFINISHED.  This is a disturbing trend in MMO's of the last few years and it's the reason I won't touch one now that hasn't been out for at least 6 months.  I get that these are living worlds that require constant updates and tweaks, but if you can't release a stable client and you end up cutting out half the content you promised before beta (I'm looking at you, Funcom!), then expect to fail.  I'm not going to pay you for the privilege of beta-testing your game for you.  Pull your heads from your collective game-developing asses and get your shit together.

-Jox