Arkadia – MMO Fallout

City of Steam: Resting, Not Retired

City of Steam was a rather highly spoken of game here at MMO Fallout from years back, although it only shut down about a year ago, but I’ve found myself thinking about the game every now and then. As it happens, I stumbled onto the website for no real reason only to find that it is still operational, with a message to fans of the game: We are resting, not retired. As it turns out, the team over at Mechanist Games still wants to do proper by the game via a sequel.

City of Steam certainly isn’t retired, but we’ll need time to reflect on these things. A sequel would have to do justice to the world in a way that honors the original, addresses as many critiques and quirks as possible, and improves or innovates at the same time. It would also have to be good enough to make up for the shortcomings of the original – stuff that no one was really happy with. Rushing into such a massive commitment would be foolish, and would risk destroying the goodwill that still exists for the game.

When I originally talked about City of Steam back in 2012 (my how time flies), I had nothing but praise to heap unto Mechanist Games. Following several successful closed beta weekends, Mechanist announced an unholy union with R2 Games and turned it into the form that ultimately killed it: A watered down grindfest with casino-style blinking lights and everything geared toward a horrendously opportunistic cash shop. The prior fans abandoned ship and City of Steam became a ghost town.

The thought of a City of Steam sequel seems pretty interesting, hopefully Mechanist Games can figure out where the title went wrong last time and realize what was looking to be an incredible title.

City of Steam Is Shutting Down This Month

City of Steam developer Mechanist Games has announced that services for the MMO will shut down later this month. The game launched in 2013 and was named MMO Fallout’s ‘Most Disappointing MMO of the Year,” due to a partnership with R2 Games that saw many of the game’s mechanics simplified or outright removed and the overall meta-game transformed into a mobile grinder with energy and an overwhelming cash shop.

The announcement focuses on the declining support of UNITY in browsers.

But we’re sorry to say that this chapter of The New Epoch is coming to an end. A number of factors went into this decision, the decline of Unity support in the browser is one of them – Google Chrome no longer supports NPAPI plugins like the Unity Webplayer, and Microsoft’s next browser, Edge, won’t either.

While City of Steam was relaunched as Arkadia, the changes made to the game between closed and open beta unfortunately kept many players from coming back. The game has been in maintenance mode since November 2014 and no one has bothered to moderate the forums since at least August of last year, leaving nearly dozens of pages of spam.

(Source: City of Steam)

City of Steam Hits Steam Today

Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic. Following the launch of City of Steam: Arkadia last year on web browsers, through Kongregate, and via an available micro-client, Mechanist Games will be launching their MMO on Steam today at approximately noon EST. Arkadia was voted on to Steam through the powers invested in Greenlight, Valve’s crowd-voting platform of approval. In an announcement on the official website, Mechanist noted that certain features had either become obsolete or were deemed unsuitable for the Steam environment, such as the mobile-inspired power limitations. The team admits that 2013 was a “downright rotten year” and, having recovered somewhat, continues to make amends.

For Mechanist, 2014 is all about making the best game, doing what we originally intended, keeping our promises no matter how long ago they were. The two most important ones we have to fix as soon as possible are paragon supporter promises and steam greenlight promises. We’re doing both right now, actually started immediately after new year.

The City of Steam Steam launch coincides with the release of update 2.4 and the launch of a brand new server, and will also introduce a bevvy of content originally anticipated for the previous version’s Steam launch. New pets, new vehicles, Steam achievements, hats, dungeons, jetpacks, and character customizations, with Valve-inspired pets and vehicles among the lot.

Both updates go live at 9am Pacific.

(Source: City of Steam)

City of Steam: Arkadia Coming December 4th

City of Steam may already be dead and buried, at least as far as the English servers under R2Games are concerned, but that hasn’t stopped the folks at Mechanist Games from continuing work on its sleeker, slimmer replacement. In a news post published today, Mechanist Games has revealed that the launch date of City of Steam: Arkadia is December 4th at 9pm EST.

CoS: Arkadia will bring in a slew of new features such as Mercenaries, Alchemy, Fishing, etc, along with redesigned dungeons and improved gameplay. We do think it has a good chance to reach a wider player demographic than before and satisfy the appetites of our loyal fans.

Check it out when the game goes live next Wednesday.

(Source: City of Steam)

MMOrning Shots: Burning Down The House

Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from City of Steam, more specifically the upcoming relaunch titled Arkadia. With the R2Games servers shutting down tomorrow, now is as good a time as any to get excited about the reboot. Check out our coverage when City of Steam 2.0 goes live.

Mechanist Games Will Compensate Players

As plenty of you already know, City of Steam’s English servers under R2 Games are shutting down November 21st. In a press release by Mechanist Games sent out today, the developer has revealed plans to compensate backers and restore the faith of their community. While not all of the details are final, when City of Steam: Arkadia launches in November, supporters will find their Electrum restored.

We will recharge all original supporter accounts their total Electrum’s worth on the new Mechanist servers. We want to restore faith in our players, especially those early adopters who believed in us.

Unfortunately, characters created on R2’s servers will not be brought over to Arkadia, however accounts will be compensated based on how far they managed to get in the original game.

Mechanist will be opening new servers, not continuing R2’s servers. But to honor the loyalty of returning players, compensation will be given on these new servers based on the specs of their old characters. We have a strong desire to give everyone the fresh new start this game deserves, but we also really want to thank the loyal players who stuck with City of Steam and welcome them home, whether they spent Electrum or not.

Gamers in City of Steam’s other territories will be happy to know that their service will be mostly uninterrupted. Foreign language versions of City of Steam will also be upgraded to Arkadia, but will continue to enjoy their current publisher.

Those game versions are not affected by the English version’s publishing handover. They can continue playing now, and enjoy the improvements that come along with City of Steam: Arkadia when it is ready. And just like any other version upgrade, all the non-English language versions will also receive it.

(Source: City of Steam)

Mechanist Games Revokes City of Steam From R2 Games

Back when I previewed City of Steam’s open beta, I noted that while the game was still fun in multiple aspects, that the game had been taken a rather notable hit in quality since its closed beta and before R2 Games was announced as the publisher. Certain game mechanics were severely simplified, the FAQ for the game was so shoddily put together that it was a combination of Engrish, questions and answers that had nothing to do with City of Steam, and bits rolled over from other games. The cash shop grew, prices rose, and suddenly Electrum found its way into many aspects of City of Steam life. And then the game stopped receiving updates and patches, and customer support went silent.

Players who left due to the monetization and simplification will be happy to hear that R2 Games will soon be out of the picture. Mechanist Games has announced on Facebook that they are taking back City of Steam. While the R2 Games servers will be shutting down November 21st, it will be relaunched as City of Steam: Arkadia.

Hello all, today we officially announce that Mechanist Games has taken CoS back. Stay tuned for City of Steam: Arcadia this November! More info coming soon!

R2 Games will not be offering refunds for any recent Electrum purchases.

(Source: City of Steam)