Crowdfunding – MMO Fallout

MMO Fallout has been keeping an eye on everyone’s favorite MMO Edengrad for the past year, and at the conclusion of 2019 I can definitively say that the game is still dead.

It feels like forever ago that the Edengrad servers went offline, but the calendar suggests that the actual date might be closer to 2018. Probably around the time that its developer Huckleberry Games went bankrupt. News from the bankruptcy suggested that Huckleberry was receiving attention from investors as well as the government to get them more funding and put the train back on the tracks.

And back on the tracks they were put. Back in November 2018 a dev account just called “office” posted an ominous ‘we’re back soon’ message. How soon is too soon? Thirteen months, since the company hasn’t posted anything to the Edengrad community since then. Huckleberry Games is still alive and kicking, and more importantly pulling money from investors. The company just filed actions a couple of days ago to issue new shares and bring in more revenue. Bully!

The only thing the company doesn’t seem to want to talk about are its games. Will Edengrad come back? If so, when? What else is Huckleberry working on? Does the company exist to do something other than vacuum in investor money? Who knows.

What I do know is that the Edengrad website remains offline, although you can’t buy the domain. I tried. For everyone else, we’ll just have to wait and see if 2020 brings any news.

Kickstarter Ketchup: Identity By Asylum Entertainment

Identity is an open world MMORPG by Asylum Entertainment that was successfully Kickstarted back in early 2015 to the tune of $187 thousand Canadian dollars. Following a tumultuous journey, it finally launched into early access on Steam on November 30, 2018. One year later, MMO Fallout is ready to check up on its progress.

Identity describes itself as:

“Identity is a modern-day open-world MMORPG for PC and Mac with complete freedom to do almost anything you can imagine at any time in first or third person views. Live as an honest civilian, a criminal, police officer, paramedic and many more. There are no levels or skill grinding, but talent and perk progression so that it’s the actions of you, not your character, which matter most.”

Sure. In reality, Identity has presently released with its first “module” called The Town Square. The town square lets you walk around and enjoy a “bunch of interesting and fun things to do.” What are those fun things to do? Who knows. It might behoove the folks at Asylum Entertainment to actually list some of the activities currently available in-game on the store page whose existence is solely to sell people on your game. It is $30 in early access after all.

How is the public enjoying their open world MMO? They aren’t. All time reviews hold the game at 38% “mostly negative” rating on Steam while the last month rates in at an even more dismal 29% “mostly negative” rating. Traffic ratings are even worse, as the title hasn’t broken double digit peak players since April of this year. The latest content patch news posted is from June 26, however the developer has been quite active on their Twitter account. Assuring people that the game has not been abandoned and referring to Steam’s refund policy.

Identity doesn’t appear to be in a great place right now, but that’s not to say the project is dead or abandoned. According to Asylum Entertainment the next module up for release is the Swat module followed by racing. We’ve seen games start off on rocky grounds and then recover over time, so who is to say that Identity has already doomed itself? Only time and a proper release schedule will tell.

Source: Steam

Crowdfunding Fraudster: Kickstarter Suspends Shady Campaign RAW

Check out the .gif image above. What if I told you this game was being worked on by a team of three people? What if I then told you that this game is being funded for just $78 thousand? What if I then told you that the dev team hopes to have this out by December 2019?

You’d probably accuse me of propping up a scam, a point that is now moot since you can no longer back the project. RAW is a self-described “sandbox open world hardcore MMORPG with unique approach to social structure and high attention to gameplay details,” and its creators Killerwhale Games from Germany want you to know that just because the overwhelming amount of detail being put into the game’s systems versus team size and development time/cost make it sound like a massive scam, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

What sort of crazy, near ponzi-scheme promises is KWG making? Well just check out their description of car mechanics and house building.

“For example, if you buy a car, you need to monitor its technical condition, because it will break down over time during normal operation. If you want to build a house, you need to purchase materials and find a truck to deliver them to the construction site. To better understand our approach, read the following blocks, which reveal it more deeply.”

But the buck doesn’t stop here. RAW is promising a world where everything is player built and player supported on the island. Want fancy cars? Someone has to buy and import them to sell. Town needs gasoline? Someone has to build and start a gasoline store. But watch out, because other players can steal your stuff, so you’ll need good security systems and, you guessed it, that’ll be another player’s duty.

The pitch eventually gets so tedious that even the least logical person couldn’t possibly believe that this team has the funds or capabilities of putting all of this in an online game. Working shifts and dealing with city parking, including paying fees to park and possibly dealing with your car getting towed if you park it somewhere illegally. Every car having engine, suspension, battery, generator, brake system, fuel system, each with their own failure systems, each with separate maintenance intervals. Every car having a unique key, needing to register the vehicle with the DMV in order to legally drive it. Power lines to bring electricity to the city. An immune system so your character can encounter diseases or indigestion from too much Taco Bell.

And if you read all of these awesome features and thought “this game sounds like a scam,” you’re not alone. While Killerwhale Games might have been rubbing its hands in glee after thrashing their funding goal (raising $193 grand of the original $78k goal), Kickstarter has stepped and put the kibosh on the whole campaign. The developer, naturally, has responded in a manner you’d expect from a professional game developer and not as a fraudster called out on his fake game:

Guys, expect our message about the current situation in discord. Shitstarter closed the project without even trying to figure out what was going on. The gameplay video was almost finished. We will continue the project anyway, because a huge amount of effort has been invested in it. Please don’t listen to a bunch of offended by life idiots and their bullshit. Thank you for your support and faith in us.

Best regards, Alex Tretiakov, Killerwhale games.

MMO Fallout looks forward to continuing coverage of the completely legitimate RAW MMORPG.

Demonstrable: Small Saga Public Demo

Small Saga is utterly adorable. I found this title while browsing through the latest Kickstarter games and after playing through the demo I really want to talk about it. The good news is that Small Saga has already reached its goal. I won’t be contributing to the campaign because I was burned out on those years ago, but it is definitely going on my watch list for the estimated release in July 2021.

Currently being created by Jeremy Noghani, Small Saga is an RPG that plays like Final Fantasy with an isometric overworld that is reminiscent of the likes of FF Tactics or Tactics Ogre. The main narrative exists underneath London in the underground world of Rodentia. You play as mouse brothers Verm and Lance, who hear about a place called heaven where there is more food than anyone can imagine. Heaven is also inhabited by the gods, but to get there Verm and Lance will have to get past a sewer’s worth of lawless rats and one mean vole.

The demo is short and absolutely fantastic, and not just because it features tiny animals wearing people clothes and doing people things. Combat is turn based and takes a hint of inspiration from games similar to Bravely Default where characters draw from an energy pool that slowly increases each turn. You can unleash your best attacks but then have to wait in order to build up the energy, or you can go ahead with your basic attacks and do less damage.

I recommend you check out the short demo over at Itch.io. You don’t even have to download it.

Jeremy Soule More Than Five Years Late On Album, Starts Patreon Asking For More Money

Fraudster:
2a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;

When it comes to fraudsters showcased here on MMO Fallout, Jeremy Soule may be the worst. The composer of famous soundtracks for numerous games including Skyrim, Guild Wars, and Baldur’s Gate, Jeremy Soule’s talent in composing music haven’t exactly translated into successful businesses.

In 2005, Soule founded the company DirectSong with the purpose of selling albums from his various creations. At best, the service was a wholly incompetent mess that delayed orders by months into years on end and couldn’t figure out digital distribution of simple MP3 files. At worse, it was a running scam and never had any intention of providing the products that Soule was selling at a premium cost. I brought this up in my initial Crowdfunding Fraudsters piece, but check out reviews of the service and you’ll see people who waited 3+ years for their soundtracks to be delivered, and others who had to wait upwards of a year for a response from DirectSong’s customer service about refunds.

The Northerner: Soule Symphony #1 was crowdfunded on Kickstarter back in 2013 with an estimated shipping date of September 2013. Five years later, it has still not released and all signs point towards the songs not even being fully written. But Jeremy needs money, so he’s started a Patreon account in order to solicit additional funding for his works. For $5 per month you’ll gain access to old and new music from Soule and for $10 per month you’ll have the rare opportunity where Soule will actually talk to you, about music product and business techniques. $10 for advice on business, you really get what you pay for.

Meanwhile if you check over at Kickstarter, you’ll see hundreds of comments from people discussing their horrible customer experience of dealing with Soule and the Max Steiner Agency, with refund requests taking close to a year, others not being responded to at all, emails bouncing from the company’s refund address, and more. Soule is more than five years late putting out an album that should have been out in September 2013, and he doesn’t seem to be anywhere near completion.

The Northerner Diaries, a sketch album released by Soule in lieu of the album that backers paid for, is available to listen to for free on Youtube.

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