Heatwave Interactive – MMO Fallout

The Current State Of Gods & Heroes

I’m writing this in response to a comment recently left here at MMO Fallout by user Sapphic about the game Gods & Heroes:

Well the servers went down in September and according to the website still haven’t come back up, the forums are still down I can confirm. No reply from trying to contact them, no update or reply to messages posted on their facebook page or twitter. Also their other game in development, Minis with enemies has, even tho it was promised in a video on the front page, not been updated since June 2012. Heatwave have gone totally silent in any form of communications about any of their released or in development products. Though I would reply to this in case anyone found this and thought of putting money down for GnH. As I would recommend not doing until Heatwave at least update in some variety of what is happening.

As many of you likely know, Gods & Heroes doesn’t have developers. It hasn’t since January 2012 when everyone was reassigned to other projects at Heatwave Interactive, none of which have show any activity since around July. So what has happened since then? On September 27th, the Gods & Heroes game servers and website went offline for maintenance with no estimated downtime and with the possibility of extended maintenance. As of December 2nd, the Gods & Heroes Facebook still had players reporting the servers as offline. I did my own investigation and found that the servers, when accessed through the game client, are indeed online. I have no method of pinpointing exactly when they came online, but it appears to be sometime in mid-December. They are still online as of this writing.

Heatwave Interactive has been completely silent since September 2012, as far as I can tell. As of this publishing, the forums are not just offline, the URL forwards to a Verizon “page not found” error. The game’s website is woefully out of date, still listing the game as sold via Steam, Gamestop, and EB Games when it was removed from those stores around a year ago. The download client that the website provides via the account management page is completely broken and will return an “out of date” error and instruct the user to download a newer version from the main website.

If you’re still interested in giving Gods & Heroes a play, it costs a $9.99 one time fee on the Gods & Heroes website and doesn’t have a subscription or cash shop, be aware that the active community is just about nonexistent. There are three servers and they are all pretty quiet. So if you do take Gods & Heroes for a spin, bring a few friends or you’ll be going solo.

Gods & Heroes Doesn't Have Developers

Gods & Heroes has had a rough life for an MMO. Back in the day the game began under Perpetual Entertainment which turned out to be not so perpetual and went bankrupt in 2008, orphaning its two MMOs. Already hit with a setback, Gods & Heroes was bought up by Heatwave Interactive, developed further and released in 2011 to almost no fanfare. The game was fun, but riddled with bugs and containing very little content outside of questing. Heatwave came out shortly after with a blunt announcement: The game wasn’t running up to par.

This January, Heatwave stopped charging subscriptions in favor of a buy to play system, with the promise of an upcoming free to play system. In an announcement today, however, Heatwave has announced that there isn’t much of a development team left, and won’t be until the game finds funding.

However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone. The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

Gods & Heroes isn’t shutting down any time soon, however. There is enough funding to cover hosting.

There is definitely no expiration date on Gods and Heroes and funding for that is not an issue. I want to make it very clear that we have no intention on shutting Gods and Heroes down and we are committed to the IP.

Gods & Heroes is still available via digital distribution for $10 with no subscription fees.

(Source: Gods & Heroes Forums)

Gods & Heroes Doesn’t Have Developers

However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone. The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

Gods & Heroes isn’t shutting down any time soon, however. There is enough funding to cover hosting.

There is definitely no expiration date on Gods and Heroes and funding for that is not an issue. I want to make it very clear that we have no intention on shutting Gods and Heroes down and we are committed to the IP.

Gods & Heroes is still available via digital distribution for $10 with no subscription fees.

(Source: Gods & Heroes Forums)

Gods & Heroes: Subscriptions Rescinded

I like Gods & Heroes, in fact it was the game the spurred on the “Why Aren’t You Playing” editorial series I’ve been neglecting. Despite how I feel about the game, Heatwave Interactive met with a rather low reception since launch last year, and mentioned in July that the developer was considering a free to play option at some unknown point in the future.

Well January 2012 is that unknown point. In a post today, Heatwave Interactive announced the end to Gods & Heroes subscriptions. Until the full free to play launches, subscription fees are being removed.

The Gods & Heroes team has been working hard over the past few months to secure the future of the game by taking it to a free-to-play model. Such a change is a significant undertaking; one that requires a large investment in time and resources to make this major transition a success. In the interim, we have made the decision to eliminate subscription fees and offer G&H players immediate and unlimited access to all areas of the game until the new Free-to-Play model has been finalized and implemented.

You will still need to buy the client, however, and Heatwave Interactive will be bringing the price down starting next week to $9.99.

(Source: Gods & Heroes website)

(Additional: Why Aren’t You Playing?)

Week In Review: Tardiness Is Not Tolerated Edition

здравствуйте! I’ve been spending the past few days not on homework or work-work, on figuring out exactly how I want to inject videos into MMO Fallout, as I’ve promised many times in the past. My first video, that I’ll hopefully release in the next week or so, is a quick look at the Sony Authenticator. Since my skills with improvisation in front of a microphone are essentially zilch, I’m taking the old fashioned model of writing out a script.

Needless to say, what did I miss?

1. There Was No Ganking In The Old Republic

Any game with player vs player of any kind faces this issue: How liberally do we allow ganking? A majority of games take the approach of rule-bound servers, where players can choose from PvE (only in certain areas) or PvP (virtually everywhere). A select few, including Darkfall and Mortal Online, have mandatory PvP all over, with the exception of small safe zones. Bioware’s statement on the matter:

To put it bluntly: If that is your fantasy, you will have to find another game, because The Old Republic will not cater to that. For every player who enjoys that particular fantasy, there are a lot of players that don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it. That’s a fact, a business lesson learned from existing, still running MMOs.

Good.

2. Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Offline Novel

The Shard Axe: An Eberron Novel is hardly out of the ordinary if you’ve read a Dungeons and Dragons book before. The story follows Sentinel Marshal Sabira d’Deneith, and surprisingly requires little knowledge of the world inside. The story does a great job of explaining places and people, in great detail, to newcomers of the series, and doesn’t tie-in with the game at all aside from a few locations. The action is quick, brutal, and author Marsheila Rockwell does a wonderful job painting believable characters in mythical situations that are just magical enough to still be grounded in some sort of realism.

The Shard Axe is a decently sized book at 352 pages, and is a must for any fan of Dungeons and Dragons novels, fantasy novels, or the MMO. You can buy it in paperback for around $7.99, or through your favorite ebook app for a minor price decrease.

Amazon

3. An MMO Coming To WiiU and Wii? Dragon Quest X

Now this is a surprising story. As a fan of the Dragon Quest series, the announcement of Dragon Quest X on the WiiU is about all the incentive I need to buy the console when it comes out next year. To add icing to the cake, however, the news feeds are buzzing that the game will feature persistent online multiplayer with components reminiscent of an MMO. The game, developed by Square Enix, apparently pairs up to the title enough that the game will carry a subscription fee in Japan (although this will likely be changed for American/European releases).

All I can say is where do I sign up?

4. Book #2: Book Series Based Off of Gods & Heroes

As it turns out, Heatwave Interactive has more plans for libraries than simply burning them down while murdering your family and leaving you for dead. Announced last week, Gods & Heroes is exiting the digital world and entering the world of paperback novels. Book I, titled “Blood and Laurels” is set to release at some point in the future by a nondescript author who has won an award. You can read an excerpt with the rest of the announcement here, with another excerpt to release on September 16th.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those book-learning Week in Reviews.

5. Bi-Weekly Star Wars Galaxies Articles

I haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies since my last article on the game, but with my newly renewed Station Pass, I will be rebooting the previously weekly series as a bi-weekly piece.

Gods & Heroes Trial Extended: 7 Days

Seven days isn’t just enough time for a small Japanese girl to come out of your television and murder you. I’m going to go on a limb and guess that, although appealing to some, the three day Gods and Heroes trial just wasn’t long enough of a sample period for many prospective buyers. As a result, Heatwave Interactive has announced that the trial has been extended to seven days, without the hassle of phone calls or raspy voices predicting your imminent demise.

“We’d like to invite everyone curious about Gods & Heroes to spend a week sampling the brutality and glory of ancient Rome. By extending the trial period from three to seven days, new players will have a chance to really dig into the heart of the game and we know they’ll like what they find.”

If you want to learn a bit more on Gods & Heroes, check out the MMO Fallout “Why Aren’t You Playing,” article.

Gods & Heroes: Three Day Trial

Free to play may be coming to Gods & Heroes at some unknown point in the unknown future, but why let that stop you from trying the game now? Launched today by Heatwave Interactive, players can get into the mythological MMO for three days absolutely free of charge. All you have to do is enter your name and email address in this page right here, to be sent your key, and create a Heatwave account to gain access. Simple as counting your bacon before you eat it.

For those of you who go through content like tissue paper on a bad cold, you’ll have access to all content (that is to say, as much as you can get through) in those three days.

For more information on Gods & Heroes, click on the link on the right hand side.

Gods and Heroes: Testing The Stress, Still Alive

ghrome_large_2 — The lions can't take much more, captain!

I don’t need to test my stress, because I already know it is far above the healthy rate for someone my age, or really any human being who is not half-robot. Back in the days when Perpetual Entertainment was not bankrupt and still making MMOs, their two staple titles were Star Trek Online and Gods and Heroes. When the developer went belly up, Cryptic picked up Star Trek Online, leaving Gods and Heroes to die in the Colosseum. Heatwave Interactive, a company likely none of you have heard of before, picked up the game in February looking to get it going sometime late 2010, early 2011.

Heatwave has reached the point where they are stress testing servers, and they need a few good testers to sign up on the main page. Currently the only scheduled test will take place this Saturday from 2-4pm Central time US.

Gods and Heroes looks to be a fun game, assuming it ever makes it to a live release, especially since there aren’t many MMOs set in Ancient Rome (alright so they don’t call it Ancient Rome). More on Gods and Heroes as it appears, especially now that it has its own category here on MMO Fallout (ooh, exclusive).

Gods & Heroes: Class, Say Thank You to Heatwave Interactive

Back when Cryptic Studios was more like “Cryptic plans for a company,” Perpetual Entertainment was taking care of Star Trek Online and another title, Gods & Heroes, an Ancient Rome MMO set in a realm of Cyclops, Gladiators, and more. Thanks to several rounds of layoffs by Perpetual Entertainment in 2007, Gods & Heroes was put on indefinite hold until 2008, when the company went belly up and had its carcass picked at by various developers. Perpetual was sued by their PR firm for holding back money as an incentive to get more buzz about the title, as well as bribing reviewers for good scores.

Much like how Cryptic picked off Star Trek Online, it is only natural that someone would pick up Gods & Heroes. Heatwave Interactive just so happens to be that vulture, and is happy to take the assets and move the game forward to release status. Heatwave is looking to gather an elite group of past G&H beta testers to give them information on where to go with the latest incarnation. They want to stay true to the title, and Perpetual’s vision for it.

Gods And Heroes is on board for a release date not yet set in stone, but Heatwave says they don’t want to take “another three or four years,” so I would bet my money on late 2010 at the earliest, with 2011 a more likely candidate. With the number of games shutting down in 2010, it’s always good to see a previously doomed title being revived.

More on Gods, and their heroes, as it appears.