Shut down – Page 11 – MMO Fallout

Trion Neglected Rift China, Says CEO

Rift is shutting down in China, and the CEO of Shanda Games (Xiangdong Zhang) has revealed to the Chinese press that the problem lied with a lack of response from Trion Worlds leading to a poor experience for Chinese gamers. According to Zhang, Trion Worlds did not respond to requests for localized content, and eventually the call was made to shut the servers down just six months after launch. According to MMO Culture, Shanda Games has much more faith in Final Fantasy XIV, noting a larger effort toward international release by Square Enix.

Earlier this year, Rift shut down in Korea following a poor reception.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Perfect World Talks: RaiderZ

RaiderZ is an action-combat game from the minds of MAIET Entertainment, the folks behind GunZ: The Duel and GunZ 2. Released in 2012 as a free to play MMO, RaiderZ features active combat which places an emphasis on dodging and blocking incoming attacks, as well as an emphasis on crafting and big boss fights. Sadly, RaiderZ has hit some hard times with the announcements that Gameforge and Neowiz would be shutting down their servers in Europe and South Korea respectively. What does this mean for RaiderZ? I had to know.

So naturally, I saddled up and went directly to the source with my pen, paper, and a box of Necco Wafers in case I needed a bribe. With Perfect World Entertainment as the only western host remaining, I wanted to know where RaiderZ stood in terms of support from its remaining publishers, and developer MAIET Entertainment. PWE was kind enough to hook me up with Senior Product Manager Mark Hill, who had no problem answering my questions.

Omali: RaiderZ has shut down in Europe and Korea, with both announcing their closure around the same time. How did Perfect World manage to come out unscathed?

Hill: We are highly committed to RaiderZ and to the fans of the game, so we haven’t even considered closing our servers at this point. We feel that we can build upon the current success of RaiderZ and continue to improve the game for current and future players.

O: What do you say to players who might be concerned over the fact that half of RaiderZ’s territories just shut down?

H: It is very unfortunate if they were involved in the closure of servers that they were playing on. As a gamer, I know how it feels when a game you’re passionate about is no longer available, and it’s not a good feeling. That goes double for MMOs, and for the players that dedicate hundred and even thousands of hours to the game, community, and the publisher.

While I wish there was a way that those affected players would be able to resume their progress on our servers, it’s unfortunately logistically and contractually impossible. However, we do encourage anyone that is able to start up a character on our servers. I think they’ll find a solid and dedicated community to experience the game with, and it may even give them a chance to level up a new character in ways that they didn’t experience before.

O: With Gameforge stepping out of the picture, has any interest been expressed in picking up European publishing?

H: We’re definitely always looking for new market opportunities, and seeing the feedback from European players that were affected makes it clear that they still want to play. There are license and contract restrictions still in place even after they closed their servers, but we have discussed the possibility of Perfect World Entertainment bringing RaiderZ back to Europe. Of course I can’t promise anything, but it is something we are interested in.

O: Is RaiderZ region locked to North America or are players from Europe capable of creating accounts and logging in?

H: European players are able to create accounts on the Perfect World servers. They can register by visiting raiderz.perfectworld.com.

O: Have you considered putting RaiderZ on Steam to bring in a wider audience?

H: Oh man, you’re reading my mind! Yes, we have considered it. But before we do, we want to make sure the game is in top shape in terms of bug fixes, player retention, and overall game experience, which is what we’re working on now. Keep an eye out on Steam, though!

O: Is MAIET still committed to developing content for RaiderZ?

H: Absolutely! As a matter of fact, we have big expansion coming soon that is current being QA tested. You can read all about it in the forums here. We talk to the developers at MAIET every day, and we are both committed to making the game a success.

O: If MAIET does cease development, is there any chance of Perfect World adopting a license similar to Neowiz in Japan, allowing for more in-house control of content?

H: That’s a great question, but it’s not something that we’ve considered at this point. We’ve heard great things out of Japan, and are always open to new opportunities in order to ensure the continued success of the game, and making a positive experience for the players.

I want to thank Perfect World Entertainment and Mark Hill for taking some time to answer our questions. You can check out RaiderZ for free at Perfect World’s website.

Warhammer Online Shutting Down

Mythic Entertainment has announced that Warhammer Online will shut down this December. According to an update on the official website, it appears that Games Workshop has not renewed Mythic’s license, and as a result the game will no longer be able to operate.

We here at Mythic have built an amazing relationship working with Games Workshop creating and running Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning over the last 8 years. Unfortunately, as with all licensing deals they do eventually come to end and on December 18th, 2013 we will no longer be operating Warhammer Online.

Warhammer Online launched in 2008 and while the game shattered pre-purchase records, it very quickly lost a majority of its subscribers and almost all of its over one hundred servers. The next couple of years were filled with more layoffs and more server closures as development on the game dwindled down to maintenance mode with a bare bones team. Eventually Mythic revealed that there was no chance for Warhammer to become free to play, as EA believed the product to be incapable of making back the money it would cost to make the transition.

For many of Warhammer Online’s past and current players, this announcement has been a long time coming.

(Source: Warhammer Online)

Diablo III's Auction House Shutting Down

Ding dong, the witch is dead. Ever since the idea was first revealed by Blizzard, the auction house in Diablo III has been readily panned by players for undermining the core gameplay of killing a load of things to amass a load of stuff. In a surprise announcement, Blizzard has announced that the auction houses, both real money and the fake kind, will be shut down on March 18th, 2014.

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we’ve mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we’ve decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

The update will go hand in hand with the Loot 2.0 system coming with the first Diablo III expansion.

(Source: Diablo III)

Diablo III’s Auction House Shutting Down

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we’ve mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we’ve decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

The update will go hand in hand with the Loot 2.0 system coming with the first Diablo III expansion.

(Source: Diablo III)

EA Shuttering BattleForge

BattleForge is a real time strategy game developed by Electronic Arts and centers around the idea of your units being represented by trading cards in an odd merger of Pokemon and Rise of Nations. Originally launched as a subscription title, BattleForge joined EA’s Play4Free library alongside Battlefield and several other titles, offering the base deck for free with the option to pay for booster packs. Unfortunately, EA has announced that the game will be retired this coming October.

The decision to retire older games is never easy. We hope you’ve enjoyed playing BattleForge as much as we enjoyed making it and we wish to extend our sincerest thanks to all of our passionate and dedicated players for supporting BattleForge over the past 4 years. Those of you who still have a balance of in-game currency are encouraged to spend it before the game is shut down on October 31^st and is no longer available for play.

The reason for the shuttering is not explicitly stated, but dollars to donuts, the answer probably has something to do with donuts. I mean dollars. If you played, or still play, BattleForge, or just have an opinion on the announcement, drop us a comment below.

(Source: BattleForge)

RaiderZ Shutting Down In Korea

It feels like just a month ago that were were discussing RaiderZ shutting down in Europe. Because it was. Just under a month, actually, since Gameforge announced that RaiderZ would be shutting down. Further to the east, Neowiz has announced rather unexpectedly that RaiderZ will also be shutting down its services in Korea. The servers will remain online until September 24th, when they will go offline for the final time. The company has revealed that there will be some form of reimbursement.

As MMO Culture points out, and I said in our review of RaiderZ, the game is something of a poor man’s TERA. With TERA going free to play, the odds are likely that the game just isn’t holding up in the market. The good news is that the game continues to run in North America under Perfect World Entertainment.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Gameforge Shutting Down RaiderZ Europe

As the MMO market continues its march towards heavy saturation, it is our duty at MMO Fallout to inform you whenever another title sees its services come to an end. Gameforge has announced that they will be shutting down all support for the action MMO RaiderZ in its hosted territories. As Gameforge is merely the European publisher for the MMO, the game will remain operational in North America and South Korea where the game is published by Perfect World Entertainment and Neowiz Games respectively.

The FAQ published by Gameforge notes that RaiderZ did not meet financial expectations:

The success of RaiderZ did not meet our expectations and as we saw no other potential alternatives to the discontinuation of the services, unfortunately we were left with no other alternative than to take this step.

Servers will remain online until August 30th after which players who still want a fix will have to move over to Perfect World or Neowiz.

(Source: Shutdown FAQ)

Kartuga Is Dead: InnoGames Shutting It Down

In the line of quality, the MMO Kartuga ranks on InnoGame’s list somewhere between “good enough to monetize” but below “good enough to finish development.” Sure, Kartuga was already asking for money, but that doesn’t mean that its publishers have any plans to see it through to completion. You should know this by now, stalwart MMO gamers. Kartuga joins the growing list of MMOs being shut down mid-beta due to a sudden realization that the game isn’t up to par, or due to changes in direction. In this case, InnoGames has decided to focus on cross-platform games and did not consider Kartuga worth the investment to continue developing.

The game offers stunning graphics and intriguing PvP with great potential, but we came to the conclusion that Kartuga does not live up to the high standards of quality we strive for. Moreover, the game does not fit into our strategy of cross-platform games. We believe that the time and work that would be needed in order to improve the game would have delayed our attempts to create truly great cross-platform-games, and whether or not all issues could be fixed in a timely manner is uncertain.

InnoGames will not be offering any form of compensation or refund for players who feel their money may have been wasted on this endeavor, however unspent gems can be exchanged for other InnoGames products until August 14th.

(Source: InnoGames)

Prius Online Is Still Unsuccessful, Shuts Down Again

One major lesson I try to teach here at MMO Fallout is that all of the rebranding in the world won’t stop a market failure from crashing over and over and over again, no matter how many times you try to change its legal name and put on new eye liner. Such is the case with Prius Online, the latest in a long line of ultra-generic low budget imported MMOs that we see in a consistent state of swapping publishers, shutting down only to reappear a year or two later under a new name and with some new quest dialogue, only to perform as poorly as its previous launch and shut down yet again.

Prius Online was originally launched in 2008, with gPotato bringing it to western shores down the line in 2011. Due to poor reception, the game was shut down in 2012, only to be re-imagined as Arcane Saga and launched by Netmarble in 2013. Arcane Saga launched just one month prior to the announcement that it would be shut down on September 16th. It’s so new, the “(new)” tag is still on the game on Netmarble’s website.

There is a lesson to be learned in here, but I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

(Source: Netmarble)

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