Shut down – Page 9 – MMO Fallout

Mythic Entertainment Closes Its Doors

Electronic Arts has announced that Dark Age of Camelot developer Mythic Entertainment has been closed down. Mythic Entertainment are the creators behind Dark Age of Camelot and were acquired by EA Games back in 2006. Mythic Entertainment’s luck ran out when Warhammer Online launched to overwhelmingly negative reception. While Warhammer Online would not shut down until 2013, Mythic made an attempt at a MOBA game based on the Warhammer fantasy lore. The Warhammer MOBA was cancelled mid-beta due to similarly poor reception.

Mythic also released Ultima Forever and Dungeon Keeper, mobile free to play titles based off of classic properties. Ultima Forever has fallen off of the rankings and Dungeon Keeper is ranked 260 in strategy games on the iPhone. Development of Dungeon Keeper will transition to a new team.

“We are closing the EA Mythic location in Fairfax, Virginia, as we concentrate mobile development in our other studio locations. We are working with all impacted employees to provide assistance in finding new opportunities, either within EA or with other companies via an upcoming job fair.”

Broadsword Online has been in charge of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for the past few months already, and service will be uninterrupted.

(Source: Gamasutra)

World of Darkness Cancelled

CCP has officially announced that World of Darkness has been cancelled. Some of you may remember that, last month, CCP’s annual financial report stated that the company had written off a piece of software as no longer having any value. It looks like that property was World of Darkness. In his note accompanying the announcement, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson states that the team was unable to deliver the experience that they wanted, and as a result development has ceased and some 56 employees have been laid off.

The decision to end the World of Darkness MMO project is one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make. I have always loved and valued the idea of a sandbox experience set in that universe, and over the years I’ve watched the team passionately strive to make that possible. To our current and former employees and fans of World of Darkness, I am truly sorry that we could not deliver the experience that we aspired to make. We dreamed of a game that would transport you completely into the sweeping fantasy of World of Darkness, but had to admit that our efforts were falling regretfully short. One day I hope we will make it up to you.

To those of you keeping a magnifying glass on World of Darkness, this news should not come as a shock. Between multiple layoffs and comments that World of Darkness was very low priority for CCP, with nothing to show for so long, it was only a matter of time before CCP cut their losses and moved on.

(Source: CCP)

End of Nations Is Dead: Stripped From Trion's Website

If you’ve been following the development of End of Nations, the announcement that development on the title has stopped will be of no surprise. It is almost hard to believe that at one point, nearly a year and a half ago, End of Nations almost reached open beta status. Following a round of layoffs at Petroglyph Entertainment, however, Trion announced that development of the title would be moving in-house and that further beta tests would be on hold “until further notice.” Trion later confirmed that the game would be revamped from an MMO real time strategy game into a MOBA.

A company changing focus that late in development is never a good sign, and End of Nations’ death was essentially guaranteed when “open beta soon” became “on hold until further notice,” and then “join our alpha test” a couple of months later. It looks likely that this may be the last time we hear about End of Nations, as Trion has pulled down the official website and the Trion’s own website makes no mention of the game any more. Trion’s statement to the press confirmed that the game has indeed been halted.

As we informed EON’s community last fall, internal development on End of Nations was put on hold in late 2013 while we evaluated potential paths forward for the title. We’re currently focusing the company’s energy and creativity on Rift, Defiance, Trove, ArcheAge and some new projects that we will be revealing soon.

End of Nations seeing release at this point would be a miracle the likes of which the world has never seen. The impossible kind.

(Source: Polygon)

Another Strong IP Bites The Dust

If we have learned anything here at MMO Fallout over the past five years, it is that a strong property means absolutely nothing when it comes to the success of an MMO, or any video game for that matter. In case you didn’t notice this idea in place with the launch of Warhammer Online or the plan that The Old Republic would sustain itself on subscriptions alone, you can take a look at the latest casualty: Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: Worlds in Time is an MMO-lite launched in March 2012, that will have already shut down by the time you read this. Worlds in Time was a decent puzzle game, but ultimately became repetitive and unsustainable over a prolonged service. The developer, Three Rings, is responsible for a few titles you may be familiar with: Spiral Knights and Puzzle Pirates.

The moral of the story is that not every IP needs an MMO. I’m looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey Online.

Whatever Happened: The Missing Ink

Here at MMO Fallout, we occasionally like to ask and answer a straightforward question: Whatever happened to that one game we heard about a while back? While looking through the game list, I realized that we haven’t heard from The Missing Ink in nearly a year. Experimental MMOs and indie games built by small studios tend to go for long periods of time with no press coverage and then, out of the blue, we find out that they had already shut down well over a month ago. Sorry Fusionfall!

The Missing Ink is the latest project by RedBedlam, the UK developer responsible for the now defunct MMO Roma Victor. What set The Missing Ink apart from the rest was its unique art style, with characters all crafted out of two dimensional drawings on paper. It didn’t break any new ground, but the presentation was charming enough to warrant some off-again on-again gaming. Part of the fun was simply logging in every now and then to see how the early alpha client was progressing.

As you may have figured, The Missing Ink has shut down without any kind of mention by the game media. The servers went down at the end of January alongside an announcement that the game will receive a full overhaul and release later this year.

“As a result of the feedback from this community and our internal test team, we’re started work on a brand new game design for The Missing Ink. We’ll obviously be keeping our lovable 2D characters whilst expanding the explorable 3D worlds and much, much more.”

The good news is that The Missing Ink will hopefully find its way back into our hearts later this year. The bad news is that it will have to share that space with Sonic drive-ins that will be opened up in my neighborhood soon. Until then, follow The Missing Ink on Twitter.

Less Than Massive: Irrational Games Closure

Ken Levine announced today that he plans to shut down the Irrational Games studio following the release of Bioshock Infinite’s next DLC, Burial at Sea Part 2. Levine and a select group of other developers from the studio will form anew under Take-Two Interactive in order to work on smaller games that provide a closer relationship with the customer.

The Bioshock franchise will remain with Take-Two Interactive.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Lord of Ultima Shutting Down

No, not that Ultima. Lord of Ultima is the browser-based kingdom building game that loosely shared the Ultima franchise name and if you’ve never heard of it, well you can understand why it is shutting down. EA Games announced today that the Lord of Ultima servers will shut down May 12th at 0700 UTC. Until then, registration of new accounts will be closed and the ability to purchase play4free funds for the game will also be suspended.

It is always hard when we are met with such choices and the decision to retire older games is never an easy one. We cannot thank those who have supported us enough, and throughout the years of Lord of Ultima’s existence it has been the pleasure of both past and present developers to have been on this journey with you.

Lord of Ultima went into open beta in mid 2011.

(Source: Lord of Ultima)

SOE Shutting Down Four MMOs

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that four of their MMOs will be shut down later this year: Wizardry Online, Free Realms, Vanguard, and Clone Wars Adventures. Free Realms and Clone Wars are set to shut down March 31st with Wizardry and Vanguard following on July 31st. Sony attributes the sunsetting of Free Realms and Clone Wars as being due to its user base growing up and finding new games, while Wizardry Online was due to a mutual agreement with the publisher. In the case of Vanguard, SOE was unable to get past technical issues with the game’s outdated engine.

player population numbers have decreased making it difficult to justify the resources needed to support and update this game. This is an older game and we’re experiencing more and more technical challenges to continue running and updating it in a way you deserve. Simply put, these are issues that cannot be fixed in the long term and as a player, we would be doing you a disservice and going against our company commitment to provide the best gameplay experiences. So given this information, sunsetting the game later this year is the inevitable conclusion.

Vanguard is the oldest title to shut down, having launched in 2007, with Free Realms and Clone Wars going live in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Wizardry Online launched last January. Vanguard being shut down is especially saddening when you consider that (prior to being stopped by technical issues) the company seemed rather excited to start working on it. Still, the good news is that workers affected by the shutdowns were apparently absorbed into the SOE hive mind to work on other projects.

(Source: Vanguard Announcement, Clone Wars Announcement, Wizardry Announcement, Free Realms Announcement)

Archlord: Shutdowns and Mergers

As Archlord continues its shuttering, the sequel doesn’t seem to be faring any better. Last month, we reported that Archlord would be shutting down its global servers on January 1st, and MMO Culture is reporting that the Korean server will also be closing. Citing an inability to “provide players with a stable environment,” Webzen announced that Archlord’s final territory will be shutting down on February 13th. According to MMO Culture, Archlord II hasn’t been seeing a great response. Currently in open beta, Archlord II has been heavily criticized for latency issues, poor game design, and heavy pay to win features.

The MMO reportedly merged down to two servers, with players still having trouble finding parties. Archlord II is set to head westward at some point in 2014.

(Source: MMO Culture)

Warhammer Online Details Refunds

In case you’ve forgotten, Warhammer Online shuts down tomorrow. In a post on the Warhammer website, Mythic has detailed exactly how players will be compensated for their purchases. If you have made a purchase after November 1st, or had any game time remaining on your account on the same day, you will be refunded in full. If you purchased with a credit card, you’re all set as it will be refunded automatically. Anyone who paid with a game card will have to contact Mythic’s billing support. The same goes for unused game time codes.

According to the news post, refunds will start going out December 18th with the entire process possibly taking up to 90 days to complete due to the amount of work required. Check out the entire notice at the link below.

(Source: Warhammer Online)

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this:

Spread It:

Like this: