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Tag: Turbine
[Community] Turbine Is Now Making Mobile Junk
Turbine is a hard company not to view in revulsion, considering that the company interest in developing real video games probably left when Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online were spun off to Standing Stone Games, the rather underhanded way in which Turbine scraped what little they could off of Asheron’s Call while lying about their intentions to hand the game over to the community, and some disapproval over the announcement that publishing of LOTRO and DDO would be handled by Daybreak Game Company. All of this came alongside the announcement that Turbine would be focusing on mobile game development, a statement that qualified the company as no longer having anything of value to give to the industry.
Well you weren’t wrong. Turbine has announced its next game, and it appears to be exactly the cynical, cash grabbing, pay to win mobile strategy game that many of you immediately though of when you heard the words “mobile developer.” A popular franchise shamelessly slapped onto the same Evony clone that Chinese developers have been ripping off and releasing by the thousands over the past decade, one that will no doubt exist for a year before fading into obscurity, because as we have repeatedly seen not even a high profile property skin like Game of Thrones is enough to guarantee success in the saturated mobile market, and will disappear as silently as it came.
Head on over to the official website and you will find several paragraphs about the registration bonuses but virtually nothing about the actual game mechanics. There is a good reason for this, games of this caliber have no mechanics and if advertised as they truly are, a game where the player most closely allied with the Iron Bank of Braavos will win, well less people would want to sign up. Games that, even in the context of video games, have utterly no point and slow down to incentivize you to pay money to go nowhere, like paying for the gas to run your car on a treadmill.
I’ve railed against games so boring that the developer builds in bots so they can play themselves, on a level so rough that my joke review actually got covered at the Game Developers Conference in China, but despite the presence of an auto-play button, you can argue that there is a game there for those who want to play it. You couldn’t make an auto-play button for the vast swaths of identical city building games, because there is nothing to play.
So rather than continue beating down Turbine, I’m going to count my blessings that Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online are in the hands of a leadership that actually care, or at least are willing to pretend that they care, that Warner Bros. and what remains of Turbine are no longer handling it.
Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.
Turbine’s Renewal of the Asheron’s Call Domain Is Probably Nothing
The internet is buzzing, or at least a small section is, over the news that Turbine has renewed the Asheron’s Call domain through 2022. While the revelation has naturally caused speculation on whether or not Turbine has plans for the property, the real answer is fairly likely to not exactly be what the community wants to hear. In practice, domain renewals are cheap and easy and done simply to protect a company’s IP. After all, while Turbine may have no interest in further work on the series, they don’t want the domains dropping into less scrupulous hands.
Domains generally only get pushed over to the public when the company goes fully bankrupt. Games like Hellgate: London for instance have had their hosting servers taken over by fan sites and revival projects, while games like the 2D Half Life 2 fan title Codename: Gordon link to a domain that has since been taken over by a porn website distributing malware, forcing Valve to remove the game from Steam. In either case, Turbine probably doesn’t want its domain linking to private servers or porn.
So don’t read too far into this domain renewal.
Crowdfunding Fraudsters: Save Asheron’s Call Gofundme
It’s been a while. Crowdfunding Fraudsters is a recurring column here at MMO Fallout where I look at campaigns on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Gofundme that, in my opinion, need a good going over with a fine tooth comb. The use of the term fraudster does not imply malice, but rather the idea that the creator is not who he or she is represented to be, be that a skilled developer or businessperson.
Today’s subject is the Asheron’s Call Resurrection project, a Gofundme with a goal of $2 million looking to purchase/license the Asheron’s Call property off of Warner Bros as Turbine is ending support and the official servers are being shut down in January. As of this publishing, the campaign has managed to pull in $1,500 from 18 people (see above), an average of $83 per person, and several updates on the official Facebook page claim that the group has been in contact with Warner Bros. and that things are looking pretty good.
And here we come to problem number one: The goal of $2 million is a placeholder. I’ve spoken about this on pretty much every CF article attempting to crowdfund purchasing an IP, it is a horrible idea to set a goal without having an idea on how much you’ll be paying or confirmation that the company even has any intention of accepting such a deal. Let’s say for example that, by some grace of god, this group manages to just barely miss the $2 million mark by fifty grand, only for negotiations with Warner Bros. to hit a low end of $4 million and refuse to go lower. Guess who isn’t getting the IP? Guess who isn’t getting their money back? This also assumes that the claims are true that Warner Bros. is even interested in starting negotiations.
As far as the fundraising goes, sure, you can sit on that cash and wait for it to hopefully, one day, maybe perhaps hit the goal, but who is to say that Warner Bros. will be on board by that point? Corporations hate when you waste their time with pointless acquisition deals that go nowhere, especially when you wasted the time and money of their lawyers and officials the first time around. Negotiations like this die at the drop of a hat from very simple missteps, or say publicity that sheds a bad light on your ability to follow through, especially when one side is talking about it as much as this group is. Loose lips sink ships.
But Connor, you say, why would they be so unaccommodating on an IP that they probably have no intent on using? Why would it be so pricey? Well, the thing about companies is that they don’t operate on the same level of thinking as you or I, their unused properties aren’t treated like that couch taking up room in the garage that’s starting to smell, to be left in the street corner with a “free” sign and hope that somebody takes it. Unless the company is in dire need of money, they don’t look at their property on the grounds of “better something than nothing.” They also look at potential buyers and size them up based on their perceived competency and generally won’t just license/sell away properties to a ragtag, loosely connected group of developers, even if the money is good.
Barring the question of funding, I can’t imagine that Warner Bros. will want to do business once they see the level of stark immaturity on display from these groups. I’ve spoken before about how these resurrection projects tend to be led by individuals with massive and fragile egos, explaining why Crowdfunding Fraudsters has already racked up a couple of baseless lawsuit threats, and already the “save Asheron’s Call” community has split in half with both sides having Facebook tantrums and block wars. The focal point of the argument is, naturally, that the crowdfunding effort is incompetent at best, maybe a little shady, and possibly just an attempt to piggyback off of nostalgia to grind some cash out of desperate fans.
But don’t just take my word for it, take a look at these gems out of the horse’s mouth itself.
Dustin removed my post and posting ability on the Resurrection page within minutes. If you want your money wasted, make sure to donate to the unofficial Gofundme with no official resources, backers or direction. AKA, get your money stolen. (Source)
Our communications with Dustin and Justin were met with a lot of double talk and misleading information. Additionally, I felt that the GoFundMe efforts are extremely premature, and there is no solid evidence that what is being said, and the amount needed is accurately portrayed. (Source)
So here you have a nobody asking for $2 million in the hopes that he might actually divert what may or may not be sufficient funding for an acquisition that the property owner hasn’t given any real indication of being willing to sell. $2 million that, barring a philanthropic millionaire, will never be raised because Asheron’s Call doesn’t have anywhere near the following required to support random money being thrown at a person to pitch a buyout. The Gofundme has been up for 8 days and brought in 18 pledges. If you were waiting for an Earth-shattering kaboom, it would have happened by now.
Put it this way: The City of Heroes spiritual sequel by Missing Worlds Media raked in $678,000 and that community was massive compared to what remains of the Asheron’s Call base. Whatever hope the game has of surviving at this point, barring the sudden entrance of a wealthy backer, lies in community-run private servers, not throwing money to two crews of pedantic, arguing children who couldn’t get past phase one without immediately falling apart and being reduced to complaining on Facebook about who was deleting whose posts. If you want somewhere safer to put your money, I hear Digital Homicide is still floating around on the net.
Turbine Reneges On Private Server Plans, Shutting Down Asheron’s Call
Turbine Entertainment has announced that Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 will shut down on January 31st, 2017, following the news this week that Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online would be spun off into a separate company with Turbine continuing to focus on the mobile gaming sector. Those of you who have followed the game for the past few years now will no doubt be wondering what happened to those private servers that Turbine announced nearly three years ago?
They aren’t coming. According to a post on the forums, while private servers were planned, the team at Turbine was unable to make the plans a reality.
We had hoped to be able to hand off our servers to the community, so our most loyal players could continue their journey through Dereth. Unfortunately, this is something we were unable to do.
Both games will be free to play until the servers shut down, with new account creation disabled entirely.
(Source: Asheron’s Call)
Turbine Disabling Lord of the Rings Sales Through May
If you were looking at picking up anything in Lord of the Rings Online this week, you’re out of luck. In a post on the official forums, Turbine announced that sales for the nine year old MMO will be halted for a week on Tubine’s store as well as through Steam and Amazon. The announcement comes with a rather ominous “plan” to turn the features back on in June.
We want to announce that at 12:00pm EDT 5/20/2016, we’ll be temporarily interrupting our DLC/Offer sales on Steam, store.turbine.com, and Amazon. We plan to turn these back on June 1st, 2016.
Speculation is rampant on why sales would need to be suspended for a full week, with all likelihood pointing to an overhaul to mirror the company’s shift in focus from big expansions to smaller content packs.
(Source: Lord of the Rings Online)
Asheron’s Call Still Offline, No Remedy In Sight
Asheron’s Call went offline two weeks ago for extended maintenance, and it still hasn’t woken up. In a post on the official forums, Turbine staff have been giving daily updates on how things are progressing, but so far the company has no idea how much longer the maintenance will take.
We’ve identified additional engineering work that will be required in order for us to reopen the worlds to you, and are currently working through the best way to get that work done. At this time we do not have an ETA on when the worlds will reopen, but we expect to have more information for you within the next couple of days. We apologize for the delay, and know that we are working to get the worlds reopened to you as soon as possible.
(Source: Asheron’s Call)
LOTRO Will Merge Down To Ten Servers
We learned back in May of Turbine’s plans to merge the Lord of the Rings Online servers, but the company has finally come forward with more specific details on the hows, the whens, and the wheres. All but ten servers will close as part of the merger, five in the US and five in Europe, with players from affected servers being given free transfers to any one of the ten remaining.
We will begin the transfer process by opening the test world, Bullroarer, for character copy. We will then open transfers between the 10 remaining worlds. Then the worlds that are closing will be opened for transfer, a few at a time, in the order they are listed below. Please watch the website, forums, and launcher for announcements regarding timing. *Note: Brandywine will be unavailable for incoming transfers for a time until population and load can be re-evaluated on new hardware.*
While ten servers remain, the announcement notes that Brandywine will not be available as a transfer destination until the server can be moved to upgraded hardware.
(Source: Official Website)
Top 5: Lessons We Should Learn From Infinite Crisis
This week Turbine Entertainment announced that Infinite Crisis is shutting down, news that shouldn’t have really been a big surprise given the game’s extended development period, stretched out beta, lack of promotion, and how Turbine was throwing $50 cash packs in with Nvidia graphics cards.
Infinite Crisis isn’t the only game I’m going to talk about here, so just imagine the title was “Lessons We Should Learn From The MOBA Industry”
1. Developers Face A Steep Uphill Climb
If earning a seat at the MMO table is about as hard as getting a reservation at Rao’s in New York City, then the MOBA industry is right up there with a gig at Carnegie Hall. There are a few dozen MOBAs on the market right now, only a small handful of which will dominate the rest while the industry graveyard continues to branch out and buy up more land for the recently deceased. We talk a lot here about how World of Warcraft clones fail because, for the most part, players aren’t willing to forego the time and money spent leveling their characters to go do the same thing over again.
The MOBA genre, with its hyper-competitive nature, has a lot of shortcomings that can kill it early. You’re going up against companies with established communities, years of work balancing each individual hero, and thriving eSports scene. In order to break into the industry, it seems that companies either need to bring something different to the table (ala Smite), be backed by a company with a massive community (ala Dota 2) or to have gotten into the industry at an early age (League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth).
2. Big IPs Still Mean Squat In Gaming
Isn’t it fitting that, out of all of the MOBAs, the ones that crashed and shut down happen to be based on very popular properties? Warhammer is a franchise that spans tabletop games, pen and paper role playing, video games, novels, and more, and yet none of that mattered when the MMO toppled and the MOBA couldn’t sustain itself through beta. The same goes for Transformers Universe, a popular IP with the backing of an established developer with a massive customer base.
Even Guardians of Middle Earth, with all the power of the Lord of the Rings, couldn’t avoid being critically panned (22% approval on Steam) with presently deserted servers on PC. The game came and went on PS3 so quietly that even Warner Bros. didn’t notice to update its website to stop directing people to buy the PS3 version on Amazon, or even acknowledge the game’s existence on PC. According to Steam Charts, Guardians of Middle Earth has a 30 day peak of 19 players on Steam.
3. The Perpetual Beta Is Tired And Pointless
The idea that a game should receive more lenient coverage when in beta became a thing of the past when developers started fully charging for products that were still in beta, and it would be irresponsible to not acknowledge this when MMOs/MOBAs are shutting down without ever launching, and many don’t even offer some form of refund to the customers that went out on a limb and spent their hard earned money to fund an unfinished project.
And while the unfinished state of the game is a great excuse to deflect criticism when reviewers tell you not to spend money, Turbine apparently has no problem using beta time played to justify denying a refund to their founders, which is the exact sentiment given by Turbine’s Community Manager.
That’s mostly it. Because Founders got to play for 2+ years, you guys were well outside our refund window. We really do thank you for supporting the game, as it was your support that kept us going. Make no mistake about that. But, they guys who just bought their elite pack or starter pack from Steam, they didn’t get to play for as long as you guys.
4. The MOBA Genre Is In The Middle Of A Soft Crash
Right now the genre is in a position where developers are looking at the success of the likes of League and Dota and saying to themselves “I can do that too.” What we’ve wound up with is three major players (League, Dota, and SMITE in that order) and a whole lot of stragglers. This isn’t the case of the MMO industry where we have one game to rule them all and a ton of other companies making much smaller, but still livable incomes. The MOBAs that are down on the bottom of the list are struggling to remain relevant, in a genre that is heavily favoring those few at the top.
Compare the 30 day peak of Infinite Crisis to Dota2 on Steam: 1,557 to 967,674. Or Super Monday Night Combat (152), or Demigod (27), or Guardians of Middle Earth (13).
5. Fully Funded Betas Are Still A Bad Place For Your Money
Paid betas have taken on one of the worst attitudes and practices by developers, as repeated by Turbine’s community manager. Developers like Turbine have no problem selling a beta as though it is a finished product, ending character wipes, opening up a fully functional cash shop, and pulling hundreds of dollars out of players, yet when push comes to shove and people start giving the game negative reviews because of bugs or unfinished features, they turn around and claim that it’s unfair because the game is not released and not a finished product.
And when games like Infinite Crisis shut down after a prolonged beta and short launch? Well then it’s considered a full experience, and when pushed on a refund? Deny the entire concept of a finished game.
I know some of you feel as though you only had a small amount of time to play a “finished” game, but Infinite Crisis is a game that was built to consistently change. Even after launch we were still going to produce new champions, add new features, and continue iterating the game as we went forward. As we posted during our launch announcement, launch was never going to be a stopping point in the eyes of our development cycle. We’re an online game, and we’ve changed a lot (and changed for the better) over the last two years.
Turbine’s CM knows as well as you or I do what the players mean by “finished,” that being when the game sheds its beta tags, but you have to hand it to Turbine. Infinite Crisis was finished enough to open up the cash shop, not finished enough to review as a final product, and when it shut down right after launch? Well what exactly does “finished” mean, really? Hold two sides of the same coin, and then deny that the coin exists.
We understand when indie developers can’t finish a game because it’s a couple of guys working out of a motel/office funding the game partially out of pocket and partially through donations/pledges. A company like Turbine, on the IP of DC Comics and the backing of a corporate hulk like Warner Bros. shouldn’t be dropping development of a game because it wasn’t making enough money during beta.
It’s PR spin, and people aren’t going to fall for it. Infinite Crisis shutting down right after launch is bad enough as it is, bridges will be burned and customers will be lost, it’s an unfortunate part of business. But burning founders can damage a brand, in the case Turbine’s future ability to put a game out in beta and ask people to join in early to fund you, as people will look back to when Infinite Crisis shut down and see that while those who jumped in late were refunded, the people who were there from the beginning were told “oh well, too bad.”
I feel that this is a bad sign for Turbine overall.
Turbine Shutting Down Infinite Crisis
Turbine Entertainment has announced the impending sunset of Inifinite Crisis this August. Infinite Crisis exited beta on March 26 of this year, giving the game a shelf life of about 141 days from launch to shut down.
After much deliberation, we regret to announce the official shutdown of Infinite Crisis. We will end development efforts today and will close the service on August 14, 2015.
As the MOBA market continues to expand and saturate itself, it has become much more difficult to find an audience. Infinite Crisis is the second high profile MOBA to shut down this year, after Jagex’s Transformers in January and EA’s Dawngate in February.
(Source: Infinite Crisis)
MMO Fallout 