No one likes to games fail like this.  In the long run though its probably better off.  Less emotional grief now than if people were playing for a year.

I was in beta for a short time, but one thing I really appreciated was the writing.  I think the writers did a fantastic job with the backstory for the characters I met.

Another thing I liked was the artwork.  The artists did a great job on the avatars.  Usually in mmo's I struggle to find one or two avatars that are acceptable, but in God's and Heroes i created several male and female avatars that I was pleased with.

I think the game had some potential.  Hopefully it will make a return.  I would rather see the minion system minimized or scrapped though in favor of a really good pvp system. 

I was in beta too - you guys created a wonderful world full of detail and imagination, and the storyline developments I experienced were superb! It's a dreadful shame that all that work went to waste but I was at least privileged to see the game at the stage that I did.

To tell you the truth, I barely read the quest texts in GnH beyond directions part. Why? There's no need. Why should I try to find out the reason for mob grind this time around? I was lvl8, maybe there's genius in quests for higher levels. But from what I have seen, only a 'gladiator lost his lucky charm' quest was of any interest. Others are dull.

The game was dull in its essence too, actually. Were it shipped, I don't think there'd be much success. It's WoW-Rome, with lesser depth and polish. Having seen it, I'm glad that I'm not a Star Trek fan. I suspect that these guys will get their share of sorrow when respective MMO from Perpetual sees the light of day - if it ever ships, that is.

SOE will buy GnH and slap it on the station pass. It was the plan all along.

This was a nicely written article. Thank you, Michael.

I am one of those (few?) players that *does* pay attention to writing and quest design. I appreciate creativity, pathos, and humor when I come across it--and I have seen it all in the really good games.

G&H had potential and promise. I might have even been willing to subscribe to it for a bit.

The game seemed in some ways like an attempt to marry features of WoW (persistent world MMO) and Guild Wars (minion/heroes system) in gameplay design and put it all into a Roman/Classical setting. It was a clever idea.

The thing is, I suspect Guild Wars handles minions (Heroes) better, and WoW handles the persistent world thing better. I doubt G&H would have pulled many players away from these two behemoths, particularly not on a subscription basis.

I know it won't happen, but I would love to see ArenaNet purchase the content of G&H and set it up in their gameplay fashion. The content of G&H just seems better suited to the kind of Henchmen/Heroes/Mission style of play that you see in the Guild Wars campaigns. If they then dropped the subscription fee, I think people would have liked G&H a lot better and that it would have fared reasonably well in the marketplace.

Sadly, that won't happen -- but that's what I wish would happen. It seems a shame to have all that writing and "set design" just gather dust in some virtual warehouse at PE.

Wow... this gives a perspective of the 'other side' that is pretty sad, IMO.  All that work and great writing gone for naught. 

I beta'ed the game and was very happy with the stories I came across in quests and just from talking with NPCs.  I thought they really brought the game to life which is something I think many games lack.

I'm really really hoping some other company buys this game from PE and finishes it making it the great game I think it could be.  If PE decides to start developing GnH again then I doubt I'd be interested just because of the way they handled shutting it down.

Thank you for writing this and I wish you well!!

I Beta tested since August 2006 so I had over a year in the game and I can't tell you how sad I am to see it go. I was really looking forward to seeing it go live. I figured anything it needed could be handled in updates as LOTR;s does with their book updates. I've tested a lot of games in the passed year..some that have gone live or are about to go live and GnH was better then all of them.

It's such a shame but I do feel fortunate I got to spend so much time with it.

I feel it is a great loss for the MMO world. It would have been something new and I was quite looking forward to it. I can only hope it was really because of quality reasons, as they claim. After the Vanguard disaster maybe they learned and it really didnt come out as good, game-wise. Since I wasnt in beta, I dont know. Its courage to admit, hey our game didnt went good enough, but I guess lack of funds also played a mayor role. G&H will be missed, the opportunity it had promised.

Maybe there is hope someone buys and finishes it. Its a pity to see such a unique thing and such a mass of work go totally waste.

All characters who'd become almost alive in my mind yet will never again live.  ...  So the loss is real, even if the world is not.

I always like to think that my old pc's DO continue to live on in their world - like avatar Zanshin here is still running around AkAnon in EQ1, swimming in the pool, killing clockwork spiders.

Michael, Thanks for your article. When I replied to the first post about the cancellation, I only thought about my loss, the loss to the players. I didn't think about the creators such as yourself who put their hearts and souls andl ives into the game. It's such a tragedy. GnH was looking like it had so much potential. It was #1 on my list.

I wish you success and good luck on your next project.

I still disagree with Perp's decision to focus on the Star Trek game. I think they are grossly over estimating its potential.

Yeah., I beta'd it and the way they pretty much instantly shut everything down with no heads up was really immature and unprofessional. You'd think upper or middle management would have more common sense to do it like that when they are a new name in a unforgiving business and have another game down the pipe. I know I won't forget how they just tossed us to the side like we were meaningless and all it would have took was a little courtesy and respect to completely avoid such a problem. I have no problem that the game was canceled. It's all about how they did it.

/boggle

You know, in part I feel for the fellow, as he put a lot of time into something that will never see the light of the day.

Then again, he joined a group of individuals who have no clue how to write a MMO.  I mean, come on, no trade skills to start with?  No way for people to sell their items?  What does he expect?

Star Trek will be just another completely clueless implementation, these guys at perpetual have not learned one thing.  Just read the STO boards, completely ignoring the lore for this game is a no brainer to failure.

Originally posted by synergi

I Beta tested since August 2006 so I had over a year in the game and I can't tell you how sad I am to see it go. I was really looking forward to seeing it go live. I figured anything it needed could be handled in updates as LOTR;s does with their book updates. I've tested a lot of games in the passed year..some that have gone live or are about to go live and GnH was better then all of them.

It's such a shame but I do feel fortunate I got to spend so much time with it.

I'ld like to know what games you tested because if they were not as good as GnH they must have been horrible.  I don't understand all the former testers here saying the game was decent, the game was GARBAGE.  It wasn't close to even going public beta much less going live.  Logging in and finding whole portions of the game world devoid of NPC's or cities disappearing is not decent, it is garbage.  Here's some good news for you though, PE has MMO building tools.  If they use the same tules to build STO it's going to be another "decent" beta experience.  Face it, only one guy in PE management has any experience in the gaming world and that's richard zinzer and the other PE managers obviously must not listen to him since their end product is garbage.  Look at their profiles, they were constantly moved around from project to project because no one wanted them.  But hey, as they said, there's plenty of time to cancel your accounts.  What a bunch of fools, PE is a bigger sink then the Titanic.  Ice burg staright ahead!

I truly loved G&H:RR. But when I found out the game was p2p, I simply stopped caring. Now that this game won't be seen for god knows how long, it kid of saddens me. Such great work, so much effort put into it, and so many release dates announced because they wanted to finally market the game. This article is about as depressing as depressing can be. And I hope they can finish star trek online soon enough to release this game. Good luck, and peace.