Don't count on HJ ever coming out.  Word is, they just had massive layoffs (20-something people).

Any real information about this?  This would severely be a bad thing, insofar as the Hero's Engine is what The Old Republic is using and the development of the engine has been ongoing with BioWare Austin.  Now, if it is just the game's development staff and the engine staff are still fully functional then it's a sad day for people like myself that had been looking forward to this game for several years now but their is still the good news that The Old Republic will not be negatively impacted by this sort of a change.  Any linkage? :)

"If the game was dying, don't you think that you would've heard something about it? Doesn't the fact that there has been absolutely nothing like that leaked mean anything?"

- Agent_X7, staff writer (former?) for mmorpg.com

I guess the "as long as they never admit the game isn't launching it must still be launching" theory didn't work out after all.

Originally posted by drundle

Don't count on HJ ever coming out.  Word is, they just had massive layoffs (20-something people).

Yes, its true, and I thought it was 60 people were layed off.  One of which was a family member.  As much as I've overheard I don't see HJ getting a release in the next 2 years....appears to be just an engine for now.

 It's over, done, they are finished.  I know someone who works....... sorry, worked there and they are finished.  That game looked amazing too and now thanks to poor management from what I've heard they are going to be over.  Unless of course things pick up which looks more unlikely with the economic down turn.   They should have released that game a long time ago.  Sorry, I'm just ticked off and had to vent.  It seems like a lot of small companies like simutronics are going to have a hard time keeping up if companies like EA are even downsizing..........

GAME OVER!!!!! pardon the joke, but what a joke.  This game was supposed to come out in 2003, then 2004, then "Early" 2005, then "Summer" 2006, then they were like, O' we are going to focus on the engine.  OK............. then 2007, then "Late" 2008, I love that one, "Late" awesome.  and now "Never" in 2009.  Great, what a tease.  good looking visuals but thats all.   The company should have just let a bigger company buy them out and get the stinkin game out, but instead they decided to stay small.  I said this a long time ago, small companies just can't get over the hill to the promise land, they need some help, and thats ok, everyone needs help sometimes, all you have to do is admit it and everything will be ok, but instead..........nothin.........and now look, they had to let people go.  What a mess,  great managment!!!

Last I heard was that HJ was being programed by mainly volunteer programmers, and that they had a very small inhouse staff (as in less then 20). I dunno, but there is exactly zero information that is any way official, and this is the first time I've heard this "rumor". Unless they fired everyone (which I doubt, as all their other games are still running, and being updated), and I would think it would be a pretty retarded move to fire the volunteers, as they are not being paid.
 

I really doubt the legitimacy of this statement.  HJ is run by a pretty small team (who actually expanded some time ago), and they took over development from their volunteer team some months back in order to speed things along.  They also just built a new building for the company a couple months ago.  They have sold the Hero Engine -several- times now, so I really doubt they've been having money problems.  On top of that, they still make quite a bit of money from their MUD subscriptions, which people pay a pretty penny to play still.

 As a former volunteer GM for Hero's Journey, I'm in the loop as far as goings-on at Simutronics.

The layoffs are true. There are now 6 employees still remaining at the Simutronics headquarters. Dave tried very hard to prevent this, but in the end, HeroEngine wasn't selling well enough to support the team anymore.

Simutronics will continue to develop and support HeroEngine, but Hero's Journey is on indefinite hiatus until Simu can get out of this rut.

Personally, I think Hero's Journey is vaporware. Having actually worked on the game, I can say that with some authority.

This is too bad, because it had a lot of potential. HeroEngine really is a very solid engine, and I had a blast using it.

That is a real shame.  HJ looked very promising.

All the Simu GMs left this forum in the dust long ago, you expect me to believe theyd' come out of the woodwork HERE of all places? Any real GM would be sick of you by now.

But no, let's all just listen to the guy with a post count of 1. It's not official until a simu rep says it is.

Oh and Riceman, your numbers are a TAD off.

www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2008/02/18/daily3.html Sure it's outdated, but I find it hard to believe this wouldn't come up when they fired the first 20+. And lovely work by the mod cutting off half of my sentence to totally change the point. That's some fine moderation, Lou.

{ Mod Edit }

Originally posted by Sheista

I really doubt the legitimacy of this statement.  HJ is run by a pretty small team (who actually expanded some time ago), and they took over development from their volunteer team some months back in order to speed things along.  They also just built a new building for the company a couple months ago.  They have sold the Hero Engine -several- times now, so I really doubt they've been having money problems.  On top of that, they still make quite a bit of money from their MUD subscriptions, which people pay a pretty penny to play still.

 

They didn't move into that new building, Sheista.

 WOW the official message boards suck.

That is all

Good news. One less crappy release to deal with.

I would wait to see what exactly they say, you have to remember simutronics also owns and opperates about 7 different mud games with suscriptions that run from $14 to $80 dollars. I would want to see that the 20 person lay off was from hero's journey and not from one of their high price server teams. Honestly they make their bank from text based games that people play as much as a normal mmo to play. I'd not count anything that simply says simutronics as impacting HJ unless they said explicityly  that it was from that team the lay offs came.

Sucky news if any of it is true....if they really wanna make money with their Engine they should have some sort of liscences for Hobbyists.   At this point they're hurting themselves for cash if thats the issue.

I was looking forward to HJ...Simutronics is the first online game company I ever played a game by.  Gemstone 3!

I played dragon realms as my first, back when it was attached to aol about 13 years ago. It was what really hooked me to mmo's, right up til I got lost forever in a maze. Any game that can make you lost to the point you never get home has a lvl of skill there. I credit that game with why I refuse to get lost in todays mmo's even if I don't have a map.

Originally posted by drundle

Don't count on HJ ever coming out.  Word is, they just had massive layoffs (20-something people).

This is ypur title:

HJ is officially over.

Where is the official anouncement in your post?

Is the second thread I read recently with an "officially" in the title with no official information inside. Please dont use this word untill you have some kind of official word.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

Good news. One less crappy release to deal with.

LOL this comeing from a suer with a Hackfall signature pic, hilarious.

On the thread topic, the a ount of news released about this game is akin to that of darkfall, could even be worse, thou the visuals look WAY better, kinda sad I just found out about the game. Thier website says they are still hireing on the main page lol they may want to update that.

 To bad this game is over... I just noticed it now from the forums and it looks amazing!

Ah, well! Not really a surprise.

I must admit, I am totally inclined to believe the people reporting about the lay-offs etc. The nay-sayers have been right all along about this game.

I only hope, that the engine, at least, delivers, what Simutronic promises, as I am looking forward to SWTOR.

Wow, a friend who was a GM for HJ confirmed this.  He received an email from the company informing them about the layoffs.  Said the game was not cancelled, but that it would be a while until they could get funding.  Apparently they've had some pretty major financial issues, and haven't been selling as many licenses of the HeroEngine as they would have liked.

I stand corrected, but this really does suck.  :(

Yes, that makes sense. Except for the part where they never originally intended to license HeroEngine until HJ was finished. Sort of makes one wonder where all that extra money that was never factored into the budget went.

That's too bad this game is gone. It was one of those I kinda followed over the years. Perhaps the devs shoulda concentrated on getting the game finished/ released so they coulda made some money offa it. Rather than just worrying about trying to sell the engine...they coulda sold engine after the game was released.

 Figured as much, the are no doubt using HJ as a model for engine for other companies. I think Bioware is using it for Star Wars KOTRO. 

I know in this economy that is what I'd do.