Another sign of the troubled economic times hit home today when it came out that an unannounced MMO studio in Austin, TX had been closed. This group included Lead Designer Scott Jennings, aka "Lum the Mad," formerly of Mythic, NCsoft and, of course, blogging fame.

There was not much known about what the team had been working on, and it appears that we will never officially know for sure. Unlike many studios with unannounced projects, these guys were not even allowed to tell us what company was behind the whole thing.

The only hints we're likely to get was what Jennings posted on his blog: "I’m still a bit sore since I think what we were working on was pretty damned cool (if nothing else, it was *nothing* like World of Warcraft) and I’m a sad panda that it won’t make it out the door."

Check out Scott's blog post on it all here.

Wasn't it John Galt Games that he had gone to work for?

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Wasn't it John Galt Games that he had gone to work for?

 

 

John Galt became Webwars, but he left there to go work for this outfit.

 A friend of mine worked for that studio, too.  I found out through his linkedin and facebook posts today.  Sucks...

BTW, another notable name on that project was April "Cuppa Jo" Burba, who was the Producer for the title.

For what it's worth, it's pretty easy to find out the name of the studio on the web.  From what I can tell, the studio name is no longer a secret, although the IP is.

~Ripper

Hopefully word will leak out. I like gaming gossip. :D

I really hope it's not Carbine Studios.

Originally posted by Leethe

I really hope it's not Carbine Studios.

It's not Carbine - that's in California.

~Ripper

Whatever the concept of this MMO, the people funding it did not have much confidence in it.  Probably not much of a loss.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Whatever the concept of this MMO, the people funding it did not have much confidence in it.  Probably not much of a loss.

this

 That sucks. That was the studio Tabula Rasa was ran out of if I remember correctly.

Originally posted by nickelpat

 That sucks. That was the studio Tabula Rasa was ran out of if I remember correctly.

   This just adds to the feeling of "probably not that much of a loss"

Originally posted by severity3

Originally posted by nickelpat

 That sucks. That was the studio Tabula Rasa was ran out of if I remember correctly.

 

   This just adds to the feeling of "probably not that much of a loss"

I rather liked TR, it had one of the most efficient and communicative dev teams I've seen.

Originally posted by severity3

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Whatever the concept of this MMO, the people funding it did not have much confidence in it.  Probably not much of a loss.

 

this

Only if they actually planned to play the game would their opinions be of any value. Otherwise, the investors wanted to put their money somewhere else, probably into the market 'cause it's starting to come back.

  Meh at any rate...lets some up this "news"..............

                    Some company , we don't know their name, who was working for some people, but we can't tell you who...and was working on some project....dont know what it is..- closed.

    Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm......ok?

It was not a studio that had anything to do with Tabula Rasa. The only connection is that Scott used to work for NCsoft on another project and April did work on Tabula Rasa. Mind you, you can probably make a connection like that to any studio in Austin ;) It's not a big town.

Originally posted by nickelpat

Originally posted by severity3

Originally posted by nickelpat

 That sucks. That was the studio Tabula Rasa was ran out of if I remember correctly.

 

   This just adds to the feeling of "probably not that much of a loss"

I rather liked TR, it had one of the most efficient and communicative dev teams I've seen.

I too played TR for awhile.

The most efficient and communicative dev team I've seen in 12 years of MMO gaming is those of Fallen Earth.

I'll admit now that this thread has me curious as to what they were working on. grrr

Originally posted by Dana

It was not a studio that had anything to do with Tabula Rasa. The only connection is that Scott used to work for NCsoft on another project and April did work on Tabula Rasa. Mind you, you can probably make a connection like that to any studio in Austin ;) It's not a big town.

Oops, that's what I get for speed reading. I thought it was an NCSoft studio in Austin :P

Sorry, my bad.

Originally posted by severity3

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Whatever the concept of this MMO, the people funding it did not have much confidence in it.  Probably not much of a loss.

 

this

Right on. Yet another doomed to failure half-assed project that may have been a brilliant idea but never had the funding to make it happen. At least this one had the decency to die before the hype started.

It is a good thing that what ever the project was dead early on.  No costumer to go omg my baby has been run over by the train.

Sad news to say the least. Have to wonder how many more will fall before the economy is back on the mend. So many already without jobs and it seems more being added by the day.

We may never know what was being worked on either.