Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

 

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

 

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

 

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

 

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

DF successful? really? AC1 is ancient...so all you got is EVE.

Originally posted by Shivam

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

 

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

 

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

 

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

DF successful? really? AC1 is ancient...so all you got is EVE.

DF had a solid run (maybe 2 years?) in which it kept both NA and EU servers very healthy all while releasing 3-4 xpacs and not being able to meet the supply demand at launch....

The flaws in the skill system eventually killed DF1 but reguardless it was very successfull for the run it had...so much so that there making  2.0.... so yeah i would call that successfull.

Who cares if AC1 is ancient.....its still up and running and Darktide is and has always been the most populated server in it....the fact that its "ancient" only strengthens my case.

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Shivam

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

 

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

 

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

 

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

DF successful? really? AC1 is ancient...so all you got is EVE.

DF had a solid run (maybe 2 years?) in which it kept both NA and EU servers very healthy all while releasing 3-4 xpacs and not being able to meet the supply demand at launch....

 

The flaws in the skill system eventually killed DF1 but reguardless it was very successfull for the run it had...so much so that there making  2.0.... so yeah i would call that successfull.

 

Who cares if AC1 is ancient.....its still up and running and Darktide is and has always been the most populated server in it....the fact that its "ancient" only strengthens my case.

You call 2 years run a solid run? even though DF struggled  with subs for all these 2 years? but i guess for sandbox lovers that is what counts success? So let us see, a game which is dead, another one which is ancient and one above average performing sandbox..that is three in total. Even though i will only give EVE credit out of all three.

No wonder investors run away from sinking money in sandboxes.

Originally posted by drakes821

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Tell me exactly what it is I assumed?

I was there for both so I can confirm MO had a worse launch.

I have continously checked in on both so I KNOW that ER had more players on average than MO

Masthead had actual game developers working for them which SV does not.

Yes, Masthead was charging AAA prices for a long while up until they hit the population level of Mortal Online and then they stopped and decided to go the free to play route. This never came to pass and the game has shut down.

And no don't make the mistake of asuming that I think they just genuinely care about the players, they simply saw the writing on the wall and knew if they continued charging what they were charging for an incomplete buggy game they wouldn't have a player base left.

Mortal Onlines population continues to dwindle just like Earthrises did, they've run so low on funds they can't even afford to do a proper advertising campaigne so they "encourage" fans to come to these kinds of sites and make fake reviews and generate false hype about the game.

 

The situations for both games are almost completely identical. Masthead tried to at least be intellegent about it, quit charging what few remain and at least try to salvage things by converting to a free to play model.

While neither company truly cares about its players, Masthead in the end at least showed better business sense than SV. SV (in the almost exact same boat as Masthead though with less money, less people and less talent) however wishes to handle it with a blind eye, if we don't aknowledge that we have failed then maybe we won't fail! Keep saying over and over that everythings wonderful!

Show me an asumption on my part?

Your right your not assuming anything anymore...your just lyiing.

Saying ER had a better population than MO on average is such BS and shows that your just taking out your a^^. It truely is a ridiculous statement and if you had actually played both games you wouldn't have said something so stupid.  I honestly could link a ton of post and such from the ER forums proving it but it's not worth it. Your not afraid to lie to support your side of the argument so theres no point in agruing with you.

 

Nah, no need to lie lol. Surpassing MO's player base isn't exactly hard. I mean you guys can shout "The population is booming, ignore the financials, ignore what you see in game, ignore what others are saying, listen to us" all you want, but it isn't going to change what is. Prior to suspending the monthly fee ER had a larger population than MO. Your gut feeling that MO had to have had more players means squat to me. 

But in the end it doesn't really matter. Anyone can look at the two situations and form there own opinion with there own experiences. I'm simply glad it was a fan that brought it up so there can't be any QQ's about compairing the two games lol.

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

 

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

 

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

 

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

I would not pile up EvE together with other FFA "sandboxes" such as MO and DF. EvE actually went smart with its design of well protected zone which gradually fade the further you go, resulting in a very solid safe area for crafters and non PvPres to play in, leaving the outskirts to the guilds to fight for. MO and DF got nothing of this, ouside of town it is lawless zone everywhere you go.

That's the difference between good design and henrik design.

Originally posted by youngkg

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by amadman

Shame to hear that they had to shut it down.

As far as MO... Its not for every one for sure.

But the more people that give it a try the more people that it is for will find it.

True, but the devs need to figure out a 'mentorship' program, or better yet, a skillset, to trick half of the asshat population into being helpful. New players are castrated, and physically, rather than taken under-wing.

It's the same old story... PvPers killing their own game for their own short term lolz, and then wondering why no one stays.

PvP focused sandboxes will always ultimately fail because off the type of people that play them.

The sad fact is that those people cannot see that they are the issue.

Not this again....

EvE,DF,AC1...All pretty successfull with EvE having the most consistency of the pack and as time goes by we will see more death penalty mmo's that will most likely adopt EvE's structured safe zone mechanics.

MO is just a shit bad game on its last leg, and yes i think its on last leg reguardless of who ever it is funding it...No buisness man is going to keep investing without seeing any return, even if his daddy is loaded.

Darkfall never has really had a much larger population than MO (e.g. it has been larger for much of that time but not an order of magnitude or anything)    A significant portion of there better financial success was moving to Greece, where they have lower operating costs (plus assistance from the Greek government)

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/318280/page/1  http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4327818#4327818

http://darkfallinfo.com/pmap/index.php?page=clans&sort=members&order=ASC  http://darkfallinfo.com/pmap/index.php?mapserver=eu1&page=clans

Asheron's Call 1 started at a time when there were 3 MMOs to chose from,  so it earned back it's development costs with very little competition. It is much cheaper to keep an MMO up and running after it is working smoothly, than it is to develop a new one.  Also, while Darktide may be the most popular single server, AC would never have been able to survive on Darktide alone (or if all servers were like Darktide.)

On Eve, I would have to agree with Toferio (for once).  A significant portion of EVE;'s success is that they use a good system of safe vs wild zoning with a gradation leaving huge portions of the game "semi-wild"  As I understand it, MO has intended to have something similar but  other issues have prevented the implementation. (e.g. wandering guard patrols would require getting the A.I really working smoothly)

Back to Earthrise, MO outlived Earthrise because Earthrise decided to cut their losses sooner.  ------- There are lots of aspects to that decision. Maybe they had less resources to start off with. Maybe they had fewer subscribers. Maybe they were done in when they went FTP (which could be interpreted as either doing right by the players or a desperate attempt to retain players long enough to get the game to a state that was worth paying for)  Either way, Starvault is still working on making their game better, while  Masthead is shutting down Earthrise.

P.S. Other MMOs that MO has outlived: APB v1.0, Lego universe. .... Gods and Heroes(? we'll see about that one?)

P.P.s. Can we now settle on Earthrise being the recent equivalent to Dark and Light? They even have the lawsuit to prove it.

It's all nice that  Masthead tried to play on the care for costumer string (I salute to the idea and wish it worked) but reality showed something else. They  failed.

I geuss they forgot spoiled-nerdy-instant gratification masses want to get served like Kings, before freely giving out a single dime.

There is hardly anything like MO out there. So many people wants this type of game and are apparently sooooo sick of themepark cookie-cutters.. But everyone is still jumping from one WoW to another willing to throw money on something they are sick playing after a month.

Yeah, keep jumping from 1 themepark MMO from another while slagging on games like MO. Ever thought YOU are the exact reason why no big company makes a game like this?

Originally posted by osmunda

P.P.s. Can we now settle on Earthrise being the recent equivalent to Dark and Light? They even have the lawsuit to prove it.

I would have to agree somewhat about Earthrise beeing the closest we have gotten to D&L in recent times but I would argue the whole D&L debacle was worse.

MO outlived Earthrise for a variety of reasons (one being SV's family funding) but I will have to give credit where credit is due: I did not play ER but after reading up on it this weekends and talking to some of my friends that had played it, I will say it seems, faults and all, MO was the better game of the two.

Originally posted by username509

Earthrise has officially died.     

"EarthRise originally launched February 4rth 2011. Making this MMO less than a year old."

http://sandboxer.org/?p=591

Mortal Online went live in June 2010 making it nearly 2 years old now.  With it's rising population, steady progress with patching, and an upcoming expansion in April it looks like Mortal Online will live on for many years to come.  

So why did I post about Earthrise dieing in the Mortal Online forums?  Both games are indy sandboxes, and while Earthrise failed Mortal Online succeeded by staying true to it's sandbox principles.  Earthrise tried to take the middle road to appease both Sandbox and themepark gamers, but failed miserably.  Both Earthrise and Mortal had very buggy beginnings, but later improved with bugfixes and more features, but Mortal Online is still going strong and Earthrise has failed to find serious investors to go free to play.  

It's always sad to see an MMO die, but at least former EarthRise players can try MortalOnline for there sandbox pvp action.

I played this mmo about 3 months ago and it was buggy as all hell, which was unfortunate because if not I would have seen myself playing this for years to come.

i love how everyone is out to file a business report.

Originally posted by username509

Earthrise has officially died.     

"EarthRise originally launched February 4rth 2011. Making this MMO less than a year old."

http://sandboxer.org/?p=591

Mortal Online went live in June 2010 making it nearly 2 years old now.  With it's rising population, steady progress with patching, and an upcoming expansion in April it looks like Mortal Online will live on for many years to come.  

So why did I post about Earthrise dieing in the Mortal Online forums?  Both games are indy sandboxes, and while Earthrise failed Mortal Online succeeded by staying true to it's sandbox principles.  Earthrise tried to take the middle road to appease both Sandbox and themepark gamers, but failed miserably.  Both Earthrise and Mortal had very buggy beginnings, but later improved with bugfixes and more features, but Mortal Online is still going strong and Earthrise has failed to find serious investors to go free to play.  

It's always sad to see an MMO die, but at least former EarthRise players can try MortalOnline for there sandbox pvp action.

Mortal Online is going strong? 

That is news to me... I thought it was down to around 5-10.000 subs and showing no signs of growing. That is not going strong even in indy therms.

@ Yamota : I don't know where you are getting 5,000 - 10,000.  No one has claimed 10,000 for quite some time. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/323278/guy-finds-out-mortal-online-population-which-btw-is-around-5000-subs.html

How that compares with regards to Indy sandboxes depends on how you define "indy" and sandbox, but here are some points of comparison in the same neighborhood. http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-4.png

@youngkg:  I allowed for the fact that Darkfall had a higher population,  that's why I said there had never been an order of magnitude difference.  MO had 10,000 at launch. Is there any credible source indicating Darkfall ever approached 100,000?

"Dwarfed" is kind of a meaningless term when sustainable commercial MMO's range from 2,000 (A tale in the Desert) to 6 milllion.

The subscription numbers I linked to were for a complete listing of guilded characters. The one from June 2011 would be towards the end of the "good run for 2 years", but here is the NA numbers for earlier http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=257576, before Darkfall was "[for all intents and purposes] dead in it's current state.

@argirop :  I don't know what costs were controlled by moving to Greece but ..."While working with Razorwax to put the development team together we realized how high the operating costs, and the cost of living is in Norway. We decided to move our activities to Greece under Aventurine to get more game for our money. It took a while to organize and assemble the team and to get into full production which started about three and a half years ago. Aventurine was now developing the technology, the tools, and the game. At the time this project started there was no technology available that would allow us to do what we wanted, so everything had to be made from scratch. "-- Tasos Flambouras    http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/3331-Darkfall-Developer-Journal-1-About-Adventurine

Bringing this back around to the original topic, both MO and Darkfall have outlived Earthrise. Depending on how 2.0 limbo affects Darkfall, Darkfall may outlive MO. It has some advantages that may be based on the merit of the game (a somewhat higher population) and business decisions unrelated to the game (moving to Greece)  Both (MO and Darkfall) have outlived Earthrise based on some combination of business decisions and the merits of the respective games.

@Osmunda  Username has said a couple of times that the pop in MO is 10k and 20k.

Stay on topic please. Thanks.

Originally posted by Biskop

Originally posted by Toferio

I would not pile up EvE together with other FFA "sandboxes" such as MO and DF. EvE actually went smart with its design of well protected zone which gradually fade the further you go, resulting in a very solid safe area for crafters and non PvPres to play in, leaving the outskirts to the guilds to fight for. MO and DF got nothing of this, ouside of town it is lawless zone everywhere you go.

That's the difference between good design and henrik design.

Oh, you carebear! Don't you understand that it's much more hardcore and realistic with an invisible guardzone line so that new players can chose between being ganked by gangs of reds 1 m outside of town, and being griefed by their blue alts by the bank?

Obviously lots of people enjoy this experience, since MO's pop is B O O M I N G !

I know this for a fact because some guys on a forum said so!

So all you scrub naysayers can go back to WoW where you belong, MO is obviously way too hard and sandboxy for you!

 

Haha nice.

I wouldn't be suprised if a lot of new players in these dying games are just bots.

I know vanguard has bots that I expect are being run by SOE?  I went back to play that game a while back and noticed ranomd chats from players being spammed every hour or so.  They would never respond to tells.  And they would stand around idle at random places in the world.