Where they failed was in not researching what was financially successful from the existing competitors in the MMO space. The most obvious place to start - the one with the largest playerbase, observe the usage statistics of their servers, note which ones are constantly full - it isn't pvp.  The only way to please everyone is to offer both on isolated servers - instead they focused on the lesser of the two which was financial suicide as is now self evident. 

I AM surprised how soon the outcome has occurred - Auran has been a great developer - however the writing was on the wall from the first announcement such an ill-conceived game-model would fail.  It may limp along for a short while longer but its future is certain - other developers take note in order to survive with the extremes of upfront capital required to produce these products you must aim at the masses not the niche.

Originally posted by AlexWeekes

Originally posted by Stradden

The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren’t enough of them to support an all-PvP game.

There's one thing that my time here on Fury has convinced me of: there are enough players interested in PvP to a degree where they will be interested in an all-PvP game. The premise isn't flawed ... it's just that no one has cracked the formula yet.

...

There's a good sized untapped market out there. The way i think of it is kinda like the MMO genre. Until WoW everyone thought MMO's were niche, and being successful meant 100-200k subs, with a standout at ~500k. WoW changed all that and has shown us that there was always a large, untapped market there for a well designed game to exploit. No one ever expected WoW to be as big as it is now, or for it to still be growing its subs base for as long as it has.

On a smaller scale, I believe the same can occur for an all-PvP game (CORPG, PvPMMO ... whatever they end up being classed as). At the moment there's a belief that the market is too small, too niche. My belief is that there is strong enough interest out there ... but tapping that market is going to require a break out game. The one that gets the formula right is going to attract strong sales. Not on the same scale as a WoW, but it'll be a bigger success than most currently believe possible.

Bingo!  In the same way WoW surprised the industry, someday an all-PvP game will surprise everyone and forever end this ridiculous argument.  I agree that the scale will be smaller but still significant to once-and-for-all prove that a well-designed all-PvP game is what many many people are waiting for.

By the way, I have the secret formula...I'm just waiting to win the lottery.

So, lemme see.

It took AC2 about three years (or was it two?) to die off, parent company intact and learned well.

It took AA about a year to die off, (again) parent company intact and is revamping a solid title (Jumpgate: Evolution).

It takes two months for Fury to belly flop, and the parent company is effectively toast.

I'm not trying to rub salt in anyone's wound here (sorry Mr. Weekes), but this is honestly proof in the pudding that planning and designing a game is everything over just working on a high and mighty conception of what a game ought to be. Sure, software development isn't exactly a science, but it's not a pure art either. One thing that pretty much killed Fury for me was the stability issues. And another was the lack of a persistent environment. Both pretty much spelled out total boredom to me (I'm still playing TR right now and UO once in a while). I just hope people take it for what it is, not a verdict against PVP, rather a verdict against making MMOs into pseudo-FPSes.

-- Brede

---

Originally posted by heerobya
Most important things you said -
"In order for Fury to be successful, there would have to be a fairly large number of players out there who feel that MMORPG-style PvP provides enough entertainment to justify the expense of creating an entire game. Unfortunately for Auran, this does not seem to have been the case.... "

"The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren't enough of them to support an all-PvP game."
Very, very true. I feel that no matter how much a MMORPG player loves PvP, they still need to have the PvE option available, as well as other "standard" MMO systems like crafting, trade, etc.
Also, I feel (from beta) that Fury was just a horribly made game. Even if it wasn't all PvP, I still think it was horrible. I know that is my personal opinion, but I played for an hour in Beta and deinstalled it.
So what happened to Auran?

They created a bad game on a bad premise and the market spoke. Plain and simple.

---

That game failed because the pvp sucked....not because it was completely pvp-centric.

I think the failure of Fury really shows the fact that despite what people say here and on other forums, 100% 24/7 PvP is not what the masses want.

Many pvp-centric games like DAoC are made with pvp in mind, but not as the main focus.  This is why they are still running and Fury is sinking.

Planetside would be the closest to a "successful" all-pvp game, but as previously stated it's a MMOFPS and not RPG.

Simply put, the overwhelming majority of mmogers Do Not Want PvP in a mmog.

PvP is antithetical to Fantasy Role Playing. 

PvP and Fantasy Roly Playing are mutually exclusive concepts.

Mmog players want a High Fantasy World with Immersive and complex Story Arcs and GM Events, not loons running around ganking each other.

 I hope Fury goes the way of Shadowbane because the sooner this ridiculous urban legend dies that "players want PvP" , the sooner we'll get gameworlds that real mmogers want to live in.

Originally posted by Flummoxed

Simply put, the overwhelming majority of mmogers Do Not Want PvP in a mmog.

PvP is antithetical to Fantasy Role Playing. 

PvP and Fantasy Roly Playing are mutually exclusive concepts.

Mmog players want a High Fantasy World with Immersive and complex Story Arcs and GM Events, not loons running around ganking each other.

 I hope Fury goes the way of Shadowbane because the sooner this ridiculous urban legend dies that "players want PvP" , the sooner we'll get gameworlds that real mmogers want to live in.

 

Originally posted by Flummoxed

Simply put, the overwhelming majority of mmogers Do Not Want PvP in a mmog.

PvP is antithetical to Fantasy Role Playing. 

PvP and Fantasy Roly Playing are mutually exclusive concepts.

Mmog players want a High Fantasy World with Immersive and complex Story Arcs and GM Events, not loons running around ganking each other.

 I hope Fury goes the way of Shadowbane because the sooner this ridiculous urban legend dies that "players want PvP" , the sooner we'll get gameworlds that real mmogers want to live in.

 

I think you are grossly over exaggerating. PvP and Role playing are definitely NOT mutually exclusive concepts. Look how popular WoW's arena's are. The problem with Fury was not lack of interest in PvP, it was just a series of bad decisions and improper executions on the part of the developers.

I played Fury from early beta up until a few days ago when they released the recent patch. I can honestly say that the game was more balanced and I had more fun playing it in the BETA. In the most recent patch they took what was wrong with the game and made it worst, quite consciously I might add. As a result most of the competitive players and clans have left, including myself.

There was never anything wrong with the PvP mechanics per se, it was fast-paced, intense, it was furious. It's just all the other things they didn't get right. Skill balancing was a major issue that should have been worked out in beta, equipment played to much of a role in a "skill-based" game, the game wasn't sufficiently marketed, the tutorial was horrible and new players didn't know what the hell was going on, among many others.

I think the major misconception that led to the ultimate downfall of the game however is how Fury got labeled as an mmo RPG. It is in no way shape or form an RPG, it's really more of an action game. Over the months I've played, I actually heard new players ask several times where the mobs were. Because there are skills and armor and weapons the MMO community branded it as a RPG, as is evident by it's listing here at MMORPG.com. This misconception coupled with poor execution, is why Fury failed, NOT because there is no market for PVP.

-Fury handle: Dredika

Alex, you were one of the best things about the entire Fury experience, I hope your next employers see what a dedicated community rep they're getting, never fun to be out of a paycheck and especially at Xmas, best of luck.

Back to the topic at hand, everyone saying PvP can never succeed is just the same as all the people who said MMO subs can never rise above 500k for a single game - FPS & RTS have huge numbers of people playing head to head i.e. PvP constantly.

Fury failed for 3 reasons.

1) Like Vanguard, Fury released with a client that will run fine on a wide range of computers in 2010. As improvements to client and computer power converges with luck it will run smoothly in 2008 or 2009 maybe.

2) The newbie experience was totally misjudged, the tutorials are a mess and the starter skillsets woefully inadequate. The entire idea of starting out gimped by skills/level selection only works if you only ever face computer controlled mobs designed to loose to your currently level of gimpness. If two players run over to a BFG9000 and only 1 is allowed to pick it up, the fair playing ground fails, and so does the PvP.

3) It thought it was a MMO, and it isn't, wasting vast amounts of time on far too over complicated lobbies and auction houses and aquire over time gear systems and skill over time power progression. Everyone should have been level, with total access to all skills and able to freely create whatever flavour of (simple and intuitive) armour they wanted. The rest of dev time should have been spent on maps and game types and skill balance tweaking. (performance and bugs goes without saying).

I don't think you can blame Fury's failure on its PvP nature, and I don't even care for PvP that much.

A bad game is a bad game, and it's going to fail.  Period.  The success of Guild Wars proves that there are enough PvP players to support a game -- heaven knows most people don't play that thing for the PvE.  But as others have said, no decent PvP-centric MMO has ever been made, so whether the idea is feasible is still unknown.

And explain to me how DAoC can be considered a success?  Right, it is just another in a long line of failures.  It did have potential, but the developers sooned learned how to destroy any it had.

I like pvp, I play Eve most of the time now, but I still pve in the game.   Fury's problem was quite evident in beta, it was a poorly designed game from the start.  Pretty easy to see why the market voted the way it did.  Without a dev staff there is just no way this game can become much better either.  Servers will be offline within 6 months if it takes that long.

Im not going to say whether Auran/Fury is a fail/success game.

But the reason that I dont play Fury is because it requires a high end computer to play it smoothly, no im not talking about playing Fury in a bare minimum specs, the game will still load and runs slow.

Why do they create a game with a high specs anyway? they need to include a broader coverage of their target audience and most of us dont have a high end computers.

anyway thats my 2 cents

Quote:

"he problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren’t enough of them to support an all-PvP game"

Hmm guess when a game like VG or DnL fail it must mean there isn't enough PVE people to support that niche as well?

give me a break! The game sucked case closed!

Hardcore!? So a person that would rather kill a player that is unpredictible and can offer a challenge than a bot that just runs around with a huge amount of hitpoints makes them hardcore? wow What do you call the people that sit up all night and grind the same mob over and over for hours on end just for the chance of it dropping some loot? Too me that is hardcore. And dumb as all hell

Originally posted by Kraenee

Quote:

"he problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren’t enough of them to support an all-PvP game"

 

Hmm guess when a game like VG or DnL fail it must mean there isn't enough PVE people to support that niche as well?

give me a break! The game sucked case closed!

 

Hardcore!? So a person that would rather kill a player that is unpredictible and can offer a challenge than a bot that just runs around with a huge amount of hitpoints makes them hardcore? wow What do you call the people that sit up all night and grind the same mob over and over for hours on end just for the chance of it dropping some loot? Too me that is hardcore. And dumb as all hell

Your logic fails. There have been PvE only successes. There have been no PvP only successes. There have been failures of both.

And your version of hardcore: "So a person would rather get 5 buddies and gank a helpless noobie who can't offer a challenge than a bot who can be programmed to be as hard as the developers want it to be. Wow, what do you call the people that sit up all night gate camping and grind the same poor noobs over and over for hours on end just for the chance of them having some loot? To me that is hardcore... And dumb as all hell."

All PvP I see outside of battlegrounds where teams are balanced at least in numbers is stupid griefing and ganking. I've not had a 1 on 1 pvp experience where both sides were even in any MMORPG that I can think of outside of WoW (where death wasn't a real issue).

They fucked up REAL bad, and I want all my money back... thats about all I can say.

They messed up a bit but they are trying I have to give them that.

This goes some way to compensating those that have been there from the start;

---

For our core players, some of whom have been around since Alpha or Beta, we have a reward for you all. You will all be made Immortals for life. This offer will also be extended to any new players that register their copy of the game before December 31st. This means that anyone with a “Hero” or “Immortal” account status on December 31 will be given Immortal status for ever (accounts will be updated Jan 3rd).

---

Taken from Bossmans latest 'State of the Game' post.

Now they just have to get rid of the ridiculous procs (luck factor) on the gear and I'm all ears again.

And for those who played in the past and had bad crashes etc, most of those problems have been fixed but I still wouldn't recommend playing Fury with less than 1 GB of Ram.

"the problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren’t enough of them to support an all-PvP game"

---

I think its good of them to actually admit this.

We all hear the whining and crying that this article cited, the demand for full loot PVP games, or ffa PVP servers, but I think the failure of this game is pretty good evidence that just because they cry louder, does not mean that the people who desire this kind of gameplay are the majority.

From my experience, being a gamer for the last 20 years, from the time of text-based and through just about every major title release to the present, I think its safe to say that the "majority" (by no means all) of the people who desire this sort of gameplay tend to fall in a certain age bracket, thus the term "pvp kiddie" is particularly apt. Unfortunately, 14 year olds who like to kill helpless targets / disinterested parties / etc. don't pay the bills. Your older gamers, the people with jobs, are going to be the ones that shell out for subscriptions and/or item shop purchases.

Too often I've seen "PVP" servers with the absolute lowest populations of games that offer more than one ruleset. I don't think PVP should be eliminated entirely, but I think it has a time and place, and in a game that forces you to be vulnerable at all times to players 50 levels higher than you, I can quite clearly see why there isn't a lot of appeal.

This type of game was asked for and it was delivered, and yet here we are.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

And explain to me how DAoC can be considered a success?  Right, it is just another in a long line of failures.  It did have potential, but the developers sooned learned how to destroy any it had.

I like pvp, I play Eve most of the time now, but I still pve in the game.   Fury's problem was quite evident in beta, it was a poorly designed game from the start.  Pretty easy to see why the market voted the way it did.  Without a dev staff there is just no way this game can become much better either.  Servers will be offline within 6 months if it takes that long.

DaoC was a success because of its RvR and decent PvE to compliment. If this is not apparent to you, then just look at recent titles, and their duplication of the RvR system. Your quote should read more like this,

"DaoC was a success, but ToA was a failure."

Then again, it is your opinon. But in the gaming world, DaoC was considered by alot of major companys to be a success. I for sure loved the game. Its population was really good in its haydays before WoW, and it had a awesome community. And im pretty sure almost everyone who played the RvR can contest to it being the one of the best, if not the best PvP system in a game. Also note that DaoC gave credibility to mythic in producing great games. This is why they were chosen to make probably the most popular upcoming game, Warhammer. And you just don't give that IP to any random company with a name unless they show quality.

P.S to a mmorpg admin : Any reason why spell checker is coming up with script errors. Will not allow me to use it. I'm running the latest version of IE.

Originally posted by raykor

Originally posted by heerobya

"The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren't enough of them to support an all-PvP game."

Very, very true. I feel that no matter how much a MMORPG player loves PvP, they still need to have the PvE option available, as well as other "standard" MMO systems like crafting, trade, etc.

Very, very false.  Unfortunately, I can't prove it because a well-made, PvP-only game has not been made.

I'm looking forward to trying Fury out still, I'm glad I didn't rush to buy it as it's going free-to-download.

And if anyone would like to see an example of a non warfare PvP-only success story, I suggest checking out a game called "GunZ Online"

I think conceptually Fury has more potential than some of the board writers here claim, though on the topic of "standard MMO aspects" it would be interesting to see a PvP only game like Fury implement something similar to the Saga of Ryzom craft/skill system. Which I still wish had done better with marketing.

Which is the other real issue in MMOs, many rely solely on the Online Advertising aspect, problem is, you're hitting a market already entrenched in their game of choice. The original EQ took off because they knew how to market it for the 1998 era. WoW took off, because Blizzard knew how to market it. I mean come on, endorsements from South Park AND Mr. T, you've got some serious non-standard gamer fare there to add clout to your game's momentum.

That's where the whole concept of the "sleeper title" comes from. A game, which was conceptually strong, had excellent game play, and maybe even a decent story, but without the major marketing budget the product just can't Fly; not everything about the game world is just For Fun.

Originally posted by hellsonix

Now they just have to get rid of the ridiculous procs (luck factor) on the gear and I'm all ears again.

And for those who played in the past and had bad crashes etc, most of those problems have been fixed but I still wouldn't recommend playing Fury with less than 1 GB of Ram.

If you take a moment to read the most recent releases at the fury website, they have indeed addressed the procs, reducing number of procs that can occur at once, and regulating the time between possibilities better.

Finally, I don't know any self-respecting gamers with less than 1GB out there anymore.

Originally posted by LokiCDK

 If you take a moment to read the most recent releases at the fury website, they have indeed addressed the procs, reducing number of procs that can occur at once, and regulating the time between possibilities better.

If you take a moment, you'll notice you've just necroed a thread from months ago.