As promised here is the Gods & Heroes: State of the Republic VI

Friends and Countrymen,

This is the part where I sugar coat the message and tell you all that everything is fine. I don’t make many waves, but you guys are unsatisfied and see through all the bullsh*t. Therefore, I’m not going to do that.

Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is exceptionally important to Heatwave and it was a massive undertaking that was underfunded, under resourced and entering a difficult market. Despite all that, through herculean effort the team was able to get the game to a playable state and work through some difficult launch issues.

Regardless, the game did not perform at launch and has never even come close to paying for the cost of bringing it to market, much less the cost of keeping a team developing it for nine-months. We’ve had a wonderfully committed but very small community of players who have continued to support us despite the difficulty the game has encountered.

Since last August, the executive team has been in discussions with a variety of partners to find a way to bring additional funding and support to the project to do what really needs to be done to bring the game to a successful free-2-play launch. This is a multi-million dollar effort that involves improving the overall gameplay (combat, interface, etc…) as well as PvP and significant content updates beyond those already discussed. Those talks continue with a few parties, but no definitive agreement has yet been made.

To be honest, I’ve driven the company to the brink several times in an effort to keep the team together and to keep Gods and Heroes operating. However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone.

The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

The State of the Republic may be weak, but its will is strong.

Regards,

-Anthony

For any additional questions please contact me at community (at) Godsandheroes.com or post below.  

Thanks,

Metz

First off, thanks for finally being honest. But the real deal is, you guys wouldnt tell us the truth untill we actually forced you to. That hurts! Just like a criminal, once caught, then you admit it. Why keep us in the dark this long? Out of shame? You used to be so open, thats what made people come to your game mostly. The open and honest way. Now you speak of that we should be happy with your transparancy after all this dark time. I can only say, that you should have done it earlier, to save more of your face.

Now it just shows who you all really are. But I for one am happy you stay commited, but with GW2 coming, with so many good features, your game is doomed if you want to find partners to invest in the game. I wish you all the best, but I have a hard head in for it.

So, if you bought a life time sub, your screwed.

For those saying how happy they are that HI came out with the truth, I have this to say: They did it because we forced them too, not because they felt they needed to say it. It was damage control, thats all! They would have let us rot for many more months to years. This company clearly doesnt care a single bit about the community. Really, just look how they laughed at us in the october live chat. They just made fun of us all! No apologies from them and where is that dev wh.... I mean girly fan Myrla now? Didnt she say we where gonna be blown from our chairs with the new stuff? Hehehe, yeah we where blown away indeed, by the nothing!

Oh well, on a positive side, we all see the real face of HI here now! I for sure will never touch anything any of these devs spit out and especially from HI! Really, I feel scammed!

As players your dollar investment in this game is trivial compared to that of the company that built it.  The hours you spent playing it pale in comparision to the hours spent in development.  And for the most part all your hours were spent mostly enjoying the game and having fun.

This isnt investment fraud this isnt a pre-order scam, you didnt lose your life savings.  Its a game.  I mostly feel for the dev team that spent so much of their time trying to make it work, and Im sure some of it was "donated".

The purchase price of this game was cheap, the montly sub less then a good meal.  Gezz stop with the pity trains.  No one set out to cheat anyone out of anything.  These guys worked their tails off to make a game, but ran out of time and ran out of funding end of story,

They had NO obligation to tell anyone their in business situation until it was end game.  NO company will ever do that.  Its a fact.

Now go play guild wars 2 or someting, everyhings going to be fine for you.  These guys still have a mess or two to clean up Im sure.

Oh and thank you Heatwave, thank for trying to make a game that was perhaps different in some way, thank you for contributing to what  I think is the best hobby in world!

Good luck in the future.

Originally posted by snapfusion

As players your dollar investment in this game is trivial compared to that of the company that built it.  The hours you spent playing it pale in comparision to the hours spent in development.  And for the most part all your hours were spent mostly enjoying the game and having fun.

This isnt investment fraud this isnt a pre-order scam, you didnt lose your life savings.  Its a game.  I mostly feel for the dev team that spent so much of their time trying to make it work, and Im sure some of it was "donated".

The purchase price of this game was cheap, the montly sub less then a good meal.  Gezz stop with the pity trains.  No one set out to cheat anyone out of anything.  These guys worked their tails off to make a game, but ran out of time and ran out of funding end of story,

They had NO obligation to tell anyone their in business situation until it was end game.  NO company will ever do that.  Its a fact.

Now go play guild wars 2 or someting, everyhings going to be fine for you.  These guys still have a mess or two to clean up Im sure.

Oh and thank you Heatwave, thank for trying to make a game that was perhaps different in some way, thank you for contributing to what  I think is the best hobby in world!

Good luck in the future.

Oh i see, the player should thank them for making a lousy game with no development for 5 months and then months of silence.

How lucky we are to be blessed by such an awesome company. I wait with anticipation for the next HI product to spend my hard earned cash on !

Im not even going to go into that what you said there, man you must be one of the old devs to say things like that. They knew what was going on and laughed at us, that a shame! You defend what you want to defend, but in the end you know what it is truly and if not? Then I feel sorry for you!

This was just plain damage control, nothing more, nothing less!

Originally posted by snapfusion

As players your dollar investment in this game is trivial compared to that of the company that built it.  The hours you spent playing it pale in comparision to the hours spent in development.  And for the most part all your hours were spent mostly enjoying the game and having fun.

This isnt investment fraud this isnt a pre-order scam, you didnt lose your life savings.  Its a game.  I mostly feel for the dev team that spent so much of their time trying to make it work, and Im sure some of it was "donated".

The purchase price of this game was cheap, the montly sub less then a good meal.  Gezz stop with the pity trains.  No one set out to cheat anyone out of anything.  These guys worked their tails off to make a game, but ran out of time and ran out of funding end of story,

They had NO obligation to tell anyone their in business situation until it was end game.  NO company will ever do that.  Its a fact.

Now go play guild wars 2 or someting, everyhings going to be fine for you.  These guys still have a mess or two to clean up Im sure.

Oh and thank you Heatwave, thank for trying to make a game that was perhaps different in some way, thank you for contributing to what  I think is the best hobby in world!

Good luck in the future.

Wow, I sure wish I saw this thread back in early April!  Today I decided to check in this GnH forum to see the current state of the game as I was a beta tester they kept from the original testing team.  I have to say anyone who thinks the devs were hard at work on this game sure sipped too much of their kool-aid!  You mention some of their time may have been "donated", and they sure worked like that was the case. 

I finally quit the testing about 6 months prior to the game going live, and I've tested many, many games with Heatwave being the only company I've quit on.  Why?  Because I posted numerous bugs on a daily basis and months and months past without 1 patch or update to the game!  How can you announce your going to release the game when you're not making any efforts to fix any of the bugs???  

And you think these guys worked their tails off?  Doing what?

Heatwave basically acquired GnH from Perpetual Entertainment and released the game almost exactly how they acquired it!  Anthony ought to be ashamed of himself for taking people's money for a game most would consider still in it's alpha stage.  They didn't even correct the lighting in some areas to distinguish between day and night.  At the time of release, I did my best to warn people to stay far far away so my conscience is clear.   Darby or whatever her name was did an awesome job with PR and is probably the reason why people threw their money at this game.  She worked harder than the entire Dev team combined, and that's a shame.