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Editorial - What Happened to Auran?
With today's announcement that Auran Developments, the company behind the PvP MMORPG Fury, would be closing their doors, the announcement didn't really take many by surprise. Managing Editor Jon Wood offers some thoughts on why Fury wasn't the kind of success that the company had hoped.
Earlier today, we learned that Auran Developments, the company behind the MMORPG Fury, announced that they would be closing their doors. Fury itself will continue on as a free-to-play, free-to-download title, but the developers behind the game have all been laid off, and the company has “called in a Voluntary Administrator” (What Auran describes as similar to Chapter 11 in the United States) leaving only what the official announcement to the public called “a small but committed team to continue developing FURY on an ongoing basis”.
The recently announced Age of the Chosen update, we are told, will still go ahead as scheduled on Friday the 14th, making some additions and fixes to the game. The official announcement expressed optimism, saying that, “I believe that once people hear about F:AotC and the new Free to Play business model, we’ll start building up the player numbers and revenues that will make the game successful.”
With the Fury Launch date a mere two months in the past, a number of questions are raised around how this could have happened. What did Auran Developments do that led to this end?
Personally, I think that there are a number of different answers to that question. First and foremost on my list though is the fact that Fury was built on a premise that, in my opinion, was shaky to begin with.
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.
I’m not saying that PvP isn’t a popular aspect of many MMOs, and it’s hard to deny that PvP is a subject that is loudly debated on MMO forums like the ones here at MMORPG.com. In fact, hardly a week goes by without someone pining away and asking when or if their favorite MMO will release free-for-all PvP servers. The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren’t enough of them to support an all-PvP game.
I also believe that Fury’s setting played a role in the fate of Auran. Before Fury, there were in fact plenty of games that offered PvP-only action. The Battlefield series stands out for me as a successful franchise that offers nothing but human on human carnage. There are, of course, a number of differences between Fury and a game like Battlefield, but the one that I want to focus on here is the setting. Battlefield and most if not all of the PvP-only games out there tend to be set in an era that represents modern or futuristic combat, leaving people itching to test their mettle in fantasy-based PvP-only combat. The problem is that this isn’t what Fury provided.
While MMORPG players (and most gamers, really) are familiar with the tried and true realm of high fantasy, they are not as familiar with games that are based on Eastern cultures, like Fury is.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a market for this genre of game, because there is. The problem is that Fury set out to do something that was un-proven in making a PvP-only MMORPG-style game. By setting the game in the unfamiliar territory of Eastern swords and sorcery rather than a more familiar western counterpart, the developers inadvertently made the game less accessible.
Getting into the meat of the game though, there were some issues at launch that have also contributed to Auran’s situation. Take, for example, the fact that the upcoming Age of the Chosen update contained a revamp of the game’s tutorial system. As it was, new players were having a hard time getting a grip on the fast-paced action of the game. The 14th will see a more streamlined and better organized tutorial, and a place where players can go to practice their moves on bots and get a feel for what their character can do without having someone else in their faces, killing them. The fact that the game was operating without this until now was a serious problem. In my own experience, I quit playing a number of times out of frustration in not knowing exactly what I was doing. MMORPG PvP is based on a familiarity with your character’s abilities and knowing which ones to use in a given situation for best effect. If players don’t understand the benefits and weaknesses of their powers, chances are that they’re not going to keep going into the game to get your butt handed to you while they learn. Instead, they’re going to turn the game off and uninstall.
Obviously, there area number of reasons that this announcement has come today and a number of factors that led up to it, but to give the Fury developers credit, they aren’t giving up on the game. The game will continue to run free-to-play, free-to-download, and if the optimism found in the official announcement comes to pass, we may not have seen the last of this PvP MMO.
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.
Very, very false. Unfortunately, I can't prove it because a well-made, PvP-only game has not been made.
Yet another failure in a very uninspired year for MMORPGs. 2007 certainly was a poor year for the genre, wasn't it? Let's hope developers were watching train wrecks like Vanguard, Auto Assault and the rest and LEARNING something.
The PvP vs PvE argument, however, can't really be applied to Fury because of statements like this:
Exactly. It didn't matter whether Fury was PvP-focused, PvE-focused or whatever. Auran made a lousy game that nobody wanted to play.
The difference is that now there is enough competition so games like Fury get completely cancelled rather than become niche markets for hardcore players like the first generation MMORPGs. Nowadays, bad games means failure for a company and they can't attempt to along while getting players to pay for beta-testing or improvements.
In a little over 10 years of MMO gaming, have you ever wondered why a "well-made, PvP-only game has not been made?"
niche game + high system reqs = a bad idea.
that's what i think really killed the game. There are alot of people who love PVP and would like to play nothing else. But when most people aren't able to run the game (which is required to run smoothly since it's pvp) that really limits the playerbase.
Planetside?
Sorry, but you cannot (logically) use that as proof that such a game is not possible. Besides, there have been some successful games (DAoC and EVE come to mind) that while they do have some PvE, their success is almost entirely due to the PvP portion of the game.
True, I guess Planetside would have to be considered a success... but it is a MMOFPS.
In my personal opinion, this is the final nail in the coffin of this concept: "There are a huge number of PvPers who demand full PvP at all times."
If the vast majority of gamers were both PvPers and desperate to play a PvP mmorpg I think Fury would have done better. Instead, two months later the company that made the game is down the drain.
Do I hate PvP? Nope. I enjoy Eve Online and some PvP in my mmorpgs.
Do I believe that there are enough PvPers to support a MMORPG that is full pvp, all the time? Not any more.
There are a very vocal minority of gamers who want full PvP in their online games. But those gamers certainly don't represent the rest of us.
Even having "some PvE" makes them not "PvP-only" games.
Fury tried to make a MMOFPS that was NOT massive, but instead a series of small group or FFA battles (like Halo/CS/BF etc)
and they didn't even make it a FPS they used more traditional (though sped up) MMORPG combat.
and failed horrible. If anyone thought of making a PvP only game, after this, they may change their minds.
There will be no "pure" PvP games released. Planetside / WW2O probably the only two and I'm not sure about those two even..
Even DF has mobs and quests and AI controlled NPCs etc. etc.
Personally speaking that fact isn't a lack for a 'pure pvp' playerbase out there is a bigger fact that the idea for 'fury' has already been done at least three times..
When I first looked at the game itself i said to myself 'this is basically' what WoW's offers in BG quitaly only only simplfied... Not only that IF anyone wanted a 'free-to-play' arena combat system players need look no further then Guild Wars as that also has a simural system, so why pay for the same system with Fury? and lets not forget
Thats the 'issue' with the situation, it's not the fact of a 'lack' of a pvp playerbase, it's just that there were better and some cheaper options out there
Ah ok, I see what you are getting at.
Last I checked, this was MMORPG.com
Fury did have twitch RPG combat, not FPS combat.
But tried to play like a FPS game like Halo/CS/etc. Failed.
Would medevil FPS combat work (ala Dark Messiah) in a competititve FPS game environment like Halo/CS? Maybe.
You have to remember, CS was first a mod, and most every multiplayer FPS has a single player too.
Would Halo have worked w/o the story and single player? Hard to say.
CS wouldn't because w/o HL it would not have existed (being a mod and all)
I can offer my reasons for not playing Fury
1) I equated it as being similar to console arena style combat games which I've never enjoyed.
2) Early reviews said it was a bad game.
3) I'm not really interested in an all PVP game. Sure, i want my games to have it, but even on a FFA server I can get away and not fight other players.
4) Later reviews said it was a bad game.
5) It went F2P, always a no no in my book
I must be in the minority, but during beta I really enjoyed Fury. Granted, the learning curve was steep, and the competition fierce, but after I got to a decent level, the game was really fun.
What I most disliked about the game was its ridiculous systems reqs. My computer was top of the line a year ago, and I barely pulled 30 FPS will Fury on low settings. The graphics weren't that great to begin with. If you want to build an all PVP game, you better make sure that it runs flawlessly. I think this is what turned a lot of people off from the game.
It took about 2-3 weeks of daily play to get used to the game and level up to be competitive, but after that I couldn't wait to get off work and play.
It wasn't worth it to me to buy the game and pay a monthly fee, but now that it's going F2P, I'll be playing!
Nice try Jon , sorry to to have to make it clear to your impressionable readers but Fury is going full steam ahead and now anyone can play it .
Oh and BTW , I can list several highly successful FTP games set in eastern theme , honestly do we really need any more orcs and dwarfs in our games , high fantasy lol ? Ever heard of sci fi . , early exploration and other "themes " Did you come up with the idea of fail based on lack of " high fantasy " all by yourself ? lol
Quote from the boss over at Fury "
Quite simply - no. Auran Developments (the company that employed roughly 70 people) had to go down to give the Trainz and FURY games a future. It was that or shut the doors completely.
From tomorrow, we are close to cashflow neutral. That means our revenues are close to our expenses. That means we can survive a long time and at the same time we can make the game better and better. So this is good news for FURY fans. "
Good news for me as well as I too will be playing Fury from now on , it`s very fun and addictive once you get past the learning curve which can be a little overwhelming for some people. FYI, I`m canning EQ 2 for this game , thats how good it is once you get into it. but yeah , if you want to go repeat the same 'go collect this and kill that " quests 50 million times then dont play Fury . your better off playing wow.
I love this game and I cant wait until its patched tomorrow
It's the setting.
People like PvP in a natural real world setting where you encounter others, plot and plan and strategize wether you should attack, and how best to gain an advantage given the circumstances.
PvP in an arena or instanced setting is BORING because it's staged. It gets old fast.
Um no dude , pvp in the Fury battle grounds is not staged , it`s fast and spontanious and quite extreme to be honest .
I mean yeah , you cant buy a house or make a wooden box to put in your house lol but you can pvp against other human minds in an extreme setting. Fury is more like an E Sport , its not about immersing yourself in a fantasy world . If your looking for a pixelated fantasy world to live in go over to Vanguard or EQ and you can pay SOE every month to escape reality .
umm, to the thing a while ago about this trying to be played by an mmofps, rember that fury used the unreal tournament 3 engine. so i can see why.. only using a popular fps engine on an mmo
And so you think Fury is not a pixelated fantasy world ? Did you think it was a real place where your actions actually have importance beyond personal fun? Do your PvP skills make you a legend in your own mind?
Your bar for measuring success is rather low.
Wasnt this the same A-Hole that was trash talking about Guild wars, (which has run for years successfully), saying that it was a failed game because Anet released Chapters and Expansion packs?
Oh, how the tables turn.
Planetside was fun... but like I keep saying: All PvP makes Game a dull boy.
Contention can be fun: I remember racing other guilds for the 7 day spawns in EQ1.... but it can get old quick: ****blocking other guilds on Emperor Snake in Ssra to stop them from being able to get into Vex Thal, something I feel is not cool at all to do.
WW2 Online is one PvP game I keep coming back to (not currently however), because death doesn't mean that much, and you know the other person isn't some pimple faced geek spawn camping for the psychopathic joy of it. Planetside I played for a while as well, and made the top player charts in various categories. But the battling over stations that really didn't mean that much got old fairly quick. It got older faster because my 'main' char wasn't on the most populous side and during prime time, we had no real hope of 'winning'.
What most PvP games that are RvR or open lack is balance. Balance is key to having a fun game that keeps people playing and paying. While there's always the lunatic fringe of hard core griefers who clamor for the 'good old days of UO and gank fests', there are not enough of these people to pay for a MMO's development anymore. They are also self destructive. They do not build good long lasting communities. Games that focus on working together have had more success than those that focus on tearing the community apart (wonder why?). Even Eve for all of its 'pvp' is mostly a pve game, and the focus is not on destroying your foes but keeping you and your corp alive.
Anyone , including the so called writer of this editorial that is making the claim that Fury has failed is not aware of the current situation , Fury has not failed , the company Auron is being restructured and the resources will be put into Fury and Trainz .
All games are pixelated fantasy worlds , the key difference is that some are designed with more of an intent to satisfy those who feel the need to immerse themselves in a fantasy world , buy houses , make things , ride horses , go fishing etc . Fury is not that kind of game and was not designed with immersion in mind , it was designed for people to compete against each other in player versus player games. The emphasis is put on the competition between players rather than the environment .
I was in the alpha for this game. Anyone else that had been in could have seen this game was terrible. After sending in very lengthy reports with no response I stopped testing.
The market has spoken no matter what the head in the sand fellow wishes to say. The game was crap... the mechanics of a pvp only game might of had something to do with that but the game was horrible before that.
Anyone that couldn't see this coming was just deluding themselves. The fact we're even talking about this on a MMO website alone is silly. It wasn't remotely a MMO unless we're now considering BF2, BF2142 and now CoD4 mmos.
I tend to disagree with some of the things that are being said. Fury was not a bad game. There is definitely a market for pvp only games in the mmorpg genre. The biggest pitfalls of Fury were:
1. The introduction of players to the combat systems, and the possible methods of using such a system effectively against other players. Some players have lots of time to sit around and figure it out, others don't. Also, balancing such mechanics is tough. Auran obviously didn't do enough testing of these systems to assure that a definite balance was created.
2. The actual play in the different battlegrounds. It felt like I was playing quake 3. If I want to play quake 3 I'll go buy it, or better yet I'll get 4, or the new unreal etc. The level design was too much like popular fps games. It should have focused on a more fantasy setting with the designs that people enjoy about fantasy. So level design was a big pitfall for them.
3. The system requirements were too high. They should have built the game around lower end systems then added on higher end graphical options.
I see these as being the main pitfalls for Fury. The battlegrounds need to be completely reworked. The tutorials needs to be redone, and more information supplied to new players concerning the mechanics of combat and skills etc. And probably one of the bigger things that would help, and be an easy change is the process of how the server chooses who will enter a battle. People with almost no skills shouldn't be going up against people who have tons of skills and gear. That was really stupid.
I also think that giving everyone a ranged attack is stupid. In fact I would remove ranged attacks from the game entirely.
Auran CEO Tony Hilliam has posted an announcement stating that Auran, the developer of Fury is closing its doors. The 70 people on the fury development team have all been let go.
I admit I am not a business major, but when a studio closes down and fires 70 people, isn't that a sign of failure or is that what they call "thinking outside the box" ?
Auron failure not Fury failure , I guess thats the point. Auron Holdings has many offerings besides Fury so the way to interpret that would be that although Fury was not able to sustain Auron including it`s other products , the overall restructuring of Auron has been done to sustain 2 of it`s offerings , Fury and Trainz.
They have essentially cut costs by eliminating a large part of the company and it`s employees which now gives them the resources to maintain Fury with a smaller dev team that will specialize in that game alone.
Rather than equating the elimination of Auron Holdings with the idea that Fury is over with it is actually the opposite , the elimination of Auron holdings gives Fury the opportunity to advance. This fact is obviously being misconstrued as the end of Fury probably because it may be considered appealing to present a doom and gloom story about the demise of a game rather than to say this is only the beginning of Fury which is actually the truth .
Auron`s restructuring is making it possible for Fury to carry on.
How many of you have actually played Fury long enough to have a legitimate opinion? All I see are "I played for an hour", "I played in ALPHA", and "I DLed the trial and uninstalled after the tutorial". Fury isn't a bad game at all, and Auran doesn't really deserve all the hate people are spouting at them. It's like watching the whole Vanguard / Sigil thing all over again. There is no reason to gloat about people losing their jobs ... Especially this close to the holidays.
And if Fury had been a "success", which by all accounts it is not, then there would have been no need to dissolve Auran. It's called failure. Accept it.
Another thing, regard your post a few back talking about Fury being like an e-sport. That was another reason for Furys' failure. Dan Gray coming here, trying to shove "how much the e-sports players are enjoying the game" down paying players throats when concerns were brought up (no, I'm not going to link it, you have enough brain cells to type, you can search the Fury forums and news articles here on your own). No one cares about the e-sports guys except the e-sports guys. And for a developer to claim because e-sports professional game players were able to stomp everybody, the game was obviously balanced" (again, look for it) didn't sit well with alot of people as well
Another thing, paying customers don't enjoy being called "n00bs" and "carebears" by the staff of the company they're paying. And GMs and mods are staff, whether they're paid or not, and they are a representation of the company employing them.
In short, game is a failure. If you want to continue to preach to the choir that it's not, that's your call. But then I gotta ask: isn't it dark and smelly in there by now?
Oh, and never try to claim that a game that sells gold and skills to the players for real money is a skillbased game.
Edit: And with this post, I'm done with the Fury boards. Auran tanked, Fury tanked, nothing to dispute any further.
Merry Christmas.
The failure could be attributed to Auron`s expectations that Fury would be able to sustain the company which could be viewed more as a failure on the part of Auron holdings rather than the failure of Fury as a game . They IMHO should not have expected so much in such a short amount of time and given Fury a chance to evolve before putting that much confidence into one particular product. This doesent make Fury a bad game , it simply hasn`t had enough time to come to fruition , especially enough to have the future of Auron riding on it . I`m not sure if anyone could have expected so much in so little time from any game on the market and in Fury`s case one that clearly was in need of more improvements before being rushed to market according to many who tested it .
IMHO they were over confident about Fury`s appeal and made a mistake by putting all of their eggs into one basket , which ultimately cost them the farm . Whether or not Fury will progress toward success at this point with the smaller more specialized dev team they have in place remains to be seen. It is a fun game for people who enjoy pvp and hopefully they can continue to improve upon it .
I'm glad to see the editor follows the genre enough to hit the nail on the head.PVP does not make an MMO at all,and to most old school MMO'rs ,we have no care of PVP whatsoever.There has always been a genre devoted to killing other players ,it's called FIRST PERSON SHOOTER.MMORPG oldschool players ,were around when the definition of RPG was defined.It's a genre meant to be played as a role play or adventure,it has NEVER been about killing another player everytime you see one.
Once you make a game ALL about PVP,then it truly is nothing more than a FPS.A rpg game has to have breaks where players can walk about freely,it doesn't have to be perilous every single time you log onto the game.The idea of perilous every second of the game does NOT make it skilled nor does it mean it is a good game.I guess alot of the PVP ONLY type players can't relate to the fact that some gamers just log onto games for friendship or to relax and have a good time,or some even like to roleplay or even to just craft.To make it even simpler for the stubborn,believe it or not [lol]some players DO NOT want to be told how they have to play a mmorpg,they want freedom.Forcing all into PVP gives the gamer ZERO choice and of course will doom that game to failure.
I wanted a more skill based combat. This is why i didn't like it. I really didn't care what the setting was, but I'm not to fond of sci-fi settings so this was better imo.
I'm not saying there was no skill involved, but I'm looking for something more twitch based than what this offered. I didn't like the auto-target and timer based button mashing.
Pretty much they just didn't carry it far enough into the twitch based style of combat, they half ass did it and it failed because of it.
Well that's atleast my opinion.
If they would have made a better version of Rakion, this game would have kicked some butt.
I wanted to play fury.
1) It didn't work the first time I downloaded it.
2) I couldn't figure out the controls.
3) The graphics were horrible.
4) I never figured out how to get out of the tutorial.
Failure of the concept of a PvP game? Ha. How about failure of the concept of sucking as a developer.
I'm looking at the left hand side of this screen and there is a long long long list of failed PvE games. I guess that means they are a failed business model too.
I think game design was a failure, and there is probably no recovering from that.
The game was hardly a massive multiplayer online game, anymore than Battlefield or Halo is a mmo. You had small groups of fighters in arenas, and from what I hear the time it took to get a match and load into the game was longer than the actual matches themselves.
This game was and is garbage, and that is why it failed.
i played during beta, and the game ran absolutely horrible. wasnt fun, was frantic, haphazard, unorganized everyone slashing at everyone and no real cohesion or sense of purpose in the game. shame as I do like forms up PVP but a out right total PVP only game it doesnt justify the monthly price with everything combined that spelled its doom in the end.
Speaking as myself, as I am now unemployed for the next few weeks and no longer a Fury rep...
There's one thing that my time here on Fury (and before that Guild Wars) 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.
Fury easily attracted enough players interested in an all-PvP game, despite the poor word of mouth. The problem was, as has been mentioned by Tony a few times, that not many players survived their first few hours in Fury due to the brutal beatings they encountered. As Jon mentions, the current tutorial didn't do its job and the 3 game types at launch did not protect the new player from the veterans well enough. Fury got the formula wrong, so far. I wish the guys who remain on the team all the best in tweaking their formula, as they do have a good game in there.
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.
There's a large market for games with PvP as their focus.
There just isn't enough market to make a MMO ALL PvP game that requires cash beyond initial box buying. "A good idea that doesn't work". FPS players like their FPS system: They buy the game, they fight online for free. Fury tried to make that: They buy the game, they fight online while paying to do so. That paradigm shift just won't fly. MMO players are willing to fork out 15 bucks a month if the game is fun and the community good. Fury failed on both counts there.Guild Wars at least has a decent game (with no cost aside from buying the expansions, which most people are willing to do, even FPS'ers). The guild wars community is lacking a large way however.
If Fury had cost 1 million bucks to develop, it might have done better, but it seems it was a giant cash sink, that didn't get nearly the bang for the buck for what came out.
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.
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
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.
Thanks! My side hurts from laughing!
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
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
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;
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you take a moment, you'll notice you've just necroed a thread from months ago.