PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download | Retail Price:n/a | Pay Type:Free | Monthly Fee:n/a
Desktop Client | System Req:
Catching Up With Fury
Recently, News Manager Keith Cross had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Tony Hilliam, the CEO of Auran and Lead Designer on their game, Fury. As you may or may not recall, after Fury's launch, Auran announced that they would be pulling back significantly on staff and resources for the PvP game. Today, Keith talks to Tony about the progress that has been made since then.
While at the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference I had the opportunity to talk to Auran CEO and Fury Lead Designer, Tony Hilliam. During the interview we discussed what happened at Fury’s launch, their subsequent business model change and the Age of the Chosen expansion in the months after launch, as well as the future course for the game.
When Fury launched back in October it was billed as the MMO for PvP fanatics. The PvP fans came out to play, but to Australian developer Auran’s disappointment, not enough of them stuck around. Early users ran into a number of problems which helped drive players away from the game. Many players complained they had a hard time getting the game to run with the high level of graphical quality of which the game was capable, even on high-end machines. Because the game was PvP focused, any choppiness could be a death sentence, thus some players who could run the game on its higher settings would be forced to opt for lower quality visuals as well. Tony informed me of one particular bug that caused a lot of headaches in the first few weeks after launch. Apparently there was a sound bug that could cut the game’s frame rate in half. After a few weeks they solved the problem, but the damage had already been done. In the business of MMOs, the first few weeks are critical, and can direct opinions about the game for years to come.
;)
There were also problems with some of the game’s core gameplay mechanics. At launch, Fury didn’t have the robust tutorial it needed in comparison to the game’s learning curve. Many players complained that Fury was nothing more than a button masher. The players who were complaining about the button mashing also complained about losing to the more experienced players, who weren’t button mashing at all, but were playing more strategically. Experienced and skilled players turned out to be as big of a detractor for new players as any bug could have been. When a player started out, they were thrown into the ring with other players, who may have been new to the game or may have been a hardcore veteran from the early days of beta. Without any previous experience or practice with the combat system, new players were eaten alive by the more experienced. Tony explained a three game rule which they identified in the days after launch.
Essentially, if a player tried three matches and lost every time, they left the game, most likely never to return. If a player jumped in and won three matches, they were hooked. It was great that people were getting into the game, but losing half of their potential player base right off the bat, just because players were frustrated with the learning curve and the matching system, was crippling. Fury is a PvP game above all else, and if the players aren’t there, there’s no one to fight. Tony said they “designed a game that required a critical mass. [Fury] needed at least 2000 concurrent players” and they fell short of that mark after launch. He admits, “People want a great PvP experience and we didn’t provide that at the start.”
;)
After Fury’s various trip-ups at the starting line, it could be easy to pronounce the game as dead on arrival. But rumors of Fury’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite a poor showing early on, Auran managed to keep Fury alive and in the race with the Age of the Chosen expansion in December. While they didn’t have the time or the funding to produce a game with the level of polish they wanted at launch, when December rolled around they were much closer to the version of Fury that they had envisioned. Age of the Chosen addressed many of the issues that the game had at launch, adding new game types such as Carnage and 1v1 Elimination, a streamlined tutorial section that players could return to at any time to practice their skills, and a number of combat tweaks, UI improvements, and bug fixes. Tony informed me that they have had a much higher player retention rate since Age of the Chosen, and in his opinion, “if Age of the Chosen had been at launch day, there would have been a different outcome.”
Age of the Chosen wasn’t the only good news when it came to player retention. Tony informed me that the game has done pretty well in Australia, and wasn’t far behind their expectations for that region. In Australia Fury had the advantage of being the home team, where players were more likely to enjoy the fun parts, and be patient with the bad parts while the dev team worked to solve the game’s shortcomings. Tony described the Aussie gamers as having more of a “glass half full” outlook for the game, where those in other regions where the game has been less successful have been a little pessimistic.
;)
I asked Tony what Auran has been working on since Age of the Chosen. In game terms, they’ve been continuing to work on improving the new player experience by enhancing the tutorial and training levels. They’re streamlining the abilities so that they are less overwhelming at the start. Originally players started with 32 abilities, with 400 more they could unlock, which allowed many non-MMO veterans to easily get lost early on. They’re also improving the computer AI, providing two types of behavior: traditional mob behavior that MMO players are accustomed to, and bot behavior which causes combatants to fight more like players and are more useful for practice. On the business end, they’ve been busy looking for new partners and funding to get development back in full swing. Tony said that there were several interested parties, but he couldn’t’t say much as nothing had been finalized at the time of the interview.
In the end one has to ask if it’s really a good idea to judge a game based on how it was when it launched. The MMO business is still young, and we really have no idea how long some of these games are going to be around. In other genres of video games you launch your product, and aside from patches and sequels, you’re pretty much done. In the MMO world launch is only the beginning. Your game is constantly changing and growing during its lifetime which could last five to ten years or more. There are plenty of MMOs that I didn’t like at launch that I like now, and plenty that I did like that I like more (or less) now. A living game like an MMO is constantly in flux, and maybe those of us outside Australia should take a lesson from the Aussies and take more of a half glass full approach. That’s the way Tony’s looking at it, as he looks for new partners to help provide the stability and give Fury a new lease on life. They had long term plans for Fury’s development, and aren’t ready to give up.
Honestly i think this was 100% right. Everything they said was true. Ppl do exagerate over it and I really think Auran's gonna get back on track. I hope more ppl come back to it b/c they have made a ton of improvement from there 1st launch. It's truely not that hard to understand if you sit there a while and u can get hooked easily.
Give it a try again most likely you'll end up likeing!!!
Is it good to judge a game based on launch?
Hell yes!!
If the player response wasn't as bad as it was, they wouldn't have understood what the bloody hell is wrong with Fugly... I mean, Fury.
Besides, it should have the stuff it promises, you know, the features and a functional engine, right from the start. I don't give two poops if other games are released unfinished, just as I don't believe that just because everyone does something it makes it right to do so. Games are products. I don't buy a movie dvd expecting them to 'patch' it later because there is a scene where the microphone blatantly appears. I don't buy a magazine expecting an errata next month because they were hardpressed to deliver an article.
Either you deliver or you leave UPS for crying out loud.
They failed on many fronts, I hope they can learn something from this... Judging by their terrible marketing campaign, there is still a lot they need to learn before they can avoid being called dungface on forums.
Spamming your customers with e-mails calling them losers and challenging them to prove you wrong is about as pathetic as having breathing as your best quality "Omg you can breath?!?"...
Yeah.
I'm glad to hear that they're still alive and kicking and growing. EVE got off to a rough start and look at it now.
The problem with going "well games grow and fixes make them better" is that the game isn't the only thing that grows. Economies grow and become harder to break into, more players are off in higher zones so there are less people to join with at earlier levels, and communities have already been formed. These things are easy to break into at the beginning because everyone's on the same page, but once time has passed, it becomes harder to make your place in a community that's oftentimes made up of day-one people. Joining in late gives you the feeling of being left behind even though you've only just begun.
While I disagree with the early beta stage some developers launch with, I do agree fully with the last paragraph. MMO's can change radically over their lifetime and, if the concept is interesting, deserve a second look after a couple of months to a year.
LOL, I didn't know Fury servers were still up. I assumed it had fallen under its own horrible design long ago. And if that didn't kill it, I'd of bet it would've collapsed under the weight of its horrible dev team, some of whom would come to these boards and berate the posters.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Best of luck to them. Beside the graphic/lag issues, I must say that Fury is a pretty interessing and innovative game. If they can fix this and get a good player base back, then I'm sure Fury will be back straight on line and they will have then the possibilities to make it grow even stronger.
I may stop by on Hadralas in the next weeks... :)
Honestly it was a terrible game. At launch many of the Pay2Play features including voice chat did not work. I would have been happy if they extended the free beta while still working on getting the base game to work. But they didn't... they chose to exit beta and start taking people's money so they could play a broken game. This is very bad form in my opinion.
I posted and reported several bugs while in beta in hopes that they would not release but they did anyways...
-Nate
They couldn't even keep a measly 2000 concurrent players, that's friggen sad. Speaks volumes about this piece of trash, though. Something tells me they're never going to tell you who ends up funding them, because noone ever will. No company of any repute would give capital to a devloper who blew all the money they started with. And looking at the dismal failure of Fury, and the subsequent bankruptcy and employee firings, all of that initial money they started with from other investors was blown.
Maybe I'll send them an e-mail:
Are you a developer of Fury, the biggest wash-out PvP mmo ever made? Are you one of the people who created a game so bad it makes Shadowbane look like a raging success? DON'T BE A LOSER!!! Shut down and save what dignity you have left.
I very much like the idea of all-PvP games but I never tried this game because I am not interested in arena-styled encounters. I want a full-time, non-instanced, resource-driven, faction-based, territorial conquest WAR!
i sadly lost interest in the game and never looked back... i upgraded my computer to allow it to run smoothly and it did... and idk if my comp is high-end or not but i didnt do much to it besides add 2 gigs of ram and but a nvidia 8600 (i think its 8600 anyway...) and they game runs perfect and smooth.
after reading this article i might re download the game and try the new stuff they have... i mean got bored with it because of only 3 game types... and i only liked 2 and after a month of hardcore playing the game just got old after awhile... ill more ethan likely go back to it though... i liked smackin ppl down with my healer... afterall... it was a good non-carebear game... i didnt have to listen OMG PLEASE HELP ME LVL IM NEWBIE!!!!! (and amen to that
)
this is the best mmo out there, screw WoW and other MMO's
99% of mmo's suck anyway, and Fury isnt one of them
Zorvan, it took you 9 replies before you were able to get into this Fury discussion, I'm a little disapointed I'm hoping next time you can be a bit faster. Perhaps have some prewritten Auran is doomed posts to speed things along. lol
As for my "opinion", Auran made a mistake in taking lightly the world of sharks which is the veteran mmo and pvp fans. However this will help them make a better game. It takes alot of work an ambition to make something successful on a mass scale and the whole team has to be intune to the vision, something we found later wasn't happening. But the lesson is there and the lesson was learned hopefully, goodluck to them.
I think This game was targueting a very small %tage of players in the MMo market
I dont see them pulling togueter a come back. The small population targueted Called it a failure
I dont see any games pulling a comback after a massive failure at launch.
Fury was bad very bad. It had some good spots. One of my favorite was the unlimited specs you person could be. I hate how most mmo set you as a class and you can not expand past that. Sad it had far more problems then it got. Level one getting killed by level 10. Relied to much on stun locking. Only weakings with no skill Stun lock. It was heavy on lag and choopyness. Was to much on armor, weapon and broken skill. Three type of battle only please if you going be only pvp you need alot more then 3. Alot of bug more bugs then all the mmo put together. Very weak on gameplay.
Fury was jsut a bomb shell waiting to drop good thing it will not recover.
Such bitterness.
Keep plugging. People learn more from failures than sucesses. If people only strive to copy what works we get perfected copies and I can't see an industry of fifty different versions of WoW.
Funny i was just thinking enough was enough that three months was too long to let ur players know what was going on . First i have to say this is a really bad business practice no matter how u put it staying away from or disconnected from any supporters is just wrong and u dont win over votes by saying the same thing youve been saying since the beginning . The simple fact that u actually called ur AGE OF CHOSEN a PATCH is wrong it was a business move nothing more ... and in doing they screwed the ppl that had been playing by trying to force costs. Again wrong cos those that were playing before the patch paid for a beta product and then when u dont deliver u say ..." we have the potential u know it empty ur pockets a lil more and we ll get it right " like any investment which they are finding, come to someone with something solid they will invest come to me with BS and ill take my investment and time elsewhere . and u cant even fulfill what u have set out to do or said u would www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1842343/thread/166484#1842343
now im not gonna totally knock them on this but fury was a fun game ... in truth without a solid support of players is near impossible to play and truly enjoy fury for all that it is and could be ... but of course in order to do this the game needs to be fixxed and something is missing and its not just the funds and that too has yet to be found ... now adays more and more ppl are gettin into a pvp aspect ... so they have something but it may be something they dont conquer ... however looking forward to the one s that finally do.
I had the fortune (or misfortune according to some) of doing not only the alpha, but all of the beta testing right up to release. Many of the testers like myself who were hardcore, we ready for the game to be released and would buy it immediately. We kept providing tons of feedback, which in turn in large amounts to be ignored by the devs (from my understanding most of which are gone now). In august of 2007 they released a build that was supposed to be earthshattering compared to what we were testing/playing. It was earth shattering alright. ripped the ground right out from underneath most of us. and then the testers stopped playing and testing the game rapidly. The performance went to crap as was pointed out in the interview. Then after release enter the gankers/griefers who sat in bloodbath destroying new players. during the many character wipes in beta we all got used to this almost immune, but we told them well ahead of time that this was a very bad Idea for after release. Many of the non pvp players who were interested in trying this game out would be turned off right away and they were.
I wanted to see fury survive even though I will never play it (its hard for my conscience to play a game were devs ignored testing communities even if they were fired/quit) but at their current pace I dont see fury ever making out of the crypt far enough to be a profitable game for them and a fun one for players. Procs ruined the game after the chosen patch, causing even more people to leave (pvp'rs who dont like adding luck to a skill game i guess). it truly is unfortunate to see any game crash and burn, as I dont believe we have enough games out there to give players a healthy choice of what they want to play or are interested in trying.
I do think fury will be around for a while, but without some minor miracle life expectancy can go way down for this game.
On a good note, the idea and concept behind fury we really outside of the normal MMO box, the execution failed though.
Fury never had 2000 concurrent users, AFAIK they maxed out at about 600-700 during the beta and never reached those numbers in release
People might be overstating the death of the game but Tony is understating it aswell, the release of fury took down the largest Australian game developer.
But maybe I am just a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSER right...
This was actually a game i was looking for. I've played alot of mmos, and honestly felt like i needed something different. Fury was my hope, when i heard about the PVP focused game i jumped! I applied for the beta... which never got further than me reading their boring newsletters... -__-
After I saw some stuff about it though, such as the sheer reliance on gear rather than skill, and oh, the lvl1s being stuck against ppl an ungodly amount of levels higher... yeah, not a good combination id say huh?
If the bunch of inexperienced "I are teh best programmerz evah" freebie works can do something to fix the game, who knows i might try it.
First off there aren't any levels and second, the game isn't based on gear nearly as much as WoW and just about every other MMO out there.
Anyhow, I love Fury and I hope it does make a comeback, however this article didn't reveal anything new and like Jaiga said, they have kept the remaining players in the dark for too long. Im getting pretty frustrated but I still continue to play as there is nothing on the market that boast fast action pvp like Fury. There is now even a forums up and running made by the top players in the game, check it out at http://how2playfury.freeforums.org/.
Again I hope fury makes a comeback, for those of you who haven't tried it, you prolly should give it a try, it can be a lot of fun.
i would buy this game from them - no question about it if the price was low enough.
I could turn this into a beastly game.
It has a lot going for it imo.
Best pvp system since asherons call 1.
i played the beta for a good amount til the release. and felt the game was horrific. bad performance, ugly, unbalanced. good to know its F2P now, as I wouldnt purchase it. but I wouldnt mind installing it again to see how it has "improved" if at all. when i played i was stunned to realize " they trying to charge a monthly fee for this pile?" well either way, maybe this will help the developers to get out of the hole they are in now.
I love how manipulative these things always are. The developers after failing to deliver the product they promise, always come back months later and blame it on launch bugs with renewed promises that everything is fixed so you spend your money twice on the same POS.
Go back and try it again. I'm sure you'll see the same flawed game you played at launch, yeah maybe your frame rate will be better, less crashes and you'll still leave in a few days just like last time. Because in the end it wasn't Fury's performance that killed it, was the game itself.
Denial won't pay your bills, move along boys your company's grave is starting to stink up the site.
I find that many people tend to judge the quality of a game immediately after its launch. They are actually judging a game before it is even given the chance to learn from its mistake and correct it. It is just like saying a baby is smart of dumb just by looking at it when it is 4 months old. I feel that Fury wasn't given time to grow and fully develop its true potential. Had players stuck to Fury, we may see a better Fury with patches more often. I do hope that Fury will soon attract more players worldwide and maybe there will be a larger player base
. The other great thing is its unique PvP system. Not many of this kind you can find now. There is also no level or anything so players must rely on their skills instead of endless grinding to get to higher lvls and then beating the hell out of everyone