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General : Exteel: NCSoft Pulling the Plug
Posted Jul 28, 2010 by Suzie Ford
All Exteel servers will be shutting down permanently on September 1, 2010 according to a new post on the official site. NCSoft made the decision based on the fact that the publisher felt Exteel was no longer "financially viable". NCcoins and game cards can no longer be purchased and unused game cards can be applied to any other NCSoft title.
In late August, we will have an event where all items will be available for 1 credit only so that everyone has the chance to experience any weapon, mech, build, etc that they ever could have wanted. Your coins should be used before that time. Additionally, we will be rewarding our loyal players who purchased NCcoins for the time and money they have invested in Exteel. More information about the loyalty rewards will be available in late August.
We know that we have many loyal players who love Exteel. Although this decision was a painful one, in the end it was a business decision that had to be made. We encourage everyone to play and have fun with the game that you love in the time you have left.
Source: Exteel homepage.
No surprises there.
Did anyone ever play this?
I played it for a few weeks when it first game out. It wasn't terrible or anything. I had fun with a couple friends, but the playing on the same maps over and over got boring.
yup... they do that.
NC$oft killing a game? Surely you jest!
Hah, I actually had some fun with this (though it was your typical F2P heavily cash-shop dependant game). If it weren't for overpowered items available only through the shop, I would've played more.
I went through a mech/robot phase a few years ago, I don't remember exactly when this came out.
And another one gone
And another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Should have been pulled before release.
I'm actually a bit sad about this because while the game had a bad connection with wireless users it's still a mech game and it was FUN although a bit grindy and not many choices in what to do since there was no real pve modes.
It was actually a pretty darn fun game.
Yeah the game itself was great and pretty fun, loved kicking but as a melee only bot. Not many choices for mech type games as it is, and it cartered to that crowd pretty well, even though it was a blattant rip off of the gundam series (suprized that didnt get it shutdown long ago :P).
The only reason I (and probably others too) refused to play it anymore was it's use of the cashshop, was a total pay4power fest (atleast it used few years back to be anyways), and in a game where it's all about fighting each other it just ruined any possible fun.
So in the end i'm not sad to see it disapear, but hopefully the people behind this game learned a lesson.
Another example of how players will simply not support a PvP-centric game, no matter how much they say otherwise.
It's not that they wouldn't support it, it's just that the market is being flooded with these F2P action games.. There are only so many players in the worldwide playerbase, and when newer better games popping out of the woodwork there is no room for older games to thrive.. You gotta think , these F2P games are not only competing with other F2P's, but they are competing with console giants and other high profile releases..
This game has just run out of the treadmill.. i'm POSITIVE if NCSoft will allow it, it will return as an international game by some other company.. My vote goes to Nexon..
It is already a Chinese game called G7 Online published by PlayNC.
First time i hear about this game, serious.
this game was pretty fun, i just uninstalled it yesterday actually. would've been better if they balanced it out though. the weird part is that they just added 2 new mechs to the game and now they're closing it down. maybe the korean version will still be open.
exactly, they needed to advertise it more.
Can anyone comment on NCSoft? What's their track record with MMO's etc as a publisher? Not sure I'm that keen on them...
they're in it for the $$$ and only the $$$ from what i've seen/heard.
NCSoft is what scares me about Guild Wars 2, period. I can only hope that ArenaNet can overcome the hurdle that is their publisher and become a stellar and incredibly popular game...otherwise, again, it will be pushed back so NCSoft can pump out another game that they are going to support poorly. I don't think I'm going too far when I say that I'm in the majority camp with this, too.
It's a real issue with this genre MMO's that needs a long-term strategy. NCSoft don't seem ideal at all from this pov if their metrics are only able to measure cash return. Agree, hope GW2 quality shines through.
Why else would any company be involved in business? Because they love you, perhaps..?
Of course not. But if they pretend they love people, they'll get more sales than if they call their customers bad names. Just going by your example.
I don't think this game closing will cause any riots, and companies do want to make as much money as possible, so I have no problems with this. They're giving some "rewards" to the loyal players so those players will move to other NCSoft games.
NCsoft published the original Guild Wars as well, and it worked out fine for ArenaNet. So why would it not work out this time?
Let me just put it like this. It is not the first time they have done something like this.
It was actually quite fun, I played it at release but there was just not enough different things to do to not get bored.
The NCSoft axe strikes again. I only played the game for a little bit and it was fun. However,The game just lacked content.
indeed.I had hoped - after the Tabula rasa /Aion debacle- Arenanet would have left NCsoft and go to a decent publisher,but it wasn't to be. I'm most definitely not pre-ordering or 100% certainly buying GW 2 . I'm going to wait for quite some time with any decision with regard to GW 2 . As for canceling MMO's prematurely : NCsoft is a very annoying company . Both Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa were canceled before they had run for a full year ( which is ridiculous in case of an MMO , it's only after a year you can start adding content in earnest ) and they are now canceling the f2p games as well. It would be best for them to sell all assets they have in western hemisphere and leave MMO-publishing in this market to better companies ( that way their shareholders will also be far more pleased because that group obviously has shown NO love whatsoever for western hemisphere ) . We all kknow both COH and GW would be picked up by another publisher within a few hours :)
It was fun. Until the first two hours went out the window then I got bored and never touched it again
This. Same with Gunz and S4. They last a week and then get boring. And all publishers are evil, not just NCSoft.
It's ironic that their own cash model for exteel which made it impossible for a user to play unless they put money into the cash shop is what killed the game because no one could play the game for free.
Maybe you could of tried intorducing a payment model that would motivate people to pay rather then making it the only way to enjoy the game? Skills that time out so if you don't play constantly you end up wasting your money and forcing yourself to lose? Cash shop weapons that are horribly overpowered? Money you earn doesn't scale with rank but part prices that do?
The list goes on. NCSoft has clearly proven their track record of refusing to fix their games.
Is this a surprise to anyone?
The only surprise to me is that it took them this long to stop the bleeding.
whats wrong with it?
Hey MumboJumbo,
It goes like this...
NCSoft was originally a plain old software company. They published some sort of HTML editor. The founder was a creator of a word processing program.
They then shifted and created Lineage. Lineage was influenced a bit by diablo. It seemed that they then were all about making mmo's and not only mmo's but they wanted to have a stable of mmo's in their portfolio.
They created Lineage 2, they published City of Heroes, published Guild Wars, created Exteel, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, Aion and created dungeon runners which was a fluke.
You see, dungeon runners was created by some guys at NC Soft as a sort of side project using some of the extra art assets. It was then decided to actually create a larger game and release it. It was a non-serious, tongue and cheek type of dungeon crawler game. It was free to play but one could have some sort of sub if they wanted more perks.
They are also making Blade and Soul.
But NC Soft is very businesslike when it comes to their games. A bit like Sony actually. And they will close a game down if they don't feel like it deserves any more investment.
They closed Auto Assault as it wasn't doing well. Closed Tabula Rasa. Closed Dungeon Runners.
Lineage 1 and 2 are still doing well in Korea. oh, they bought ArenaNet which made Guild Wars. They also now own City of Heroes.
and of course, now they are closing exteel.
What is this, the 4th game that NCsoft has axed? I'm not familiar with the company, is it western or asian?
I have to admit, i did enjoy my brief play time with exteel. The game for what it was was very well done. Was a very faced paced mech combat pvp game and it was fun. I actually found myself whopping obvious cash shop users with my stock mech quite a bit, but then again i used to play armored core alot back in the day vs. my friends. Only reason i didnt keep playing was that the cash shop was not only seen as necessary, but even if you buy gear for your mech out of the cash shop, its all on a timer. So you would be paying real money for parts that you would only have for a month and if you wanted to keep it, you would have to pay again for another month. Due to this i left, fun game though kind of a shame it had to end like this. Game had alot of potential.
I also enjoyed dungeon runners alot as well. It was possibly one of the best F2P games i ever tried. Instead of an item shop, they just had a membership fee which was $5 a month that would allow you to equip most versions of the best gear in the game. That was it, no rip off item shop. Was a fun toungue in cheek diabloesque multiplayer co-op game that had lots of different dungeons and content. Wasnt just an endless series of quota killing quests and grinding. It didnt deserve to get shut down and had more people been aware of it, it would have done far better. Hell even the old commercials they had for it on the website were hilarious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqnee6LRAxU. I kinda miss that game.
In my eyes NCSoft is developing a serious credibility problem with these closings.
Playing an MMORPG isn't just entertainment, it is also an investment of time and resources. Who will make the investment in an NCSoft game knowing that the game could be discontinued?
Not wise business from my perspective.
edit typo
All the more reason to never ever play anything produced by these guys.
Ncsoft is shit i went to one of there showings and i got to write code for one of there games lol
they are not a good company too invest in with the recent fuck up on aion just proves the point that there iddiots
but the game was good for screwing arround or too kill some time im going to put it back on my computer for the next 2 days sheerly to have a bit off fun while it lasts
NCSoft seem to like closing down games.
This game had plenty of potential, but the only thing that killed it was the lack of content. It is a good game, the gameplay was fun, (could have done better with the melee but w/e) but one can only take so many pvp matches till your burnout on the game.
As a mecha fan, this was a little jewel in a big desert since there aren't many games like this anymore. Its a real shame too I hope someone picks it up again, real good casual game.
D:
That is a real shame. I remember back when they released the trailer when it was still in development and got real excited, hoping there would be battles with airship fleets. All the weapons and the movement were really solid. Was a very enjoyable game that I put $5 in. But yeah after a month it got old just like any pvp game.
NCsoft as been the destroyer of too many games I enjoyed and they will never even offer that experiance again. I can no longer look at another one of their games and think it is at all persistant. If want a MMO that will always be around, its not going to be a NCSoft one....
I actually enjoyed this game for some time - but with it not being playable on Win7 64bit; it basically disappeared from my radar. If they had addressed things such as that, more folks might have continued to play the game...
I had fun in this when it first came out, for a few weeks it's all we played all day. What really killed the game for me was the fact it turned into one of those pay to win games.... after awhile it just became far too obvious.
I didn't even know there was a mech MMO. I woulda tried this a long time ago. : (
A F2P game biting the dust, may many more follow...
oh... that hurts a bit for me, it was a great game!
Dont worry there are more mech mmo's comming this/next year....
I played it a while ago. It was fun, but after a while I just got bored. You play in the same maps all the time. Ah well, another game down..
Hmm, to bad for the people still playing it =/
Never tryed the game tough, barley hear about it awhile ago, didnt catch my interest.
How many games have they shut down now? hmm, I believe this is the fourth. and that's only in a few years :D Soon Aion will perish in the west and they close the offices here and go all out in korea :)
Much better in my opinion
I played for a few weeks as well, but it got old very fast.
I am waiting on them to pull the plug on AION the other crap game.
I played this when I wanted to PvP a little now and then. It was fun combat but that was it, not an MMO in any sense. Felt like there were a dozen little maps. Nothing to keep you playing but the rush of PvP. Progress was pretty uninspired.
beta testing Perpetuum right now. A real Mech MMO. Combat is slow, maybe too slow for me, but will be fine for the EVE crowd.
I played it for a very short time. Yet another mech game that fails to simulate the sheer size and bulk of a 3-4 story machine. MW3 is the last truly great mech game.
Hopefull the dev team will get reassigned, but no, I doubt this game will be missed.
Why do developers think they can make low to no effort games and have them succeed? One Dungeon Layout period? I guess since COH and COV were profitable with very few models they had reason to hope.
NCSoft didn't used to be that bad a publisher, they've just turned into the modern SOE within the past say 2 to 3 years. Before this I honestly thought of them as respectable but the way they've handled everything since Champion's Online has really tarnished their rep. NCSoft, for me at least, was never a plus for a game but they are definitely a minus now along with SOE and EA.
Really fun game, sad to see it go.
Gotta go check GUcomics.com, and see if this one mde the bug zapper!
Point is NCsoft lacks a long term vision or strategy . The fact they dismissed folks like the Garriott brothers and both Strain and Reid left them is indicating that ( those are "vision folks " ) . I disagree with th comparison with EA or SOE though. SOE has a tendency to offer near zero support ( to that I agree ) but they don't cancel /shutdown MMO's that often. Same goes for EA ... NCsoft strategy seems to consist of, chronologically :
- market a new title very aggresively ,as if it's the biggest thing since invention of sliced bread ..
- promise testers and new players everything they're asking for ( i.e. the "blatant lie " strategy )
- launch game with minimal support apparatus in place ( saves $$$ )
- after launch completely ignore your players ,but aim to maximize sales of accounts .
- ignore players leaving the game(s) in disgust and compensate for their departure with yet more sold boxes .
- suddenly realize the game is dying and try to finally correct the flaws in the game .
- realize the damage is done and no amount of tweaking /adding content will lure back those players .
- cancel game .
+1
NCSoft needs to go back to publishing HTML software and leave the MMOs to the serious developers. Where most companies look at a struggling game and ask, 'How can we make this better and save the game?' like Turbine has done for example, NCSoft simply milks it for everything they can and then pulls the plug no matter how much potential the game has. Games like Tabula Rasa could have survived and even become popular, profitable games with some work. Reading through the comments here, it appears as though Exteel could have too with some added content, a change to the pay model, and some advertising, but to NCSoft, that would have taken some work and commitment to their game which is exactly what NCSoft lacks... commitment.
I'm shocked it even lasted this long.
I think NC suffers from being pulled in two different directions.
On one end you have the developers/creators who are, from what I understand, a bit artistic in their approach and on the other hand the hardline business guys.
If you look at some other Korean companies such as Hyundai, there are stories such as the Korean counterpart coming to the states for what seemed like a routine review of the facilities and with no warning, firing the upper management. And apparently not the first time they had done such a thing.
It seems that NC Soft can be just as mercenary in looking at its assets.
Its not so much mercenary as it is short sighted. In fact its a perspective thats based on three month chunks of time. In other words what have you done for us this quarter. I've seen this corporate perspective many times before. MMO's take years to develop, and then take time to smooth out operations and retain their player base. Way too many publishers look at box sales as their big pay off, and if the game isn't an immediate massive hit, they start pulling resources (totally opposite of whats needed to make the game a long term success).
Then they can't understand why the game has problems with retention...<rolls eyes> After which, if they are like NCsoft, they pull the plug. This has become an established pattern with NCsoft, as this is the 4th game they have axed.
Let us also not forget the role that xenophobia plays in these matters. I'm not familiar with exteels company, but all three games before it that got the axe, had non Korean developers. Anyone who has done much business in Asia knows that this can be a problem.
It doesn't surprise me. NCSoft has a bad track record when it come to continueing games. Look at Tabula Rasa it was a good game but they ended it. Instead of working on auto assualt they shut it down. So them shuting down a popular game comes as no surprise to me.
I played it ... but there just wasn't enough there to warrant sticking with it. I have to admit I'm not a huge F2P person to begin with ... but this and Battlefield Heroes were two F2P that I stuck with for some time.
It was clear tho that the game wasn't going to make it ... it got down to (as it always does with F2P), the haves and the have-nots .... and the have-nots just couldn't compete.
lol
Really? like which ones? Perpetuum I wouldn't compare with Exteel, as its not as fast paced. Thats the main difference between eastern mecha and western mecha.
fun game, like dungeon runner (is that what it was called) again, though, just like DR, they should release the code to the public (for a price even) if they don't plan on ever running it again and allow people to run their own servers of it, but whatever, NCSoft are not known for intelligent business decisions.
Did anyone see the Loyalty rewards? Looks like they don't give you much choice but to go play Aion. But what is really puzzling is that $1-$100 range of cash spent on Exteel = 1 game time card and $100s or more is two! Aion and CoH month sub. Wha-what? I guess being loyal really pays off.