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Auto Assault : No Repreive for Auto Assault
Posted Jul 05, 2007 by Keith Cross
On Monday we reported that Auto Assault would be ending its services in August. For a short time there was hope among the game's fans that NetDevil would buy the game from NCsoft and keep the game alive. Those hopes were officially dispelled in a recent interview with NetDevil CEO Scott Brown on the WarCry Network.
NetDevil has no plans to salvage their automobile MMORPG Auto Assault, according to CEO Scott Brown. Publisher NCSoft announced early this week that after an inglorious year and four months of commercial service they will close the doors on August 31st of this year.
"We talked about it and sort of left it where it is," Brown told WarCry in a phone interview late Thursday. "We just couldn't come to an agreement."
NCsoft owns the intellectual property that is Auto Assault. This means they own the name, the story, the idea, the art and anything that directly relates to the game. The code-base and engine that power the game remain the property of NetDevil.
"We are certainly looking at other ways we can use what we do own," Brown added.
Brown added that no jobs would be lost as a result of NCSoft's decision. NetDevil still has Jumpgate in active service and development continues on an update. They're also working on LEGO Universe and Warmonger. Nonetheless, the Colorado based developer put a lot of time into the project.
Read the full interview here.
Disappointing, but understandable. What is the point in selling at the moment when you have announced the game didn't work out? Fans would love to hear that it sold, but a buyer would not be too interested in a concept that has not succeeded in the market.
Where Auto-Assault lay dead, 4-5 elf-infested fantasy games will spawn....
Wah Wah Waaaaaaah.
Sorry, RIP Auto Assault.
It's a shame. I was in beta and truly wasn't impressed, but I decided to try it out again and was amazed at how much better the game was from beta. I was having a blast. I wish NCSoft would do something like SOE and have a group price for all the games they have. Maybe then they could have left it running and possibly gained more players from those already playing their other games. I hope some of these non-fantasy games coming out in the future turn out good. I have completely stopped playing MMOG's because I'm sick of the fantasy genre.
I picked up this game and enjoyed it quite a bit. I happened to pick mutant right after launch ( yeah I know, bad mistake). I loved that NetDevil tried to do something different here but early on the game just had this huge sense of failure. That could be partially because when I did a census on the mutant side, only 22 others were online... at prime time. Nice try NetDevil, sadly this one didn't stick and I don't think advertising alone would've saved it.
This game was DOA. It just hung around for a while with a death rattle.
Whats disappointing is the fact that I only started playing the game a week and a half ago :(
A gallant attempt at bringing in new material to the gaming world...NetDevil should be proud of how far they went. May the Swartz be with you always.
LOL.
Sad but true.
So long, AA, RIP and hope the next "non-elf-infested" fantasy game does much, much better!
I tryed and liked the game for a short time there was a real need to bring more to the avatar. like combat and crafting also better player housing that needed to be in the game the game needed more of a game outside the car and needed better content . I really didnt like feeling like Kit from Knight Rider. R.I.P. AA it was a great idea !
Its a shame but i do wish the guys and gals at Netdevil the best in their next endeavour. RIP AA
The closing of AA is pretty sad, since the game was far from bad and with so many horrible games around who doesnt close, look at DnL, it's still going a it... It can only be a bad thing for the industry since it will probably influence devs not to do anything new and still use the old recipe: fantasy + grind = good steady income...
I don't think it will discourage devs from trying new things at all.
AA was a good concept that needed to be thought out a little more. It's problems were a lackluster development team / piss-poor marketing / and no real progress (it actually got MORE buggy as time went on, instead of less as most games would have).
The idea was good, the implementation sucked.
AA's demise was not due to trying something new, it was due to the one's trying it not knowing what they were doing.
As a counterpoint: Ryzom was sold when Nevrax went into receivership. I guess the difference may be that in Ryzom's case the Developer/publisher went bankrupt where NetDevil [and NCSoft] did not. As to why NCSoft wouldn't let them buy it back - perhaps it is a tax write off???
You realize their next project is a LEGO mmo? Doesn't sound good, does it?
Too bad. I was pumped about this game until they delayed the launch, then I just forgot about it and never got back into trying it.
And it's supposed to fail just because it's LEGO? Oh wait, all other LEGO based games failed. Especially those with Starwars theme...
It's a pity that a game that brought at least some innovative things to MMO world failed.
But strange crafting, no auction house, too many skill changes during beta->retail switch and later, and the usual bunch of bugs did discourage too many ppl IMO. Add the fact that you could not see players of other factions sooner in the game, not until you were near the end of the leveling process...
But it seems that developers (and hopefully the publisher too) learned their lessons. The game needed a lot of changes that WERE suggested during beta, but unfortunatelly didn't get them fast enough to keep ppl interested.
The art and quest+story line teams were pretty good (I liked mutant story line a lot). And FPS-ish style part of combat was a nice change from the usual MMO combat style.
I WILL be watching other NetDevil games.
Next project is a lego MMO ?!
This doesnt bode well given lego release titles BUT thinking about it .. look at second life. I'd love that with a little less microtransactions and using lego. If they got it right (nice engine, flexible, optimised (my fav category).... some people would well be up for collaberative lego building. If....