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Auto Assault shuts down; was Auto Assault too innovative?
Enduser
Member Posts: 7
Auto Assault, the game which bills itself as "The Fastest, Most Destructive MMORPG ever" is coming to a close. On July 2, NCsoft, the game's publisher, announced that it would pull the plug on the post-apocalyptic, vehicle based MMORPG on August 31, 2007. According to Mmogchart.com, a site which tracks subscriber numbers for MMO games, Auto Assault's subscribers peaked at just over 10,000, making it one of the least popular MMORPG's on the internet. Although Auto Assault's demise didn't come as a surprise to anyone because of the game's waning subscriber numbers, one has to wonder why nobody was interested in playing this title in the first place.
Most would argue that the MMORPG genre wasn't ready for the innovations that Auto Assault brought to the genre. While it is true that some players have a phobia of being pigeonholed into playing as a car for the majority of their gaming sessions, I don't think that that was the true cause of Auto Assault's untimely demise. At first glance, the game's action oriented gameplay seems like a boon compared to the wealth of stereotypical sword-and-sorcery-grind-till-you-drop MMORPGs on the market. However, I think that the "non stop action" mentality of Auto Assault may have harmed the title more than it helped it.
The rest of the article is at my blog: http://endusergame.blogspot.com/
Comments
Way to blame the players as "brainwashed"...
Except that it wasn't non-stop action. The constant runs back to the city to train and deal with inventory or crafting hybridized the game into a thing that wasn't constant action.
The action in that game was fun. The constant quest-hub reruns were a total bore. My non-vehicle avatar was just silly.
I don't think innovation was the issue. I think their issue was trying to jury-rig an action game into a RPG. If they'd focused more attention on "non-stop action" and less on the RPG element they may have had more success.
No AA wasn't too innovative, it was too mindnumbingly monotomic.
It also gave me some issues with my hand due to holding it in the same positing for too long ( Pressing W for hours on end )
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
Look at what's been coming out lately and look at the upcoming MMO releases. As gamers, are we not being bombarded by the same thing over and over again?
No, we're not.
I bought it, tried it, and didn't like it. Why is the big question right? The whole idea of it "being too innovative" never even crossed my mind. I wanted something completely new with non-stop fast paced action. Thing was, this game was what most in the MMORPG genre call "shovelware." It was not ready at launch and had little content, unpolished graphics, and tons of game stopping bugs. It is typical that those who try it at launch decide the fate of a game. If they like it and keep playing, others will join them. Auto assult did not fit this bill. It was reviewed so horribly by most that others didn't even look at it.
This, of course, is only my views and thoughts.
EDIT: I went from UO, to WoW, then EVE. I wanted a change and AA wasen't it, EVE was.
I played it and did try to like it but I guess it was kind of a niche game. The feel of the shooting and driving I couldn't really get accustomed to either really.
I do think its too innovative, but I think the lack of marketing and advertisement also seriously hurt the game.
Sure, its not the best MMORPG in the world,it could use a bit more tweaking and some more attention the driving part of the game, but its still a good game and it deserves to do just as good as games like City of Heroes.
No, we're not.
Well that's your opinion then, but i've read multiple times about how people sometimes forget if they're playing LOTRO or WoW... That signals a bit of a problem to me.
No, we're not.
We aren't?
I'm a fan of fantasy, but honestly I can say. I'm really starting to grow tired of fantasy MMORPG's. That's basically all we are given though. UO, EQ, WoW, EQ2, DAOC, Vanguard, D&D Online, AoC, Warhammer Online, Asheron Call, Asherson Call 2, Dark and Light, FFXI, Horizons, and it just goes on and on and on....
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
I think for most people it was the system requirements. My gawd, 10Gigs?! Cmon! FSX has practically the WHOLE Earth modeled PLUS all the airplanes and airports too and it is "only" 7 Gigs. Thats the reason I never played it.
What I dont understand is why they didnt try lowering the monthly fee first before pulling the plug. Might have helped, prolly not though.
Bartoni's Law definition: As an Internet discussion grows volatile, the probability of a comparison involving Donald Trump approaches 1.
No, we're not.
We aren't?
I'm a fan of fantasy, but honestly I can say. I'm really starting to grow tired of fantasy MMORPG's. That's basically all we are given though. UO, EQ, WoW, EQ2, DAOC, Vanguard, D&D Online, AoC, Warhammer Online, Asheron Call, Asherson Call 2, Dark and Light, FFXI, Horizons, and it just goes on and on and on....
Exactly, and then when something new comes out, it does terrible a la AA. EVE and CoH/V being the exceptions.
If Auto Assault in vehicle driving felt a little more 'fun'. If Auto Assault controls and driving felt a little more like other car driving games (carmageddon). It would have sold boatloads.
The deves self admittedly said they shot themselves in the foot by how they signed a contract with NCsoft. They had certain deadlines they had to meet. Wich means they could not focus on the important part of developing a game: making it fun. Hindsight is 20/20 and netdevil has learned from AA. I am sure thier next title will be better. I hear rumors of them doing another vehicle game with a different IP. Wonder what it will be.
No it was not innovative at all. When I started the trial, I was hoping it is something new and fresh, but it turned out be 100% like any other fantasy MMO i.e. World of Warcraft, except you control a car instead of an elf. There was so much they could do with the excellent idea, but instead they just converted the well-known formula into cars. The result was a boring, unimaginative game.
EVE, launched in 2003, has no human avatars but ships instead, and unlike AA was actually innovative, basically unlike any other MMO ever done. Somehow, EVE became a great success and is still growing after 4 years, while AA was a failure from the start. For me, at least, the reason I didn't buy AA after the trial was that it was nothing more than a WoW with cars.
I played it first in 2 Betas, First Open and EU Beta, later then sometimes ane shortly before they announced to pull the plug.
Nice setting, good ideas, at the beginning, but at later stadiums it was the same grind like everywhere else, where level dictate your doing. So the setting was innovativ, some features were, too, the game itself wasn't on the longrun.
I think they had done better with specialising in something beside the usual WoW/Everquest formula, in my case more PvP (territorial),no lvl grind, skillbased/actual driving and use-of-weapon skill.
Bah, i'm wasting my time, i could go on but it's dead anyway.
I played AA. CAme back again last month even.
This game had some nice ideas b ut too innovative? You gotta be kidding.
What broke it`s neck was it`s shallow feel to it IMO.
Thousands of pointless missions. All just boring text and allways more of the same.
The missions were so simplistic and numerous that you have 15+ missions you work on at the same time most of the time.
Just kill everythingf that moves and sooner or later they are all completed.
If they would`ve made harder longer missions that are more then kill this kill that, the game would`ve feltso much better.
When you started the game you got a nice intro flyby and a voice tells you the tale of your faction. That is awesome. If they would`ve done missions like that the game would`ve rocked.
In the end it was just a pontless NC Soft leveling grind wich is a shame.
The future setting with cars and tanks was incredible. The graphics weren`t outstanding but good enough.
The devs failed to deliver the right feeling to it. Mindlessly shooting stuff gets old really quick.
This game didn`t force to group either. It was a singleplayer game without a storyline to follow for most.
It`s a shame. This one wasn`t far from being a superb game. They blewit by thinking that ppl wont get bored by blowing up stuff.
I tried the AA trial and it was one of the least enjoyable mmo's I've ever played.
My biggest beef with it was that it didn't feel like driving a vehicle around at all. It felt like just a regular WASD mmo only with some awkward restrictions in the ability to make snap turns. I was hoping for a proper "driving game" feel.
The gamepad support felt makeshift, my turret would try to point at my mouse cursor as well as where I was aiming with my gamepad, there was virtually no analogue control as my vehicle would drive at full speed even if I only nudged the stick upwards. It ran really bad on my rig even though the visual quality wasn't that great. I couldn't find much to "do" other than grind missions.
I'm not here to flame it, I just wanted to defend us as a community from being labelled as "not ready for it's innovative concept". The concept was good, the execution could have been better.
putting a different skin onto the same ol grind is NOT innovative. is is also not so called "next gen".
so in the end, one grinder more or less, who cares?
My problem with AA, was that while I've cetainly played much worse games, there simply wasn't enough game there to justify paying a 'AAA' monthly fee. It was certainly not innovating. Here's a link to 'innovation' as explaind by Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
AA was really more a new jacket on the usual ideas. To me it felt a little like WoW and EvE rolled into one, with some Destruction Derby bolted on. However, I'll freely admit that I only played through open beta. Even so, by open beta, a game should definately have it's core systems and principle ideas in place, and that's what I base my opinion on. The core of AA simply wasn't enough to get me paying.
Shame you didn't include a poll here
Anyway. It had its moments and could be fun at times, but no, AA wasn't anywhere near innovative. It was Everquest on rollerskates.
If it was innovate enough, that would have saved it.
Too innovative? That's a feel-good excuse the developers might console themselves with.
From the description of Auto Assault, I imagined a cool futuristic world of amazing vehicles in visually wild battles.
What you got was a driving game with old-fashioned looking and unrealistic vehicle movement over the terrain reminescent of some free driving game of the 90's--basically a concept unrealized.
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AA was not inovative it was standard MMO gaming with cars.
I think its more along the lines of not having a real connection to the world. In auto-assualt, your always in your car. Its the same reason I am not too into EVE, your stuck in a vehicle and it lacks many social interactions that are possible in other games.