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Earthrise shutting down today
Arquiteto
Member Posts: 228
Bulgarian developer Masthead Studios announced earlier today that they're shutting down the servers for their post-apocalyptic sandbox MMO Earthrise.
"One year after the launch of the game, we have decided to stop the Earthrise servers. Earthrise was released too early and did not meet the expectations of its fans" said Atanas Atanasov, Director of Masthead Studios. "We did our best to revive the game in 2011, but the time was not enough to keep up with the user requirements. There is a huge interest in high quality open world sandbox MMORPGs, unfortunately the big publishers do not show any interest in the genre. It is unfortunate that low budget companies like ours are trying to bring innovativeness in the already saturated MMO market. I hope that one day an independent studio will be able to release the long anticipated open world sandbox MMO, which everyone is talking about, but no one is making. We tried, but did not succeed. We would like to apologize to those who were disappointed from Earthrise and to thank everyone who supported us during the years."
The studio does mention that the planned free-to-play version for this year may still launch if any investor interest is shown, but there has been no word on this yet.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/earthrise-shutting-down-today/#
Comments
Really sad to see. I was really looking forward to try it once it went F2P. I did playthe game alot before as well, and it had alot going for it, even though it was far from perfect. I hope some1 picks it up and help them make it to the F2P mode as well. The game deserves a second chance.
That game had the worst beta i had ever played.
Im not surprised they are shutting down the servers the game was pure garbage.
Kinda what I predicted when Earthrise went F2P. Sad to see yet an other indy MMo bite the dust
Not unexpected, but sad.
Oh well,
Shame
The truly sad part, is that this crap will happen again and again because the most reliable thing that you can bank on from the average MMO gamer is that they will consistently place what they hope for over what they are actually seeing every step of pre-release marketing. Earthrise is a classic example.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It is a shame that this game is shutting down. It had some great concepts, but was plagued with buggy gameplay. I tried to play it a few months back, but ended up quiting after 3 days. This game simply needed more time to be developed.
***Raises plunger in salute to the white haired chick!****
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
It's a shame that no company can see the potential in this game. It's full of promise though it needs TONS of work. I hope someone buys it and really puts in a couple years of development.
We knew that since Beta..........but good try.
Great concept, but no money, seen that before.
Still waiting for a good AAA sandbox, if sandboxes keep being developed by indies, they will never become mainstream, because people will always associate "sandbox" with incomplete and broken games like Earthrise, Mortal Online, and for some extent Darkfall.
I bought the game and tried it sad to say but I couldn't even play the game like every time I would play I would get very low FPS, customer support couldn't really even help resolve the issue, it was something in their game causing the issue, or their software not my computer tried two different graphics cards multiple drivers same thing.
Sad to say EarthRise is another game that had potential but it needed better developers, and sotry to the game to make people actually want to keep playing it.
I noticed however when they gave F2P notice that EarthRise always constalty said the server was offline I guess this is why.
**Raises two paws to the white haired chick's butt.**
Sad. I was rather excited about it when I first heard about it a couple of years ago. The rare videos of gameplay that were released quickly squashed any excitement I had though.
The game clearly wasn't ready when they launched it.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
The first time I logged in and had to hoop jump thru 10 different teleporters (and get dc'd 4, 5 times during the process) just to get to the point of shooting at something, I knew the game was doomed.
It's called Pathfinder Online from Goblinworks, there back by Paizo one of the worlds leaders in all things PnP rpg's.
So the doom and gloom from Mr. Atanas Atanasov is not true.
The reason why in the last 8 years no one can seem to make a good sandbox game is because they have no idea what there doing.
"It would be awesome if you could duel your companion. Then you could solo pvp".--Thanes
Hey, but look at the bright side.. We still have Rift, SWTOR, EQ2, LoTRO and WoW to play!!!
Who needs indie when you've got heavily industrialized standardized profit powerhouses like those??
i wanted to play this game as free to play, it is a real shame....at least hey are not working anymore on Fallout mmo or it could have ended the same way.
I hope they learn that you dont charge for a game when you dont have the experience to provide a well worth game..... learn first, charge last.
good luck in the future, Masthead
@RedText - QFE
THIS is how the market currently is. We want a AAA sandbox title, and NOT themepark quest-handholders that are being released. SWTOR is already looking like it'll start circling the drain in terms of subscribers come June or July.
Obviously this company was run by very nice people, however they lacked the creative vision & money to see it through. I'm now convinced that it takes a TRULY creative targeted approach to develope a proper sandbox title. Look at EvE, they didn't have much money to start with but had an end-goal in mind. However, space combat with your avatar as the ship is obviously a niche market, and even moreso a niche market when combined with player looting & losing your ships when you get killed.
I think a couple proper AAA sandbox titles are what the market is looking for now.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
They have NOT released enough information about Pathfinder Online to even consider it a proper AAA sandbox title yet, or even a good sandbox. When they start releasing screenshots, in-game video demonstrations, and talking about what content they ACTUALLY have developed already into the game THEN Pathfinder Online will be spoken of in the same breath as "a proper sandbox title". Otherwise, it's not worth talking about at this time my friend.
/tiphat
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
This is true, yes on the creative side, but even more so on the business side. It's like all the would-be developers don't realize just how difficult, time-consuming, and costly MMO's are to make. In this case, the vision and scope of the game far outreached whats its business and finances could provide and there's no one to blame for that but themselves.
Saddened, but highly expected. I was fortunate enough to play this in beta without purchasing it, and man did it run poorly. It was so poorly optimized and just seemed to be in such a pre-release state, even very close to actual release. The concept was good, however once you actually played the game you quicly realized that concept was not properly developed. There was one thing about the game, and I even saved the files; the music was great. I had read the music was made by local Bulgarian drum and bass producers, it was good and actually fit the game well. I hope the developers learned from this and wish them the best in future endeavors.
Pretty harsh way of putting it, when the issue was that it was severely underfunded. Least they tried, I guess.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Huge interest, really?
If you can't treat your game as a business, you do not deserve to be on the market.
Huge interest in a good properly funded sandbox MMO? Yeah definately. Obviously. Not sure why some of you are so against the idea that you can't even see that.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
This was predictable sadly to say....i bought the game and play'd it for like a week at most, empty world and very poor client performance ruined this game, even wen they waived the fees teh game was totaly dead, thats to bad cuz the game add the foundations to be a good sandbox. Some other company should pick up this title really, polish the engine and realease it with another name or something
Well all EarthRise refugees should now wait for The Repopulation, thats the closest title out there wich resembles EarthRise...