Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Runestone / Seed is dead.
keke`
Member UncommonPosts: 33
This was posted September 28th, on the Runestone forums:
http://www.seedthegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3606
Open letter to the community
We’ve reached the end of the road.
For the past two months, I and a few others have attempted to sell a
partnership deal to a long list of publishers and MMO companies, trying
to raise the capital we needed to finish the game properly, and
re-launch it in a form it, and especially you the community, deserve.
While we have received a great deal of interest, we have not been able
to close a deal. The harsh reality is that we have now officially run
out of money, and out of options, and therefore, we cannot pay
salaries, rent or hosting fees.
What this means to you, is unfortunately that you will only be able to
play Seed for a very limited time. We will have a little “goodbye”
ceremony this Sunday at 20 CEST. I will be there, in the garden, as
Magellan. He was the first character online, and he will be the last. I
hope some of you guys will be there too, even if the occasion is sad.
After that day, the servers may be less stable and reliable, and AD GMs
will only be online on their own free time, if at all. Same goes for
Runestone Staff.
For us, it means that the dream of Seed and Runestone is over. It has
been a wild, weird ride, full of frustration, triumph, joy, stress and
fun, but never boredom. We have all learned incredibly much about game
development, the gaming business and MMOs.
We’ve made some major mistakes, and some smart moves along the way, but
in the end, we simply tried to do too much, with too few funds, which I
guess is a typical “Rookie”, and even veteran error.
I, for one, would do it all over again, although I would do a great many things differently next time around.
For the MMO community and business as such, the rise and fall of
Runestone probably doesn’t mean that much, but I hope MMO execs out
there reading this letter will draw the *right* conclusions from
Runestone and Seed, and *not* the wrong ones.
One thing I would hate to see happen as a result of our failure would
be a consensus forming that the idea about a non-combat, role
play-centric MMO is a bad idea.
It isn’t.
I am still fully convinced that a role play-centric game is not only a
good idea: It’s a great idea. It just needs to be better executed. Seed
has many of the right qualities for such a game, and I still firmly
believe that, given sufficient funding, we could have created a great
game.
Unfortunately, we will never know.
We’ve reached the end of the road, and to all those of you who have
followed us along this wild, weird ride I say a big, big thank you.
It’s been a pleasure serving you our game, and your constant faith in
us has been a major morale booster when times seemed tough.
I hope Seed gave you some enjoyment, some great times and some fun
along the way, maybe even some new friends. I hope you will demand more
from your future games in terms of role playing with other players, and
in terms of player influence in the world.
‘Cause that’s what role playing games and role playing communities are all about. The people playing them.
Lars Kroll Kristensen
CEO, Runestone Game Development
Comments
Hundreds and hundreds of millions of $ right down the toilet...millions upon millons of man hours burned up with nothing to show for it, save the experience! I'll bet that if you were to take all the money and man-power that has been pissed away on these projects you could have made a truly awesome MMOG in nearly every sub-genre there is!
Goodbye Runestone...and thanks for nothing!
Hopefully someone else will pick it up.
The market doesn't need nor want another non-combat MMOG and the market has spoken.
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
You know, I hate gold farming too. But you are seriously making me consider giving IGE a $100 check, not to buy any gold, but for their "wonderful contributions to online gaming," with a note attached saying, "Jorev made me do it."
In fact, the developers of Seed did more to limit farming and botting than any other developer, because of how they structured the game.
If you knew anything about this game, then you know that if a combat MMO launched in the kind of state Seed did, it wouldn't last half as long. In fact, it probably couldn't launch at all. Seed was only semi-playable due to the state it was in, but it would be unplayable if you needed the sort of twitch style engine and UI to facilitate combat.
The only thing that made this game last as long as it did was the setting, theme, and the non-combat challenges. People didn't subscribe to Seed because it was a bug and error free experience. They subscribed because they wanted a deep game filled with the challenges of maintaining a colony in deep space. Those that subsribed to Seed were willing to put up with a lot that no other player of any game should have to endure, and the only thing that kept them in there was the theme, and the challenges of working together to sustain life, and not take life.
Moreover, people didn't leave Seed because there was no combat. People wanted to stay, but were put off at all the bugs, the hangs, the crashes, and the roughness of the launch.
In a sense, despite everything you think Seed was about, it was never a "non-combat MMOG." I would say that it was the ultimate PvE MMO. The player fought against his environment, and the environment that was crumbling around the colony.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
If they had the money to have better/more servers I think I would have bought the game. It had promise, but
without the funding the best ideas will go down fast.
Blizzard has stated that they success was tied to the amount of money they had in developing the game, and how polished it was. Bash Blizzard if you want to, I won't defend them.
I am sad to see another MMO die a horrible death. There are plenty of MMOs that will be released 4th Quarter this year, I wonder how many will be around this time next year?
Aww, those 5 or 6 people who actually got the game to work are going to be crushed.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
got to agree with everything you said.
I LOVED the game when it actually worked, was in beta and for about a month after it launched as well... What drove me away was the INTENSE lagging and dropping issues. LOTS of bugs etc.
If Runestone had had another 4-6 months of work ironing out the kinks in the game, it would have launched much better and probably done much better...
The lesson to learn from this is not "non-fighting" games suck, but that a terrible launch will kill any game.
When the game went straight from Beta to live release due to the backers demanding such, the writing was on the wall.
--------------------------------
Currently Playing: Guild Wars 2 and Path of Exile
Quit: Eden Eternal, Wakfu, DDO, STO, DCUO, Sword 2, Atlantica Online, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, Earthrise, FFXIV, RoM, Allods Online, GA,WAR,CO,V:SoH,POTBS,TR,COH/COV, WOW, DDO,AL, EQ, Eve, L2, AA, Mx0, SWG, SoR, AO, RFO, DAoC, and others.
www.twitter.com/mlwhitt
www.michaelwhitt.com