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Earthrise: Game Service Ends Today
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Masthead Studios has announced that service for Earthrise will cease as of today, Thursday, February 9th. According to Atanas Atanasov, Director of Masthead Studios, the team felt that Earthrise had been released too early and never managed to meet its players' expectations.
Here is the announcement in its entirety:
Masthead Studios announced today that it will be shutting down the Earthrise servers on 9th of February.
“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 free to play version of Earthrise, which was planned for 2012 may be released only if there is investor or publisher interest.
Check out the Earthrise site for more information. As yet, this announcement is not live on the web page.
Comments
Shame, it is not a bad game and not a bad idea. But, it was just one more unfinished product in mmo industry.
As expected when the game went F2P late last year. Sad to see yet an other indy MMO bite the dust...
@Nimar, the game itself was AWFUL. The idea was not bad.
Acutally the idea was good the hame was horrid.
they released it knowing full well it was broken they just were trying to cash in as much as they could.
thats shady to me.
Don't like it when indy games go down, but it wasn't very good, well in my opinion anyway. Was hoping to come back one day and have another look at it but there you go. Comiserations to the the staff and players.
Not a shame it all. They commited Corporate suicide themselves the moment they released the game in the state it was in.
It was so so obvious during the last beta week that the game was virtually unplayable and yet they released anyway and start asking money on par with AAA games, hoping to cash in quickly!!
Sorry, but the game was pretty much doomed right from that moment.
There are still Indy studios around that know how to launch a game with minimal budget. Just look at Perpetuum Online for example.
They launched small and asked "small" prices. They are still around. But more importantly. Their game was at least solid and playable.
Like so many other games that are different from the general theme-park MMOs that occupy the majority of the market, Earthrise had a great concept but fell short on implementation... Still, I hate when MMOs die - especially indy ones. Sad to see it go.
It's a shame some many on here don't seem to realise that the financial aspect of building these games has a major role to play in the release dates. Yes, it may not have been ready, but I think todays news indicates, financially they needed to get some cash coming in...
Apology accepted.
Actually the build up to the game was great and it was an amazing effort for a small studio. RIP another indie MMO.
I paid for it at release, and then again a few months later and didn't see a lot of improvement. Yet again another game I rolled my dice on and came up on the losing end. Don't get me wrong I love Indie game companies. Minecraft, Terraria, Deathspank, Trine/Trine2, Orcs Must Die, Dungeon Defenders and a long list of Indie games are installed on my PC but I made a vow to myself that in 2012 I will not spend another dime on an Indie MMO. It just isn't worth it. Heck it isn't worth spending money on most MMOs at launch these days as you pay for the box and a few months down the road they go free to play. That is why I am glad that my personal MMO to look forward to this year Guild Wars 2 is Buy to Play.
Of course I bought Dawn of Fantasy which is buy to play and sucks major but at least I got it for under $8 from Impulse the other day. Matter of fact I am starting to move to the mindset of unless it is on sale on Steam I am not going to buy it.
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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.
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Writing a MMO is no easy task and for Indie game makers with little capital, almost impossible. Shame it comes down to this.
Complaining about a buggy game from an indie developer is like kicking someone when they are down. It is just beneath you. These people need your support, not your whines.
When a company produces a game that nobody wants to play because it's done so poorly, the company should fail. The only good thing they did was admit defeat and shut the game down.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Atleast they were honest about mistakes made and not blaming the "players" for not supporting it enough.
Good thing there is yet hope for sandbox: ArcheAge
I have a feeling Xyson would end up with same fate.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty -- Mahatma Gandhi
I don't think so.
I was told the same about Earthrise few months back.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty -- Mahatma Gandhi
Well I am not saying it wont happen, just that I don't think so. I could see Earthrise closing all the way back when it launched though. I am active in Xsyon and I just don't see it happening is all.
Xsyon*
Not trying to be a grammar nazi here, but for some reason every one keeps calling it Xyson :P
so he felt the game was released too early thus failed.....maybe he should have listened to everyone who was telling him this exact thing after he announced the release date.
shame
Unfortunately for everyone Money > Beta Testers. If the money says release, they have no choice but to do as they are told. That's why we need an Indy developer backed by some serious cash, with quality programmers. With all the ridiculously bad investments people do these days, why won't any of them invest in an MMO?
Surprised it made it that long..
great concept but nothing else.
It's a real shame, but I guess the money just wasn't there.
What is said in that statement is right though, which means the guy 'gets it', and God knows we need more devs that 'get it'.
This will always be the case with small scale, low overhead studios trying to enter the arena. It was the case for CCP early on as well, the difference was they got support, MH didn't. Say what you will about a product should be.. yadda... yadda..
In other forms of entertainment (I'll use music as an example) indie bands often release music which isn't recorded and mastered in a professional way, yet fans still buy it and rush out to support them at shows, even though their live sound may not be as clear (due to equipment, venue, etc) yet because they want something different than what the mass media gives them they support those bands with a passion.
This is why EVE was so successful later on.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I hope this serves as a lesson to future indies to not release a poor product for the opportunity to make a fast buck. There are way too many choices in the mmo world to think they will have any relative success with that route.
I would not say awful, thats kind a hard. It was just bad to put it out broken like that, semi-finished. Well, better luck next time.