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General: SOE Closing Vanguard, Free Realms & Two Other Titles
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Take part in the Reddit AMA with SOE President John Smedly.
We have received word that Sony Online Entertainment has made the decision to close four of its titles: Free Realms, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Wizardry Online and Vanguard Saga of Heroes. Official announcement threads have been started on each game's forum to give the sad news to current players.
Kids' games Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures will officially shut down on March 31st, followed by Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Wizardry Online on July 31st.
SOE's Senior Director of Global Communications Michele Cagle provided us with the following information and forum links:
Free Realms: This game has been a true labor of love at SOE and we’ve experienced amazing memories with our players over the years. The game has reached a point in its life cycle where players are moving on to other games. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with this game and have unwavering praise for our players who joined us along the way. The game will sunset on March 31, 2014. For more info, visit: https://forums.station.sony.com/freerealms/index.php? threads/with-heavy-hearts-we- announce-the-sunset-of-free- realms.40323/
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures: The game is now at a stage in its cycle where players are growing up and moving on so we have mutually agreed with LucasArts to sunset the game on March 31, 2014. We will be sending the game off in an exciting way that players would come to expect for this epic franchise. For more info, visit: https://forums.station.sony.com/clonewars/index.php? threads/with-heavy-hearts-we- announce-the-sunset-of-clone- wars-adventures.18224/
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: As one of our longest running games, this was a difficult decision that wasn’t taken lightly. As a company, our mission is to deliver the best online worlds, but given the decreasing player population we cannot justify the resources required to support and update this game in a way our players deserve. With the increasing technical challenges involved in updating this older game, we would be doing our players a disservice as these are issues that cannot be resolved in the long term. The game will sunset on July 31, 2014. For more info, visit: https://forums.station.sony.com/vg/index.php?threads/with- heavy-hearts-we-announce-the- sunset-for-vanguard.71211/
Wizardry Online: We have mutually agreed with our partners at Gamepot to sunset this hardcore fantasy MMORPG based on the Wizardry franchise on July 31, 2014. The opportunity to bring this storied franchise to players across North America was a great honor, and we thank the players for the battles and experiences we’ve celebrated together in the game. For more info, visit: https://forums.station.sony.com/wo/index.php?threads/with- great-regret-we-announce-your- wizardry-journey-is-coming-to- an-end.4771/ Also, one final note, SOE President John Smedley will be taking questions from the community during an AMA on Reddit at 3 p.m. today.
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
The other ones, eh
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
At least we no longer have to hear the spin about how SOE "rescued" Vanguard and is solely responsible for it being enjoyable at all.
This is just the inevitability that began when they first purchased the title, they never gave more than a half-assed attempt to do anything with it. They were always killing Vanguard, they just did it as slowly as possibly while attempting to milk as much money as they could from fans' false hopes for its future.
Maybe now Pantheon will meet its kickstarter goals though:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1588672538/pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
That's a lot shutting down in a relatively short period of time. Hopefully that means they are diverting resources towards new development.
A SWG 2 announcement would be awesome.
Gee, I guess all those massive Accts numbers they bragged about for Free Realms were bunk and/or not making any money.
But anyone that knows SOE knew that.....
SWG 2 won't be happening anytime soon. EA owns all video gaming right to the Star Wars license for the next 10 years (it's probably also why Clone Wars is shutting down).
At Massively, Brasse said there are no layoff associated with these game shutting down, they will/were move/d to other games. Former players of these games can now hate EQNext and EQNext Landmark, I guess.
Although, it's the first time I see the CEO of a company do a AMAA over shutting down games.
Free Realms? I swear I've read comments on how well it's been doing.
It isn't even that old, is it?
They've also had the most games of any MMO developer. No one even comes close as far as Western Developers go at least. Shit happens... if more people were playing these games this wouldn't happen I assure you.
That was like 5 years ago lol. You're a little late to claim they were lying.
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Vanguard would have been vaporware if not for SoE, it never would have released and it certainly wouldnt have lasted as long as it did if some other studio had bailed out Sigil. They (most likely) lost millions of dollars on the title, fixing it up for 1.5 years while no one played it.
So yes, the only reason anyone ever enjoyed Vanguard was because of SoE. To think otherwise is extremely ignorant of the history of the game.
Fairly sure there were comments in the same vein more recently than that....
Fairly certain it was no sooner than 2 years ago, when's the last time you heard anything about Free Realms? A lot can happen in a couple years, I am sure it was successful for a time though.
Seems like the last official announcement of Free Realms' players was in 2010. Most of those annoucements were on the number of players who had signed up, not the number who were playing. The most recent MMORPG.com feature was in August of 2013, and that was more about SOE than Free Realms. The last Free Realms specific feature was in 2012. So not a whole lot of stuff happening with Free Realms recently.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Ummmmm and who exactly is responsible for people not playing these games?
And even with seven shut down, they still have more titles currently running than any other MMO company has ever had. This move makes perfect sense in the context of their move to a single sub for all their games. They want to focus their resources on the games that people actually play, not keep things running just for the sake of having them running.
Is this bad news for the people actually playing those four games? Sure. But it is great news for the fans of SOE's other current and upcoming games, because it means any resources that were being devoted to life support on these four can now be allocated elsewhere.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Is anyone really shocked by this?
Free Realms hasn't seen a major update in over a year. Clone wars I have no idea about. However, given the history of the genre, is was only a matter of time. Games focused on being "Kid Friendly" tend not to have much staying power in this genre.
Vanguard? The game was in development hell for years, only barely got published, and was released in a horribly broken state. The game never had too much of an audience, and now that it's getting older and the server hardware is getting more and more difficult to maintain, it wouldn't make sense to keep it up.
Wizardry? Do I even need to tell you why that game is getting axed?
Smed answered this in the AMA, he said A) Kids dont spend well (no shit) and
they are difficult to run because kids do mean things to each other. A lot.
Good riddance I say.
Closing Wizardy Online? What a shocker /not...
That title was pretty much dead in the water before it was even launched.
Sorry to hear about Vanguard though.
Ratero.
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".