Post-apocalyptic Sandbox MMO Earthrise Shutting down Today

http://tinyurl.com/6q3yplq



Post-apocalyptic Sandbox MMO Earthrise Shutting down Today


Bulgarian developer Masthead Studios has announced today that they will shut down the servers for its sci-fi, open-world sandbox MMORPG Earthrise on Feb.9. Earthrise was originally scheduled to switch into free-to-play this year, but the developer has decided to terminate the game service. Director Atanas Atanasov explained the reasons why they decided to do so in a press release.



"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. 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."



Masthead Studios did mention that if they can find the investors or a publisher, the free-to-play version of Earthrise may yet return some time in the future.

And this is why you do not charge a subscription fee on obscure games, kids. It's also a good idea to spend a little less time making your graphics really nice or putting together a swanky intro cutscene and a little more time making sure people actually know about your game.

This game was doomed from the start. Should have been free to play. At least then people would give it a shot. I remember saying the box art looked nice. That seemed to be the only thing going for it. It was just one of those games you knew was not gonna catch on. Buy and pay to play. Too big of a risk for an unknown game and company.

They did plan to go free to play this year. Too little too late. But seeing how the MMO scene has been lately some company will buy this and try to revive it while adding nothing new except for a crappy cash shop and gimping what is already there.

And so ends yet another terrible attempt at a successful MMO. Seriously now, what the literal **** were they thinking when they developed this?

Who in their right mind would think that this is in ANY way acceptable gameplay? The first footage I've seen of this just made me angry at the sheer amount of blatant stupidity.

A real shame because the general art direction and assets were wonderfully made. Hopefully the person/people that made those get a job with other development companies.

EDIT: Another thing that pisses me off is the way they act like it wasn't even their fault the game had no publishers. When you present anyone this type of material, obviously you're not going to get any interest. Ok, it's nice that you tried to innovate, but in order to be successful in this business as an indie developer, you need to have some sort of talent for these things. If not that maybe the general understanding of how far your capabilities can reach, and limiting a game to have less features, but keep the ones that are good in order to maybe add them in later...eg, Minecraft.

I could go on and on about this subject but I doubt there's much point in it.

You would think indie MMO developers would have learned their lesson already about making their game P2P. They simply think their game is the best thing ever and that you should totally pay their fee because they are indie and you are supporting them.

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Originally Posted by Orpheus

You would think indie MMO developers would have learned their lesson already about making their game P2P. They simply think their game is the best thing ever and that you should totally pay their fee because they are indie and you are supporting them.

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I think their point was they were doing something different

the problem is that people doesnt want something different, they want something different AND good...which is not happening.

in this age, the only way to get a big budget to produce a quality game is only if you are trying to clone WoW...which is kind of ironic, since that kind of games die the fastest no matter their quality.

talk about clueless investors...

I remember trying the game recently, back in December, didn't much care for it, due to the wonky controls, etc.

Is guess this goes to show to never release a MMO before it's ready, may future MMO projects look at this a learn.

The idea of a sandbox mmorpg is one I am interested in, however the way they went about it was entirely wrong and hence doomed to fail.

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Originally Posted by Gforce97

Is guess this goes to show to never release a MMO before it's ready, may future MMO projects look at this a learn.

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The problem is, they never seem to learn from the mistakes of others.

LOL OP got banned?

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Originally Posted by Interesting

So no, an indie publisher cannot make a sandbox, because they cannot offer the required features to make it a sandbox.

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funny enough, the top 3 sandboxes out there right now (Ryzom, EvE and DarkFall ) are all from indie companies...