Auto Assault is done!

[Righ]

Does this one win for shortest time between Retail and turning the lights off?

Until Vanguard beats it, probably.

E&B
MCO
AC2
AA

Horizons is basically closed. The owners just aren't around to turn off the lights.

[Falconeer]

MCO is the Firefly of the MMOs. Except we won't get the movie.

[Strazos]

I actually played E&B and kind of liked parts of it.

[Margalis]

E&B was really fun for the first couple of hours. Then it devolved into die-roll combat along with quest vending machines.

[Amaron]

Thank god.

Now I'm going to go curl up in a ball in the shower Ace Ventura style because NetDevil is the only one even working on a new space MMO and after they flop horribly everyone will just let CCP own the whole genre.

[Reg]

Why is NetDevil still in business? Their record is even worse than Turbines'. And why do people keep giving away valuable IP to second and third string operations like them?

[Merusk]

Why is NetDevil still in business? Their record is even worse than Turbines'. And why do people keep giving away valuable IP to second and third string operations like them?

Because the first string proved they couldn't do any better, and wants a bigger cut of the profits?

[Tebonas]

At least in Turbines case it worked out for the people giving them the IP (up to now at least).

[Modern Angel]

This is still the game that makes me sad. They willfully made it suck. That's the only explanation for how cars with guns can be bad.

This is going to be the one that could've been for a long time for me.

[Tannhauser]

Someone needs to make a good space MMO where you can have both a ship and a character.  No SWG doesn't count, it's not good.

[Righ]

Now I'm going to go curl up in a ball in the shower Ace Ventura style because NetDevil is the only one even working on a new space MMO and after they flop horribly everyone will just let CCP own the whole genre.

You mean other than Brebion (Infinity),  Perpetual Entertainment (Star Trek Online) and Castle Thorn Software (Starquest Online) presumably.

[Soln]

Without verifying, I am pretty sure AutoAssault lasted longer than Seed.

What, you don't remember Seed?

Seed is made of crushed up childhood dreams.

Yes and faerie tears and angel air.  It wasn't scalable.

Edit: the MMO forum needs a stickied Dead Pit list, wherein the unsuccessful ones get posted with dates.

[Nevermore]

[censored] off and leave already.

I think they did, sir!

[Mrbloodworth]

Without verifying, I am pretty sure AutoAssault lasted longer than Seed.

What, you don't remember Seed?

Seed is made of crushed up childhood dreams.

New avatar, then.

I thought seed had a beautiful concept, its a shame they could not get more money to really finish it, for the record, they were some of the more upfront developers i have seen, they told people they were releasing early, and why, and they told people they were not doing well finically...and they even wrote good by posts, most of the team, even artists.. To the community.

[Venkman]

Without verifying, I am pretty sure AutoAssault lasted longer than Seed.

What, you don't remember Seed?

Seed actually launched? I thought it was endless-Beta.

[Morat20]

Someone needs to make a good space MMO where you can have both a ship and a character.  No SWG doesn't count, it's not good.

Coming to EVE, I understand. :)

[tmp]

Now someone competent can come in and make a decent car combat game.

[CmdrSlack]

Without verifying, I am pretty sure AutoAssault lasted longer than Seed.

What, you don't remember Seed?

Seed actually launched? I thought it was endless-Beta.

Well, the quality of the launch was endless Beta, but nope it actually went "live" or "retail" if you'd believe it.  It is the first game where I cancelled my sub before the free period ran out.

[Venkman]

Wow, ok. Really behind the times on that one. I stopped that noise in beta and figured it was just going to fade away.

[Blackguard]

It's always sad to see a game go, and I can't help but feel sorry for those working on the game still or those who still play and love it, but as I mentioned on my blog, I'm not entirely surprised. It's so hard to identify with something as inhuman as a car or even a ship. I truly believe Auto Assault could have done a good deal better if they'd fully explored the human (and mutant etc.) element in the game and made the cars the combat focus (while still allowing people to fight without them). There were a few other problems with the game, but it was still fairly solid for what it set out to be.

I've always believed that you need to be able to identify with your avatar to really get immersed in a game, and the only game that has really proven me wrong (in the MMO world) is EVE. Motor City Online, Earth & Beyond, and now Auto Assault have proven me right, so EVE must just have something else (a player-driven universe with very complex social and political interactions, to start).

[Margalis]

It's always sad to see a game go, and I can't help but feel sorry for those working on the game still or those who still play and love it, but as I mentioned on my blog, I'm not entirely surprised. It's so hard to identify with something as inhuman as a car or even a ship. I truly believe Auto Assault could have done a good deal better if they'd fully explored the human (and mutant etc.) element in the game and made the cars the combat focus (while still allowing people to fight without them). There were a few other problems with the game, but it was still fairly solid for what it set out to be.

Aren't you basically asking for them to do twice the work?

The problem these vehicle games have with human avatars is that then you need two sets of models, two sets of items, two sets of combat rules, two sets of animations, design zones that work for both people on foot and people in vehicles, etc etc. Each will be half as good. In theory I agree that people want to relate to avatars, but pragmatically I have to say that doing two things poorly instead of one thing well is a very bad plan. Hedging your bets doesn't seem to work well in MMORPGs. I've always believed that doing a smaller number of things better is the best strategy 99 out of 100 times.

I've always believed that you need to be able to identify with your avatar to really get immersed in a game, and the only game that has really proven me wrong (in the MMO world) is EVE. Motor City Online, Earth & Beyond, and now Auto Assault have proven me right, so EVE must just have something else (a player-driven universe with very complex social and political interactions, to start).

In E&B you could get out of your ship and walk around, and in AA you could get out of your car. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that second one) In EVE you can't - EVE is still going. I would draw the opposite conclusion: human avatar = fail.

Because it's time spent that could be spent on something else. From what I know of AA and E&B, the problem was not stickiness really, the problem was that the core mechanics sucked. I think identifying with avatars is much more about retention than initial popularity, and the initial popularity was never there in AA and E&B.

Edit: I tend to take an engineering perspective, 'cause that's what I am. To me, nearly everything boils down to application of limited resources. The biggest bang for the buck, etc etc. Obviously these are only my opinions and I don't mean to belittle or attack you in any way.

Also, if what you are working on at 38Studios is good, give me a job there.

Edit2: Google tells me that you could get out of your vehicle in AA, but couldn't really do much outside of it. So yeah, that seems like a waste of energy to me.

Edit3: Congratulations on your recent change in marital status.

[Falconeer]

Honestly, having just 4 examples of MMO where you basically are your vehicle instead of a person, and 3 failed while 1 succeded I am not sure the problem lies in the "being the vehicle" part. Every one of those games had its reasons to fail:

- Motor City Online was ahead of its time and was released when the market was so small that it had no chances. Technicalities finished it off, and the lack of widespread boradband was another major factor. That same game wouldn't die now.
- Earth & Beyond was pretty sucky and non-fun. All the space fans I knew were waiting for EVE anyway. Giant Space flying skulls? That was a laugh for sci-fi fans (yes, they were in E&B).
- Both Games were EA. I think this helped them to die sooner. They could be still alive, as many other similar products, if they were owned by SOE, or Funcom for example...
- Auto Assault, once again, was a nifty idea. Many wanted to love it. Poor implementation and execution, and the lack of fun, are killers.

To sum it up, I use myself as an example. I love vehicles, ships, cars and everything. I am the perfect target for those games. Still, except for Motor City Online (which I loved) they failed to be fun. While MCO was a competitive game of its kind, the other two are poor dikus. Yes, maybe if those poor dikus were about orcs and elves they could have gathered more subscriptions, but the main point is that they were poor dikus. That's why they died. As did Asheron's Call 2.

[Venkman]

Edit2: Google tells me that you could get out of your vehicle in AA, but couldn't really do much outside of it. So yeah, that seems like a waste of energy to me.

You got out of your car in AA to conduct trade, commerce, and get quests in AA. This happened in instanced public-spaces that worked and felt very different from the core automobile zones. It felt slapped on as it came relatively late in development. The game was all Havok-engine MadMax until they slapped on the avatars, in a bid to form a deeper relationship between player and their avatar.

the only game that has really proven me wrong (in the MMO world) is EVE

It's easier for a casual player to relate to a game world when they see an avatar on the screen and can say "that is me". However, EVE is not for casual players, being one of the most immersive MMOs there is (in the sense of players impacting the world and seeing results thereof). EVE players can say "that is me [inside that ship there]", but their "presence" in the game world is substantiated by everything they do.

In static pre-defined worlds built and expanded on content gates delivered in a contrived guaranteed-eventual-win sequence, about the only thing a player has to feel immersed is their avatar, and those of their friends.

So I'd contend that the need for a simulated-humanoid avatar is tied to specific types of game experiences only.

[Falconeer]

You got out of your car in AA to conduct trade, commerce, and get quests in AA. This happened in instanced public-spaces that worked and felt very different from the core automobile zones. It felt slapped on as it came relatively late in development. The game was all Havok-engine MadMax until they slapped on the avatars, in a bid to form a deeper relationship between player and their avatar.

It's not that it was slapped on or very different. It's just that it doesn't matter at all. Players can enjoy instanced houses in EQ2 or avatars in Auto Assault but that's not the main game. That's a bonus. If the main gmae rules, avatars or instanced houses are a good addition. If the main game doesn't stand on its feet, there's no kind of decoration you can put in to make subscibers pay. Hell, WoW and LotRO don't have houses for example. EVE doesn't have avatars (now they are just putting it in as a bonus).
In AA it was very nice to get on your feet and having an avatar, I loved it. It's just that it doesn't add to the main game. When I was out shooting and getting bored with the content, I couldn't care less about being able to /dance in the outpost.

On a side note, about cars, cars with guns and stuff..  I played Upshift Strike Racer (a less cartoony and more FastnFurious version of Mario Kart).
Lotsa fun.


EDIT: merged two posts.

[Venkman]

You just made my point, even though you think you're disagreeing :)

The avatars mattered in AA because they were needed for trade and commerce. What actually didn't matter in AA was trade and commerce. But even requiring that, they didn't need the avatars. They slapped those on to make it more mass-market apparent, probably diverting resources that could have gone to other things.

Now, Houses are a different thing altogether. They DO matter in EQ2 because that's where, again, most trade happens. What is a "nice addition" is the ability to customize it with furniture, but that's less a required aspect of their core function, which was originally to require players be logged in to sell stuff, EQ1 Bazaar style. They gave players houses in which to do this so they could be instantiated so they could have these avatars logged in for all the time they were going to stand there to be item sellers, but not incur a huge load against the main public-space areas of the cities and adventure zones.

And this drives to the core point about Houses. Houses aren't worth putting into a game unless they an instrinsic part of the experience. And that doesn't mean some outsized bank box. That means they give players some demonstrable benefit, to first ensure they bother grinding to get one and then use it. Only in that way can you justify not only the house, but the engine for customizing it and then the game mechanic of winning things to customize with.

You may not care about Housing, which is perfectly fine because in a DIKU game, neither do I. But when a game gets or has it, it's because the devs figured enough people would.

And LoTRO is going to get Housing, per many Turbine confirmations. And WoW will too at some point, likely in the style of DAoC.

[Modern Angel]

Auto Assault failed because it was EQ style Diku with cars instead of your standard fantasy fare. It was transparent about doing so while the devs shrieked loudly about how different it was. Nobody really bought it.

[Falconeer]

Darniaq,

I didn't think we were disagreeing, I just thought you were talking low about the avatar part of AA, while I think it was decent and it was good to have it. Sadly, its decent-ness didn't add anything to the fun factor of the game.
About houses, it was just an example of stuff that can be completely absent without hurting a game at all. WoW will add houses, but no one shunned WoW at release because it didn't have houses, nor its (or LotRO's) subs got hit by the lack of houses. Same its true for avatars to me: if your game is good enough no one will avoid it because it doesn't have avatars (again, EVE). Everyone loves to dress the paperdoll, but a game can completely live withou it if it's a good, fun, original (not a diku) game.
Of course they will add houses, you have to keep your game fresh. But no one would unsubscribe froma DIKU because there are no houses to customize.

To sum it up once again, I think I disagree with Blackguard: the failure of AA and E&B had nothing to do with their vehicular nature. It had to do with the fact that they didn't have orc and elves AND that they weren't fun enough to stand out.

It's not about vehicles, it's about fantasy and diku. Anything different from that need to be very good (EVE) or struggle to survive.

[Venkman]

I don't think we can draw a direct comparison between all games of the genre. In fact, I agree with folks who don't call MMOs a "genre" to begin with... but that's another thread :)

EVE is not "very good" against some universal metric. Because there is no universal metric. It has great appeal to a niche, and plies them well. But it's not a get-in-and-out easily-approached automatic-enjoyment game like WoW, itself nothing more than a whole line of DIKU games with a strong gamer-focused IP and crapload of dollars and talent thrown at it.

Where I agree is on the "fantasy and Elves" thing, but mostly because tradition spawned proliferation that spawned success that it's been hard to argue against. This too is a whole new thread, but basically, FPS games need to be sci-fi, stats-based games must be Fantasy. Otherwise you better have a big license or be a big name developer, and there just aren't that many of them.

So I agree that part of AA's failure was that it wasn't fantasy and Elves. But the other part was the general user experience. It wasn't good enough even to maintain the folks it attracted apparently, or they'd have kept it around long enough to have it transparently funded by NC All.

As to Houses, again, if the game play provides relevant reward, as in impacting game play and character advancement, it's a requirement worth delivering. Think what SWG or EQ2 would have been like without Housing at launch. Think what UO today would be like without Housing (not at launch, since Housing wasn't in at launch). This is very different than WoW or LoTRO without Housing, because those are just DIKUs where you only need a character and a paperdoll.

Finally, on Avatars, name a highly realtime market-success in which a player is playing a single protagonist that isn't represented by an Avatar :)

[Margalis]

I didn't think we were disagreeing, I just thought you were talking low about the avatar part of AA, while I think it was decent and it was good to have it. Sadly, its decent-ness didn't add anything to the fun factor of the game.

It was good to have, except that the time spent on that wasn't spent on making the core gameplay better. Features don't get added in a vacuum, time and money are spent on them, resources that could go to something else.

It's not a matter of "do you want human avatars." It's a matter of "where do we divert resources from to make human avatars?"

[Sky]

Auto Assault failed because it was EQ style Diku with cars instead of your standard fantasy fare. It was transparent about doing so while the devs shrieked loudly about how different it was. Nobody really bought it.

This is what I thought after playing the beta. I ~love~ vehicle-based combat games. BF1942 and Planetside are some of my favorite games. AA had a really shitty implementation.

I did like my mutant green mohawk guy in shiny brass armor from the three seconds I saw him after character creation.

[Falconeer]

Auto Assault Closure: NetDevil Reacts
Based on interview with Scott Brown (CEO, NetDevil)
Article by Dana Massey

NetDevil has no plans to salvage their automobile MMORPG Auto Assault, according to CEO Scott Brown. Publisher NCSoft announced early this week that after an inglorious year and four months of commercial service they will close the doors on August 31st of this year.

"We talked about it and sort of left it where it is," Brown told WarCry in a phone interview late Thursday. "We just couldn't come to an agreement."

NCSoft owns the intellectual property that is Auto Assault. This means they own the name, the story, the idea, the art and anything that directly relates to the game. The code-base and engine that power the game remain the property of NetDevil.

"We are certainly looking at other ways we can use what we do own," Brown added.

Brown added that no jobs would be lost as a result of NCSoft's decision. NetDevil still has Jumpgate in active service and development continues on an update. They're also working on LEGO Universe and Warmonger. Nonetheless, the Colorado based developer put a lot of time into the project.

"We poured our life into that thing," Brown admitted. "We thought it was a cool idea... for whatever reason it didn't take."

The experience did provide them with a wealth of lessons that Brown believes can only help its future projects.

"[Good development] is focusing on a few things and getting them until [they're] great," he told us. He admitted that with Auto Assault they tried to do a lot of systems and then improved them slowly over time. In future projects, they're going to focus in on each system and make it hum before they move on. For him, this is the key to development, especially on the scale of MMOs.

He also mentioned that the company bares no ill-will towards their former publisher NCSoft. There simply wasn't a market for the project and if the chance arose, NetDevil would work with NCSoft again.

However, another lesson NetDevil took from Auto Assault is how to better work that kind of relationship. In future developer-publisher agreements they'll ensure that both parties have the proper incentives that make the project work.

Brown's comments appear to dash any last hope that Auto Assault could be saved. It will close its doors permanently at the end of August.

[Furiously]

...
However, another lesson NetDevil took from Auto Assault is how to better work that kind of relationship. In future developer-publisher agreements they'll ensure that both parties have the proper incentives that make the project work.

I somehow think that might be the most telling part of the whole closure.

[Yegolev]

What to do with the engine?  Replace the cars with pirates, vampires and ninjas, do some RVR.

[LK]

What to do with the engine?  Replace the cars with pirates, vampires and ninjas, do some RVR.

Or even better....Auto Assault...IN SPAAAAAACE.

Wait, I guess that's the new Jumpgate.

[Venkman]

Truly realtime deformable terrain in a persistent zone (I assume a population cap exists, I just don't know it)... you'd think they could license this to companies. Before it was canned, Mythica was going to do the same thing, with the Fantasy setting (years later I hope Microsoft didn't can that project because they decided to back Vanguard).