Syfy + Trion = Defiance MMO Action Shooter (PC 360 PS3)

[Pennilenko]

I got a bad feeling regarding the 30 dollar DLC pass thingy I purchased.

[Riggswolfe]

They've shown plans for the first DLC. Who knows what this means. It's already free to play so I suspect it boils down to their cash shop. Is it making enough to keep the game afloat? To pay for continued DLC?

[Hayduke]

Textbook Friday news dump heh.

[satael]

Isn't it standard practice to shit can a lot of people after a game is released?  They don't need as many people to maintain a game as they do to develop it.  I hope thats the case here.

IGN sources suggest that well over half the company has been let go, with some suggesting numbers as high as 80%

Depends on how true the source is. It's not unusual to kick out any excess workforce after the release but not 80% if you plan to do any further development or even maintenance on 2 MMOs (unless they had to hire lots of extra people to launch Defiance in time for the airing of the tv show)

[Ginaz]

Isn't it standard practice to shit can a lot of people after a game is released?  They don't need as many people to maintain a game as they do to develop it.  I hope thats the case here.

IGN sources suggest that well over half the company has been let go, with some suggesting numbers as high as 80%

Depends on how true the source is. It's not unusual to kick out any excess workforce after the release but not 80% if you plan to do any further development or even maintenance on 2 MMOs (unless they had to hire lots of extra people to launch Defiance in time for the airing of the tv show)

Trion is denying that 80% number is correct and is actually much lower.  Who knows, really?

[Riggswolfe]

Isn't it standard practice to shit can a lot of people after a game is released?  They don't need as many people to maintain a game as they do to develop it.  I hope thats the case here.

IGN sources suggest that well over half the company has been let go, with some suggesting numbers as high as 80%

Depends on how true the source is. It's not unusual to kick out any excess workforce after the release but not 80% if you plan to do any further development or even maintenance on 2 MMOs (unless they had to hire lots of extra people to launch Defiance in time for the airing of the tv show)

Trion is denying that 80% number is correct and is actually much lower.  Who knows, really?

Normally I'd say their PR is spinning (some of which is very true) but IGN is a shitty website ever since their own layoffs. They post stories with crazy headlines and/or poorly researched articles and usually both. This 'source' is probably somebody pissed at being laid off. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they lost a big chunk of people. Defiance is fun but their content is trickling out and their cash shop is over priced with not much worth buying in it.

[UnSub]

Isn't it standard practice to shit can a lot of people after a game is released?  They don't need as many people to maintain a game as they do to develop it.  I hope thats the case here.

That's become the spin about these kind of layoffs, but launched games are still a lot of work. And now you've just let go a bunch of people who understand how it operates.

Defiance was a flop of a MMO and Trion also has End of Nations Onlnie and ArcheAge (as publisher) in the pipeline. They still need a sizable group of people to help launch those games.

[Kageru]

Free weekend and 30% discount on steam. Which pretty much supports the notion that Defiance hasn't been selling all that well.

[Phred]

Free weekend and 30% discount on steam. Which pretty much supports the notion that Defiance hasn't been selling all that well.

Broken install link on Steam. Blah

[Kageru]

I'm downloading it now... so it might have overloaded or been disabled due to load.

(edit)

I haven't played for ages... I think I did a rift free trial years ago. So try to recover my password and to do so I need to remember two secret questions (which I don't even remember setting), but the obvious answers don't seem to work. And to reset that I need to call them during US hours... fail.

[Numtini]

The game was also supposed to be a cash shop one and since there's not really a whole lot to the game, I suspect people drop out long before they buy any widgets.

[Pennilenko]

This is another game that I have been upset at myself for buying. I should know better by now.

[satael]

This is another game that I have been upset at myself for buying. I should know better by now.

I feel pretty much the same way though I was entertained for a while it hasn't come even close to others like GW2 in the amount of content etc.

[Kageru]

This is a very average game. Why console players think default blur and bloom is "cool" is beyond me, I guess maybe it hides the relatively average textures. Shooting stuff is fun but a laggy (Australian latency to US servers not helping) and repetitive console shooter, with apparently not that much content, is a big ask as a full price game.

Did one arkfall and it seemed to play out as I expected. A horde of random ranged DPS with the people having aggro basically just running and rolling. Though I did see some player defeat one by hopping over a piece of railing the mob would take a long path around. There's little variety in tactics, no group tactics and the perks are intensely dull. Though I guess that's partly because of the constraints of a console controller.

[Pennilenko]

I feel pretty much the same way though I was entertained for a while it hasn't come even close to others like GW2 in the amount of content etc.

I am not really hating on the game. There are fun bits. The project though, as it stands right now, is disappointing to me. I feel even worse because I feel like I was fleeced for a DLC package that is nearly impossible to get information on.

[Numtini]

Have they done anything for the DLC?

[Pennilenko]

Thats the thing. I dont know because there is a severe lack of information/documentation. At least that i can find.

[Numtini]

Thats the thing. I dont know because there is a severe lack of information/documentation. At least that i can find.

The last I saw they kept saying next episode, then next episode would show and no real additions other than multicolored hellbugs. Plus, they'd reassure everyone that anything useful in the new patch wouldn't be DLC. I think the only DLC they mentioned was a new race, but that means grinding out the quests a second time.

I really like the gameplay, but I've reached a been there done that level. One arkfall? I've probably done a hundred. And now that people are used to things it's basically everyone with a 400 damage LMG and the extra damage power gunning it down in almost no time at all. Rift was a game that really gave you a million things to do. Defiance gives you two: quest or arkfall.

[Mrbloodworth]

Free weekend on steam.

[Kageru]

And the quests are almost all about going to the mark on the map, shooting the same models, triggering the item, shooting the mods that pop out of spawn points. They're do a much poorer job of fitting the environment or concealing the repetition than GW2 does.

[Ghambit]

It's really a shame the game couldn't keep pace with the show.  The show is starting to really come into its own.

[Kageru]

I had a look at the synopsis for the show and they don't seem to be that tightly connected. It's definitely the American fantasy of the world returning to a updated version of the wild west, with rugged armed individualists protecting the settlers from bandits. Trying to keep some sort of narrative sequence with a TV should would be fairly difficult though.

[Mrbloodworth]

Personally, I think the 60$ entry fee hurt them. I could see money hats if it was a F2P that was mainly targeted at the show viewers.

[Kageru]

It really should have been f2p. The gameplay is not that engaging, there's lots of space for selling episodic content packs and cosmetic items (which they are doing as well as the box price anyway) and it relies on having a lot of people so missions are busy. But I imagine like APB they looked at how much it cost them and decided they needed that initial cash as well as cash-shop intake.

[Koyasha]

Personally, I think the 60$ entry fee hurt them. I could see money hats if it was a F2P that was mainly targeted at the show viewers.

Yeah, absolutely.  I tried it in the free beta weekend or whatever before release, I thought it was kind of fun, but I did not think it was worth spending $60 to play.  Even on sale for $42 it's too rich for my blood, especially considering some of the comments you guys have made about finishing all the content pretty quickly.

[Nija]

For those on the fence, it has about 20 casual play sessions worth of content.

[satael]

Is there a date yet for the first (of atleast 5?) dlc?

[Pennilenko]

Is there a date yet for the first (of atleast 5?) dlc?

I'm pretty sure they are going to fuck everybody that purchased dlc packs. This game is so bad it hurts.

This game is to me what Diablo 3 is to Ironwood.

[Draegan]

Yikes.

[Senses]

This game, considering I jumped in during the steam sale and never even looked at it till then, has a lot going for it.  I have never seen a game keep you involved in the action this well, and the transition from solo to co-op play is really seamless.  I completely get that other than instant fun, there isn't much more, but if ever there was a game that would really benefit from a good patch, its this one.  Just having a real chat system would boost this game big time for pc users.

This also reproves to me that you are so much better off waiting a month for a free weekend than jumping in on the first day.  With so many mmos being tossed at us these days, I've gotten used to playing them for a month then jumping to the next free weekend somewhere else.

[Kageru]

I'll probably play it when it goes f2p. It's not very good, it's not very long, it's not worth paying much for.

It's better than firefall but that's a really low bar.

[Hawkbit]

Same.  Trion would be well served to make a F2P transition to hype up the next TV season.  If released properly at the correct time, they could really gather viewers to the show and players to the game out of it.  Advertising win!

[Stormwaltz]

Nathan Richardsson out as Executive producer, Chris Lena in. Trion declines to comment, no mention of Richardsson in Lena's introduction.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/07/23/rumor-former-defiance-executive-producer-no-longer-with-trion/
http://community.defiance.com/en/2013/07/23/dev-blog-castithan-charge-pack-and-the-future-of-defiance/

[BlueAvocado]

That was a weird confluence of events with the blog post and Massively article.  What did we decline to comment on?

[satael]

So they are actually more or less promising to release the first dlc next month and the rest of the (5) dlcs in the game's first year. That means 5 dlcs in 8 months (the game launched on April 2) and with the dlcs priced at $10 each (or 19.99 for season pass) when the game itself is b2p and priced currently 9.99 I somehow doubt there's much demand for them...