This is what happend to WayFinder.

[N a v y 3 0 0 1]

DE: hey guys! were a publisher now!

wayfinder: thats so cool!

Other games being published: Epic!

DE: Hey, want me to publush you all? I will handle everything!

Them all: Sure! thanks! you always listen to the playes and you have a great thriving game so why not?

*months latter*

DE: Yeaaahhh, im done, it was harder then i thoguht soooo..... Good luck!

Wayfinder: wait what? with out you.. im going to shut down! when im done i will be stable but right now im just testing!

De: well.. STICKS TO BE YOU!!!


And so, way finder is being remade to be a co-op game, so it is playable, as DE back stabbed us all. (Also most of the funds of the game went to DE so, all the pre-orders we bought? DE got 90% of the profit, and techonly, belong to them since it was before the copyright change so if you want the money back contact DE)

[Quagimus Decimus]

I'm sure it went a lot more different than that.
Once DE pulled the plug, and then imploded their publishing department.
AS was unable to create their own infrastructure for an mmo and realized they were just as terrible at running servers as DE. However they have tons of experience making p2p games and since the game was never a mmo in the first place.. it just made sense to flip the mmo tag off, and offer a single player experience with optional co-op like all their other games.

Yea that makes a whole lot more sense.

[Feuver]

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

I'm sure it went a lot more different than that.
Once DE pulled the plug, and then imploded their publishing department.
AS was unable to create their own infrastructure for an mmo and realized they were just as terrible at running servers as DE. However they have tons of experience making p2p games and since the game was never a mmo in the first place.. it just made sense to flip the mmo tag off, and offer a single player experience with optional co-op like all their other games.

Yea that makes a whole lot more sense.

I mean, it's a lot more embarrassing for DE to pull the plug out after they kind of promise to jump in and support another dev with multiplayer infrastructure.

An indie studio dealing with massive amounts of netcode and security and servers is almost unheard of. MMOs are super expensive, and a publisher had the prospect of investing in the studio long term for long-term profits. Without the seed money DE promised, AS is now ♥♥♥♥ out of luck and unable to actual afford the MMO infrastructure. Instead of saying "Well, you don't get the game at all, too bad so sad", they pivoted to Single Player, which IMO is really the only option they have left without burning both their rep and their work.

[Quagimus Decimus]

Originally posted by Feuver:

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

I'm sure it went a lot more different than that.
Once DE pulled the plug, and then imploded their publishing department.
AS was unable to create their own infrastructure for an mmo and realized they were just as terrible at running servers as DE. However they have tons of experience making p2p games and since the game was never a mmo in the first place.. it just made sense to flip the mmo tag off, and offer a single player experience with optional co-op like all their other games.

Yea that makes a whole lot more sense.

I mean, it's a lot more embarrassing for DE to pull the plug out after they kind of promise to jump in and support another dev with multiplayer infrastructure.

An indie studio dealing with massive amounts of netcode and security and servers is almost unheard of. MMOs are super expensive, and a publisher had the prospect of investing in the studio long term for long-term profits. Without the seed money DE promised, AS is now ♥♥♥♥ out of luck and unable to actual afford the MMO infrastructure. Instead of saying "Well, you don't get the game at all, too bad so sad", they pivoted to Single Player, which IMO is really the only option they have left without burning both their rep and their work.

How is it embarrassing for DE when they got their money back from their investment? I'm sure they don't even remotely care what happened after all these months, and most people in general don't care anymore. They care much more about the game they paid for.

An indie studio dealing with massive amount of netcode, security, and servers is unheard of? what? AS isn't an indie studio every project they've ever done was backed by a publisher HOWEVER, indies have handled netcode, security, and servers. It's not as scary as you think it is. You get a lot of support from vendors when deploying your project through whatever platforms you choose to deploy through. Plenty of developer tools, forums, and communities to help partners figure things out without losing their minds in the process. Not to mention industry partners who can provide services to make things easier. AS isn't some small studio either that's based in a household garage.

Let me remind you the seed money they had from their publisher, and from their own coffers claimed they had all the monetary support to finish this game. Was that all a lie then?

They already burned their rep at launch, burned it further with months of poor updates, and their fairly awful transparency by avoiding these forums altogether. They've come a long way from banning people on their discord they didn't agree with at least.

[Feuver]

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

How is it embarrassing for DE when they got their money back from their investment? I'm sure they don't even remotely care what happened after all these months, and most people in general don't care anymore. They care much more about the game they paid for.

An indie studio dealing with massive amount of netcode, security, and servers is unheard of? what? AS isn't an indie studio every project they've ever done was backed by a publisher HOWEVER, indies have handled netcode, security, and servers. It's not as scary as you think it is. You get a lot of support from vendors when deploying your project through whatever platforms you choose to deploy through. Plenty of developer tools, forums, and communities to help partners figure things out without losing their minds in the process. Not to mention industry partners who can provide services to make things easier. AS isn't some small studio either that's based in a household garage.

Let me remind you the seed money they had from their publisher, and from their own coffers claimed they had all the monetary support to finish this game. Was that all a lie then?

They already burned their rep at launch, burned it further with months of poor updates, and their fairly awful transparency by avoiding these forums altogether. They've come a long way from banning people on their discord they didn't agree with at least.

I mean it's embarrassing as ♥♥♥♥ IMO for a publisher to ditch their studios and if I was a game dev studio looking for a publisher, I would be doubly wary of working with them after that. But doesn't matter much since DE publishing is gone and they took all their money with it.

I mispoke on unheard of - but my point is that I don't really know many indie studios that have the capacity to handle MMOs. Running a consistent, full open world with hundreds of players takes massives amount of resources. Compared to a multiplayer-lobby based game with like 24 players on the same tiny lobby like Warframe hubs or whatever.

I obviously don't know the full story, saw the game on release, didn't buy in. Now I see this story, and I'm just interested in what's going on within the community. TBH I'm more interested in this game as a singleplayer experience than an MMO, because I don't have the time nor the patience to play MMO games.

[Quagimus Decimus]

Originally posted by Feuver:

Originally posted by Quagalicious:

How is it embarrassing for DE when they got their money back from their investment? I'm sure they don't even remotely care what happened after all these months, and most people in general don't care anymore. They care much more about the game they paid for.

An indie studio dealing with massive amount of netcode, security, and servers is unheard of? what? AS isn't an indie studio every project they've ever done was backed by a publisher HOWEVER, indies have handled netcode, security, and servers. It's not as scary as you think it is. You get a lot of support from vendors when deploying your project through whatever platforms you choose to deploy through. Plenty of developer tools, forums, and communities to help partners figure things out without losing their minds in the process. Not to mention industry partners who can provide services to make things easier. AS isn't some small studio either that's based in a household garage.

Let me remind you the seed money they had from their publisher, and from their own coffers claimed they had all the monetary support to finish this game. Was that all a lie then?

They already burned their rep at launch, burned it further with months of poor updates, and their fairly awful transparency by avoiding these forums altogether. They've come a long way from banning people on their discord they didn't agree with at least.

I mean it's embarrassing as ♥♥♥♥ IMO for a publisher to ditch their studios and if I was a game dev studio looking for a publisher, I would be doubly wary of working with them after that. But doesn't matter much since DE publishing is gone and they took all their money with it.

I mispoke on unheard of - but my point is that I don't really know many indie studios that have the capacity to handle MMOs. Running a consistent, full open world with hundreds of players takes massives amount of resources. Compared to a multiplayer-lobby based game with like 24 players on the same tiny lobby like Warframe hubs or whatever.

I obviously don't know the full story, saw the game on release, didn't buy in. Now I see this story, and I'm just interested in what's going on within the community. TBH I'm more interested in this game as a singleplayer experience than an MMO, because I don't have the time nor the patience to play MMO games.

i wouldn't call it embarrassing when the game itself arrived dead on the spot. That was a collected effort on both AS/DE, and they did a half-assed job of a closed beta mind you prior to launching into early access. Like they were speed running their closed beta to failure (marketing i imagine to drive sales immediately).
DE did the right thing from a business stand point, but failed at the professional level by their own actions. (Again why in heavens anyone would partner with them in the first place I honestly don't know).
That would be my first question to the developers of this game.. why the hell did they choose DE as their publisher? They had other publisher that were much more seasoned in development... why DE of all things? Might as well have gone with humble bundle at that point.

Now i doubt DE took ALL the money, but AS can make that claim all they want (they've been caught lying multiple times already). I love how they have a facade of them being for the gamer yet do everything to ruin that relationship.

You don't need massive resources for an mmo. Most of it is covered by 3rd party vendors who off-set the load. You would never run your own servers from your own studio. Mind you I've run my own private servers without needing a support staff of 24 people. You can offload a lot of macro work on AI now. i don't want to get into netcoding too much because it's a scary subject with a lot of variables, engine issues, and client side issues as well. You can house a few people or thousands it all comes down to how everything is coded, and how everything blends together. I got a buddy of mine doing a solo mmo project (total nut) he's been working on it for 8 years solo, and his server at the moment can handle potentially half a million concurrent users (on paper at least LOL like I said he's a total nut) I personally avoid doing anything netcode related it's too much stress when I'm much more inclined to use people I know who know what they're doing, and much better than anything I could put together.

Less not forget that we have dedicated servers for games like battlefield that can handle 64-250 players on a singular vm server. The technology is there, the infrastructure is there to be used, and all you really need is the means to connect people properly. Which is what DE failed at hardcore. I gather they were working on a new toolset for login/account administration, and dropped their support when they killed that department. DE is very special when it comes to development work. Watching them develop warframe for nearly a decade taught me they can't do anything properly without needing 20 hotfixes.

Honestly,
If this game had launched as a single player/co-op as it is now, it would of done extremely well, but now it has a whole lot of baggage, bad rep, and burned bridges. It's hard to say if this experience even has a future of any kind even as a single player.