I can't believe this game lasted this long.

[Zartanyen]

I bought into the hype when this game first launched all those many years ago, I mean a TV show tied into a video game and I get to play this mmo / shooter on my PS3? I couldn't drop my preorder money for that special Game Stop edition fast enough, but then the game launched smh.

First I didn't even get everything that was supposed to come in that prized exclusive edition, think like a statue and the game codes for the items was missing so round one of dealing with Game Stop and Trion support, ( GS was actually easier to deal with) it took numerous calls and online chats with Trion to get my codes ( granted it was no way as easy to get a pic of a receipt uploaded into chat like it is now) yet one call to get my GS edition exchanged.

I went back and exchanged my game for another one and I was shocked to see several copies of defiance on the used games wall discounted, back then this was unheard of ( even today very rare) kind of a head scratcher till I got home and put defiance in and found out why that was. You were lucky enough to log in that was a feat worthy of bragging about manage to stay connected longer then 10 minutes was lottery winning type of luck, you managed to actually stay on long enough to play that's when you found out that your items for your codes where nowhere to be found. ( After many years of gamming these issues are just common and you don't really give them much thought at all and kind of expect it, but back then especially on console this wasn't acceptable.)

After a few days of my items not being there and spending enough time on the phone with GS and Trion plus in chat with Trion to the point it was like a full time job and I was spending more time doing that then I was playing the game because you couldn't. I called it and requested / demanded a refund from GS. after a few calls to the store, the district manager and then corporate I was granted my refund with some extra's from GS for the stores rudeness and district managers inability to understand when corporate tells you to do something you do it.

Took about a week from getting my original copy of Defiance to getting my refund, while in the store I couldn't help but to notice that the like $150 exclusive edition that I had bought was marked down over 50% off and their were more used copies on the shelf then their were new copies. In my long history of gaming never have I seen such a drastic price cut so fast to any other game ever put out since Defiance.

I did end up playing Defiance for a couple weeks free thanks to GS and got those special edition items free as well thanks to Trion, though the only thing worse then the show was the game and that's saying a lot, because I am sure syfi regretted signing a 3 year contract in advance for that POS. I think the only ones crying harder then the people that got cut from this game are the actors from that show, especially when they look at what working on that show did to their further acting options, probably like anyone who was involved with this game has or will find out when they try to land at another gaming company.

Maybe because this was my first really horrible and time consuming experience when dealing with a game and company and having to battle GS as well that really put the absolute hate for everything and everyone involved or around this POS of a game and company, I mean not even EA with the ME3's ending and following it up with Andromeda or Bethesda with Fallout 76 and Avengers or Cyberpunk 2077 could inspire the absolute loathing that I have Defiance and Trion. ( and I freaking loved mass effect)

In the end though as I sit here typing this feeling like Christmas, my birthday, new years eve and sitting on the plane about to take off to another non 20/21 Mardi Gras all rolled into one thanks to the news that theirs only a few more plunges to get this game down the toilet were it has always belonged. I have to say thanks for that and I will be toasting to the memories of Defiance as you pull the plug on the servers and I look upon this carrier bag of yours. Yeah I still have this bag that came with that GS edition some how, don't know how it's lasted all this time much like the game but now it will always bring a little smile knowing it has lasted far after the closing of the servers and the cancelling of that awful tv show.

[mcnichoj]

Bad devs. Performance would apparently start to drop the longer you played if you were unlucky enough to not have the game just out right crash on you. They randomly decided to shut down the Xbox version years ago and left the others up but PS3 users were screwed if they didn't buy the expansions before the game went free to play as the patch broke all the DLC trophies for new players.
Sad.

[Jet]

I'll admit that I had some fun with it a few months after launch when the population was good. The DLCs weren't bad either, but after that the content slowed down to a drip and the connectivity issues remained. Never bothered with 2050 because what a total waste of time starting over and not being able to carry over your gear from the 2013 version. Good ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ riddance to this garbage franchise and Gamigo did the right thing by canceling this crap.

[Horace Pinker]

lol the orange weapons both being deleted and often your superb orange guns turning into a ♥♥♥♥ orange at random the next time you logged on probably pushed alot of people off along with all the clientside stuff like damage and shields ruining arkfalls and the deathmatch things.

I think some things like performance issues (a lot of us were on quads when the game came out yet it only focused one or two cores iirc which could lead to frame drops and delayed loading of assets or even glitched them out at literally specific spots and camera angles strangely) also turned people off of the game. Those same issues were in the 2018 version as well. I think that might be the same exact game, just stripped of tv content they no longer licensed or wouldn't for the new version and it was essentially the same game otherwise. The 2018 version was doomed to fail unfortunately because nobody wanted to start over to have the same bugs and less content.

I do remember finding a really hugely bugged mission on the alpha, and I brought it up I think on some alpha boards or something and they did seem to fix that so it looked they put some effort into the game and it's a shame how things turned out for both the game and show (I love the show it was a unique sort of scifi drama).

This game and the tie-in with a tv series may have been a little too ambitious for it's time is all. I wonder if Stargate Worlds had ever seen the light of day if it might have had a lot of issues too, especially with the tech of the 2000s. I would like to some day though see an mmo based on a sci-fi series with tie-ins be released and thrive and meet up to it's potential and the hopes of players. Maybe some day in VR even.

The coolest and funniest bug I encountered was when I was tabbing out of the game or something and I remember figuring out how to glitch the game into zero-gravity mode while in a vehicle or on a bike and I could (very very slowly) get literally anywhere I wanted like an astronaut on a spacewalk using that bug LUL. Iirc it involved timing tabbing with driving/riding over a large enough hill lol. When I would tab back I would be on a spacewalk for the lulz. One small tab for a man, one giant leap for human and votan alike.

[Whatever]

We...we put up a hell of a fight. In spite of:
SciFi being to cheap to put faith in the series and fund it more...
The promise that the series and games would be directly linked, do stuff in game=affect series.
Developers trying to kill the game, such as splitting and already weak player base. Defiance and Defiance 2050, then claiming our characters weren't importable yet bugs and glitches of Defiance were imported to Defiance 2050.