Auto Assault to die its final death

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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MMO Auto Assault has, as reported earlier, closed its doors:<blockquote>With Auto Assault closing down tonight, we wanted to thank all of you for creating a tremendously cool and dedicated community of Wastelanders. We just didn’t want to give you guys a wild, crazy event tonight, but something else that may be just as fun. In the coming days those that are eligible will be receiving a “Parting Gift” message in your e-mail inboxes, with opportunities to take a part in some of our other products, including Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes. It’s our way of saying “Thank You” to the diehard Auto Assault fan base and we hope to see you in are other virtual worlds.</blockquote>"Thank You"s are nice, but the best efforts of the fans appeared to have resulted in naught. Don't know why NCSoft isn't releasing the server code to the community to turn AA into a free community-based game, rather than a dead one.

Link: AA news.

Spotted on Gamebanshee.
 
might be more complicated than it looks. they might have used licensed software for their servers, and as such cant simply give it to the fans.
 
Don't know why NCSoft isn't releasing the server code to the community to turn AA into a free community-based game, rather than a dead one.
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Why would they? Has any other MMOG gone out of business and given away their code?

They spent millions of dollars developing the code for AA and you really expect them to just give it away? Do you still believe in the tooth fairy?
 
Matt Helm said:
They spent millions of dollars developing the code for AA and you really expect them to just give it away? Do you still believe in the tooth fairy?
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Ah, capitalism.

So what if they spent millions of dollars developing the code? If they're just shutting it down, what difference does it make to them one way or the other? Either way the code is now useless to them, the only difference is that by releasing the code people can make their own servers to continue playing the game if they wish. Are they planning on selling the code to someone to make back some of their money?

I know it goes against every fiber of a true capitalist's being to give away something that cost them money, even when they have no use for the thing anymore, but that doesn't make it right or rational. (Not to say it's necessarily morally "wrong," but it is just greedy and pointless.)
SuAside said:
they might have used licensed software for their servers, and as such cant simply give it to the fans.
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That may be a possible issue.
 
Kyuu said:
Ah, capitalism.

So what if they spent millions of dollars developing the code? If they're just shutting it down, what difference does it make to them one way or the other? Either way the code is now useless to them, the only difference is that by releasing the code people can make their own servers to continue playing the game if they wish. Are they planning on selling the code to someone to make back some of their money?
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Well, by releasing the code they do give competitors a head-start, and also open up a freeware MMO that would compete with their own products.
So yes, it's an understandable move.
 
And probably after a while the good servers with a lot of players and that are set up on good hardware would become paid...
 
I hope people started running packet sniffing programs before the game ended. From enough of those, you could reverse-engineer your own server.

Well, it would be hard as hell and take a long time, but possible.
 
And another one bites the dust :( Somehow, I don't understand why NCSoft (the developers?) did not just release the sourcecode to the community - as mentioned in previous posts. It is their game, it is they who developed it, but they could of course have gotten money from the publisher to fund the servers etc. - so already there we could have a potential (legal) problem.

Unless NCSoft is making another game like Auto Assault ? or something like that I don't see the problem in releasing the source code to the community.

But that's just me?

And yes, this is capitalism. I guess the publishers & marketing people did their calculations, calculating that Auto Assault didn't turn quite the bucks (i.e. profit) they had hoped it would do.
 
Even if they don't use licensed software - what they are sure doing - they have a netcode and other codeparts they could use in future projects. Why shall they give informations about their source to other MMO companies? I mean, me personally is a big fan of Open Source, all my projects are open source, but we are talking here about big publishers! And very often parts of engines find their way into new ones. So, where's the point in giving the concurence a free step forward and insight into the game companies coding strategy?
 
I think it has something to do with obligations towards customers.

It kinda sucks to buy a game and a few months later discover that it can't be played any more because the publisher decided that it's not profitable.
 
Sander said:
Well, by releasing the code they do give competitors a head-start, and also open up a freeware MMO that would compete with their own products.
So yes, it's an understandable move.
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True, I suppose.

Still, sucks for those who bought the game and have an interest in continuing it.
EuphoricOneTriesAgain said:
lol I love NMA. "Not sure why NCSoft just doesn't give away their intellectual property for no reason..."
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I love the reasoning that a company needs to have a reason to do something right by consumers, because obviously it's the interests of large corporations that we should be most concerned with.

If there's a good reason for them not to release the code, that's fine. I'm not unreasonable enough to expect them to do something that would be overtly harmful to themselves just so people can play a game.
 
Sorrow said:
I think it has something to do with obligations towards customers.

It kinda sucks to buy a game and a few months later discover that it can't be played any more because the publisher decided that it's not profitable.
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I think Publishers of MMOs should at least be obliged to give back buyers the price they payed for the game (not the monthly fees, just what you paid to purchase the game in the store)

Bcause as it is now, customers have paid 50 bucks for a product which is useless after a year. Imagine the same would happen with a single player game, wouldn't there be an outrage?

I know the buying price is only but a small fracture of the whole costs you have when playing an MMO, but still, I bought something, and only after a year it is useless. So give me back the buying price please, and customer and publisher are even again.

(Which wouldn't make it any less suckier that MMOs just get turned off and you cant play them any more, but at least the customer had no financial loss this way)
 
Now a days mmos are produced for mass scale, they are endless free-cash factorys. The best example is ofcourse... WoW. Blizzard recieves every month MILIONS of dollars for... almost nothing. Mmos are produced by a lot of companies now and each of them says that their mmo has something 'special' in it, never seen before(because its mostly true, we are just starting with the mmos, just imagine what kind of mmos we will play in like 10 or 15 years...) but only a combination of both already used good ideas and great new innovative stuff is able to handle the buisness. If something fails, they keep it for a few months just to get back what they lost to create the game and then they shut down the servers and try again, until they create another WoW like mmo that will give them free millions of dollars.
 
bonanza said:
Sorrow said:
I think it has something to do with obligations towards customers.

It kinda sucks to buy a game and a few months later discover that it can't be played any more because the publisher decided that it's not profitable.
Click to expand...

I think Publishers of MMOs should at least be obliged to give back buyers the price they payed for the game (not the monthly fees, just what you paid to purchase the game in the store)

Bcause as it is now, customers have paid 50 bucks for a product which is useless after a year. Imagine the same would happen with a single player game, wouldn't there be an outrage?

I know the buying price is only but a small fracture of the whole costs you have when playing an MMO, but still, I bought something, and only after a year it is useless. So give me back the buying price please, and customer and publisher are even again.

(Which wouldn't make it any less suckier that MMOs just get turned off and you cant play them any more, but at least the customer had no financial loss this way)
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These comments almost make sense until you realize that only 3 MMOs have closed down (AC2, E&B, and now AA). The original trio (UO, AC1, and EQ1) are all still open. Even Neocron manages to stay online.

Sitting aroubnd worrying that your MMO of choice is going to suddenly shut down is really a pointless waste of time.
 
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