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Rise of Dragonian Era sunsets
If an MMO that few people played shut down, how long would it take the community to notice? Apparently "a couple of weeks" is the answer, as we're only now getting word that Rise of Dragonian Era (RODE) sunset this past November 13th. In a shutdown notice on the game's now-defunct Facebook page, the studio posted, "RODE services will close permanently. We apologize for this unfortunate event. But we look forward to seeing our RODE players a part of our Netgame community again in the future." RODE launched in early 2012 and featured a permanent dragon companion and aerial combat as its main selling points. [Thanks to Holden for the tip!]
Vigil Games Lead Combat Designer stands up, says goodbye
Vigil Games Lead Combat Designer Ben Cureton and the rest of the Vigil staff cleaned out the office today, after Vigil was left untouched at THQ's auction. Vigil was shuttered, and as per THQ's letter to employees, everyone working there was laid off. In a post on NeoGAF, Cureton compared the scene in the office to a silent warzone."The walls look bare," he wrote. "It's quiet. The seats are empty."Vigil Games, the studio behind Darksiders 2, was working on something called Crawler, a project we first heard about in THQ's December bankruptcy filing. After two months working on Crawler, Cureton was convinced that it would blow people's minds."I knew, without a shadow of the doubt, that the project we were working on (Codenamed: Crawler) was going to blow people away. In fact, it did blow people away. We did, in two months, what many companies haven't done in a year. The pride of knowing that no one was doing anything like us was so satisfying, it kept us coming to work and giving 100 percent every single day, even through the dark times."Today was one of those dark times. Cureton was taken aback when he didn't find Vigil's name on the list of purchased properties."Maybe you can imagine what it feels like when you read the list of who bought what only to discover your name is not on the list," he said. "Why? Did we do something wrong? Were we not good enough? Were we not worth 'anything?' Imagine that."In the end, Cureton thanked fans of the Darksiders series and promised to continue making games, having already worked in the industry 20 years."In closing, I can only say thank you to the fans of Vigil games," Cureton said. "Your support means more than you can imagine. Your feedback (both positive and negative) gave us long-lasting insight that we will all take with us, wherever we may go. You are the reason we made Darksiders 1 and 2... and you are the reason we will continue to make games."And with that... my seat is empty."
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 dev on closure reports: 'nothing is certain'
It appears as though S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise dev GSC Game World may not be giving up, at least not yet, with an ambiguous Twitter message from the company's official feed stating, "We will do our best to continue. However, at this point, nothing is certain." Last last week when reports of GSC's closure were still fresh, the feed reportedly had a message which read, "No we have not closed GSC or cancelled," but it was said to be deleted soon after, according to Edge. A followup missive from the company notes that the website "will continue, with the forum and tech support." Additionally, the GSC shop will apparently carry on "until the nearest planned items sell out." While the company may not be entirely closed yet, these messages read like little more than the death rattle of a business on its last legs, sadly. Given the circumstances, it stands to reason that development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has stopped, though its unclear what will happen to the IP. We wish the best for the approximately 45 employees said to be affected.
