Here is the ISSUE for Defiance the game. Step it up or die.

[MacDeath]

Defiance the TV show is fun to watch. Defiance the game is fun (in spots) to play but missing in some other key areas. Some people came here from a shooter background, for them the amount of story is OK but the weapons are sucky. Others came here from an MMORPG background, for them the guns and vehicles are fine but there isn't nearly enough story. Nearly all can agree that the maps are too small and it takes too long to fix bugs.

Now, here's how it works in the free enterprise system... Some investors loan money to folks with an idea for a game. The game dudes staff up and produce a game. They are also marketing it to the public with trailers, conferences (PAX, E3, etc) and they invite some Alpha testers in to tell what they like or dislike about the game.
Trion did those things but... IMO, they mostly ignored the negative feedback from the Alpha testers. That was a costly mistake. The next step was the beta test which was too short and too close to the release date to discover and fix the issues the beta testers found. So the game was launched in a very unfinished state. Now, game reviews are released and they are mostly bad... The reviewers saw the same things the Alpha testers and the beta testers saw. Bad reviews cause many people to not buy the game. Lack or expected revenue caused the layoff of a large portion of the dev team, making even MORE difficult to 'fix' the issues.

Now, where does Defiance the game go from here?

Choice one: Step up the dev pace. Move some management and team leads over from Rift and gradually beef up the game. This MAY be seen as pouring more money down the drain. Even if the game is fixed, will it attract enough new users to pay for this additional investment? It's hard to overcome those early reviews. Big investment required for a doubtful payback.

Choice two: Muddle through... Small dev team pumps out some additional content but leaves the foundation of the game much as it has been. Players continue to drift away. The game is shut down at the end of Season two of the TV show. No extra spending required but no hope for a revival of the game or of Trion's reputation.

Choice three: Give / Sell the game to another studio. Would another studio pay anything for this IP? Doubtful. Would another studio invest the money and people to turn around the game? Doubtful.

Choice four: Shut it down NOW. This option probably violates the agreement with SyFy. The game is supposed to bridge the gap between the end of season one and the beginning of season two. It also invites a class action law suit by gamers who bought a Season pass expecting to get 5 DLCs.

IMO, only scenarios One and Two are viable. Which do you think Trion is likly to pick? Do you see any other scenarios?

[Grymms]

Muddle.... Trion so far is done nothing but halfassed everything.
This will continue until they crap out 5dlc's to avoid a lawsuit. These DLC's will be lackluster and not worth 4$ let alone the 10$ the want to charge.

1day away from DLC and still dont have a complete patch notes.

[ten4]

Push out 4x 'horse armor' dlcs so the season pass holders can't sue and then either a) keep a skeleton crew around and use just enough money to keep servers going until contracts run out or b) shut it down after 5th dlc lands and end the money bleed.

1day away from DLC and still dont have a complete patch notes.

They can't even hotfix the win 64 problem! DLC will drop and I won't be able to play unless I start mucking around with things I shouldn't have to.

Sure, let's all just blame MS for that one and not some programmer who took a short cut. I have like 15 games on this system and only defiance is affected by that security patch. Ok?

[Chorcen]

This is exactly why after the test I knew - I am not pre-ordering this until its released and I see whether things were improved, turns out no, and not going to happen soon. Gaming industry went into this "rush" recently where they give out offers for testing if you pre-order, but 9 times out of 10 it turns out as rubbish product.

There is no incentive to make good product, they get our money before release and then since majority of the sales was done not bothering to meet our expectation, because their T&Cs will say "no refund, you knew where you going..." And we as real fools letting them do it and encourage by buying, I was fool and burned my hand 2 times, now I learned my lesson and no longer doing it, hopefully the rest of gaming community learns soon as well.

[August Barkley]

No offense, but why do we need next speculation? Why do we have to plow the sand? Smart man [i mean Scott] was appointed to a senior position. Let's just give him a chance and we will not raise any snot on the forum.

[Mr LightningBolt]

Many of these kind of threads are posted through out the weeks im sure they get the point..why yall even wasting yalls time with this.. as soon as dahance or some supermod sees this its gonna be a closed thread

[Gomly]

dahance

*cough*Dahanese*cough*

Just came in to point out that someone made the EXACT same thread a week or so ago .... by exact I mean exactly the same wording.

I call plagiarism.

[Telemachus]

Seemed like the "alpha" was more like a beta and the "beta" was just a server stress test weekend or three.


In beta people asked if this was the whole map and were told it's just a small part of the world.


Was true, it's just a small part, though didn't mention or clarify that it's just the whole game part.

[Buruko]

Now, where does Defiance the game go from here?

Choice one: Step up the dev pace. Move some management and team leads over from Rift and gradually beef up the game. This MAY be seen as pouring more money down the drain. Even if the game is fixed, will it attract enough new users to pay for this additional investment? It's hard to overcome those early reviews. Big investment required for a doubtful payback.

Choice two: Muddle through... Small dev team pumps out some additional content but leaves the foundation of the game much as it has been. Players continue to drift away. The game is shut down at the end of Season two of the TV show. No extra spending required but no hope for a revival of the game or of Trion's reputation.

Choice three: Give / Sell the game to another studio. Would another studio pay anything for this IP? Doubtful. Would another studio invest the money and people to turn around the game? Doubtful.

Choice four: Shut it down NOW. This option probably violates the agreement with SyFy. The game is supposed to bridge the gap between the end of season one and the beginning of season two. It also invites a class action law suit by gamers who bought a Season pass expecting to get 5 DLCs.

IMO, only scenarios One and Two are viable. Which do you think Trion is likly to pick? Do you see any other scenarios?

Choice Five: Continue fixing the bugs, continue to deliver new content, content to release DLC content, continue to be a fun and enjoyable game. Watch players come and go with the ebb and flow of game releases like most MMO titles.

Choice Six: Ignore forum trolls and naysayers. While there is 1 praise post for every 10 dam-nations the naysayers are the most vocal cause the happy players are playing or trading on the forums.

[Gomly]

Choice Five: Continue fixing the bugs, continue to deliver new content, content to release DLC content, continue to be a fun and enjoyable game. Watch players come and go with the ebb and flow of game releases like most MMO titles.

Choice Six: Ignore forum trolls and naysayers. While there is 1 praise post for every 10 dam-nations the naysayers are the most vocal cause the happy players are playing or trading on the forums.

Which is all well and good but you have to remember that Trion laid off a massive portion of the Defiance development team.

There isn't much left of it.

Until we know what's going on at Redwood we have no idea what is going to happen with regards to the future of this game.

That isn't "nay saying" it's being realistic.