Firefall

[OldBloke]

Such a mess. A successful game such as Firefall should not be losing money. Strange.

[smilodon]

Games like these have to walk a knife's edge in order to make money.

If they are going to be free to play then they need to get people to make micro transactions. If the game can be enjoyed without the micro transactions no one will give them any money and they will go bust. In order to get players to pay for stuff then the publisher needs to get those players to want to buy things. They could make players pay for essential stuff like bag slots, mounts, weapons etc. However if the player downloads and installs the game and then finds that their experience is ruined due to crucial elements of the game being behind a paywall, they will become annoyed and potentially leave the game immediately. If they buy the required assets and then find they keep having to put their hand in their pocket to buy more stuff then again they will become annoyed and leave.

On the other hand if a game publisher can create a game that players enjoy and offers additional stuff that the player doesn't need but potentially really, really wants then the player will happily spend money, feel they are getting value and the publisher stays solvent. Lord of the Rings Online does this by making the game free and very playable but selling an ever growing selection of expansions. Enough players want these expansions to pay for their development and also keep the game servers, community support etc in the black.

It's this crucial balance between making a game fun and rewarding to play for free but add content that they player actually wants, that is so hard for publishers to find. I suspect Firefall plays just fine without ever paying money, hence Red5 are going broke. The danger is that in desperation they will start trying to mug their players for money in a way that will just upset everyone. And that will just make Red5's demise come all the faster.

[Sneakytiger]

i'm not gonna panic just yet, but if the worst happens theres always starwars to fall back on.

also
guildwars 2
wildstar

[Gh0st Face Killah]

Anyone still playing this? Find me as Gh0stLy1.

[Liberator]

You should apply to the Dead Men Walking army and we can get you in. We still play and you can get help from the guys.

But......................

Big News... I think.

Required Maintenance

 Because of the nature of the changes coming in this update, we need  to bring the servers offline for maintenance and migration. On Tuesday, January 19th at 7:00 AM PST  we will be bringing all of our production game servers offline to  perform this required maintenance. Because of the nature of the work  that needs to be performed, we expect to be down for approximately 26  hours.
 
During this downtime we will also be updating the website content and working to get the Update Notes page up and running.

Update Launch

 Once the maintenance is complete, we will bring the servers back  online and Update 1.6 will be available for all to play in production!  We expect to bring the servers online on Wednesday, January 20th at 10:00 AM PST.

[OldBloke]

Excellent

[Gh0st Face Killah]

I have applied to join the Deadmen army.

[Liberator]

Oh oh.

Hey all, I'd like to provide you with another update. We will be  delaying the release of Update 1.6. Here is a brief look at where we are  currently:

• The Migration interface is not displaying upon login
• Old abilities are not showing data and have blank tooltips (these  should at least be communicating that they need to be salvaged)
• Incorrect error popups when purchasing Red Bean items
• Steam purchase error
• QA is still running their Smoke Test. They are making progress, but  it is slow as there are further issues creeping up that impedes their  progress.

We're currently tracking and working to fix critical issues as soon  as we can. We currently do not have an ETR for you. We're going to let  the team work away at these issues and circle back up for a status  update in about two hours. I will be sure to provide you with any  updates following that meeting.

[Liberator]

Servers are apparently live, but I think it's best to stay off the servers until they get this migration script sorted.

Basically your characters are not available until the migrate.

[Jan 21st. 7:01 PM PST]
 
Update on the migration script: we're still working on the code here.  Each time we deploy it internally and test we find new issues and edge  cases so we're going to need to keep hammering at it. While we are still  working at getting this right, we won't be deploying it to production  today. I'll have an update on the script's progress in the morning.
 
[Jan 21st. 5:00 PM PST]
 
The update is now live, but without migration. Characters created prior  to the start of the maintenance are currently hidden. Don't worry, they  aren't gone! We're continuing to work on our migration script. We're  getting really close with it and once it's completely done and tested we  will deploy the script and pre-existing characters will be visible  again (with no changes to them). At that point, you may step through  your character migration and get back to playing your character.
 
We'll continue to keep you updated with the migration script progress within this thread.

[Liberator]

Lots of stuff is broken, a lot of your favourite gear is now useless. Lockboxes and key's have appeared as a revenue generator, so you'll be getting a lot of the former dropping.

Weapons and abilities that have remained are completely different.

Don't unslot prototype gear, you won't be able to put it back. Don't unslot the smouldering sniper if you have it, it will become useless, even though it works if already slotted..

Sky buses in Copa have gone, it's all back to running and biking..

Storyline now seems to be the main improvement, with a lot more instance missions. Not sure if the lore has changed at all. You will have to start from scratch at Copa and run the missions through as they are dependant on each other.

Blowing up nodes now just gets you crystite, metal resources are not present for the time being.

Be thankful you have gliders and bikes already, it looks like renting with redbeans has now become another revenue source. Reusable jump pads are not listed in the store any more, but the ones we have are fine.

Sertao is a mess, I hate what they have done to it.

It's a bit like we have gone forward 20 years into a more distopian future.

Some may like the changes, but they have removed the simplicity of the game, which was what I mainly liked about it.

[OldBloke]

Thanks for the update, Lib. I'm not tempted to even try it to be totally honest.

[smilodon]

Sadly it sounds like our fears have been realised. From reading the above clearly the Developer is trying to increase revenue and as with so many games like this all they have done is effectively killed it :crying:

[Liberator]

Give it a try anyway, some missions do drop keys with the lockboxes.

Sertao us just too cluttered with new buildings, it's lost it's openness. I liked Sagan as a central place of operations, but all of the outpost bases are now huge.

Arcporters are gone, you now go to the old bus pads and there is a parked dropship that opens up the old menu, so far just Sertao and the missions are listed.

Battleframe cores have been replaced with armour modules and upgrades, which allows for more bespoke builds. Some old rewards are reclaimable as new "gadgets" with similar effects when salvaged. Salvaging now gives you upgrade resources dependant on the salvage.

But Oldie will have plenty of chances to use his catchphrase.

Waiting on Pesteh and Dannage to give their feelings on the changes.

[Liberator]

Well, it won't be long before they switch the servers off I think. Popped onto it today just to see what had been messed up recently and found myself in an empty Sertao, popped over to DT and found a few players just sat in the arcfold room getting their daily timers, nobody actually moving.

Forums say they got rid of the remaining Red5 developers recently and the developer forums have gone silent.

But.... there may be hope.

The original designer of the game, which was intended to be more sandbox and story driven, and MD of Red5 was sacked a while back for reasons unknown (probably told the investors what he thought of the changes they had forced him to do). In the meantime he's been working with the team lead of WoW to create a new table top RPG game called "Crixa". Well he's now wanting to create the "Firefall" game he originally wanted to, so they are looking at making it, but they won't sell him the IP for FF, so's taking the games concepts and creating a "Spiritual Successor".

Ember is to be based in the Crixa universe and lore and is currently looking to find out how many people are interested in it being produced. There are links on the site to info and a petition to gauge interest.

Here's a teaser and you'll recognise the voice if you played Firefall.

[video=youtube;ij0AoAC5VsE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij0AoAC5VsE[/video]

Lets hope it gets made and takes the best bits of FF and makes it better.

[Tutonic]

His blog on the Crixa site was an interesting read, especially this bit: http://crixa.io/2016/05/what-firefall-was-supposed-to-be/

If this gets funded, I'll certainly be paying attention.