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Unofficial forums of Seed and Runestone
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mortenj
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 11
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 Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:26 pm Post subject: Seed closes down |
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From CEO, Lars Kroll:
| Quote: | Open letter to the community
We’ve reached the end of the road.
For the past two months, I and a few others have attempted to sell a partnership deal to a long list of publishers and MMO companies, trying to raise the capital we needed to finish the game properly, and re-launch it in a form it, and especially you the community, deserve. While we have received a great deal of interest, we have not been able to close a deal. The harsh reality is that we have now officially run out of money, and out of options, and therefore, we cannot pay salaries, rent or hosting fees.
What this means to you, is unfortunately that you will only be able to play Seed for a very limited time. We will have a little “goodbye” ceremony this Sunday at 20 CEST. I will be there, in the garden, as Magellan. He was the first character online, and he will be the last. I hope some of you guys will be there too, even if the occasion is sad. After that day, the servers may be less stable and reliable, and AD GMs will only be online on their own free time, if at all. Same goes for Runestone Staff.
For us, it means that the dream of Seed and Runestone is over. It has been a wild, weird ride, full of frustration, triumph, joy, stress and fun, but never boredom. We have all learned incredibly much about game development, the gaming business and MMOs.
We’ve made some major mistakes, and some smart moves along the way, but in the end, we simply tried to do too much, with too few funds, which I guess is a typical “Rookie”, and even veteran error.
I, for one, would do it all over again, although I would do a great many things differently next time around.
For the MMO community and business as such, the rise and fall of Runestone probably doesn’t mean that much, but I hope MMO execs out there reading this letter will draw the *right* conclusions from Runestone and Seed, and *not* the wrong ones.
One thing I would hate to see happen as a result of our failure would be a consensus forming that the idea about a non-combat, role play-centric MMO is a bad idea.
It isn’t.
I am still fully convinced that a role play-centric game is not only a good idea: It’s a great idea. It just needs to be better executed. Seed has many of the right qualities for such a game, and I still firmly believe that, given sufficient funding, we could have created a great game.
Unfortunately, we will never know.
We’ve reached the end of the road, and to all those of you who have followed us along this wild, weird ride I say a big, big thank you. It’s been a pleasure serving you our game, and your constant faith in us has been a major morale booster when times seemed tough.
I hope Seed gave you some enjoyment, some great times and some fun along the way, maybe even some new friends. I hope you will demand more from your future games in terms of role playing with other players, and in terms of player influence in the world.
‘Cause that’s what role playing games and role playing communities are all about. The people playing them.
Lars Kroll Kristensen
CEO, Runestone Game Development |
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mortenj
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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From Gert Zimmer Hansen, chairman of Runestone:
| Quote: | To players, partners and other interested parties.
The Runestone board of directors regrettably have decided to file a bankruptcy petition to the court of Aarhus, Denmark.
Throughout the last couple of months the company has tried to raise capital and supplemental competences amongst potential partners to ensure the continuing development of the game Seed in order to make it the intended appealing online game for experienced gamers.
Despite positive feedback from the gaming community on idea and graphical style, the lack of contents and challenge in the game discouraged many players from signing up for immediate subscription. Instead many players expressed their intention to wait a few months for the problems to be solved before committing to a subscription.
Throughout the development process management and employees have worked hard to realize the vision. We have worked together with competent international partners and very understanding investors. However, we have to accept that the process of developing an appealing online game has proven far more comprehensive than our original estimate.
Despite a focused effort to ensure the continuous development of the game, we have not been able to fill neither short-term nor long-term needs for capital and competences. Therefore the board of directors had no choice but to file for bankruptcy, and thereby risk the closure of a desirable workplace for 20 competent employees.
All possibilities for the continuation of Runestone and Seed will be evaluated in the time to come.
On behalf of the board of directors,
Gert Zimmer Hansen
Chairman, Runestone Game Development ApS
Aarhus, September 28 2006. |
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mortenj
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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From Bifrost, Seed community manager (Alchemic Dream):
| Quote: | What can I say?... "F*ck" is the most appropriate I think.
I have been following Seed since the good ol' Boomtown forums time, when the gameplay still amounted to a pile of post-its with everything still to be designed. I "farmed" the patience of the Alchemic Dream CEO to get him to take some time to look at Seed, then what was supposed to happen, happened. Alchemic Dream and Runestone made an agreement on several services like support, the website localization and most important of all: the live events.
After discussing with their crew in Ahrus and taking looong evening hours to discuss with Kroll, Alex and Purusha to see if their story system worked, I finally was enlightened and discovered that Runestone had just invented what any MMORPG should have as npcs and story systems. Something that makes the life ingame much more realistic than those stupid "!" tagged and fixed vendors near a certain auction house to whom you can sell any item at the same price as everybody, or help on the same quest for a lifetime, as if you will need the same item 1.000.000 times without being fulfilled. How stupid all those npcs were, compared to what Seed proposed.
After the small meeting with the Runestone team members, a 10 month-long working period started where we had the chance to be in daily contact with the "dev team". To help them, give them our advice, take charge of the tasks that we could free them from - even if that was not set in our agreement, and ask them so many questions, always, always having fast and effective answers back. It was a real pleasure to work with you all.
Today, it's more than an agreement that ends for us and me. I'm personally loosing a job relationship that looked more like a team meeting of good friends than the standard client - provider relationship that usually exists in the videogame industry. I will miss the chats I had with all the RGD team members. Alchemic Dream, the AD Seed Team and I feel very proud and lucky to have been part of that fantastic trip that could have led to such other great stages. Life decided to stop that journey much sooner than expected. It's unfair, really.
We will loose a community that was just wonderful and so receptive to our events and all the Machiavellian plots that we designed around you. We have prepared for you a kind of "What's behind the scene" text, with details about who we were, what we did, what we planned, and the kind of stuff that we played with everyday.
Alchemic Dream wishes all the Runestone team the best possible in the future, you all deserve the best to happen to you.
Expect to see some of us around in any Seed community that will - I'm sure of that - persist in living.
It has been a great pleasure and honour to work on Seed. Thank you all for the wonderful times we have had with you all. |
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