Wolfpack Studios Closing

After a good long run, Wolfpack Studios is being closed down by publisher Ubisoft. Their recent announcement of free-to-play was apparently not the opening of a new business model, but instead a harbinger of the end times. From the MMORPG.com article: "This according to sources at the development house who were recently informed that their jobs were being terminated. The last day for Wolfpack staff is May 15th. Parent company Ubisoft is said to instead be redirecting their company's focus to next-gen platforms. At this time, there is no word on what this will mean for the future of Shadowbane itself. The game just hit its three-year anniversary and was recently offered free to all users."

First?

[Odin_Tiger]

15min. and no replies yet? Looks to me like Ubi did the right thing.

Re:First?

[Goldberg's Pants]

Yeah right. This, abusing customers with Starforce.

We'd have been better off if EA had managed to take over the company.

Re:First?

[__aaclcg7560]

Were you expecting everyone to jump on this like a pack of wolves? Even slashdotters can respect the dead -- sometimes.

Seen this before...

[__aaclcg7560]

It's hard being an independent developer when the larger players want to buy you out or put you out of business, and even harder still when you are bought out and later discarded because your services are no longer needed. But not surprising.

Short life

[FadedTimes]

I am suprised Shadowbane lasted this long.

I knew a group of people (roughly 30) who attempted to play Shaadowbane after release. All from different gaming backgrounds, EQ, DAoC, AC, AO, D2, DS, NWN, etc. The game seemed to hit a wall in advancement within the first month of play. Most quit after 30days, only 1 person out of a group of 30 lasted longer than 90 days.

The game was not good when compared to already establshed games in the genre. Then more advanced games like WoW came out and that just made Shadowbane's already bad situation worse.

Re:Short life

[darkmayo]

Well its not so much it wasnt good, (it was buggy as shit) but it had way different goals then all the MMORPGs you mentioned.

You level really fast in Shadowbane, PVE is really just there to hit the max level and get gold so you can advance your guilds city upgrade your gear. Its all about the city and destroying other players.

So no wonder they left, they probably all wanted the uber lewts and what not.

Re:Short life

[Anonymous Coward]

I played Shadowbane for the first time when it went free... My response: *yawn*

Even as a free game, it didn't hold my interest all that much. There is appears to be very little content other than kill the mob, grind the levels.

I know as a PvP game, part of the design goal is that enemy players are "part of the content", but the game seemed completely void of anything else to do. Even compared to the original EverQuest, its contents fail to appeal. It has no chance against WoW.

Oh, and lastly the lag was un

Bummer

[darkmayo]

I came back when the game turned free after leaving it years ago when it was a buggy mess. There is still some nasty bugs but I am surprised on how much fun I was having in game after I came back. First pickup group I had off of the noob isle ended up with 3 of the 9 man trying to jack the other players.. 2 were Thieves.. not sure what we where thinking in the first place the other was an Assassin.

It was funny to see the one rogue get caught stealing, deny the whole thing and then get smashed down in one hit by another character level 75 main who is spamming "QUIT STEALING" it was comedy gold.

Shadowbane .. anything goes. I hope it sticks around.

Wolfpack?

[stu42j]

I don't suppose they are related to the Submarine game from the early nineties? That was a fun game.

Great game

[ukpyr]

All games have bugs, to me shadowbane had fewer important ones than better funded games. What really set SB apart was the freeform pvp it offered. Also you actaully had the freedom to make a bad character.

PvE players aren't into the whole virtual material loss thing, really that was the problem imo. You might say they are wussies to atttached to pixels. I know I would say that :)

A few years from now, there will be a game where you can lose your possesions on death and it will be hailed as revolutionary by t

Source Code??

[trance_programmer]

As a programmer this makes me wonder if they are going to release the source code for the game since it will discontinued anyhow. Might as well give back to the commumity since you are out of a job. I never got into the whole MMO thing but this is one of the few games that I actually thought about playing. Something about giving my life over to a game seemed a little too much for me but giving a few hours a night over to UT2004 and HL2 aren't such a stretch. I have always been interested in the programm

Sad...

[vertinox]

I played SB for a 3 months. It was fun but not really that memorable.

Sad to see the company go though...

Won't somebody think of the children?!?

[Zadaz]

Ever wonder what the world would be like if it was populated solely by 14 year-olds? Now give those kids knives and the ability tor turn invisible. That's Shadowbane in a nutshell.

I've played PvP in a number of online worlds and SB was just the worst. And by worst, I don't mean the worst system, but the worst player experience. There was something about Shadowbane being only PvP that attracted the most socially defective. And I'm grading "socially defective" on a curve for online games.

Sad to see a bun

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?!?

[SeekerDarksteel]

The average maturity of an SB player was far beyond the maturity of a WoW player. You can't imagine the amount of times I wanted to gank someone for being the 4th or 5th person in a day to ask me "cn u rn me thru WC?!?!?!"

WoW's PvP, compared to SB, is like kids playing little green army men versus the real army. It's so dry, sterile, and contrived. Death is meaningless. Losing a BG is meaningless. Gear is everything and can overcome skill and teamwork. A lot of teamwork and organization is required

Wow!

[Mike Buddha]

Wow! I think all 12 Shadowbane players have commented here.

Industry Conslidation

[rtb61]

A lot of gaming studios will disappear just like a lot of movie studios disappeared last century. The publishers will end up picking up the old titles for a song and redevelop titles that show promise.

Picking which publishers will thrive going forward will be the big investment trick. The ones currently at the top don't always perform the best as they have a lot of fiscal baggage to content with. With the consoles settling down after Christmas game sales should thrive, at least for the platform aimed righ