Why did Dawnspire fail?

[Persus]

No this is not just a retread of old themes for the sake of it. As we are older and wise, Some older than others come next week in my case. I thought it might help us to pin point the causes we felt lead to Dawnspire failing on the wider stage. Hopefully we can then take this info and apply it to Bloodline champions as in many respects it looks and feel like the spiritual successor to Dawnspire. The Devs there might find it useful to avoid the pit falls DS fell into.

 
So what are your thoughs? Why did Dawnspire Fail to attain the heights it should have reached?

[Hullu]

Dawnspire haven't failed.

[Nightmare]

That reminds me that SGS was supposed to make some kind of "what went wrong" thing as they pulled the plug, but never heard from that...

Anyways, there's probably many reasons why it didn't reach the success it should have, one of them being the publisher. At first they thought they didn't need one, and that selling accounts and character slots via eseller (or whatever it was) would be enough. Well apparently it wasn't since after some time they started looking for a publisher but unfortunately got a really poor deal, so no money from there either.

[Optimus]

what is this Bloodline champions? 

[Waihirere]

This has been discussed a lot before, so I'm going to keep this short.

• Publisher problems and therefore lack of advertising.
• Too high initial learning curve (due to having to play against the veterans, since there weren't enough players to have multiple servers).
  
• Lack of good enough tutorials and helps (many players who started playing, even after the devs had implemented the tutorial, didn't even know how to use skills; in-game hints and helps should've been better to prevent this; forcing players to play through the tutorial might've been a good idea, too)
• Ranking system that promoted fragging instead of teamplay. Now this one is very hard to get right, and I haven't seen any games that would do a good job in this one. Still, I feel that ranking promoted bad behavior which lead to gameplay styles that discouraged newbies from continuing to play.

So due to lack of marketing there was only a low number of players trying the game. Bad newbie guidance combined with punitive servers where skilled veterans could easily slice through 3-5 newbies (and ranking system that ensured they would) resulted in many new players giving up before they learned to play. Therefore, there never was enough players for multiple servers (at its peak, DS had around two full servers at the same time, meaning around 32 simultaneous players) and thus no support for multiple skill levels. Vicious circle, that was very hard to break without proper marketing resources.

[Persus]

As usually the few that post cut straight to the point, hitting the nail on the head. Average reviews were another killer. Though the more you read these reviews the more you find the reviewers didn't really grasp the concept of skill over button mashing. Many of the reviews just feel like a cut and past of others.

But in a way Hullu is right the game isn't dead if people keep coming back to play. An overly optomistic view though this is.

http://www.bloodlinechampions.com/index.php

[ReverendLostLamb]

What will happen with DS when Bloodline Champions comes out?
Is it an opportunity to find people who are interested of these kind of games or will DS be abandoned?

[Persus]

I can only speak for myself, but until Johan pulls the plug I will always be about. I see it as a 2 way street. If we as a community move over at times to BLC and it gets successful we can them hopefully bring back players to here, building both communitys up. We really need that download back up though. I would guess even with there similar gaming styles they will be nothing alike in playing style. DS will still offer a unique free gaming experince you can't get anywhere else.

[Ghost]

I agree with the rating system flaw. As most new players aim to achieve a higher character rating.... and therefore frag etc. They get rewarded for this, so they see nothing wrong with it.

However, dawnspire is supposed to be a team game... and one fragger, or constant changer etc can ruin that. Which is why some older players and new players leave/left. Pretty much all the new players I see, just go after kills etc - compared to playing as part of a team. So there is a flaw in the rating system, for those players who play only for rating.

[Smiskfisk]

Since people comment the flawed rating system, blaming it for encourage fraggin etc. I had to leave a mark here.
The best way to get rating in Dawnspire, atleast under the period when I played for rating (oh I did that, ya know!) was to get a 2-0 lead, switch team and turn it around to a victory. Such rounds, combined with a positive K/D ratio and some heals every now and then could give huge amount of rating points. I did this sometimes, had luck with teams at start and got a fast 2-0 lead due to good relics spawns and whatnot. A common scenario was that someone left from the team without relics, leaving a spot open for a switcher (I was very fast on switching team back then!) and therefore making the whole rating-farm-tactic possible. Here is the good part. If the team I switched to won, I got lots of points, if my team lost I was the friendly player that tried to even the teams and make the game more interesting. Win-Win! Some people, and I love you for that, spotted my behavior and made me realize how bad it was. To be honest, I knew this all the time but as you all know, rating points are AWESOME!
About the actual rating system though, I got to say that I personally could not came up with any ideas how to make it better. There are so many scenarios in Dawnspire making it impossible to come up with a rating system that always work and support team play.

Another flaw was how the team was made on public games, simply sorted people after in which order they joined (meaning the first 2 that joined could NEVER be in the same team. The two with fastest computer/connection could therefore never be in same team from start). This was solved by some people by simply leave the game after each map and join after a few seconds, to at least get a 50% chance to get in "the right team" (the one that would win on paper or the team in which your friend was). Same thing here, it would be extremely hard to get a better system up and running. A lobby 'could' solve it, a lobby giving the players a chance to sort teams out, or give a script some time to toss people around between the team to at least get some a class balance. Sorting after rating would not be a good idea, this been stated by many in lots of threads the past years. I agree. Rating did never show how good a players was, more a sign of activity. With exceptions, as always.

So what else made Dawnspire fail...
I would like to comment on the word 'fail' i little.
For me, Dawnspire NEVER failed. It's the game I've had most fun with, no argue about that. It's the game I've spent most time with (not taking WoW into that calculation, for many reasons). It's the 'game' I've met the most awesome persons in. To name them all would make my post twice as long, so forget it.
I remember a post I made in UA forum long ago.. pre-Seeker age. (oh yes, there was a time Seekers was "on the horizon" and not a playable class) It was about the future of Dawnspire. I've had this dream of active servers, of 10 times as many guilds, of a growing developer team and many other things. Imagine, 4-5 server with constant action, enough guilds to support 2-3 leagues that ensured tight and thrilling GvG games. Imagine a team of developers that had Dawnspire as a full time job, with money to support their visions and ideas. Imagine the playable class 'Invoker' and the awesome game mode 'Siege' and the map named 'Xianne's Library'.

...

No, Dawnspire never failed. I'd say the world around it failed. If there was ANY justice in the world of gaming, Dawnspire would have been under development as we speak. Nightmare would by now rule this game (even more then he did) with an army of Blue Heroes stronger then any force. I would still order a pack of slaves around with my psychic powers to ensure victory. And new players would every day experience Dawnspire for the first time.

[Hullu]

That was beatiful, Smiskfisk.

[Persus]

 

[Nightmare]

Yep, the world isn't fair.

[Sparrisen]

Well, it's posts like this that's truly respectful and ballsy.

[Drollie]

The lack of items and levels and uprgades etc. It's what makes a game addicting (for me it is atleast).

Funny enough I think having no lvls etc is also one of the coolest aspects of this game because you have the same chances as everyone.

It's a shooter merged with an rpg but the addicting parts of both have been taken away. Just my thoughts