unforum

[danteIL]

Abandonment?

[Rogi Ocnorb]

From what I've seen... It's the most common type of untimely end to a game.

PM got in over their head, for whatever reason and just quit.
Why they don't want to let their playerbase know about it is a mystery to me, though.

It could be out of embarrassment, fear of ridicule, hubris or just plain lack of respect for people who trusted you.

I think a lot of those games aren't truly "dead" in the minds of their creators. Just on semi-permanent hiatus.

But for the players... Even a bad excuse is better than never knowing.

[labfly]

Dante, (if this in reference to EE) i honestly do not believe you guys have been dumped. it is only my opinion, but i would bet that there is something wonderful coming your way with EE. Brian's a GREAT entertainer.. and i think he's either prepping another amazing path for you guys.. or maybe he's playing with the timing due to the launch of Jane's Olympic ARG? whatever the reason, i cannot imagine EE will implode. it's just a looooong lull.

[celina63]

In my experience, even for games that implode, the PM has at least let us know that he/she can no longer continue with the game. I haven't heard of any games that just... STOPPED, with no word from the PM. Then again, I'm really picky on the games I play, so I may not have all the data.

Labfly, I would LOVE to agree with you - but it just doesn't seem that's going to be the case. Brian, while being a great entertainer, has had MANY opportunities to respond to our concerns - including a BTS blog he has used to talk to us about META issues before - and NOTHING. Even just a blog post saying "Hey, brb" would be enough... but NOT EVEN THAT has come our way.

Hence, our discontent

[johnny5]

I think this analogy sums it up for me:

This is like a roller coaster that shut down just before the crest of the big drop.
We wait and we wait with no idea what happened or why or what's going on.
After a while we start to worry.
Then complain.
Then someone gets a message that the operators have left their posts, leaving no instructions on how to run the ride, but will be back directly.
But they don't, and still we get no word from anyone.
Now what?
Do we wait for them to come back or climb down and go ride the Merry Go Round (guess that game )?

After that experience, what's the chance we'd ever get back on that roller coaster again?

There you have it.

[rose]

Well, this is an interesting question. I don't know of a game that has been totally abandoned without warning. There was a long pause during Chapter 1 of Eldritch Errors so there is precedence for this happening.

I would wait and see what happens; although I admit I am moving into the "I'm worried" stage. The worry not about the game but that the PMs are ok, which I assume they are.

I have a lot of faith in GMD Studios and in Brian Clarke, who has been a great friend to this community over the years. It will take much more than this frozen state of EE to lessen that faith.

[Rekidk]

[danteIL]

Notice that in my original post I said nothing about EE because I was genuinely interested in the answer. But yes, my question was motivated by EE. It just feels unprecedented to me, particularly for a game that is being produced by a known quantity.

The issue for me really goes back to the same issues I raised in the thread on meta-communication. The continued and ongoing lack of any official acknowledgment of the situation bothers me more and more each day, especially when multiple routes of information-sharing exist, both IG and OOG. The problem isn't the existence of a lull -- stuff comes up and can't be helped. I get that. The problem is that we've been left hanging for weeks on end with nada zip zilch nothing. It is apparent that Brian and GMD have built up a lot of credibility around here, which is good I guess. But as a current player of a GMD game, I'm pretty disappointed in what's happened.

For irony purposes, I quote:

[labfly]

i agree that is unusual for GMD to go from being so very vocal to this silence. i'm just an EE lurker and i have found myself frantically searching the web for some undiscovered message. you are right, Dante, it is confusing given the history of back and forth between the PM and the community. but.. i am with Rose, in that i am actually getting worried about the well being of the PMs at this point. then again, one part of my head tells me the PM's might be playing with these emotions (fear, disappointment, frustration, fill in the blank) before they continue.

as for an answer to your original question - yeah, this place is littered with abandoned games. my first year of playing was so filled with this sort of thing (Zoe's World & City of Domes to name a couple) that it inspired me to create an indie that would never be abandoned.

[rose]

labfly is right about the implosions that litter the forums.

I understand that hearing nothing is very frustrating, still I would assume that no news is good news. If the game has definitely ended they would certainly make an announcement of some kind. I guess I'm just willing to wait and see what happens and give the PMs the benefit of a doubt that they deserve.

Of course, I just spent months and months (when RL let me be around) moderating the Cloverfield promotion of which almost all of that time was spent waiting for something to happen. My perspective from that experience combined with my basic philosophy - which I often break - of no whining in ARGs - gives me patience.

[konamouse]

At least with City of Domes we were given official notification when it occurred (and WHY it was killed).

Then there was that indie game where the "PM died suddenly in a fire" and his "girlfriend" sent out a message (or posted on the website) about the death and how the story was suppose to go "because he wanted me to tell his players".

[notgordian]

[catherwood]

I'm not sure I can speak to the history of ARGs which died a slow death, as I wasn't playing them at the time. All I can address right now is the unique situation of Eldritch Errors, which was a sudden silence. For all of the posts here telling us to remain calm, I have to believe they are not fully aware of the circumstances. I also frequently ask myself why we players feel entitled to some feedback or status announcement, and I think EE may be unique in how it built tension and then suddenly went silent.

Even before this "book" began, we were told via OOG communications that the game would peak on February 20-21 with the lunar eclipse. Once the book began, we had plenty of in-game reasons to expect a climax on that night: various characters dreaming of visions of the red moon and talking about some event to take place that night. We started the month with three live events, meeting characters and exchanging artifacts. The month continued with a fairly regular flurry of contact from characters via emails, voicemail, ads on craigslist, and blog posts. Then, silence. For 8-10 days before the culmination of all of this activity, nothing. (Ten days if you count a forum post by a character, which didn't address the impending event, or eight days if you count a blog post ironically entitled "I quit!")

The silence was puzzling, but we rolled with it. Maybe it was intended to build suspense, in keeping with the dark horror theme. But then the big night came and went, and there was no indication of what happened. We waited for a few more days before panic set in, and another week before anger and despair took over. This was not a lull, this was abandonment.

If this was the kind of game which relied on weekly updates, we might have taken the initial lull in stride. But then it went on for two weeks, then three weeks, and still nothing, no word, neither ingame nor meta. Or rather, no *official* meta communication was visible, while people tried contacting the PMs thru back-channel methods and got the sense that we had been put on the back burner.

I want to quote something that was posted here in another thread by one of the EE PMs:

[fonograph]

The situation with EE really is exceedingly baffling. I can certainly understand the concern for the well-being of the PMs that must have set in initially. But at this point, not even that explains the absence of any communication.

If it's a professional issue: yes, that's going to distract them, but there is no such thing as an issue so time-consuming that it would prevent one person in a team of a dozen from posting a short message at some point in a month long period. Unless EE just isn't a priority.

It it's a personal / safety / health issue: well, even if a bunch of the PMs died in a fire (which, let's be clear, would be FAR FAR worse than any hiccup in an ARG), most people who have weathered such tragedy know that after an initial week or two of shock and grief, the mind wearily turns to practical concerns... like posting a short message. Unless EE just isn't a priority.

So, either EE just isn't a priority (unlikely, from what we've seen / heard), or something incalculably wacky has happened, e.g. Homeland Security has gotten involved and forbidden any PMs to say anything about the ARG or else they're all going to Gitmo (also unlikely.)

Like I said, baffling![/b]

[johnny5]