Auto Assault: Four Flats and a Dropped Transmission
In my mailbox today: the NCSoft newsletter. NCSoft publishes massively multiplayer games, including the popular City of Heroes. The MMO market is a scary place right now, with World of Warcraft serving more than 5.5 million subscribers and all of the other publishers wishing they could have a tenth that many.
I'm amazed at the flameout of NCSoft and NetDevil's Auto Assault, however. As a Mad Max-like fast action car shoot-em-up, the concept should have been bulletproof. But the gameplay was lackluster, to put it mildly. Not only did they merge all of their game servers into a single entity, but now I find that they're offering a free month of play as bounty for every friend you recruit to the game.
MMO players may like to play the games by themselves, but if they think that no one else is playing then the neighborhood turns over and they head to another game. If they're this desperate to boost the server population, I wouldn't be surprised if the engine drops out of Auto Assault by the end of the summer.
Comments
Chip, I pulled this off the 7N message board at Myspace.com:
10/2/2006 12:09 PM
Hey Guy's.
Thanks you for agreeing to be our Headliners at MYTH & MAYHEM A Gaelic Halloween festival on Saturday 28th Oct at Koko Booth Ampitheatre Regency Park Cary NC.. You will be on stage at 8.30pm. Don't forget the KILT promise. Looking forward to it all.
Slainte
Annie Nice
www.Irisheventsnc.com
How long has it been since 7N has been in NC?
Posted by: Greensboro Glenn | October 3, 2006 11:05 AM
Hmm, sounds like it would be "idiot proof". I've always been partial to vehicle games(for lack of a better word because of a brain leak...)I.E. Twisted Metal etc.
It seems that WoW might just have the market tied up for the moment. I would imagine it would be hard to get anything "new" into the Online market at the current timing..
Well anyway, I really enjoy your posts.
Keep it up! :)
Posted by: Sean | October 8, 2006 2:36 AM