Their cash grab didn’t fail at all. Or at least not fast enough (but IIRC it was quite succesful, I heard rumors about individuals spending thousands of dollars around the release) and as long as the game will continue to make money, they’ll try to save it. But what will happen is as the team gets smaller, the release pace will decrease.
Explain to me exactly why if Funcom were just making a “cash grab” (a term I was using sarcastically because it’s as dumb as all hell) they’d bother relaunching a niche MMO instead of doing a MOBA or battle royale or whatever is doing big numbers these days?
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Just a theory: less work and less costs because most of the game already existed and only had to be reworked?
perplexed and nostalgic
As Synapsenpogo said, it was pretty cheap to reuse TSW and it proved to be a money positive endeavour.
About following the trend, they were producing MMO’s during the MMO craze era, they released conan exile during the survival craze and I’m pretty sure that the “co-op shooter” game to which they move the SWL team has the potential to have a battle royale mode.
Ok but my point is that “niche MMO” doesn’t really scream “cash grab” to me, though I guess the term itself is intentionally vague so nobody has to actually explain what they mean by this nonsense. 
I haven’t seen any announcement of a co-op shooter - that mutant thing that everyone assumed was a co-op shooter wound up being turn based tactics, didn’t it? And how is a co-op shooter going to have a battle royale mode anyway? Wouldn’t be particularly co-operative, would it?
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No, the mutant thing is the game they already announced.
In the 3Q2017 financial report, they said that a new game for the NC office (SWL office) was about to enter pre-production and will take staff from SWL depending on it’s performances.
In the 4Q2017 report, they said that this (still uannounced) game was greenlit and in pre production and will enter full production in 2Q-3Q 2018 as the staff from SWL moves to this project once season 2 is released.
“The game will be a Cooperative online shooter game with a Premium business model”.
Fortnite IS a coop online shooter (Fortnite Save the world) before being a battle royale (Fortnite BR).
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Oh is that what it means? Cause from context I’d taken it as “we want the fact that this company isn’t a charity to sound shady somehow”.
Ok, so you’re saying that in order to make a grab for the currently popular battle royale market, they’re going to first release a co-op shooter (presumably some time next year) and then develop a battle royale mode for it? You do realise “grab” means taking hold of something suddenly, right? At least that’s what I’ve been told.
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Well, it seems clarified then. You’re welcome.
Yep, you seem to have grasp the meaning of “to grab”. Here, a cookie!
The point was they COULD have held back content like they did with TSW to dribble it out and make it seem like they were creating things at a good pace. It’s no different.
Funcom is not speedy. Never has been, never will be. It was a pipe dream from the get-go.
They DID hold back content to release Kaidan at a good pace. And yes, from what I saw on various platforms, that did dupe some new players into thinking Funcom was awesome in how they managed to stick by that roadmap.
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Yeah, if you take “early 2018” to mean first quarter, they’re going to miss the deadline in the roadmap by a whole four days. And should they have held the game back until Tokyo was 100% ready and then not released anything for six months? At this point you’re basically complaining that they’re not allowed to make sensible business decisions.
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Bit hard to actually read postings in context, yes?
When the *** did I say that their new game will be a “grab”? I’m pretty sure that now that the NC team has to opportunity to work on a new project with a fresh engine, they will try to build solid fundations and aim for the long run. And they are probably aware of the market and are at least considering making a BR like experience (if it’s not already planned). In the end a BR is an “online (coop, if you play in teams) shooter”
With a an online shooter base in their hands, they could easily (and it would be a “sensible business decision”) add a BR mode (if the genre is not exhausted by the release). As you said yourself it doesn’t make sense to not reach for where the money is.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same content.
TBF, with the removal of Aegis, Tokyo was probably the most work to get right in terms balancing the playing field. It’s not just going Ctrl-X on ‘Aegis’ in the lines of code.
Just putting that out there.
Bows out
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Honestly, it feels that anything involving AEGIS that was more involved than Ctrl-Xing either wasn’t adapted terribly well or simply cut.
I mean, in SWL, Orochi is apparently a company that for some completely unexplained reason was experimenting with some weird protective shields that never actually hit the market, right?
Almost like there really wasn’t much of a plan beyond ‘people didn’t like the mechanic, so let’s Ctrl-X it’.
Lore tanget: If IIRC the filth at ground zero had time to evolve these shields by itself, from contact with hell (red), ghosts (purple) and technology (blue).
Orochi made the tech (AEGIS) that countered the original/organic shields (controllers and capacitors) and your own personal shield mimicking the organic ones.
I think the new take is that it’s still there, but we the players are so strong it does not effect us (but clearly Orochi grunts and other non-immportals still need to use it).
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I think you may be correct, but I can’t say I felt the game did a decent job trying to explain that to me, let alone trying to explain what’s up with shielded things that apparently we do need Orochi tech to battle in the tower.
Frankly, I feel SWL would be a much better game with AEGIS still there (with simplified/automatic controller switching), as whoever is actually willing to put up with the gear system surely wouldn’t mind a little side AEGIS grind, either.
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I like AGEIS 
Was sad to see it go, the new layer of adapting to new enemies on the go was fun (I never used auto-switch mods, cheapened the experience for me). However, like the difficulty spike that made lots of people stranded in BM, I understand why it was removed.
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I’m not saying it was seamless or perfect. Just more work then I think most people realize.
I also liked Aegis, but that was where the grind and ability to screw yourself over really took hold so I doubt ‘Eh, what’s one more layer of grind?’ counts as a good defense of keeping it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would become the straw that would break even the most rigid of camel’s backs. (Like mine.)
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