Slashdot Mirror
Dynamix Closed Down?
ioctl writes: "According to Planet Tribes, Dynamix is being shut down by its parent Sierra (or more appropriately, Vivendi Corp.). Story here and here. Looks like my buddy just wasted $50 on Tribes 2... =P"
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Can't stay in the league unless you win the Super Bowl every year, huh?
Pretty soon there won't be any room for new ideas at all. Its really too bad.
I am utterly surprised that the V12 engine, a derivative of the Tribes 2 engine by GarageGames at www.garagegames.com hasn't been mentioned. With minor exceptions where Sierra's intellectual property was removed from the engine and replaced with other code, it essentially the source code to the Tribes 2 game engine, already near the state where it could be used to create high-quality games for Linux. The EULA requires a $100 per-seat license fee for the source code and distribution must be through GarageGames, but the model seems quite pragmatically attractive, seeing as how open source hasn't quite caught on in the 3D games arena like it has for operating systems etc. If you ask me, this is a big chance to improve the gaming scene for alternative platforms.
$50 dollars can hardly be spent on anything more worthwhile than Tribes 2. It's a great game, and it's been released. I don't think all the servers out there will disappear.
This page is still up:
:-)
http://www.dynamix.com/jobs.html
"Just imagine- no traffic, no commute, low crime rate, reasonable cost of living, clean air and best of all, a creative fun place to work."
They forgot "no irritating colleagues"
Its quite a shame if they quit tribes. I really liked the new challenges that game offered, outdoor shoot-em-up in large teams with cool teamplay features. :-), Especially for linux. Maybe something for Loke ?
Hope someone else picks up the thread, i'd like more of those "RTS-battlefield-simulator-FPS"-games
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
For an online game like Tribes 2 it's very important there will be a company behind it. Master servers, IRC server (irc.dynamix.com), patches that will eliminate bugs and cheats. Hopefully sierra will take the place of dynamix on the above. but if it won't Tribes 2 will die All you need is one widespread cheat and the community dissolves.
I don't like the fact that Dynamics is going out of business but if you look at Sierra's history with the company it really is no suprise. Example: Sierra buys Dynamics, the Red Baron series, (one of the first games to use 3d cards) is cancelled for lack of support and staffing is shuffled or cut. Starsiege comes out, finally breaking out of the hideous Earthsiege series. It's an average game but shows great potential. Before it hits the shelves most of the Starsiege team is rolled into the Tribes team or laid off. Let's face it, Sierra cares about Racing sims and Half-Life. I realize they have thei place but the company isn't known for innovation. fnord
Fnord!
Having been one of the fans whose hopes for the Babylon 5: Into The Fire space combat simulator were screwed by Sierra, I can only say that this is yet another bucket of water in the ocean of disgust for anything related to Sierra.
:/
The B5:ItF fans and developers fought for about two years to keep the project alive somehow, and at several turns, Sierra (and whatever parent company, of course) all but threw monkey wrenches into the process. Now the project is officially dead, and I will probably retain my bitterness toward anything Sierra (other than mountains, which are not associated with the company using the name) for a very, very long time.
And don't ask me about TNT.
Games have been shown, and I am sure you all have anecdotal evidence to prove it, to improve productivity at IT firms.
Are shareholders at Dynamix aware of the effect that this will have on the technology sector as a whole?
The ongoing demoralization of people at these firms can only be complicated by this development.
Goat sex free since 2001
I almost cried the day I heard that Sierra was taken over by a French (I hated them already, this was just fuel to my fire) megacorp and was shutting down production of ALL the games that made them famous in the first place.
:) heh - check out 'Roger Wilco's Broomcloset' run by Jess Morrisette (sorry, don't know HTML)
When they killed off Space Quest (amazing stuff!!), Kings Quest, QFG, PQ etc etc. they didn't just take a few games off the market - they killed off an entire GENRE of computer games, games many people grew up playing.
Sure, it's great to get out your awp and blast holes in people when playing counterstrike, or run in guns blazing with Quake, even develop an army and tactical attacks on the latest Dune 2 remake (because let's face it, that's all they are nowadays). But I'll never forget the infuriating, involving and downright entertaining times I had playing Sierra's quest games. Modern 'adventure' games don't even come close - I've played 'Blade of Darkness' and both Diablos, but where is the puzzle that takes an inventive and amusing solution to complete and leaves you with a sense of accomplishment when you get past it?
Where's the involving storyline, the interesting characters?
Quest games (Sierra oldschool) are gone, but they need to be resurrected - both for first time gamers (ages 10+) to develop lateral thinking skills and the idea of following a storyline, but also for us veterans who just miss the genre.
That's my opinion anyway.
-Nano.
p.s. I want to see a Spacequest Movie made
A good friend of mine works at Dynamix and was in fact the production manager for Tribes 2, he had NO IDEA that this was going to happen, apparently no one told the employees anything. So now he's out of work unless by some miracle he's one of the tiny handful of people that Sierra decides to keep on in some capacity. This is definately a bad thing for all involved...
I'll try to get in touch with him to get more info as soon as I can, he should be online sometime today.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
That's 'cuz Sierra forced them to release early, so it would show on Q2 as profit, much like this mass layoff will show a nice cost-cut on Q3 books.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Wouldn't Loki still be able to update the Linux version. If the win32 port is no longer updated, couldn't this potentially be the killer game app that forces the masses to Linux? I'm guessing this all depends on what rights Loki has to the game code.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
1. Buy a little company that puts out great games and has a loyal following.
2. Force them to release a game too early and spend months releasing patches to fix the problems.
3. Fire the staff and close the company once the game comes near to a final product.
I'll never buy another Sierra product again. And this is from a guy that bought *both* the Win32 and Linux versions of Tribes 2!
They really have some idiots running Sierra, eh?
However, in line with Vivendi's (the French parent company) thinking, we will soon see:
Personally, I can't wait!
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Oh, I can attest to that - my SO recently (at the office she works at) brought home a box and T-shirt. Inside the box:
Some pins (western style - a boot, a horse, something else)
Some blue cord
Some red beads
At her job is red and blue paint (BTW, if you haven't guessed it, red and blue are - tada - company colors)
She damn near killed me when I asked her if that was her "flair" package...
Sad thing is, it was...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
here are some posts from dynamix employees that i've ripped from http://www.tribalwar.com "It is true that the lot of us were locked out of the building today. Why this is happening nobody knows for certain, aside from those in upper management at Siera/Vivendi. The whole thing is quite a shock for most of us, aside from those few in upper management at Dynamix who could not manage the meager bit of human decency that it would have taken to give us a warning. It is like that in corporate america, these people really do not seem to have come equipped with a soul. I blame the 60-70 percent of Sierra that has nothing to do with creating anything but instead leech of the top like a bloated lamprey. Not only are they the cause of this situation, but they are the ones that stand to benefit in the short term whether they intended it or not. This liquidation is all about artificially inflating 3rd quarter profits for V/U, much like releasing before the game was ready wasabout inflating 2nd quarter profits.We should have become wary last week when a part of Dynamix management took their sick days afterreturning from a visit to Sierra One thing I would like to say about the Tribes team: Please do not hate Dave Georgeson or the rest of the team. We all busted our asses and worked longer thanhumans ought to to make this game great, and you willsee that the latest beta patch has many of thefeatures that were cut for release, and the stabilityand performance that it should have had. Dave did whathe could to make this game work and fought for moretime when Sierra insited that we ship a buggy game. He also has been religious about reading beta and meta tester's input and post release comments and doingwhat he can to make the game what the audience wanted. Please do not flame this guy. He can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, and working under him was hard, but I really think that he tried to do you right with T2. (Dave, Mitch, and Eric can ignore that comment). Trust me, this whole thing is a lot more complex that that, and cuts straight to the heart of the greed of VU's corporate interests. If you work for a major conglomerate, this will happen to you too someday. These types do not care about you or anything but cash. I would like to say also: Thank you for your help in making the game. We tried always to weigh game changes against the community's wishes, and where we have failed, it was not for trying. We did our best. So long, and thanks for all the Fish. See you in the pubs." and from Rated Z, a dynamix employee (and great tribes player) " Ok, I've kept my mouth shut for a long time. I'm Eric, and working for Dave wasn't "hard", it was fucked! I will never work for anyone like that again. Whoever you are, Anonymous employee, no offense, but you must have had an office in the far corner. As for Dave trying to do you (the Tribes playing public) right: Bullshit. Dave did what Dave wanted to do. And Dave's "you" was the 5 guys on TW that posted 2 page bitches about one thing or another who managed to offend him enough that he replied. Actually, I shouldn't even say "caught his attention" since a major part of his day was spent surfing and posting on TW. Dave G is/was PRODUCER, not Publicist, QA Lead, Art Director, and Lead Designer. There were 30+ people on that team; everyone of them worked very hard, and very long. How many of them have you even heard of? I love Starsiege: Tribes. I've played 5+ days per week, since the day it came out. First, as BMF Balefire, then as Rated z. I try hard not to appear a bitter, petty, disgruntled ex-employee, but I'm sicker than shit of the spin doctoring that I've seen on this forum in the last few months. So here I am, disgruntled and saying "Fuck that." "
It appears that it was an AC that posted it- they START at zero.
It was never modded to begin with.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
After two bad experiances getting games from Sierra (as publishers) I decided to pass on by.
One of the two was Lords of Magic. Quite honestly the game was buggy, features were missing (like the note in the Readme file that going to the World map would crash the game). This was nothing but Beta at best and I was very anoyed after 2 months waiting for patches, to the point that I just gave up.
THe other (whose name eludes me), looked nice, I say looked nice because I never got to play it. It had a bug where it couldn't handle your CD-Rom drive being anything besides D. I had two Hard-Drives in the machine. They offered to let me send it in and they would replace the media for a nominal cost (realise I just spent $20 on the game).
At that point I wrote off Sierra for good and have actually been excited about a product, and have forced myself to put it back on the shelf and walk away when I see the Sierra logo on the side.
Which brings us back to the present. They are acting as publishers for a rather intersting new game thats due out in about two weeks Arcanum The music they have on-line is wonderful. The demo I downloaded is intreging enough that I just might buy it even though it has a kiss of death from them. It also looks like it is designed to have other games plug into it to expand the universe (ala modules in D&D). I would recomend any fan of games like Baldur's Gate or Septera Core to take a look at it.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Of course, it's $100 to get ahold of, but that's rather reasonable compared to licensing costs of any of the other major game engines.
It looks like Sierra is trying to shed itself of any remaining talent and decency. They pull this kind of crap every year, screwing over some part of their workforce. It's no wonder the company does so poorly, they shoot themselves in the foot annually. "Oh, gee, we have so few good titles, we're not making much money. Let's dump the people that make our few remaining good games, and save money! YEAH!"
It can't be #3 or #4, because the act of Penny Arcade EVER making a "really good comic" would be a far more groundbreaking event than the death of Dynamix.
The Computer Game industry always seems to be this brutal, why should anyone in a subsidiary of Sierra actually be surprised, didn't they do just the same thing the year before, and the year before that?
Actually, I think the first warning to any of the developers on a project is when their company is bought by another. Followed closely by their shipping of the product.
In essence, your nothing but a contract programmer when you work on a computer game, and its probably even worse for the graphic artist and other "support" specialties.
Not an industry for the faint at heart, all guts and no glory.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have attended Tribescon 1999 and Tribescon 2000, even have a signed Tribes 1 box with all the developers on it. (Very cool!) Very sad to hear about Sierra's sleazy business practices. But then Tribes2 was just about patched enough to play. Wonder if they ever get the VCR Demo record function working correctly. Guess we just have to wait and see.
Also, I wonder who shows up from Dynamix at Tribecon3. Humm, Ill buy first round of beers for the Dynamix crew. (-;
Earthsiege 1 & 2
Battledrome
Quest games (Sierra oldschool) are gone, but they need to be resurrected - both for first time gamers (ages 10+) to develop lateral thinking skills and the idea of following a storyline, but also for us veterans who just miss the genre.
:)
This could happen. There is already an opensource Sierra On-Line Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) in development at sarien.sourceforge.net . It would not be too much of a stretch to develop new AGI titles based on sarien.
Any wannabe game developers out there?
Does this mean I will find no more soft asian pr0n on www.dynamix.net ?
happily, I still have the hun
tribalwar.com has more on this, and apparently some (ex)-Dynamix employees are dropping into the forums (look for the topics with like 20 pages of replies).
Both KQ5 and KQ6 were 640x480x256. I stopped playing after 6, so I don't know about more recent versions.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
I fondly remember the Dynamix logo on one of my favorite games for the Amiga, ArcticFox, way back in 1986 or so, back before Dynamix had anything to do with Sierra.
You guys did fine work, and will be missed.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I can't believe they're gone.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Back when I was in college in the late 80's (till about '91 or so) I used to deliver pizza to the Dynamix office.
Eventually, they got an charge account. The old bookkeeper thought they were a cement mixing company (she always pronounced it dyna-mix.) When she found out it was a software company, she thought that giving them a charge account wasn't a bright move, as she said "computers are just a flash in the pan".
Let's not forget that these are the wonderful people who brought us:
Red Baron
Betrayal At Krondor
Aces over the Pacific
Tribes 1&2
Outpost
The Incredible Machine
The Adventures of Willy Beamish
Stellar 7 (anyone remember that one?)
Red Baron was the first truly engrossing gaming experience that I had as a child. Playing Red Baron on The Sierra Network (later renamed The Imagination Network) was an experience far, far ahead of its time.
Farewell Dynamix, you served us well.
Customer loyalty is obtained in one of several ways- of which "customer satisfaction" is one of those things.
Piss off too many customers and they tell their friends, etc. There's a bitter harvest Sierra's going to harvest at some point and Vivendi's going to pull the plug on the whole division at some point. Of course, it's nothing but business, right?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
> How much better would things be now if Richard Garriott never sold (or had to sell) Origin to EA?
:sigh:)
Things wouldn't be any better. As Richard Garriott said himself, Origin wasn't big enough to survive by itself because Origin didn't have the muscle and deep pockets to grease the distribution channels well enough.
The reason EA does so well is that its management understands the distribution channel and has the size to pay the big stores to display their games.
(This also ignores the fact that with Ultima 6 and Ultima 7 Origin pushed itself to the financial breaking point.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
If I spend $10 going to see a movie whose production company has been shut down, is my $10 wasted? Not unless the movie sucks.. and from what I've heard, Tribes 2 doesn't suck...
A game is entertainment, not an investment...
Form a company that develops software for obsolete consoles. There are heaps of them out there and it takes less money to develop for the limited systems -- more skill, but less money. Just think how well a new game for the SNES would sell.
In the past year or two, the following has happened:
Sierra shuts down their Yosemite division, firing some great programmers, game designers, and others. This was the group (for the most part) responsible for the great Kings Quest, Quest for Glory (earlier Hero's Quest), Police Quest, and many others.
Origin systems closes down in two phases. They went "Online Only" after Ultima IX, and those that stayed with the company were assigned to work on Ultima Online 2. Earlier this year, with the game a good deal finished, Electronic Arts stopped production on the game and fired all the employees.
Looking Glass studios, the maker of great, revolutionary titles like Thief I and II, and Ultima Underworld I and II shuts down due to lack of funds (mostly because Eidos had to sink so much money into Ion Storm to keep Daikatana afloat).
And now, as this story mentions, the gutting of Sierra is almost over, with Dynamix (the source of my favorite game of all time: Betrayal at Krondor and may others) being shut down.
I really worry about where the industry is going. There are many other companies that are wholly owned by larger companies that have had the quality of their products go down hill - New World Computing (of Might and Magic fame) has been taken down that road by 3DO, not to mention others.
How much better would things be now if Richard Garriott never sold (or had to sell) Origin to EA? The same could be said of Ken Williams selling Sierra. This list goes on and on.
Well, I'm done rambling on about the game industry. I'll go back to browsing the game stores for real games while avoiding "Who Want's to be a Gazillionaire 12" or "The Sims 15th Expansion Pack", or whatever crap the industry makes money on.
Incedentally my first word-processing software was Sierra's Homestar Plus for the Commodore 64. Yes, Sierra made a Wordproccessor!
it's funny ... the moron moderators modded you down for complaining about them! Slashdot is definately on a downhill slide.
With only 15 minutes to clear out I wonder what it was like. Were there mobs of people running around screaming holding their most dearest possesions?? The whole thing is unbelievable.
There's a petition to save Dynamix up here.
Dunno what good it will do, but it's worth a try.
"One NIC to route them all, one NIC to find them, one NIC to serve them all, and in the darkness BIND(8) them."
This has happened one before, when Big Bad Sierra(tm) closed down Yosemite Entertainment, the division that made Leisure Suit Larry etc. I am not surprised that this happens now - Sierra's upper management appears to be clueless. Ken Williams should never have sold the company.
Yeah, let's have more "lateral thinking" like using tape, a cat and maple syrup to make a fake mustache.
No thanks.
Ultimately I think adventure games died because they mostly sucked. Then again maybe I am just a cynical jerk.