Rubies of Eventide MMO Shutting Down?

Bruha writes "Over at Rubies of Eventide Warcry it has been announced that the fantasy-based PC MMO Rubies of Eventide will be shutting down operations in December unless they can find some way to pay the bills. The owner of the company sent out an announcement where he said those paid up to that point will be receiving refunds and pointed out that they just did not have enough players anymore to continue: 'Our customer base continues to decline; as of yesterday we had only 806 paying customers (we lost another 41 over the weekend).'" Are there just too many MMOs out there, thus spreading players too thin, or are these problems down to the state of this particular game?

Comments

It means there are at least enough games.

[jefft]

Are there just too many MMOs out there, thus spreading players too thin, or are these problems down to the state of this particular game?

This is not necessarily a sign of too many games. If no MMO games ever closed, that would be a sure sign that there weren't enough of them.

Where they went wrong...

[OneFix at Work]

Lets see...from the FAQ:

Can I download the game, or is it on a CD?
Rubies Of Eventide is no longer being offered on CD during open beta. Any updates are automatically downloaded after the installation of the game. All updates are mandatory to run Rubies Of Eventide.

Oh, so this never got out of beta...yet...in the same FAQ...

What do I need to play this game? What are the system requirements?
You will need an Internet connection to play Rubies Of Eventide. There is no single player version planned at this time.

Minimum System requirements are:

Pentium 4 or faster Processor
256 MB of RAM (512MB recommended)

Yet the screen shots look real bad (like something from the '90s)...and I'm certain this has to be their best screenshots...

And the whole try before you buy thing seems to have eluded them...as in the same FAQ...

Rubies of Eventide Pricing for 2003
1 month - $14.95
$35.85 for 3 months ($11.95/m) Save 20% off the standard rate!!
$65.70 for 6 months ($10.95/m) Look, over 25% off!!
$119.40 for a year ($9.95/m)Best deal for almost 35% off at $9.95 a month!!

Ok, so for a recap...

You want me to pay $15/mo to play a beta of a game that I've never heard of and obviously never played with high system requirements that looks like it's about 5 years too late with the graphics...

Ok, I can't tell why this company is having problems selling their beta game to everyone...must be the start of another games crash...

I have played ROE a little

[Sparr0]

This game has potential, but was never really finished beta. It needs more content, and more fleshed out skills. The engine is also somewhat dated, pre-Everquest quality graphics. I hope something good comes of this, they seem to have good developers and good ideas, just general problems along the way.

It was a clunker

[Kirby]

I got a beta CD (quite a long time ago) and loaded this sucker up. The first thing I noticed was the terrible graphics - only somewhat better than Bards Tale era. This isn't necessarily the kiss of death.

But the game was just so generic. It was just another fantasy game in a crowded market, with the only interesting thing about it being that it was massively multiplayer.

I vaguely recall spending about an hour playing with it, before concluding that it was terrible, and not comparable to Asheron's Call or Everquest or Ultima Online. And when you're talking about games with a monthly fee, not to mention a sizeable time commitment, MMORPGs compete head-to-head more than traditional games do for players. There's very little reason to have chosen this one. It wasn't a hidden gem, just hidden.