Hey guys. (and gals. Maybe)

Hey. It’s been a while.

A few months, I’d say.
But it feels like I was never too distant from here.
Summer break starts for me. Yay! Just gaming all summer long I guess. I become so fat and lazy.
Maybe I’ll somehow merge with the couch. Become one with the couch.

Seeing as this community is quasi gaming community, I thought I’d just post something I left on another forum over here too.
You guys remember a developer named Softnyx? They made games such as Gunbound, Rakion, and Wolfteam.
Actually, that’s all they made and that’s the problem. So I go on a little rant.
Here’s the post. Bon appetit!:

—————————————————————————————-

Hello guys.
And gals. Maybe.
I’d just like to express my opinion on this game.
Opinions aren’t worth much but I just wanted to share my experience with this game.
If you can’t tell from the title, this post is a sorta rant. Skip it if you don’t like rants.

Rakion. That name brings back so many memories…
I remember I played this years ago. In fact, I started back when this game was in beta.
I was an avid Gunbound player and at the time I thought Softnyx just absolutely amazing.
So when this new game, Rakion, showed up, I thought I’d try it out.

And I loved it.
I still remember eagerly anticipating the end of school so that I could go home to play.
I was so obsessed that my constant talks of the game at school was enough to convince a friend to start playing. It was a blast.
I still have the gift from the beta in fact. Some sort ring thing.

The customer service was excellent too. I remember my characters were wiped out for being inactive. I emailed them and inquired about the issue and sure enough, I found my characters fully intact. With some extra gifts, in fact.

It wasn’t too long after that, maybe two years or so, when the beta for Wolfteam also started and I signed up for my first FPS experience ever.
There’s this special place for Softnyx in my heart. You guys were truly amazing.

But that was roughly five years ago or so.

Recently, I saw a friend play an old game that was we both played in the past as well.
He was playing it out of nostalgia. So I thought, “Hey. I should try playing one of my favourite games from the past as well.”
So I chose to reinstall Rakion today.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of new things such as options to ban the usage of cells and potions.
It was a problem that persisted back before I quit so long ago. The unbalanced-ness of the game drove me into quitting before. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what I’m talking about.
So I joined a game room and tried it out.

The first thing that struck me was the visuals. I didn’t remember it being so ugly and choppy. But it’s understandable as this game looked pretty good back in its time as a free to play game.
Sure, presently it doesn’t compare to the many other free to play games.
I think games like Uncharted and Battlefield have spoiled me.
But so what? When I go back to play classics on the Playstation One, I don’t complain about the visuals. So I accepted it and moved on.
It did disappoint me to see in the options that the maximum resolution was under 1600×900. But I didn’t care. I let that pass too.

Then I noticed the laggy-ness of the game. There was also some screen tearing that was very visible. It didn’t make the game unplayable, but it was very annoying.

I remembered it being a lot more smoother. I remembered it being a lot more playable. I remembered Rakion being a lot more fun.
Maybe that’s the problem with revisiting games due to nostalgia. You just can’t repeat the same experience again because the bar has been raised.

But that wasn’t the issue that bothered me the most.
It was the fact that, after so many years, nothing has really changed.
But if I’m playing out of nostalgia, don’t I want to have the same experience as I did years ago? Isn’t minimum change a good thing?
Not really.

I was really hoping for there to be an update to make the game more modern or at least run more smoothly.
New updates to visuals wouldn’t hurt either.

I… just expected more after so long.
Maybe something new? I don’t know.
I realize after so many years, there are still only three games. Gunbound, Rakion, and Wolfteam.
No new IP.
And each games feels aged. No drastic changes to make it feel fresh.

Most of all, I was just really hoping for a new IP. After so many years…
Softnyx, what’s happened to you? Have you given up on new ideas? Do you have some secret project that you’ve been working on that’ll blow everyone away?

It’s just… disappointing to see a developer that I held in such high regards years ago for being creative and different… (Gunbound being so different from anything else, Rakion being an action style game that hasnt been done before, and Wolfteam being a unique FPS as it has… wolves) be exactly the same after so many years without any new ideas.

There’s been an explosion in the free to play market. Free games are popping up that seem to just keep raising the bar in quality.
Vindictus, League of Legends, DC Universe Online, Hawken, Dust 514, Firefall, Warface, Mechwarriors Online….
The quality of these games are rising; each adding new ideas and fresh takes on the genre. A lot of these developers are new to the industry. Take for example Riot Games or Adhesive Games, responsible for League of Legends and Hawken, respectively. These are their first games and they’ve gained quite a lot of support in their originality and approach to their respective genres.

So what about Softnyx? You guys were in the same situation years ago, back in the Gunbound ages. You were new to the industry and started off with an original game. Except you kept the momentum going with Rakion and Wolfteam. But now what? There hasn’t been anything since. And those aforementioned games have yet to see a major overhaul to bring them to compete with these new modern games.

I just don’t want to see Softnyx, a developer that had such an impact on me, be left behind in this growing industry. It would be nice if you guys could take your place back in this industry by bring something new and different. You guys did it three times in the past…. surely this can’t be the end? There’s gotta be some juice left.

———————————————————————————————————————–
So yea. Any of you guys (and maybe gals) remember them?
Cause I do. And I miss them. A lot.