by animary » Tue Aug 15, 2017 9:39 pm
For those returning for nostalgia, especially the "old timers" (I only started in June 2010), no one knows the status of this game now.
In 2010 behind the scenes animosities led to a schism between the original developers (the final post from Chris here, Sept '10, touches on this); one developer remained, trying to keep the game going. I suspect his talents were not sufficient to cover all aspects of the game (chat wasn't working when I started, and the message was merely "the person who programmed chat is gone") and bugs slowly crept in. Players began drifting away; when I evolved to Age 2 in Nov. '10 the Footies had about 230 members, when I became clan leader a year later there were 130. In spring of 2013 all servers went down for a week, but the clocks continued running so a few people "died" and many lost items due to conservation; when the servers came back up PMs no longer worked in Age 2 and about a third of the players left (the Footies dropped from 90 before the crash to 60 afterwards). It was around this time the remaining developer made his only appearance (on the French forums, you can find a translation in the forums here), stating he now had control of the game and all would be fixed soon ...no one has heard from him since. About a month later the Age 4 (Greek Age) server disappeared and the domain name was sold (lol, for a few months the URL led to a Tokyo brothel). By mid summer it seemed every remaining age was plagued by bugs which prevented evolving; in Age 1 completion of an essential quest didn't register, in Age 2 PEs stopped working, etc. Players left in droves, but the diehards remained and soldiered on.
In October 2014 (there were 30 Footies left in Age 2 at that point) the clocks stopped. To this day the game still thinks it is Oct. 4, 2014. And hardly anyone remains. I still check Age 2 daily, only takes a second to see it is still "Oct. 4"; one other clan leader checks in occasionally; I've heard from two other players in Age 2 this year ... I think both were final messages.
This game was odd, quirky, often irritating, frequently illogical; and we loved it. Of all the online games I've played this was my favorite. It deserved better than such an ignominious death. Over the years several players with programming experience volunteered to help, but received no response; at least once someone offered to buy the game, but no response; administrators and moderators here admitted the developer never even responded to messages from them. In this length of time any decent programmer could have created this game from scratch; whoever remains in charge should either fix the game, sell it to someone who will, or pull the plug.
But I will continue checking in til the server disappears.
age 2 - animary
age 4 - kuneho