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DUST 514 shutting down May 30th

SparkTR

Member
Didn't see any thread so I'll post it here.

tl/dr: Game dead, patch 1.3 permanently delayed, all microtransactions turned off. Team moving to new PC shooter project.

CCP Frame said:
Dear DUST 514 Community,

CCP’s development team in Shanghai has been working on a prototype for a first-person shooter for PC with the goal of building a great FPS set in our sci-fi universe of New Eden (the universe in which EVE Online, DUST 514, EVE: Valkyrie, and Gunjack are set). Their experience is being utilized to build a new game from scratch using Unreal Engine 4 while harnessing all our learnings from DUST 514. This is in many ways an evolution of Project Legion, the concept we announced at EVE Fanfest 2014, but without the limitations of technical debt and development paths we quickly discovered in that effort that could never serve as a future-proof technology base for a full production game. This new project is still in an early phase of production, and we feel like we’re on the right track and plan to give an update at EVE Fanfest on April 21st as a part of the free livestream of the event. Since this new game will be different from DUST 514 (although keeping many of its great parts), we will provide tiered recognition rewards to our loyal DUST customers, details to be announced.

We are very proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished with DUST 514 on PlayStation 3 over the past three years and it is an honor to be a part of such a dedicated community. We consider DUST 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that DUST 514 will be shutting down on May 30th, 2016. We therefore will not be releasing the 1.3 update as we had planned. Players will continue to be able to play for free on our servers until then, but all further PSN packs and purchases have been removed and disabled from the in-game marketplace and the PlayStation Store. Players with existing Aurum will be able to continue to purchase items from the in-game marketplace.

Thank you for being a part of DUST 514 on the PlayStation 3. We look forward to the next chapter, and hope you’ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

Was expecting this way sooner considering the poor critical reaction and tiny playerbase the game attracted (between 300-2000 players concurrent at any one time). Launching only on PS3, a console in its twilight years, probably wasn't the best idea.

Good news is the team are moving towards a new FPS project in the EVE universe for PC, an evolution of Project Legion they announced a year ago.
 

Aselith

Member
Oh good I was like just move it to PC! But apparently they're making a PC thing so aight. It was a cool idea, it just ran like shit.
 
Yep not too surprising, I think CCP had a good plan for connecting two games like EVE and Dust 514 the way they did, as an EVE player I didn't play much Dust at all but I really appreciated what they were going for with connecting the two games and it was fun with the FW system. Unfortunately Dust as a shooter was kind of boring.

However they're making a new shooter from the ground up from what they learned from Dust 514 that'll be out on PC so I'm excited for that.
 

Xater

Member
Oh good I was like just move it to PC! But apparently they're making a PC thing so aight. It was a cool idea, it just ran like shit.

It had a decent concept but I remember playing the beta and I thought it felt and ran so poorly. Then the final game came out and basically nothing improved. Now on PS4 there is Planetside 2 and I don#t think there you have been a place for this game anyway.
 

Aselith

Member
hmm too bad they didn't upgrade to the PS4

Yeah, I said a long time ago in a Dust thread that they should have worked really hard to make launch window on PS4. Had they been able to hit that, I think they would have gained a good following simply based on being a solid, F2P shooter when people didn't have a ton of options. They just launched so late into the PS3 cycle and it ran so poorly that it just didn't work on that console.
 
I would have thought it had shut down by now.

How how many people will undoubtedly come out of the woodwork and accuse the devs/pub of being lazy and evil to the fanbase and start a petition to keep it going.
 

5taquitos

Member
I was ready to love the game, since I'm a huge Eve Online fanboy without the time to play like I used to.

Dust was a travesty, and they mishandled it at every single step. It deserves to be shut down and forgotten.
 
Dust 514 was an awful experience. It was the most bland halo rip off I've ever seen. I think I played like 30 minutes when it first came out and deleted it.
 

SparkTR

Member
CCP were really stupid not bringing it to PC. Could have played some Dust while ship spinning in EVE.

Too many concessions made for PS3 hardware for it to have made an impact on PC. I mean higher FPS and resolution would be nice, but against stuff like Planetside 2 and Battlefield 4 at the time it was extremely forgettable. At least they're starting over and we're not stuck with a last generation relic.
 

5taquitos

Member
Pay to win, clumsy controls, boring maps, impactless in Eve Online, no PC version, what else.
It was made to fail.

Don't forget the severe technical issues. My favorite was the render distance, which allowed snipers to shoot you before they were even rendered in your view.
 
All I remember is it being really, really dark and hard to see anything or know what was going on. Lots of metal crates and boxes. Bad controls.

I uninstalled it pretty quickly.
 

CHC

Member
I think PS3 exclusive was the death sentence. It's not that it would have been vastly more popular on PC or anything but at least people could easily play it when they felt like it. I think a lot of players just don't physically keep their older consoles.
 
Dust was an amazing idea, but a terrible implementation.

I won't be sad to see it go, but I am very excited to see what's next.
 

SparkTR

Member
All I remember is it being really, really dark and hard to see anything or know what was going on. Lots of metal crates and boxes. Bad controls.

I uninstalled it pretty quickly.

The drab, grainy visuals alongside the extremely poor framerate and resolution made it feel like a fever dream to at times. Like I was playing the game through a poorly programmed emulator or something. It was terrible from a technical perspective.
 

FLEABttn

Banned
I got into the closed alpha of it and thought it showed a lot of promise, but it never really built from that. Was disappointed when I tried it again when it launched and it was still pretty similar.
 

mcz117chief

Member
Not shocked at all. I was expecting this any day now. I started in the alpha and the game has been a total train wreck since the beginning. The graphics are horrendous, textures so low quality some PS2 games put it to shame and the gameplay is not fun at all with "gunplay" taken straight out of EVE which doesn't make any sense. Let me say it another way, they took the statistics from EVE online's weapons and tried to shoehorn the same mechanic onto the DUST weapons, what you got were smgs with bullets that disappeared about 20 meters from the barrel and other similar nonsense. The fact that it launched when PS4 was around the corner only made it worse.

I really, REALLY hope they will learn from this and the next game is actually going to be worth the title EVE because I was really hyped about DUST 514 when I first heard about it. I am looking forward to the next game which will hopefully not launch a day before release of PS5. And please, next time, PC, where the vast majority of EVE online fan base is, thank you.
 

mcz117chief

Member
Agree, this should've been one of the f2p games during the PS4s launch window. Certainly couldn't have done any harm.

It would have been huge if it did launch on the PS4. I was amazed when they announced it for PS3 with no intention of moving it gen up when PS4 was around the corner.
 

Widge

Member
Agree, this should've been one of the f2p games during the PS4s launch window. Certainly couldn't have done any harm.

It was SO unbelievably murky on the PS3, horrible to play. But part of the issue was trying to bring the Eve structure to an FPS. And, in part, expecting a PC audience to team up with a PS3 audience to achieve aims.
 

Man

Member
Unreal Engine 3 on PS3 was always a bad recipe.
A Unreal Engine 4 version on PS4 would have brought it some success I think.
 

glaurung

Member
surprised it lasted this long
First post nails it, but the second one (Little Britain reference) was even better.

Chalk me up to someone who wanted to like this game, but its UX and game play was just horrendously poor. I wonder how much money CCP threw at it, considering it's a F2P title.
 
However they're making a new shooter from the ground up from what they learned from Dust 514 that'll be out on PC so I'm excited for that.
I'm fine with this then, sounds good.

Would like to see what they come up with, I really enjoy PlanetSide 2 for what it's worth.
 

SparkTR

Member
It was SO unbelievably murky on the PS3, horrible to play. But part of the issue was trying to bring the Eve structure to an FPS. And, in part, expecting a PC audience to team up with a PS3 audience to achieve aims.

They solved that by making any impact/interaction DUST had on EVE absolutely pointless and negligible. I know a whole lot of the MMO corps completely left the game after that, it was a stupid idea to begin with.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.

SparkTR

Member
That's still not out? After they announced it I figured Dust was dead on arrival and that'd be released shortly after Dust died. Guess not.

Aparently there's an information blowout at the next Fanfest. The old plan was for Dust 514 to keep going as a competative shooter while Project Legion focused more on a PvE/Raids/MMO approach (Destiny/Division etc). Now it seems like this Legion evolution will be replacing Dust completely so I expect more traditional multiplayer shooter out of it (like BF4 as opposed to Destiny).
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Aparently there's an information blowout at the next Fanfest. The old plan was for Dust 514 to keep going as a competative shooter while Project Legion focused more on a PvE, traditional MMO approach. Now it seems like this Legion evolution will be replacing Dust completely.

Really? I thought the whole goal of that was just "Dust 514 being ported to PC so we can shut the PS3 version down because it's quite clear the PS3 version is ass and we can't do shit to fix it."

Then again I thought the whole idea was absurd from the get-go and figured they'd have cancelled it after the "Alpha" or whatever closed "test" they did shortly before launch happened. I mean if I was a CCP exec and saw Dust 514 around that time I'd have been like "what the fuck did we throw money into!?" and cancelled it immediately.
Then again I have a venture capitalist mindset at times. So if shit doesn't have it's potential on-lock/worth the investment I think cancelling it quickly would be better.
 

SparkTR

Member
Really? I thought the whole goal of that was just "Dust 514 being ported to PC so we can shut the PS3 version down because it's quite clear the PS3 version is ass and we can't do shit to fix it."

Then again I thought the whole idea was absurd from the get-go and figured they'd have cancelled it after the "Alpha" or whatever closed "test" they did shortly before launch happened. I mean if I was a CCP exec and saw Dust 514 around that time I'd have been like "what the fuck did we throw money into!?" and cancelled it immediately.
Then again I have a venture capitalist mindset at times. So if shit doesn't have it's potential on-lock/worth the investment I think cancelling it quickly would be better.

CCP were always behind DUST and even were adamant that it was making money eventually despite the abysmal player numbers. Could have been damage control but yeah I think everybody knew it didn't have a future. Even a port to PC wouldn't have fixed the games issues, if that were their goal it would have happened ages ago. The game really needed a complete do over.
 
Dammit, I was hoping I could of got to this news first. Everyone is dismissing Dust 514 all together as a garbage game. And sure it started that way, but numerous updates later it has certainly become something special.

In past generations we would have hidden gems due to lack of advertising, but now we can have hidden gems due to poor early reception only to be updated into something great.

Dust 514 has the most detailed character customization than any other game out there. And it's still the only game (that I know of) that does a full on consumable itemization of every thing. Every suit, every weapon, every mod is destroyed when you die. It creates a much more interesting battlefield knowing that people are not aimlessly rushing into points blind, everyone is simultaneously trying to protect their assets. On top of that, vehicles are the same way and they can be personally spawned in from anywhere on the map.

All of this from a design perspective. The ambitions here were clearly too big for the PS3's performance capabilities and that's why this game is closing.

There's really a lot going on here, and CCP Shanghai is taking everything they learned to make the future-proof iteration on PC. I eagerly await its full announcement, people will be pleasantly surprised.
 
Wonder why this is getting shut down when it has more players than Killzone Shadow Fall on the newest console :>

It's really not suprising that they've been able to hold a solid player base for so long, the development has gone very well all things considered. A few hiccups sure, but enough to ensure a loyal player base.

They're also making a PC version "from the ground up" but basically taking all the good things they've learned from Dust 514's development. It's going to be a direct replacement with more details to come this April. Because of the nature of New Eden (the shared universe between EVE: Online, Dust 514, and EVE: Valkyrie) everything is single shard meaning you can't have two of the same things going on. With such as early termination for Dust 514 (just 4 more months), I'm suspecting public testing for the next iteration will be starting soon.
 
It did both unfortunately
Why would it be unfortunate? I really don't get that.

At the very least they have something to build upon for their next project. Also something cool to note is one of the players, who had no role in development whatsoever, is now at the head of it all. How often does that happen?
 
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