I remember a while back there was a lot of talk about the Grigon update, I remember a bit about it but forgot a lot. Could someone inform me what exactly it was going to be again?

Grigon was the team Cartoon Network was working with to make FusionFall. They basically handled the coding, modelling, etc. and put the original game together. Late 2009 they left development of FusionFall and handed off the game to Cartoon Network. I don't know of any "Grigon Update"

Really because I remember hearing about "the Grigon update" (as a nickname) from you, Providence HQ was going to be completely different and 37+ and other stuff which I don't remember but I believe Grigon went bank-rupt before they could do so and then it went on to be the academy.

While I don't remember calling it exactly that, I know what you're talking about.

The CN team (and Grigon at the time) had plans for FusionFall while it was in development through 2009. The plans included, but were not limited to:

Level 37+ including corresponding nanos, confirmed to include at least Flapjack, Chowder, Johnny Bravo, Cheese, and Zak Saturday
A new series of areas somehow accessed after level 36, which included at least Null Void, Providence HQ, and Mount Neverest
Some form of Player Versus Player gameplay mechanics
A new weapon type, glove
The ability to change your appearance after character creation
The Premium Store, which would allow for purchase of ingame items and abilities
New world-gameplay mechanics, including at least conveyor belts and climbable and hangable poles and ledges
The User Store, which would allow for players to place and price their items in their own store, found by clicking on a player
The ability to dodge attacks
And I'm sure there's plenty that I was unable to dig up

Basically, at some point in 2009, every one of these ideas had already been agreed upon and were implemented in some form into FusionFall, whether that be intergral coding, assets, or even uploaded onto the official website. However, Grigon was the meat behind FusionFall, and because they gave FusionFall in entirety to Cartoon Network to run and update, nearly every one of these ideas were canned. Of course, the existing work still existed, but CN's team was not capable of coding and creating these ideas as they were intended to be implemented. So CN basically did the best they could and shifted plans toward smaller updates for the existing world with the tools and knowledge they had picked up working with Grigon.

One of the most important things to take away from this is the fact that although we didn't get to see CN's grand plan for FusionFall's Future come to fruition, much of what Grigon left behind was put to use. Many unused items and assets, like nanos, set pieces, and area decoration, were put to use in the final build of FusionFall. Neverest, Providence, and Neverest even somehow made it out of the cutting room floor, despite major layout and purpose overhauls.

As a sidenote, I was able to speak with the lead producer of FusionFall through its lifetime, and from what I understand, the glove weapons, "barber," and PVP mechanics were most likely to be introduced as a separate DexLabs Upgrade 2, and not part of the officially named expansion, which would have included new areas, levels, nanos, etc.

TL;DR The original FusionFall plan was everything we could have dreamed of and more, but lackluster game makers at CN couldn't make it happen with their lack of experience.

reading wilts paragraph above actually makes me sad because if this happened everyone would be playing fusionfall and it would be a thriving community...
so sad :'((((

Only one thing to do!



Yeah, if only all that stuff did happen. #BlameCN

Wow...

Fusionfall actually had the potential to be a huge game, but they couldn't complete the final product.

That's...sad 

Well that's depressing... Fusionfall never showed it's full potential, it was all held back.

Although it does make sense, the people at CN make cartoons, not videogames, they weren't specialized in these kind of things.  The lack of experience was always a problem with the company.    Ah well, what's done is done, I guess.

http://www.cartoonnetworkSEA.com/games/fusionfall-play-free

So I was the only one who knew about the private server.

*before clicking link*

pfft, yeah, right, it's probably just another donkey sound

*clicks link*

i'm actually kinda disappointed   

The Grump wrote:

http://www.cartoonnetworkSEA.com/games/fusionfall-play-free

So I was the only one who knew about the private server.

thx so much, OMG!

The Grump wrote:

http://www.cartoonnetworkSEA.com/games/fusionfall-play-free

So I was the only one who knew about the private server.

Always the jokester type, eh grumpy?  

The Grump wrote:

http://www.cartoonnetworkSEA.com/games/fusionfall-play-free

So I was the only one who knew about the private server.

2legit2quit

it could have been so beautiful   

(but lesbehonest i never would have gotten to 37 anyways)  

Gloryangel wrote:

but lesbehonest i never would have gotten to 37 anyways

There was this bug a LOOOONG time ago where those that were lvl 36 were suddenly moved to lvl 37. They weren't actually lvl 37, it was just a bug that was then fixed.

Oliver Zombieweasel wrote:

Gloryangel wrote:

but lesbehonest i never would have gotten to 37 anyways

There was this bug a LOOOONG time ago where those that were lvl 36 were suddenly moved to lvl 37. They weren't actually lvl 37, it was just a bug that was then fixed.

i was just saying that because the highest i got was 17   

I only got angel wings because a guy made me an account and leveled it to 32 as a gift xD hahahaha sooo yeah

Gloryangel wrote:

i was just saying that because the highest i got was 17   

Until the darkness came...

All they had to do was:
1. Increase server performance and capacity, numbers and a regional system
that reduces lag based on latency.

2. Make the game run faster. I'm guessing most of the lag is server lag
due to the game running fast in network close mode.
But regardless, the lower the system requirements, the more
potential players that COULD run the game. Maybe like a super low resolution texture
setting. Or perhaps using something other than Unity. Not sure
if the previous plugin was faster as I didn't play in those very early BETA days.

3. Advertise FusionFall across the world. I would never have heard of the game
without the US CN site. Can't be that hard to advertise on your own channel, eh?   

4. FF Asia would receive plenty of potential players
due to the huge populations across countries in the Asian continent.

5. Somehow make it seem like FF isn't 'childish'.
Reasonable people like me don't care what it technically is.
Nor do comic book readers (a lot of comics are technically for children but that doesn't
stop adults enjoying them just the same).

But some people are stubborn (and you may argue they don't deserve to play anyway but whatever...)
and may need convincing that it isn't 'embarrassing' to play or make it known they play.

And the Cartoon Network characters thing should be emphasised as well as 
the great gameplay. Seriously, if FF gameplay was shown on T.V. virtually anywhere,
a mass number of players would flood the servers. It's amazingly unique, visually if not anything else.

(But the angles and zooming level used, etc. would have to be carefully considered
during directing the advert/gameplay recording to maximise how awesome it immediately looks
to new people.)

Just sayin' CartoonNetwork, if you just consider this, you've got a golden game.
The gameplay itself isn't Earth shattering and is sometimes tedious and repetitive
(though I don't usually play MMOs so my view may differ to other peoples')
but why did so many keep coming back to FF despite finishing it?
Social aspect, atmosphere, nostalgia and a long list of other things.

CN shouldn't retire their product just because it's been a few years.
You just have to advertise more. The advertising revenue from
new players should easily cover maintenance costs or whatever.
But I wonder if it has something to do with copyright issues
or expiring rights to use content made by Grigon, a bankrupt company. I dunno.
They probably think it's best not to tell us because we can't handle it
or more likely it could make CN look bad whatever the reason is.
But closing down such a massive and previously successful MMO doesn't exactly
give CN a good light. I wonder if CN is reading this.  
Probably not.   Except possibly some awesome die hard staff member
that never wanted FF to close down that happens to check this forum once in a while
from the shadows in the comfort in their own home.    
I know you're out there.  (Actually I dunno.  )
Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal to some of them.  

Hey, look's like X has finally discovered the point of the summer holidays.  

XLR8 147 wrote:

All they had to do was:
1. Increase server performance and capacity, numbers and a regional system
that reduces lag based on latency........................ to long to quote

Money.

°«©РwŃź0Ŕ®»™ wrote:

Oliver: "What is this black magic called money?"


X: "You can trade it for almost anything if you have enough."




Oliver: "BRB drooling."

1. Increasing server performance etc. isn't something they should have focused on. The game was remarkably stable handling players during its high points.

2. Making the game run faster would have been a huge investment for CN involving paying a lot of people a lot of money to basically manually remake the game. FusionFall was built on a primitive version of Unity that does not support upgrading and optimizations automatically. The game would have to be ported and restructured to the new Unity, and changes to code would have to be made, which likely wasn't worth the time or in the options.

3. I don't see why they didn't do this...

4. ^

5. The demographic was early teens, and I think they hit the mark just right.

CN just can't do it with what they've got. They aren't game designers. They HAD a vision, but CAN'T make that vision happen. And considering the fact that they rode out 3-4 years by themselves trying to make new content and keep the players happy, I feel they certainly did their part. However, it WAS getting restless and the game was going absolutely nowhere for the last 2-3 years, and a steady decline in players likely sealed the deal for them.

Honestly, if they'd had just advertised FusionFall and gave out Unlimited Access to the rest of the world, the game might have stayed around for a little longer. Maybe not enough to last another year, but it would still have been something.

Heck, if they did it, I might've met X and some of the others earlier. :\

Wilttilt wrote:

1. Increasing server performance etc. isn't something they should have focused on. The game was remarkably stable handling players during its high points.

2. Making the game run faster would have been a huge investment for CN involving paying a lot of people a lot of money to basically manually remake the game. FusionFall was built on a primitive version of Unity that does not support upgrading and optimizations automatically. The game would have to be ported and restructured to the new Unity, and changes to code would have to be made, which likely wasn't worth the time or in the options.

3. I don't see why they didn't do this...

4. ^

5. The demographic was early teens, and I think they hit the mark just right.

CN just can't do it with what they've got. They aren't game designers. They HAD a vision, but CAN'T make that vision happen. And considering the fact that they rode out 3-4 years by themselves trying to make new content and keep the players happy, I feel they certainly did their part. However, it WAS getting restless and the game was going absolutely nowhere for the last 2-3 years, and a steady decline in players likely sealed the deal for them.

@Wilttilt, no not the demographic, that was virtually spot on. (10-13+)
I mean some older players may be put off trying it but really it would be their loss.
If they're not open minded, tough lol.
And about the less lag/lower texture thing, they would have to do all that?
They had to do that with low, medium and high texture settings? Really?
Remake the entire game twice? (3 times in total.)
I thought it would be as simple as swapping textures, which admittedly would take ages
but far less longer than remaking the entire game.  
And about network lag, in my experience on both fast and slow computers,
when there were loads of people in one place in a server (e.g. Mount Blackhead)
there was quite a bit of lag when it reached around 20-50+ people.
Unplayable at times unless you moved away. I'm not saying it's a priority,
(I should have mentioned the list is in no particular order)
but it's something that could have helped players with older computers, especially
those from poorer countries with slower broadband.

But I was gonna say that the first and easiest thing would have been to
just advertise it more, including in other countries such as those in Asia.
Guess we'll never know why they didn't.   (Strangely I'm still guessing it's money related...
Maybe the server capacity not being high enough to accommodate for millions of new users. I dunno.)

Oliver Zombieweasel wrote:

Honestly, if they'd had just advertised FusionFall and gave out Unlimited Access to the rest of the world, the game might have stayed around for a little longer. Maybe not enough to last another year, but it would still have been something.

Heck, if they did it, I might've met X and some of the others earlier. :\

I think it would have made it longer than a year.
Within the year it would be in its prime but then gradually decrease in players
but veteran players like those on this forum, wouldn't be so rare with
other continents playing; there's bound to have been some loyal fans.

Most of us didn't play it just to do the missions. There were other things
to keep us hooked on it. (With less enthusiasm compared to having more missions/expansions,
but nevertheless the fan base would stay relatively strong for over a year I'd guess.)
Things like the social aspect, races, exploring, filming gameplay/movies or whatever else
most level 36 players did.

XLR8 147 wrote:

I think it would have made it longer than a year.

WELL what do I know?

Lol

I only ever heard of fusionfall from a comment on a club penguin blog xD hahahaha

I heard FF from a kid at school... I remember playing it on my grandmas comp and randomized the char name...

Then I went home and played more...

I heard about it the same way X did, pretty much. I first saw the ads on the US site back in the summer of 2008. Took no notice. Then I thought "Eh, since it's Samurai Jack", then I found FF.

Seriously, why must CN's US site be better than our version?  

likely because it's based in the US

Still no excuse for us to have a laggy, slow and generally pretty bad version. We even have less games!

Why does there even have to be two versions?

#blameCN

Oliver Zombieweasel wrote:

Still no excuse for us to have a laggy, slow and generally pretty bad version. We even have less games!

It has less games but it's not laggy to me, Oli.

 

But some non-US versions (including the UK one)
are pretty ugly comparatively. Also less stuff you can do.

I descended into madness when I first saw....  it.

random person: You don't mean!

Me: Yes, I do,  I'm talking about the South American CN


LA CN Website.  

but they make nice free Cell phone Games.

The Grump wrote:

but they make nice free Cell phone Games.

For Apple only.  

I found out using a magic tool called Google(tm)

I found out after watching the FF commercial that had the guy eating a turkey leg.

lol.

The first one I saw was that one that had a guy beating up a cabinet...Yeah, it seems silly, but it actually makes more sense once you see it.   

*comercial guy voice* FusionFall, A game where you can beat up cabinets.

I like where this is going....

Titan Akubold wrote:

I found out using a magic tool called Google(tm)

What did you type into Google?

XLR8 147 wrote:

Titan Akubold wrote:

I found out using a magic tool called Google(tm)

What did you type into Google?

Pictures Of the powerpuff girls in bikinis.


no wait that was me. No wait that was uploaded here

I googled "Cartoon Network President"

Apparently the president of Cartoon Network is a female (Christina Miller) now that Snyder left. 

Wonder if she'll bring back Fusionfall or bring back Cartoon Network to its former glory...  

Then again, Cartoon Network was already been beaten to the ground by Mr. Snyder. 

Eh, It'll probably stay the way it is now.

I'm pretty sure wilt already talked about this before on how it wasn't all just Snyder and that it was everyone at CN and trying to stay hip  or something like that. That he was just the figure. Someone should find that thread.

I even remember the day when i first time joined FF universe.It was the end of 2009(december 18 i guess).I remember it, because the next day was Sunday, the day-of St. Nicholas (December 19).
I ate a bunch of different sweets and played that game whole day.But i joined the day before sunday-saturday.
I still remember how long the game is loaded at the beginning, I wanted to turn off, I thought that it froze again, and then I saw the character creation menu. God, I even remember how looked like my first 2 characters that I created on the same day

@Kaganui, my eyes are burning with nostalgia.
Good times.  
Do you have any screenshots or videos of FF? Just wondering.

Unfortunately,i don't...I had bunch of videos and screenshots of my char in the unknown places,but i've deleted them a long time ago ...But still,that game was one of the best i've ever played in my life . Sorry for not answering for so long,i just forgot to check this forum)