The gaming world was abuzz when Vorpalfox announced the large-scale social MMO game Werewolf Online was in the works. People have a soft spot for the oft-misunderstood lupine shifters and they love their lore.
Plenty Of Wolfy Promise
When the Kickstarter campaign dropped, trend watchers took note. Werewolf Online promised a lot straight out of the gate: cooperative raids and battles, the ability to play offline with your character to further its development, etc.
"Playing with friends is one of the core aspects of Werewolf Online. We want you to play together, even if you aren't always online together. We know schedules don't always align as perfectly as you might like, which is why we've implemented a system that allows your friends to help your character, even if they aren't online," wrote Vorpalfox founder Eric Robertson on the project's Kickstarter page.
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The game was being developed for play across devices—PC, iOS, and Android, according to developers—so that no one would be denied access to Werewolf Online's Riverlands, home to the werewolf race and under siege by pesky Orcs. (Is there ever a fantasy game where the Orcs aren't pesky?)
Players would have three classes to choose from: brash tank-like Warriors, rogue-esque Scouts, and potion-chucking Alchemists. And similar to other popular MMORPG games, Werewolf Online's gameplay would feature both story-based quests where players fight hordes of orcs to earn their freedom, and more social raids that required help from other players.
Werewolf Online Goes AWOL From Crowdfunding Campaign
All the pieces were in place for a successful launch. The Kickstarter campaign raised hundreds of dollars within the first two days of launch on April 16th, and a Steam Greenlight project page was already in place and ready for the game world to embrace Werewolf Online.
Then suddenly, Robertson canceled the game's Kickstarter campaign within six days, and the project disappeared from the Greenlight website.
What Happened?
Vorpalfox went underground for a few weeks and little information was available about the fate of Werewolf Online until recently.
Robertson resurfaced with a pared-down website that offered little explanation of what caused him to pull the plug on the project, but promised a new project, All Dogs Go To Hell, was now in the works.
"For those that were following my last project, a casual MMORPG called Werewolf Online, the response was quite ‘meh,’ so I killed all my quest givers, switched it to full pvp, made it perma-death, and added survival elements (hunger/bleeding/thirst). This new project is called All Dogs Go To Hell. Werewolves, ambushes, running for your lives, and all that," Robertson posted on his new website, All Dogs Go to Hell, last month.
He went on to say that he'd be working on getting this revamped version of Werewolf Online into the hands of testers as quickly as possible.
"I will work on placing some links to reddit, facebook, and twitch so you all can provide feedback, but my priority is getting an early free version on the play store so I can get testers. The sooner the better as this project evolves more and more into ‘lock your door’ territory," the post continued.
Now we anxiously wait, and hope that All Dogs Go To Hell is just a bigger, better Werewolf Online.