For those of you who don't frequent many forums, the developers have been fired (without any notice) and studio closed. Before you form any misconceptions, one former [Dev] broke silence and told us what was going on behind the scenes:

Feydr: I worked as a Dev at AA Emeryville for the last year and a half and I hope I can appeal to your rationality and common sense. I would like you to imagine trying to build a game with an impossible deadline, steadily declining workforce (via firings), A hiring freeze, constantly being fed misinformation, having the “higher ups” completely ignore your weekly plea for either A) more time, or B) more manpower, working a ton of unpaid overtime, pouring your heart and soul into a misadventure only to have the uniformed community scoff at you for uncontrollable variables….. RIGHT when you’ve just lost your job.

There are problems with the release beyond the devs control. In fact, the bureaucracy is so convoluted that you can’t even begin to imagine the breadth and scope of B.S. the devs had to deal with daily. in short, imagine being the subcontractor of a subcontractor of a contractor to the government. Sure Millions of dollars may have been poured into this project, but how much do you think made it to the actual DEV team, the people MAKING the game, after it was filtered by the bureaucracy?

I realize if you are a gamer, you rightly expect a game to work. period. But I would ask that you imagine for a second that you actually DON’T understand what it takes to make this particular game, and you really don’t understand the many obstacles that were placed in front of the Devs… in nerdy terms: A Kobiyashi maru.

What I would like you to understand is that the Devs did everything they could, worked a TON of unpaid overtime, put their time and passion into an un-winnable situation, and were effectively stabbed in the back. Many of these guys are my close friends, they have family to take care of, and overpriced rent to deal with. They just came off busting their butts for months, to be let go, without warning. Perhaps a little empathy is in order here.

Almost every multiplayer online game has problems upon release. These problems become exaggerated when a development team is kept in constant turmoil and paranoia via misinformation and a high rate of employee turnover. When the people you trust around you are being let go, it becomes difficult to emotionally invest yourself in the titanic sinking ship. Nonetheless, I can tell you the Devs STILL pushed themselves as hard as they could.

Furthermore, the problem with the game at this point, has everything to do with the authentication servers being slammed, A.K.A not a controllable variable by the Devs. Sure there are bugs, they WERE being fixed, and now you’ll be lucky to see any fixes in the near future.

For those of you who think Redstone arsenal will do a better job, well…. I won’t have to tell you that you’re sadly mistaken because you’ll see for yourself.

I’m not sure why i’ve felt compelled to write this when I’m sure it will get deleted, or even scoffed at further, but I hoped to let the fans know that we tried as hard as we could and are very bummed to see the fruits of our labor shoved at gamers like a heaping pile of crap.

More info at http://www.aao30.com/?p=639

And I created a thank you petition to the devs which has been getting over 15 signatures per hour -> http://thankyoudevs.com

Glad to hear that most of the devs got the boot. They are the same group of devs that screwed up AA as we new it in its early days. Ever since around AA2.4 the game has gone to crap and we owe it all to the team that got the boot. Bout time!!! Very long overdue!!! This guy can make up all the excuses he wants to but the simple fact is they didn't know what they where doing and for good reason they got fired.