We have received the unfortunate news that Mythgard will be going into Maintenance Mode starting with the newest patch. What this means for the game:
- Servers will still be up for the time being.
- There is no new large content planned for the game for the time being, with the possibility of small expansions created using volunteer art.
- Mythril will remain purchasable in store, and profits made from it will be used to maintain the servers.
- A new battle pass system has been implemented with this update, as that has been in the works already.
- The End of Season tournament planned for this weekend will still take place.
- Ranked season will proceed as originally planned for the rest of 2021, with future years having 8 seasons each, roughly equal in size.
You can see Rhino's full announcement down below.
Quote From Rhino Games Dear Players,
It’s with great sadness that I announce that Mythgard will be entering Maintenance Mode. The team fought tooth and nail over five grueling years trying to make it happen, but the CCG market is a different place than it was all those years ago, with several large companies able to totally outspend us on both content, but far more importantly, on marketing.
I personally have put the large part of my life savings into this game. Most of the team have worked at far below market rates to make it. All out of love for what we were doing. I’ll forever be in their debt for following me into this venture, for their tireless hard work, and for the precious things they’ve sacrificed on the way. As time passed, our team members have dropped off one by one due to a need to provide for their family and to seek some measure of financial security. I don’t think any of them did so because they truly wanted to. At last, our numbers have dwindled to the point that it’s simply no longer possible to continue creating additional content.
I’ll forever be grateful to the many players who spent time and money on the game. Over the years, I’ve met a lot of truly wonderful people in the community, who I only hope that we’ve managed to provide some fond memories.
I especially want to thank Noah, who has volunteered his time, for as long as he’s able, to continue to provide community support and what development effort he can towards live balance. He’s been an absolute wonder, and a joy to work with. I also want to thank both Noah and Mantid for their work on Hub, foxfire_kadrpg for his absolutely amazing and adorable axolotl emotes, nirast for running the outof.cards Mythgard portal, the folks at 983 (especially Markthius) for their work on tournaments, nelzya for being one of the very first players of the game and sticking with us all this time, and all of the various many wonderful people who over the years created content, evangelized the game, and otherwise supported us.
What does maintenance mode mean?
We’ll no longer be working actively on a large expansion set. Some of the team members have been discussing how to make smaller sets using licensed art on a volunteer basis, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to do this effectively. The servers will remain up as long as I can reasonably pay for them out of pocket. As I mentioned above, Noah has volunteered to help with balance changes should any become advisable.
Ranked seasons for 2021 will continue as planned. Beyond that, there will be eight ranked seasons per year. They will be split relatively evenly across the year. We still plan on holding the third EOS tournament on the July 10th weekend, as that has already been paid for.
For now, players will still be able to buy mythril. Please view any money you spend on Mythgard as a donation to keep the servers up a little longer, as that’s where it will go. Similarly, you may wonder why we’re shipping the paid Titan battle pass at the same time as announcing maintenance mode. The reason is fairly simple - it was already long done by the time we got to this point, and while we could have delayed the announcement of maintenance mode to see if we could make some extra money off of it, we’d rather not do.
Thank you all again for all the amazing support over the years, and for making Mythgard such a fun project to work on.
-phu
Battle Pass Patchnotes
The patch notes regarding the battle pass:
Quote From Rhino Games
Added new battle pass system
Earn rewards by completing missions
Six free battle passes. One for each color
Free battle passes contain 30 levels, 3 mythics and 1 mythic wildcard
New Titan battle pass (2350 Mythril)
6 exclusive card materials, 1 trim and game board
2 mythic wild cards
Free colored battle passes replace existing faction tracks
Currently, there is no time limit on completing the battle passes
Added 5 new learning puzzles
End of Season Tournament
As mentioned above, the End of Season tournament will still be happening this weekend. The first round will take place on Saturday, which will determine the final 8 that will compete on Sunday, with the stream being cast on Mythgard’s official channel. Let’s give them a last hurrah!
Comments
Sad to hear this :(
Due to current life circumstances limiting my gaming time I've only actually played it a few times (going through the single-player missions to get an idea of how to play), but I'd been hoping that maybe when I got tired of Hearthstone I would be able to pick this up instead.
Card games are a pretty niche market, all things considered - as far as IRL games, very few CCGs survive longer than a couple years. There is a website which catalogues a lot of the CCGs which have been printed (nearly 400 since MtG debuted.) About two dozen survived longer than five years. It's more of a brand-driven market rather than a game-driven market - the "big brands" dominate (the usual suspects), mostly supplemented by licensed IPs (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, etc) that typically disappear from the shelves once the license expires. Digital CCGs don't appear to be much of an exception.
It's a matter of investment. Why start playing Mythgard when I invested so much time in, say, Hearthstone? IMO, if indie card games want to succeed, they need a different business model.
Damn, that's a great shame. It's a very difficult market due to the lion's share Hearthstone took so very early and the time (plus money for some at least) it demands when simply playing any mode in order to make any noticeable progress, just as World of Warcraft has been for MMOs for so long. One of the reasons why I never got around to trying Mythgard in the end. Not nearly enough hours in the day to invest, while interest was always there.
You can tell they've been very passionate about it, and it's a heartfelt message that brings sadness. Hopefully the team can bounce back and find future success elsewhere.
Sad to see It gone. At least their hard work could be enjoyed by people and what they made was good. Really good.
My condolences. You fought well.
Digital is dust in the wind. Always.
I sometimes worry about LoR's future, but only because of two things - one, if i play at certain time of the day, i end up matching against the same guy over and over, leading me to believe there are not so many players, and two, because when i play (often in casual matchups), i get queued into a LOT of Noxus/SI bots, sometimes 4 or 5 games in a row, again making me concerned about how many people are really playing this thing? They certainly flood with content though, it's exhausting trying to keep up :)
That's too bad :( Never picked up the game due to a shortage of time, but I really hoped it'd thrive. Always sad to see passionate people have to give up their dream. I also want to give a huge shout-out to Nirast, who put so much time and effort into putting a spotlight on the game on this site.
Still better than shutdown of Duelyst or MM Doc.
Now I feel bad for not having given Mythgard a real chance. For me, it was a matter of how much time I can put into my hobbies and with me having gotten quite invested in Hearthstone over the years, Mythgard had small chances to get a place in that cramped time schedule right from the start. I did like the flavor of the game though, it is a very cool setting.
At the end of the day, the CCG market was never going to support all these different games. This is especially true as the big boys Hearthstone and MtG master the art of squeezing every lady dollar out it’s customers.
in the end all that will remain is Hearthstone LoR and MtG Arena. Everything else is dead they just don’t know it yet
Mythgard will now be MythGone
I'm sad to see Mythgard entering maintenance mode. I know that indie struggle in a well-established genre all too well. I don't think it's completely impossible for a new card game to get into the market, but that social networking and having some kind of a budget to throw money into the mix is all too important.
Its cool to see that they'll be keeping the servers up for as long as they can though, and trying to still push out updates when they have the free time is a pleasant touch. Sorry it didn't work out for the devs and I'm sorry we couldn't help drive more traffic toward the game.
Does anyone remember what happened to Elder Scrolls Legends? I played it for years and liked it more than Hearthstone and it also got shut down.
It’s quite possible that LoR is a loss leader, in which even though it runs at a loss it helps drive new players towards trying LoL proper
Yeah, that was more Bethesda-problem than anything imho.
Bethesda didn’t think it was worth it, so they stopped development
I'm hesitant to try non-HS alternatives when they keep getting shut down, other than MTGA which I doubt would get shut down just because they have a strong brand and longevity.
FWIW, Runeterra seems to have proven itself. It’s been over a year since beta, and it’s still successful and growing (as far as I can tell). Of course, it helps that they have a large company and fantasy world behind them, and that they they’re trying to expand the world into multiple games and even shows.
Also, it truly is free to play. I understand that you may be more worried about the time and energy risk than money, but it’s still nice to know that you don’t have to put a penny into it until you’ve decided it’s worthwhile.