Death of a Game: Rusty Hearts

[@RHRServer]

Thanks for the shoutout! A couple of things: - I believe the avatars were paid only in the US and Korean versions of the game with the exception of Leila. - If I remember right, the Japanese version published by SEGA was shut down due to not getting bugfixes in time. They were actually ahead of the US version and had a couple new/revamped maps. But player damage was nerfed and enemy defenses buffed, making an already tedious gameplay loop even more tedious. - The game did not respect the player's time at all. Rewards like epic weapons/armor were nearly impossible to get without doing hundreds of runs. - Poor communication didn't do the game any favors. Feedback never quite made it through to the original developers in Korea. - Another thing that attributed to the death of this game is cheating. There were exploits that allowed you to buy any item from any NPC and use a trade exploit to duplicate items/manually edit their properties, which broke the entire game. After investigating how these exploits worked we forwarded the feedback but again, the information never got into the right hands. We had the CEO of Stairway Games log into the NA version of the game so one of our (now) staff members could explain what was going on which finally lead to some things being fixed. - PWE said that they had exciting news for Rusty Hearts coming in a week, then as the week passed they announced they were shutting down the game. I can't even be mad, the sheer disrespect towards players is nothing short of remarkable. - There was also an Indonesian version of the game. It was published by Digital Eight and came right after the Japanese version shut down and actually is the latest build of the game. I consider this version to be the best one and that's the client we are targeting for our second server which is written from the ground up and is still in development. Rest assured we have tried to make things more interesting on our private server, we made all the rewards much better, added new items and stats, made the gameplay loop more rewarding, added some new features, revamped the cash shop to reflect a cosmetic-only model, added the ability to add stats on crafted gear to compensate for stats on cash shop costumes and fixed lots of known and unknown exploits and vulnerabilities and more. And as long as there's a single soul playing this game, the server will continue to be around as it has been for over a decade.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Thank you so much for the extra info, especially about Sega being unable to solve those issues with the JP version and an Indonesian server existing!

[@roky7772]

Imma try the server thats open for all, game kinda reminds me of soulworker, also nice to see some changes and hopefully the other server will launch soon. Good luck!

[@Ultrox007]

I'll see you soon guys. I remember first playing this game and thinking "oh cool, it feels like an ORPG spectacle fighter, like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta!"

[@alfredoflores6566]

thank you for keeping the servers up... i go back to it every once ina a while because i did enjoy the game but Jesus the grind was insane lol

[@Drunkencrono]

"PWE said that they had exciting news for Rusty Hearts coming in a week, then as the week passed they announced they were shutting down the game." I'm sorry the game died, but that's also the funniest thing I've read all day.

[@ubermaster1]

This is one of those games that you remember at random at 4 AM and get incredibly nostalgic about it. Shame, online games of its genre(I guess I personally consider them beat em ups) are so rare now since everyone MMO is chasing the big three nowadays)

[@NIHIL888]

nah I'm sleeping at 4 am

[@ubermaster1]

@@NIHIL888 Nah, a bitch got narcolepsy

[@Zaku14CK]

MMOs arent even trying to chase the big 3 anymore. I'd kill for something new that competes with those. Any new MMO is a Pay2Win mess that's loses its player base after a week.

[@zintosion]

Whats the big three? Naruto, one piece and bleach?

[@Zaku14CK]

@zintosion big 3 is a term for the 3 most popular MMOs that have a player base vastly larger than any other MMO. Those are World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, and Runescape. Some people will include Elder Scrolls Online or Guild Wars 2. Elder Scrolls is on the decline. Guild Wars has been doing better, but far behind the others in player numbers. Around 2010 a new MMO a month came out trying to copy/paste the gameplay of the World of Warcraft. They all failed. Most people never want to see a copy paste MMO again. I personally miss them because it was a sign the genre was thriving even if a lot of them were turds.

[@andreabowmany6800]

The main theme of the game, "Lament of a Rusty Heart" will be forever stuck in my mind. An incredible theme that really capture the idea and concept of the game. Shame the game died like this...

[@ronn201]

Ohhh I can't wait! I was playing a pistol Natasha (didn't go into Shotgun or Sniper) and was stockpiling speed gems. Then one day, I put it all together and found out; a) Perfect World didn't cap speed b) Some techniques and their effects were dependent on speed So the bad tech where Natasha does a flip and shoots everywhere for horrible aoe, went from jumping over an enemy or two, into jumping from one end of a room to the other in an instant. Terrible, terrible damage, but too fast to get locked on lmao Speed meta ruled for a week, before PW clamped down and ruined my build hahah

[@ronn201]

Also, I was the guy in the forums where they held a fan art contest, and I submitted a flash animation. I lost, lol. Was salty about that, since it was clear that the community manager didn't look at all submissions. A CM ought to collate all the fan art into one place and then select a winner, but in hindsight, I guess a CM would care less about a dying game anyway.

[@ubermaster1]

Speed meta was the funniest shit everyone, seeing Natasha players move around like they just shot themselves up full of every drug on the planet was beautiful.

[@Anon_Spartan]

"Oh boy colonizing Mars I can't wait to go-" *Transport handled by Boeing* *Logistics handled by Perfect Worlds* "I think I'll stay."

[@Ellaliluleloka]

Fun fact: the Reborn patch broke the guild feature completely for 6 months 🙃 so whatever new players they got struggled to find community. Fun fact 2#: a few days before the servers shut down, the NA team mods said they couldnt wait to share exciting news with us. What were the exciting news? That the servers were shutting down. To this day i refuse to touch a PWE game because of the disrespect and shameful management. "Pump and dump" is 100% accurate.

[@DanielSan1776]

lol thats brutal >exciting news >server shutdown

[@RHRServer]

Yep, they disabled guilds as a band-aid fix to rollback issues. Although they have never publicly addressed this, the problem was basically that the Reborn content update changed the way guild warehouses worked. Basically, you needed a level 2 guild to unlock a warehouse, but many guilds were still at level 1 and had a warehouse already. Every time someone tried to access the warehouse the constructor for the itemlist of the warehouse is called with the size of the max item count, which in this case was 0 for lvl1 guilds. Then it tries to add these items to the list and of course it fails because the size is 0 and the server crashed. I even made a post on the forums about this telling them exactly how to fix it but I don't think they ever looked into it. The way this game works is that it tries to reduce load on the database, so it caches a lot of information from the player and only writes to the database when neccesary (like when a player logs out). If nothing is written to the database and the server crashes you will get rolled back.

[@RocKM001]

Yeah they literally shut everything down coz of the botched roll out and then went.. oh sorry guys we can't be arsed to fix this anymore even though we still have an active and paying player base! shutdown be permanent! KTHXBAI! PS don't forget to spend your unused premium credits at our other games you were never interested in! :D

[@ajke5421]

I vividly remember that time in my life, living in a basement making shit money - and I wanted the cardboard T.V. head for the werewolf guy so bad I went to a store to buy a prepaid card. Funny. What a kick in the nostalgia.

[@jamesklee]

RH was my introduction to the Korean style of "upgrade your gear, with a significant chance to blow it all up." I liked the combat enough to stick around for a few years, but honestly I wasn't surprised or too sad when it shut down.

[@quantumhawk806]

Was Maplestory for me

[@RocKM001]

That was RO for me =P RH however basically fed the itch left behind when Lunia died and the fact it died just as fast basically turned me off MMO's for a darn good while xD

[@InfiniteDrillWorks]

The main menu theme and the image of all the characters walking together along to it will forever be etched in my mind, so nostalgic

[@midwestbox]

This game will forever be known as Rusty Farts for me, both due to the classic Mega64 advertisement video and because when I used to play this with my 360 controller the vibrations from the game sounded like Farts through my mic 😂 good times.

[@Y0uTubeCommentPoster]

TBH I only clicked to see if you were going to throw another shit-fit in the comment section.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Thanks for the continued support

[@DtRSowfeeld]

I was wondering when you were going to do rusty hearts. I loooved this game and played all 3 years. So good.

[@ameliamohsin8430]

Nothing more sad than seeing RH achievements that you earn years ago appear when you set it on your Steam profile.

[@Chris31Kim]

I randomly encountered your video. I firstly like to thank you for making this video. This brings back memories. I spent a lot of my years as project manager to make this game work. And oh boy, we spent countless hours, trying our best to make the game better. I spent my 20's working with both developers and publishers, I cherish all of it. Working with team, was a blessing and after more than a decade later, video like this make me go back and think, what I could have done to turn it around. Thanks for making the video. Thanks again. P.S I was surprised and happy to see my old credencials in the video. :) I still have memorabilia of Rusty Hearts. The jackets, mouse pads, gift cards and so on.

[@AkasunSasori666]

I will never forget the time of my life where i was hopping between all the MMO games. Rusty Hearts was one of those games that i have always loved. It is in the same boat as Lunia. I loved and spent most my time playing them and seeing them pop up in videos, conversations, or even art, always makes me smile and feel the nostalgia. I never knew there was an active Private server and now i am going to look into it, try and capture some of that old throw back goodness. Thank you for an amazing video.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

I remember the game was fine until a few level cap expansions in. They started padding enemy HP and bosses would basically one shot you. The limited number of lives you had also reset daily instead of after a stage, which sucked.

[@RhythmSeal]

I remember this game fondly. So many nights were spent on my parent's laptop just hanging around the town and grinding different levels in the cafeteria and garden. I was a huge fan of the music and general easthetic then and I still am now. I still miss those days but at least the community server is still up.

[@Jvcdark09]

Aww man Rusty Hearts my beloved... I occasionally remember it and feel the urge to listen to the games OST again

[@JazzyCee]

GOD, I FREAKING LOVE THE GAME'S MAIN THEME!!! I regularly go back to listen to it. Glad you immediately put it at the start of the video. Great video!

[@capd3262]

Concord next. Quickest death since the day before.

[@mafiousbj]

One of those games that had no business being a MMO and would have been more than fine being a 10-20 hour single player game. Could have even become a cult classic because of the aesthetics. Too many interesting worlds and designs have been lost trying to become a long lasting MMO 😢

[@Mildriot]

One day this game entered my thoughts, "I want to play that again" to find out it shut down, just like Wizardry Online.

[@RedBelmont456]

This one in particular hit home for me... I really enjoyed playing this game back in the day, still have fond memories of it, even tho the end game grind was atrocious...

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

[@Sniperbear13]

i remember giving this one a shot back when i was just jumping around online Free to play games. i played a loooooot of free to play games, but i barely remember most of them. this is one that stuck out in my head though.

[@ouwle6618]

WOW! I had totally forgotten this game existed. I used to play this on my first computer, a laptop, that sounded like a jet plane taking of lol. I was very much into free to play games for many years. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!

[@mmmmmmm5015]

Can’t wait for death of a game Concorde

[@041able]

I remember when Rusty Hearts was distributed here in Brazil by Level up Games. Dont remember why i didnt gave it a shot, but i think it was because i thought that it would be too heavy for my lowspec machine.

[@jsullivan649]

This was one of those videos of a game I knew existed but started doubting myself when I couldn’t find it anymore haha

[@Pole961]

I used to play this game a lot, and it's the main reason why I love Mihoyo's Zenless Zone Zero so much

[@yuscilfer1429]

Can't wait for Concord

[@lucasbalog7440]

😂

[@edmonddantes759]

Concord flopping makes it even funnier cuz Sony's exclusive Hoyoverse game Zenless Zone Zero making an estimated $350 million in just 1 month of its release. That tells me that attractive characters sell.

[@TheNinjaCrash]

This unlocked a core memory. I remember when i got my first gaming PC, I was browsing Steam for the first time, and saw this. It looked intere, so I downloaded did the intro and never booted it up again….

[@tentakiller]

Oof, the thumbnail hit like a bombshell lol. This and Fusionfall were my absolute favourites back in the day, extremely sad they’re gone :(

[@SmolShippie]

No way, revolution actually worked? I remember giving them 10$ as the website was made hoping that something would spawn out of it and completely forgot. Good for them! Game preservation is important!

[@FearThePinkMist]

Thank you, iv been trying to remember this game's name for ages due its soundtrack.

[@Luminum]

OMG! I've been trying to remember what this game was called because I actually really liked the game but forgot what it was called! I'm always going down nostalgia lane with your videos.

[@Marinealver]

16:47 Oh we already have that, Boeing! I'm not self-unaliveing just for the record.

[@SkylentShoreqwert]

Holy, the nostalgia. There is a well of deep-cut free to play games that failed that I forgot about.

[@FinalDragoon]

Fun fact, I got into the closed beta for the English version and actually had to sign an NDA for it. That, and the game, has long since expired, but I will never forget the time I spent with Rusty Hearts

[@BeeWaifu]

Now this is a blast from the past. The game that forced you to do the same stage over and over again before going to the next and doing that even longer.

[@14megasxlr]

Man, this is a blast of nostalgia... I still have the OST for this game somewhere.

[@sagee4890]

Omg this unlocked a core memory, I remember playing several perfect world games

[@shinaikouka]

I recall Rusty Hearts being part of a Steam Holidays objective, and of course, I had to play it a bit to fulfill said objective. The one thing that I remember the most about playing it was the Canals theme. Didn't really play much after that point, but I still remember that theme!

[@derpin2879]

I can't wait for Concord.

[@daiakunin]

I forgot this game existed. I remember playing it, having fun with it, but I can't remember why I stopped playing it. Maybe it was the grind, or as you've pointed out it was lackluster compared to other games of its era.

[@xuxienxu5135]

this is one of the few games i really enjoyed way back then got surprised of being shutdown months later

[@ThatReplyGuy]

The music in Rusty Hearts is still really good to this day. I have a couple songs permanently on my playlist.

[@ddjsoyenby]

these are always fascinating.

[@woopvonwoop1133]

I MISS THIS GAME SO MUCH I really need to get around to the private servers when I get a new controller. I really miss those days where a lot of people were trying new things in the MMO space as to what could be an MMO. Devil May Cry combat was the *best* take on that.

[@kite36]

Beta tested this game before it released in the US, really had not thought about it for such a long time holy crap.

[@gigamett]

I do remember having almost maxed out the pink hair girl. At some point, i crafted a TV hat thing and was so goofy when i put it on her. I miss my TV girl so much.

[@BucklingSwashes]

Even though you got out in front of it, I still can't not call it Dusty Sharts, especially with starting characters like Pantz Pooper and Toot Macloud.

[@feywinterfox9630]

Oh man I remember and loved this game. Sadly I had to find out about it being gone the hard way. I played it when it came out and was able to play up to a year and a half and then my computer died and and I landed on hard times, almost 4 years later I finally get a new computer, get steam on it almost day one and I am confused to why I can't find this game as it was one of many I wanted to play again. Then I found out what happened.

[@justinsuministrado]

Next stop, Concord.

[@rpgs6218]

Play this a lot on my first year of college. Everyone at the student lounge used to play it too.

[@dutchielander2478]

Wooow i remember playing this back in the day. I also remember running the sewer and castle levels over and over and over. Fun, but grindy.

[@canariawing]

i played this game in middle school despite it not at all being my type of game. i don't really like beat-em-ups and i'm not a fan of mmos that have set characters to choose from, i vastly prefer having the freedom to design a character myself and just choose what weapon/class to use, but i actually really liked rusty hearts and had a lot of fun with it for the short amount of time i played it

[@Invie4196]

Oh hey, i remember this game just ending one day and was pretty sad

[@creampuffkuru9878]

Its handled by PWE can be pretty much the sole reason they killed alot of promising cool mmo's with crazy p2w tactics.

[@Empieye]

Oh man, seeing those two characters again was a blast to the past. I thought the concept was so good, but man, it’s sad it didn’t do well…

[@TheMinidow]

I distinctly remember playing this as the punchy dude with the gauntlet/claw, dressed as a teddy bear.

[@XepherIo]

oh my god I was just about to install the private server!!! I love this game so much when I was in high school :((( but no one played it in our school aside from me....

[@Eddman368]

Why do so many devs think lots of HP means more difficulty? It’s just more tedious and railroads people into using one or two viable builds, killing all game variety, like Helldivers.

[@Chuckyfight]

Some more of my childhood games for Death of Game: MicroVolts, Brawl Busters, Tales Runner

[@jimmyjazz7414]

The GW1 mention summoned me. I’ve still got that Detective Conan VHS around here somewhere, NS

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

I would love to have any DC or CC VHS'

[@zeratulvagos]

I got to beta test this game, in fact- i still cling to that installer for memories' worth of nostalgia. When the game fully released,it was somehow the same,yet it played completely different. I highly endorse trying out the private server, I played there a couple times,and just a week ago,i was considering going back again, boom, Nerdslayer video.

[@Hyzayn]

When you say that this only released for NA in the west, that is false. I am in EU and i used to play this game a lot on Steam

[@dukemagus]

On the US server?

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

on the US server?

[@Ellaliluleloka]

There was an EU server, NA had East and West server.

[@daneanderson7437]

Because you said “that’s it no more” at the start; all I heard was “it” for the rest of the video. I laughed the whole time.

[@sasaki8765]

Damn this game brought back memories. I started thinking about this, Dragonica, and Elsword....Hell even Lunia.

[@lens_hunter]

I got sucked into the game for a while because I was obsessed with Angela when I first saw her art. Didnt like the game much but I still think about her sometimes lol.

[@Xenkei]

I’m so glad this game was brought to your attention. This game was my favorite of the time until it got quiet

[@felipehonoriobs]

I remembered this game a couple months ago, that was so much fun, but ended up relegated to a "oh yeah, right! Thay game!" Game

[@JoshuaJacobs83]

Here before the DOAG World of War craft. Based on what I'm seeing surrounding the new expansion, I imagine it'll be coming soon

[@sarysa]

Around the 5:00 area, I've never heard RMT be called a black market before. Folks have been calling it the grey market since the 1990s, probably because it's not illegal in the West (in fact right to resale has court precedent, protecting players and middlemen from legal action), just against TOS.

[@springheeledjackofthegurdi2117]

The MMOGrinder did a couple of review videos on this game back when it was still relatively new, it looked cool but I couldn't play it in my region.

[@JaMaLBrandark]

Wow, I was looking for this game! I played this on steam but it was suddenly gone and I could never find it again, especially since I never remembered the name! I quite liked the game actually. I loved the artstyle and the gameplay was great too. The grindyness wasnt that bad for me, since I grew up playing games like Ragnarok and Silkroad. Maybe I will check out that private server, just for old times sake.

[@maradsyuuka]

I still remember finding an infinite jugling combo and killing a higher level guy in pvp because of it. Game wasn't that good but somehow I still remember it.

[@TheForever206]

Soooo, are we getting a Concord video or nah? 👀 😂

[@edgerunnerMO2]

The game title sounds like a dating website for old people

[@Penterror]

Rusty Hearts and DFO are both so good and underrated

[@whtiequillBj]

having "mixed roles" was very normal. e.g. Guild Wars by ArenaNet.

[@NoVeMoRe]

I still remember the consensus of the beta being pretty much everyone being rather surprised and positive and enjoying the game. its theme and OST with the main gripe being mostly just polish here or there but also being very much aware of bad publisher rep and the p2w writing on the wall. So many just ate their share of the game before/shortly after release and then noped the f*** out as it became clear that nothing would be improved in that aspect. OST is still great though.

[@lChronosl93]

This video reminded me of GhostX, another very short lived MMO that basically disappeared from the net. I don't know if it is worth a video but it was very interesting at the time.

[@tomoyuukinue2185]

the game lasted only a month in Indonesia and then its gone

[@deathbybiscuit]

This and GhostX are both games I just randomly remember and miss. They weren't great but I still really liked them. Actually might as well request GhostX for a future Death of a Game video.

[@SYMgenshin]

Ahhh, I ever played this for one week before Closers Online released in Indonesia 😂 The aesthetic of this game is cool though

[@smutooo]

I may have a small suggestion for a game I'm not sure in what stage it is but in past it was called Risk Your Life now it may be called Rise of Warrior It may be interesting to see where it end up

[@lonewolffang]

Never knew about this. I feel it looks like it would have been better as a four player multiple player, similar to Diablo or Dungeon Ziege instead of a P2W MMO.

[@digichu007]

This is another example that "mobile monetization" and "stamina systems" were on PC first on the Asian PC MMO gaming market, before mobile games took off a few years later.

[@Blazehoof]

I had fun with this when it came out, but I got bored with it when I didn't get to progress at a reasonable rate. And keep in mind, I played L2 unironically... :D It's funny that ZZZ now pulled off what RH tried and failed at...

[@Mito383]

Should say what you will about the game, but the intro theme was amazing. Also, if you ever want another idea for DoaG, there’s always Bang! Howdy. A game made by the developers of Spiral Knights.

[@sognar2240]

off top but it always bugged me - why final deduction supposed to be the best part? I just watched the whole video explaining the death of a game in details, why would I need a repeat of the same info? It's not like it's a "previously on" section in a series to remind you of a previous episode. Watched it once and been skipping since. Not to hate, honestly curious

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Most people are lazy detectives, don't want to solve a crime/find clues, and even then still struggle to put it all together. In final deductions, they are purposely training wheels, which is something most fans don't understand. The final deduction doesn't require YOU to solve the crime, it's basically me or the detective solving the crime for everyone who didn't already...make sense? :). I feel you though, because you probably pay attention...you probably solve the crime on the way, not at the final part.

[@zintosion]

I remember playing this game for a week. It was a good time.

[@meyers0781]

This felt like it could be meant as a paid-for instead of a freemium/free-to-play game but considering how many Koreans play on rental PCs (or as they call it "PC Bangs") especially during the era before PS4 (where thanks to PS4 and XBOX One adopting PC standard CPU the line between console and PC gaming were blurred), the developers made it a free-to-play game.

[@weertangel7231]

I did not expect to see a video about this game,especially not in 2024! Ah, Rusty Hearts, a great game both for its gameplay and its great soundtrack but brought out when the market was flooded by post WoW MMO's who all tried to become the next best thing. I just loved this game though i did't understand the PTW part of the game back then. I played it in EU via Steam and had a blast with it but was dissapointed when the game just disappeared one day. I had heard about the private server but since i don't know how to get on it i just gave up and decided to move on.

[@roky7772]

literally google rusty hearts revolution and go to the website, register and download the client, boom

[@Vaivai371]

Is that Dust 514 up next? Man, i am excited to hear about that one. I remember seeing the trailer at E3. The concept sounded so cool. It is a spin-off of EVE online but without the necessity to have a MBA to play, because you are the PMC troops that would fight during a planetary invasion, yet everything was connected to the EVE online servers. I never heard if it launched or if it left closed beta before it's sudden shutdown.

[@Smaxx]

It kind of launched, but I sadly never got into aiming with a controller (I'm a huge Battlefield fan, but mouse/keyboard only). Overall, you still had fitting very similar to regular Eve (just stuff named differently, obviously) and some items were limited or you had to buy blueprints with real money etc. I liked the settings, I liked the promise, but monetization felt bad and in the end it wasn't a big loss. On the plus side, I actually got a PS3 just for it and it also got me into trying Blurays over DVDs, so it was still a kind of win.

[@Dajova]

I remember this, had some good few months of playtime out of it. The customization part was undoubtable the worst part for me, but other than that, wasn't too bad.

[@nerdfreed9345]

I remember playing Rusty Hearts and thought it was so cool, came back after a month and it was gone. I was young when I found so that speaks volumes but I thought it was neat.

[@TheMrFishnDucks]

Fantastic video. It has been great to learn about this game because I had no idea it existed. It came out during a peak annoying weeb culture online and still failed is a indictment. Looking forward to the next video. Keep up the good work.

[@DarkArms17]

This is the first game in my steam account. Sad this game died early.

[@shamkraffl6050]

Loved the game. I didn't play it as much as Vindictus but i had my fun. It was one of the games i could actually run on my shitty laptop. But late game usually for me was: Play Leila twin swords and get kicked out of the group lol.