The Disastrous Downfall of Fer.al

Remember when "Nft" stood for "Not for trade"... Me too, me too..

The Animal Jam to Fer.al to Cinder pipeline really is just the embodiment of "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

I'm here from the "future" to let you all know that Cinder has been unceremoniously shut down in February 2023. It was not announced really, there are no big statements apparently but the servers are shut off and the whole team has apparently been let go. So much for that dream of big money, I guess.

The irony of a team that partnered with National geographic to make an online kids game to teach kids about animals getting in to NFTs cannot be understated.

hearing that a game shut down overnight (while its community imploded) and got replaced by an NFT-based knockoff was just the tip of the iceberg filled me with dread

The final day was awful. We were only given 3 hours and they had disabled text and voice chat so nobody could even say their goodbyes to each other in the game. They shut the severs down half an hour after the scheduled time and simply put a “sever has been updated” error. No goodbyes, no special party in the game, nothing. I jumped on the game and supported the game via the season pass and buying avatars and it hurts seeing how they pushed it to the side for an NFT reskin of the game with no compensation or warning of it shutting down. Thanks to wildworks, I now have little trust in any future social MMOs that pop up.

Not that wildworks guy saying turning the lights on in your house is the same as investing in a frivolous and ugly icon that produces massive amounts of carbon emissions 💀

This whole situation is literally so ironic because animal jam, their first neglected game was a game all about saving the environment but fast forward 2 years later... and Cinder pops up, a game about NFTs right after they neglect another game of theirs that had so much potential

Man, the graphics and the artstyle of the game are absolutely gorgeous, I feel so fucking bad for the artists that got shackled with shit management

NFTs take enough energy to power a small country to make one. The idea that someone who's against that must use no energy is fucking absurd. The epitome of "yet you participate in society"

Didn't realize fer.al had actually shut down until I saw this a month later. My dad and I always played together, as well as animal jam, and when I shared this with him (after keeping him updated on prior controversy), I am pleased to announce that on behalf of my father, Clark Stacey is now a professional "slimy jerkbag". (I'm pretty sure he would have said more choice words if my mom wasn't in the next room over)

I would’ve played the crap out of this. I’ve so desperately yearned for “high fantasy 3D neon dog game” since I was, like, ten, and this looks as close to what I want as could reasonably be hosted on a web browser. If I win the lottery, or get stupid rich somehow, I’m going to finance “high fantasy 3D neon dog game” so that the clearly popular niche can finally be filled with a proper long standing sparkleanimal RP-MMO.

At this point i really don't see how executives see every NFT proyect fall off (+ ratio) and decide they also want to make their own NFTs.

She's gone from throwing her phone at a wardrobe to getting sponsored by SwitchCraft and Genshin Impact. That's a glow up if I've ever seen one.

Here's an update: Cinder shut down on February 8, 2023. So they got their money and ran... like virtually all NFT scams.

Ex- Server Helper here. I believe that if they had listened to the amazing community feedback and ideas and actually communicated in the last year of the game, it could have been saved from failure and dare I say it might have become profitable. It certainly had potential; a big and active community, players willing to engage in the game, it just didn't have the substance to keep players engaged.

Currently experiencing the final hours of Fer.al. Despite chat being taken away, a group of players have all just kinda agreed to sit around the fire at the kobold camp in mugmyre swamp. It's oddly comforting. To those who couldn't make it whether it be schedule or bad device, I am sorry. Waddle on, guys, waddle on.

I was so heartbroken when the cinder site was found. The thing about "we've been building and testing the platform for Cinder for over two years already" was just the final straw really

I've never played a game that had such a creative character builder, the decal system and the ability to switch characters any time you liked were things I've never seen elsewhere and the things players did with them were phenomenal. You could see a TARDIS against a starry sky or a fox in full naval uniform or a cat that looked like a beautiful china plate. Never before have I taken screenshots of other people's avatars in a game to simply look at later and admire the craftsmanship. What a loss. :(

Cinder is a betrayal of what AJ and Fer.al stood for, it's very disappointing. They teach kids and teens how to protect the environment and then go on to create and support NFTs. Yikes! I played since Day 1 of Early Access, but because they shut down the game without much notice and on short time I didn't know it was closing until a friend told me a while after. So I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to the friends I made over the years. (If anyone from The Bone Council reads this, I hope you're well!) It always bothered me that we only got updates and info through Discord, it was chaotic and overwhelming so I had it on mute and most of the friends I made in game weren't on Discord anyway. I wonder if they even know what happened. I'm sad I couldn't say goodbye or keep in contact with them.