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Earlier this week, NCSoft announced that they would cease operation of Auto Assault on August 31st, 2007 and we then spoke to David Swofford about the announcement. Now, in an exclusive interview with NetDevil CEO Scott Brown we learn that the developer has no plans to purchase the game back from its publisher, which effectively spells an end to Auto Assault.

NetDevil has no plans to salvage their automobile MMORPG Auto Assault, according to CEO Scott Brown. Publisher NCSoft announced early this week that after an inglorious year and four months of commercial service they will close the doors on August 31st of this year.

"We talked about it and sort of left it where it is," Brown told WarCry in a phone interview late Thursday. "We just couldn't come to an agreement."

Read more after the click.

On September 1st, 2007 NCSoft will officially close the Auto Assault servers. The news hit the community hard today as this post-apocalyptic car MMO meets an end shared by games like Earth and Beyond. It's rare for an MMO to shut down, but unfortunately for fans of the game, NCSoft just didn't see it as good business sense.

"After a while it gets to the point where the return we're getting on what we're putting into it is just not matching up," NCSoft Director of Public Relations David Swofford told WarCry after the news hit. "We just didn't have that many people in the service."

According to Swofford, NCSoft owns the Auto Assault intellectual property. If that does not change before September 1st, there is no legal way that the game can continue on. However, hope may not be gone. A few years ago, NetDevil opted to run their niche space MMO Jumpgate themselves after it found only a moderate audience.

Swofford told us that no one at NCSoft will lose their jobs as a result of this move. He was unable to comment on what chances the game might have of being sold back to NetDevil and would only say that at this time they plan to close the game on September 1st and that is all.

NetDevil could not be reached for comment at the time of publish.

We continue this week our look into Auto Assault's early development days and go deep into the blue neon faction! We talk to the alpha-Human himself, former Lead Content Designer Chris "Homie" Holtorf, also known as Ombwah, who molded the treacherous Human faction with all it's shiny colors, idols and nukes!

WarCry: More than a year passed on Auto Assault, and it is still a unique game in the MMO playground. Can you tell us how you got involved in this project and what lured you to join the AA team?

Ombwah: Hey, no fair - more than one question there. =) Anyway, I guess it goes like this. My father, knowing I was into games, referred me to an MMO he had heard of from a friend of his at work. Turns out this guy had recently been working at NetDevil finishing up Jumpgate. I gave it a run, told Snipe (Adam Maxwell, Mutant Lead) about it, and the two of us got hooked pretty quickly. We soon had a lot of ideas for Jumpgate content, and talked about it often. See, we were of the opinion that the company handling content for ND at the time wasn't doing a great job. We wanted to do better things, so we put together a proposal for NetDevil that we do some content work for them, maybe starting with Jumpgate. So, imagine our surprise when ND got back to us, not to work on Jumpgate, nor on contract -- but to hire us on a new project. This new project was, of course, Auto Assault. It was an easy choice.

Read More for the full interview!

Following more than a year of Auto Assault, WarCry is taking a look back at the creative team who was behind the wheel of Auto Assault. And what's better than asking Lead Content Designer Adam "Snipehunter" Maxwell, who pioneered in Auto Assault taking upon the Mutant faction and it's complex story of persecution and survival:

WarCry: Auto Assault has survived more than a year in an online gaming scene that's brutal and unforgiving, which ironically fits the theme of the game itself. This unique project was born and raised in the hands of NetDevil in which you designed and developed the Mutant faction. Will you tell us about your involvement in this project and what lured you to join the AA team?

Snipehunter: I guess I'll start with what drew me to NetDevil and AA, since that really is the beginning. Another designer I worked with at the time (who we all know and love as Ombwah/Homie in the AA community) and I were avid Jumpgate fans, but we weren't incredibly happy with the amount of content the game had. Events were rare and often scheduled at times that my job made difficult to attend. Well, the two of us figured we could do content for Jumpgate, and we wrote up a pitch package selling our services as a content team to NetDevil. To our surprise, they got back to us, but not about JG, instead they wanted to talk about this new project of theirs... a post apocalyptic MMO featuring cars armed to the teeth. They said some other stuff, but I got a little woozy and had to check to see if this was a dream. It gets fuzzy after that, but I think I said, "You had me apocalyptic." One of my pet peeves about the MMO scene is how fantasy driven it is. I love me my sci-fi and my most favorite sub-genre of all is definitely Post Apocalyptic fiction, so when Scorch was telling us what he wanted to talk to us about, I knew that I was going to be involved, if they'd let me.

Read More for the full interview!

You know them as the people behind Jumpgate and Auto Assault, but soon enough, they'll be known for their next two projects: Warmonger and LEGO the MMO. NetDevil is hard at work on all four projects. In Warmonger, they explore the power of PhysX; in LEGO, well, we don't know, but it's LEGO!; Jumpgate is their classic space MMO, which is about to get a facelift; and Auto Assault is a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic MMO, for which we have Auto Assault WarCry. Our wide-ranging interview with NetDevil President Scott Brown, we learn about all four.

WarCry: Obviously, the PhysX helps you in LEGO. Talk to us about getting the LEGO IP and why you think it can become a solid addition to the MMO genre?

Scott Brown: There is absolutely no tie between PhysX and the LEGO MMO project at this point. There are so many possibilities with the LEGO IP in that just about any game can really be made out of LEGO and we are exploring lots of cool possibilities that we can not really go into at this point. It is such an amazing project for our team and working with LEGO has really been a dream relationship.

Read more after you click below.

Chris Sherland and Andrew Wagner took the time to answer some questions about Auto Assault from the staff of WarCry. These questions cover everything from the next update to the health of the project.

WarCry: Obviously, it's no secret that the sales and subscriber numbers for Auto Assault have not been altogether encouraging. Has any thought been given to scrapping the subscription model?

Andrew Wagner: NetDevil and NCSoft are committed to Auto Assault. Both teams take a lot of pride in keeping Auto Assault both fun to play, and relevant to the current market. As with any product we are continually assessing the game itself as well as its success in the market. There are currently no plans to change the existing model on Auto Assault.

You can read it all after the click.

Chris Sherland and Andrew Wagner took the time to answer some questions about Auto Assault from the staff of WarCry. These questions cover everything from the next update to the health of the project.

WarCry: Obviously, it's no secret that the sales and subscriber numbers for Auto Assault have not been altogether encouraging. Has any thought been given to scrapping the subscription model?

Andrew Wagner: NetDevil and NCSoft are committed to Auto Assault. Both teams take a lot of pride in keeping Auto Assault both fun to play, and relevant to the current market. As with any product we are continually assessing the game itself as well as its success in the market. There are currently no plans to change the existing model on Auto Assault.

You can read it all after the click.