I am deeply saddened by the news that EchoVR will be closing its doors on 1st August 2023. The Echo community is huge, established and it will be a great loss to many of us should the game disappear entirely. This is why I write to you today, to show that there is still demand for the game and I hope that you will reconsider your approach to close down the servers for Echo VR on the due date.
We do not need much, or for the game to continue to be developed, simply the request to keep the servers open so that we can continue to enjoy and play this game with the friends we have made and the teams we have formed over the years since the game was released.
If it is a matter of cost, I am willing to offer, along with many others, monetary contribution to upkeep the servers. A small subscription fee each month should be enough to keep your servers open and I hope you will read and consider this proposal.
The community is huge, still growing, and it would be a shame to cut its potential short. There are community members holding tournaments, finding funding for LAN events and all this hard work will be lost the moment you shut down the servers for this game. Some of us play it daily, for exercise, with friends and for mental health and all this will also be lost.
There is no good reason to cut the life of the game short just because you are putting resources into another game. I am not asking much of you, simply to honour the community that has dedicated so much of their time, energy and sweat into what I believe to be one of the best e-sports in the VR world today.
I hope this message finds the relevant people with power to overturn the decision in August.
I would like to stress the importance of Echo VR to our community and I sincerely hope that you / Meta, reconsiders the decision to shut down the servers on the 1st August 2023.
Wow what a price cut. This thing must be a total flop. Makes sense as I have been waiting for updates and promised apps at launch that are nowhere to be seen. Really wish I would have returned the device and saved $400 just waiting for a price cut like this
I want to express my dissatisfaction with Meta's recent decision to cut the Meta Quest Pro's price by 25% just days outside of the return window for early adopters/day one customers. I believe this decision is unfair to us, and I am not alone in this belief.
As a day one customer and early adopter, I feel let down by the decision to reduce the price of the Meta Quest Pro so soon after its release. I made an investment in the product based on the belief that I was purchasing a premium product at a fair price, but now just a few days outside the holiday return window, the same product is available at a significantly reduced price. This sends a message that early adopters are not valued, and that our investment in the product was not appreciated.
I understand that price adjustments are a common practice in the tech industry, but it is unacceptable for Meta to make this change just outside of the return window for early adopters.
I believe that Meta needs to stand by their early adopters and show that they value the trust and investment that we have made in the product. Failure to do so will likely result in a loss of future business from early adopters, as well as negative word-of-mouth recommendations.
As someone who has been with Oculus since they released the Dev Kit 2, I feel very burned by this and have no intent to purchase any additional Meta Quest content or products unless this is resolved.
If it was just Ready At Dawn, I could understand that they might not be able to afford keeping servers going. But they are owned by Meta. Then again, Meta did just fire a huge number of people, so this could just be another cost cutting measure.
Yeah. That’s true, but make the games and lobbies community moderated much like the lobby community mods that already are a thing. Make it an age requirement and such, and keep the game community run. If it’s a cost concern, make the game pay to play it. Like 10-20 bucks to get access to the game like any other paid title. Killing off one of their most popular games isn’t a very smart business decision.
Also, Echo Combat was not free - originally costed $10. This means Meta is destroying a product which customers have paid for and many still love to play:
Echo Combat is a high-quality PCVR multiplayer experience - there are very few such games, and nothing to replace it.
"Echo Combat was built specifically for the Rift using PC spec and PC engine specific features as our guidelines for building maps and systems. Moving this game mode over to Quest / Quest 2 would not be possible without major changes to the game itself. Therefore, we want to reiterate that we will not be bringing Echo Combat to Meta Quest. Combat is still available for play on Quest via Link and Air Link (beta) for our users who wish to use that option." Source: medium.com/echo-games-blog/echo-combat-lone-echo-ii-developer-log-july-15-2022-17b3c15b12a8
There's simply no way Meta can make a better and more high-quality VR experience if the new content is based on the power of a cheap phone gpu. Echo VR/Combat was a core product for Oculus, it does feel like the killing of a sacred animal...
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
