Not With a Bang but a Whimper

[Evil Avatar]

Not With a Bang but a Whimper (http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,69848,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2) is a Wired.com article talking about the upcoming closure of Turbine's MMORPG, Asheron's Call 2.

"Anybody out there?" I type, but I already know it's pointless. There's nobody anywhere near me. For almost an hour, I've been wandering around a desolate plain: Gray clouds scud slowly over rough quartz mountains, while a few birds wheel in the air near mushroom-shaped trees. I never see another living soul. It feels like the end of the world.

And in fact, it is. I'm inside Asheron's Call 2, an online game that is scheduled to die in two weeks. It never acquired enough players to make it self-sufficient, so the game's owner -- Turbine -- is going to do something that only happens rarely in the world of online play: On Dec. 30, it'll flip the power off on the remaining servers, and an entire world will blink out of existence.Thanks, Shacknews (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/39997).

[Netami]

Eschatology has never been so eerie.

[saneman]

I play WoW. I'm not likely to see this situation happen to me any time soon.

But it's still somewhat disconcerting to think that this game I enjoy quite a lot, I likely will not even be able to play in 10 years. Sure, there'll be something else around then, maybe WoW3, with 200 possible races, but strangely everyone is a Night Elf or Pandaren. But still, Super Mario World continues to be my favourite game ever, and that's never far from my grasp (be it on Gameoy or Xbox-via-emulator).

Ah well.

I suppose this is a time to call for the opening of the code, so that the few dedicated fans can continue it. Or not. heh

[Evil Avatar]

But it's still somewhat disconcerting to think that this game I enjoy quite a lot, I likely will not even be able to play in 10 years. Sure, there'll be something else around then, maybe WoW3, with 200 possible races, but strangely everyone is a Night Elf or Pandaren. But still, Super Mario World continues to be my favourite game ever, and that's never far from my grasp (be it on Gameoy or Xbox-via-emulator).

I feel that way about EverQuest. There are so many places I never explored that I would hate to see them close the game, but the interface is so cocked up from when I started playing (back in the Voodoo 2 SLI days) that I can't stand playing any more. I don't have any problems with the game graphics, but the interface is just horrific.

It would be a shame to see them just close it and not offer it as some kind of single player game or fan-hosted servers.

[Kefkataran]

But it's still somewhat disconcerting to think that this game I enjoy quite a lot, I likely will not even be able to play in 10 years. Sure, there'll be something else around then, maybe WoW3, with 200 possible races, but strangely everyone is a Night Elf or Pandaren. But still, Super Mario World continues to be my favourite game ever, and that's never far from my grasp (be it on Gameoy or Xbox-via-emulator).


I feel that way about EverQuest. There are so many places I never explored that I would hate to see them close the game, but the interface is so cocked up from when I started playing (back in the Voodoo 2 SLI days) that I can't stand playing any more. I don't have any problems with the game graphics, but the interface is just horrific.

There already are free and legal fan-hosted EQ servers, and by the time WoW gets to a point where it will close, there will probably be for it as well. (Of course right now all WoW fan-servers are illegal, but it seems unlikely that that would not change once Bliz can no longer make money from the game).

I actually just got involved on a free EQ server that will hopefully be worthwhile, even though I also can't stand the EQ interface.

[saneman]

I've never used them before. Do they offer an experience at all comparable to the real thing as far as content (quests, etc) go?

[Heretic Machine]

But it's still somewhat disconcerting to think that this game I enjoy quite a lot, I likely will not even be able to play in 10 years. Sure, there'll be something else around then, maybe WoW3, with 200 possible races, but strangely everyone is a Night Elf or Pandaren. But still, Super Mario World continues to be my favourite game ever, and that's never far from my grasp (be it on Gameoy or Xbox-via-emulator).


You should realize that Ultima Online is still running, and just recently got a new expansion. It's coming up on 10 years now. The reason AC2 is shutting down is that it sucked, it alway sucked, and they were never able to deliver on the basic premises of the game (rebuilding the world). It's a shame because the first AC was quite good for the longest time. EQ and WoW will likely be around twenty years from now, though by that time they may of been mutilated beyond all recognition (like UO).

As well, there are MUCKs and MUDs that have been around for a LONG time.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm fairly certain that player servers aren't illegal, but they are definetly against the EULA.

[51|RandoM]

I really liked ac2... for about 3 weeks. Then I realized the completely absurd character imbalance, coupled with a non-existant endgame, and I had to pass.

[rein]

I never liked either of the two AC games. I beta tested both and they never stuck with me. Kind of like D&D Online... ..oh wait.. I can't talk about that. It is not that they are bad games. It's just that they did not grab me the way EQ did (in its original form) and the way WoW did.

I played around on some of the free EQ servers about a year ago. As might be expected, a few were fun and some sucked ass. The only way I will go back to any of them or the original EQ is to go all the way back to the beginning. I can't believe how much they bastardized that game with expansion after expansion. I keep getting "free months" for all of the EQs and just can't bring myself to log back in. I even got one today for the PS2 EQ Online adventures. It is the only one that has me intrigued enough to where I might log back in.

I have often thought about Mythics Dark Age of Camelot. I played it for several months and liked it for the frontiers but lost interest once they started making the changes. It seems that WoW is kind of screwing around with some classes a lot too. I understand little adjustments but when you start making a class not function the way originally advertised then it becomes a problem. I think once I finish the on again off again relationship I have with WoW I will probably be done with MMoRPGS for a while. At least until something comes a long with a fresh approach... ..and one that really delivers on the casual promise. I can give an hour or two a day but I will be damned if I can spend six hours trying to raid a dungeon in hopes that I beat 20 other people out of an item that might drop once every 10 trips through the dungeon.

[mightbe]

(back in the Voodoo 2 SLI days)

Heh, I beta'd and played EQ on Voodoo 2 SLI as well! That was such a great platform. It totally devoured Homeworld as well.

*sigh* Those were the good old days.

And I hated EQ.

[Deadend]

I want a MMO kind of like the old CoH, where everyone was over-powered by the end-game and carving your way though several dozen enemies at a time was the order of the day.

[mightbe]

I want a MMO kind of like the old CoH, where everyone was over-powered by the end-game and carving your way though several dozen enemies at a time was the order of the day.

Yeah, current CoH is a disappointment on so many levels.

The client has become buggy AND picky as to which platforms it wants to run well on.

The last handful of patches have shifted the overall focus of gameplay on making your opponents tougher.

It doesn't even seem like fun anymore.

[Borys]

That's a sad article.

[MaiXu]

I said this elsewhere, but I'll say it again: reading this article reminded me of the fatalism in Zelda: Majora's Mask. It was really cool to find out (if you went for all the masks) what each character was doing toward the end of the third day, and it sometimes got pretty dark. Yeah they were all NPCs, but still, there was a lot of cool things to say right before the world ended. I can only imagine what real people are doing at the close of this virtual world ... especially the role players!

[Heretic Machine]

I want a MMO kind of like the old CoH, where everyone was over-powered by the end-game and carving your way though several dozen enemies at a time was the order of the day.

Yup... CoH has gone down the crapper. It's a shame too, because when it first started out it was the epitome of awesome. If it were still in that form today, I'd likely be playing it rather than WoW.

[bapenguin]

AC2 was my first expierence with an MMORPG....it was a lot of fun for a while. They had some cool in game events. But...like I mentioned in another post on here....pay to play MMORPGs just suck the life out of my other gaming so I gave it up. Sad to see it go.

I still have the box and stuff....maybe I should EBay it. :)

[Spigot]

I absolutely LOVED AC1. I played it for about 3 years until I just couldn't stand the angry stares of my wife when I'd rush home from family events to do stuff ingame.

I remember running out and buying AC2 shortly after it shipped and while I didn't mind what little I played, either my system, their servers or something betwixt the two was majorly borked and I would drop into unplayable lag whenever I had ONE, let alone several, other players within sight of my character. So here I sit with a copy of a game that I'll never really play and as of Jan. 1, I'll never get the opportunity to try out on a whim.

But between WoW, the 18 console games I'm currently working on and *shudder* EVE Online, I won't mourn the demise of AC2. It's interesting to see that the first game is still trundling along. I think a lot of my old guildies are still playing it. Crazy stuff.

[Kefkataran]

I still have the box and stuff....maybe I should EBay it.

Heh. Supposedly some guy with a maxed out char sold his on Ebay for $800 a couple weeks ago. :p

[Kyle Jones]

I'm more afraid of what they've done with Star Wars Galaxies than I'd ever be afraid of a game closing years down the road. If it closes, I just find something else to play, but if they totally ruin every single thing I love about the game in order to appeal to a different audience, that is when I start feeling betrayed...

[amusedtoe]

The one thing I'd like to see when something like this happens is maybe 6 months after it happens make the server side stuff available so people can run their own servers. Maybe charge 'em a couple hundred or something for a year of use, make the client free, and maybe even have a little tactful advertising in there if that lets you do it. That way though the game doesn't die. One day EQ, UO, all the forebearers of the genre are going to shut down and it's gone for ever. There's no go reinstall it and be able to experience it again, or hunt down a copy on ebay because you had heard such good things about it but never got to experience it. Not to mention what was horrible to mediocre when it costs money suddenly becomes somewhat decent when it's free.

[A Lusty Alien]

I'm playing CoH with the Wednesday Night in Norrath crowd. It was getting too hard to fill out the party on Wednesday Nights.

But I've been logging into EQ on the weekends while it's still pretty early in the day and have been able to find some pretty decent pick-up groups. They've modded the UI on EQ so it's more like EQ2, which I do not understand at all. And they've changed some zones that were just fine the way they were. Praecantor, my Dark Elf Enchanter is pretty upset with what they did to Nektulos Forest; it's only a third of it's original size.

Oh well, Cue Sarah Sarah...

(Twits!)