Rumors suck, no question about it, especially when you’re in a system where verifiability is absolutely naught. IRC logs can be forged, pictures can be photoshopped, and ex-employees always have a bone to pick with their employers. For this reason, I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t even humor unsubstantiated claims. If I did, you’d be seeing a lot more articles on how this company or that company is going bankrupt, and Warhammer would have shut down at least thirty times since last year.
There’s an odd sense of gratification that people, some of them journalists, get when a company does badly or (god forbid) goes under. Even when The Matrix Online shut down last year, after four years and countless updates and events, people still called the game a massive failure. There are people who not only believe that behemoths like Sony Online Entertainment or NCsoft will go bankrupt because of an update they didn’t like, they regularly reinforce that they hope it happens. From jaded Star Wars Galaxies fans, to people who were dissatisfied with Mortal Online, to World of Warcraft haters, and everyone in between. You name any MMO on the market, and odds are someone is expressing their volatile rage through claims that the game is shutting down, and the company is going bankrupt.
Of course, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and eventually one of these trolls will become a prophet. Warhammer Online is still online two years after launch, although when the game does one day shut down someone will be there to say “See? I told you it’d shut down but no one believed me,” and even more to stand there and talk about how Mythic deserved it for one reason or another. Forget the fact that the doomsayers have been calling death for years, yet always being wrong, the one time they happen to be right and suddenly their insider information is legit.
Over at the Mortal Online troll community (located on the Mortal Online section of the mmorpg.com forums), the tribesmen have been worshiping a supposedly leaked IRC log where a Star Vault employee claims that Mortal Online will shut down next month, likely leapfrogging the latest troll fodder that Star Vault is in the red, money-wise. If the rumor is true, however, it won’t spell the complete death of Mortal Online, as according to the text log the game will be rebuilt ala All Points Bulletin and rereleased, possibly under a new engine.
But this isn’t about whether Mortal Online will be with us in January, because even if Star Vault were to say tomorrow that they were shutting down, it wouldn’t make this report any more credible. Something leaks every other month on Mortal Online shutting down, and to give credit to this one because happened to hit the mark would just offer validation to those who should not be validated.
So those of you currently playing Mortal Online and enjoying it, keep doing what you do. To those of you looking to buy the game, wait a month if it makes you feel better. I don’t pretend to be an expert prophet on which MMOs are going to live or die, but as to the claims that Mortal Online will shut down next month: I’m going to say no.
MMO Fallout 