Category: News

As It Turns Out: MMOs ARE Expensive


Project: World of Halocraft

This should be obvious by now, but it’s not just the world that is massive in an MMO, the budget is as well. Virtually every mainstream title (sans Runescape) has sucked up millions of dollars in the process of being developed. Not too long ago, it was revealed that Ensemble Studios was working on Project Titan, the fabled Halo MMO, that was canceled under unspecific circumstances. In a recent comment by ex-Ensemble programmer Dusty Monk, the title was canned because of its enormous budget: 90 million. The publisher (Microsoft) decided to pull the plug on the project due to the long distance the MMO still had to go before it was anywhere near completion, and the already high cost.

One only has to look at EA’s upcoming The Old Republic, as well as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online to see just how big budgets can get. So yes, Microsoft, MMOs are expensive, but did you really think that a Halo MMO would do that badly?

Stargate Worlds Unofficially Officially Defunct


Just like Yoko and the Beatles

If MMO Fallout was alive back in 2008, I would likely reference back to an article detailing the death of Star Trek Online in the hands of Perpetual Entertainment, and what ultimately lead to the falling out of the title, into the hands of Cryptic Entertainment. The most important part of this story is to note that both of Perpetual Entertainment’s titles are in the hands of completely different entities, with Star Trek Online being released this past February by Cryptic Studios and Gods and Heroes to be released by Heatwave Interactive at some unknown point. The point being is that, despite the company going under, there is still the possibility of the game being picked up and released.

I say “unofficially officially” because, if Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment had an employee left, and you were to ask him if Stargate Worlds is canceled, he would probably say no. There’s no one working on it, no funds to work on it, and the company sold off its assets, but we don’t want to paint a dismal look at the future. Will the game be coming out this year? No. Will CME be developing it? No. Is there any hope? Well, you could look at Star Trek Online’s over-hundred-thousand subscribers and make up your own mind.

At this juncture, Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is selling off all of their assets, which will include their license to Stargate Worlds, assuming this sale hasn’t already taken place. As was the case with Perpetual Entertainment, Cheyenne will likely last until the duration of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy is finished, and then dissolve into the abyss of nonfunctional developers. Since Cheyenne has already fulfilled my first set of engagements for Stargate Worlds, I have a new set of possibilities:

  1. Stargate Worlds goes the way of Star Trek Online and Gods & Heroes and is picked up by another studio (Cryptic Studios?), who either collect what Cheyenne had or start anew. It is likely that this studio will be Fresh Start Studios, which is a new developer made up of ex-Cheyenne employees. How well the game does is irrelevant at this point, as we are simply dealing with post-closure events.
  2. The title is not picked up by anyone, and sits in limbo forever.

If the part about Fresh Start Studios picking up Stargate Worlds doesn’t happen, expect option #2. At this juncture, I find it difficult to believe that many studios would pick up the Stargate IP for an MMO.

More on Stargate Worlds if it ever appears, but it seems as if this saga is finally coming to an end.

Dungeon Runners: What Happened


“Dungeon Runners just isn’t cutting the mustard. If she were a ship, she’d be taking on water. Yeah, she’s been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn’t profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!”
-Stephen Nichols, NCsoft, on Dungeon Runners.

Today marks the first day of a new year, as well as the death of two MMOs: Dungeon Runners and Metaplace. Dungeon Runners shut down earlier this morning following an event that saw a giant bomb explode in the game’s main city: Townston. Here at MMO Fallout, “What Happened” has to be my least favorite section as, despite popular opinion, I don’t get my jollies from watching companies fall.

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Shadowbane: What Happened


Out of all the titles that appear on What Happened, Shadowbane is the longest running. At six years, I would agree that although the game shut down, it was definitely a success in all manner of speaking. One of the top selling PC games at launch back in 2003, Shadowbane is still considered one of the best open pvp MMOs on the market. Offering fully open player vs player combat in a dynamic world where players can morph terrain, hire AI guards and have them patrol, as well as building and destroying buildings.

Shadowbane was not without bad times, however, and unfortunately when the bad times hit, they were very bad. The game transitioned to a free to play in 2006, where ads would be shown at different points in the game (open, close, and upon death). The game still suffered from a number of bugs and glitches, and in 2008 would be completely rebooted.

In 2008, Shadowbane went offline to perform a complete reboot in order to stabilize the servers and increase performance. As a result, all characters were deleted and all houses were destroyed. Only three of the five servers were brought back online.

Shadowbane was, from the start, a cult hit that never truly got off the ground, despite the rabid following of its fans. On one side, Shadowbane may be the only example of an internet petition actually accomplishing something. The original shut down date of May 2009 was extended to July due to player feedback.

Overall, Shadowbane was an interesting period in several ways: For instance, it showed how successful a game with Ultima Online’s mechanics can be, one that is parroted by Darkfall and Mortal Online. It gave ultimate freedom to the players, and did away with instancing, pre-set plots for housing, and other standards of MMOs.

There is the possibility that Shadowbane will be making a comeback, in the form of a non-MMO title. Ubisoft has recently trademarked the title for non-MMO purposes.

The Matrix Online: What Happened


I’ve been sitting on the “What Happened” articles for Shadowbane and The Matrix Online for some time now, although I can’t explain why I’ve been waiting to put them out. With the upcoming shutdown of Dungeon Runners and Metaplace, I might as well get caught up on my shutdowns.

The Matrix Online launched back in March 2005, and truly had a lot going for it. An ever changing world, MxO had one of the best story systems in the MMO industry: One that changed by the week. Story progression took the part of new missions every few weeks, while live events were the main staple of immersion; with developers taking the part of the game’s NPCs and acting out live events, including the assassination of Morpheus. Players were brought into the storyline through hints of the following events that would appear over the city, such as certain billboards, or suspicious agents appearing.

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Mechscape Cancelled, Stellar Dawn Coming 2010


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It always pains me to see an MMO fail before it is even launched. As is the case with Mechscape, Jagex’s upcoming Science Fiction MMO, a spiritual successor to Runescape, as CEO Mark Gerhard confirmed to Eurogamer today that the title is indeed canned.

In an interview with Mechscapeworld.com, Mark Gerhard had this to say:

“Sadly the game was not as complete as we wanted and we spent the first few months trying to “fix” the game where we could. About a month or so ago we took the decision to stop trying to “fix it” as we still wouldn’t have the game we wanted and the game certainly did not meet all the objectives and specifications established in the original game design document and therefore it would be better to go back to the founding principles and build the game we always wanted –Andrew [Gower] is now overseeing the project and working very closely with the team to build Stellar Dawn, not all was lost as we naturally have developed the game engine substantially over the last few years and the new designs benefits massively from this as well as a ton of experience within the team as to what works and what doesn’t. So whilst the content and a lot of the game play will change from what was previously built almost everything else will go straight back into Stellar Dawn.” – Mark Gerhard

With the death of one comes the rise of another. Innovations brought about by the production of Mechscape have gone towards the production of Stellar Dawn, a different yet somehow similar MMO to the little guy who never had a chance.

Hopefully Jagex has learned the same truth that Richard Garriot learned with Tabula Rasa: Just because you are an established name, does not guarantee all of your products will succeed.

On that note, it is good to see Jagex catching up to the rest of the mmo world in terms of features. The company just launched a name changing service, and is currently beta testing a feature to see a log of your character’s activity, including amount of time played (see WoW Armory)

Hunting Transgenders, the Chinese Way…


zombie-austin-powers
That's no baby, baby. -banned-

Imagine this, gentlemen: You’re walking through the streets, and at the corner you come across a beautiful woman, clad in nothing but a frilly bra and underwear. As she looks at you seductively, using the hottest /dance emote available, she says “4g 4 l4p d4nc3.” All of a sudden, you notice something about her is wrong. The chin, the hairy arms, the Adam’s Apple. IT’S A MAN, BABY!

If you’re a player who enjoys the occasional pixelated groping, or you work as a GM on Age of Conan, you’ll be glad to hear that, at least on King of the World that you won’t have to worry about that woman actually being a man behind the screen. Taking the phrase “pics or it didn’t happen” literally, and requires players to submit webcam pictures of themselves, otherwise male players playing as female avatars will be banned.

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Instanced Vs Persistent: The Guild Wars Debate


Ask someone if World of Warcraft is an MMO, and you’re bound to receive a raised eyebrow, and the kind of look you can generally only get when you ask how to download the internet on to your computer so you can go online. World of Warcraft is a persistent world, where players travel across miles of open terrain, fighting varied mobs, gaining levels, fighting other players, completing instances, etc. There is no doubt for many players that World of Warcraft is an MMO.

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SOE 2009 Address


Sony Online Entertainment did their Fan Faire Press release this year, and seeing as how they have the largest collection of MMO’s in the list, I just had to have a look at what is on the horizon for their titles, and for the company itself.

I’d like to note on Sony themselves. Despite what I may think about the rest of Sony, I give SOE a lot of credit for the dedication they have to their games. Unlike NCSoft that more closely resembles the guy sitting on his porch with a shotgun waiting for someone to slip up, SOE has a strong dedication to their products, and does everything in their power to make sure that the remaining population, as small as they may be, continue to enjoy what they enjoy, and supports their products long after any other company might consider them to be “dead”.

So I have a lot of respect for Sony Online Entertainment, even though at the same time I have a lot of contempt for the boneheaded mistakes they’ve made in the past, namely the NGE updates for Star Wars Galaxies, and implementing legal real world trading in the Everquest titles. They didn’t talk about many of their existing games at this conference, mainly Everquests and Free Realms, with some Star Wars Galaxies thrown in. So without further ado, here is Sony.

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Tabula Rasa: What Happened


Tabula Rasa was an MMORPG that blended role playing with 3rd person shooter tactics, in an open ended and dynamic war waged between the human and bane forces. The game focused on Logos, artifacts that players collect to enable certain powers. While the game focused on PvE play, the introduction of PvP content introduced war games, allowing various game modes to be played between warring clans.

Unlike most other MMO’s that feature a targeting system and auto-attacks with the addition of hotbar attacks, Tabula Rasa features a targeting system for only some weapons, combined with a third person shooter system, and rpg hit/miss and damage calculations. Tabula Rasa focused on the war aspect of the game, and both sides of the war would launch attacks on each other’s bases. It was completely possible to lose a base to the Bane forces, meaning that access to the NPC’s, vendors, spawn points, teleport locations, and anything else located in the base would become inaccessible until the area was retaken.

So where did Tabula Rasa fail? The easiest way to answer that is unfulfilled promises. The game launched with very little, if any, end-game content, and the developers took so long to introduce any inkling of end-game content that many of the players who had reached the level cap had quit long beforehand. Certain promises of player-driven mechs, pvp wargames, and more, weren’t fulfilled until literally a month before the game shut down. Richard Garriot also left the company a few weeks before the announcement of shutdown.

Inevitably, player count went down sharply, resulting in the game getting the axe for subpar subscriber numbers.

OR WAS IT?

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