Hmm I played this game in the trial, excellent game but it lacked in some vital areas which stopped me from playing. Its a shame to see this game go though I do think that all possibilities have not been explored.
For example, considering the number of servers devoted to AC, can not 1 be devoted to AC2?
And just to fill in the gap for subscribers, AC2 have 10k subscribers according to mmog.com, and peaked at 60k when it first came out. (Which when it was most problematic and got most of its bad press.)

Also a quick comment about the expansion, I was thinking of joining again then, I looked at the expansion details and it was all pretty much based at the already subscribers. I personally think that if you wanted the expansion to appeal new players you don't make most of a new expansion content for the older players.
Instead, they should do what SoE do release something enticing in the expansion for new players. For example a new race, a new class, a new starting area, ac2 was rubbish in its replayability.

I played AC1 for over 4 years and loved it.  I got into the AC2 beta about a month before release.  The first week of AC2 was fun, but by the end of the second week I'd lost interest in it and was very disappointed.  AC2 was all window dressing and very little substance. 

They'd made some great improvements to the UI, but they'd oversimplified the game play so that there was no depth and people could max out their char. in less than a month.  There were also major flaws in the PvP design.  They got lots of feedback in beta about what needed to be changed, but they were too head-strong to listen.

I checked back about a year later to see if it had been fixed, but while they'd improved crafting, the game still had the same flaws.  It was no suprise when the game started imploding (reducing servers) and the final shutdown was just a question how how much red ink it would take before they admitted failure.

I played AC2 for over a year throught the server consolidation and then left as my favorite classes got nerfed and nerfed and nerfed again. The community was the thing that made me stay that long. Turbine seemed to miss the point that the customers satisfaction is the key to success. All their "balancing and upgrading" did was aggrivate people.

But still I had a fond enough memory of my time in Dereth that when Legions came out I decided to give it another try. Shame on me for giving Turbine another chance. After plunking my hard earned dollars on their expansion they announce the shut down. They really should refund everyone who purchased Legions. It was a total snow job.

I will be suprised if Turbine actually manages to survive the next round of developer shakeout as they seem to have no idea how to treat their customers.

Wow,

This news is not going to look to good to anyone in the MMorpg community. I was really looking forward to both of their new projects, but the fact that they can't make a sequel to a popular game and carry it further than the older version does not speak well of Turbine at all. I think from reading posts and doing a bit of research that this company is not at all interested in what their community wants and really pays attention to profit margins.

Consider me out of D&D and LOTR. Two games that I was really looking forward to.

This doesnt surprise me. What does is how long the game stayed online.

I beta tested AC2, and while the graphic engine was a very good one, the game system was ouddated like hell.

Companies need to remmeber that, more important than eye candy, the game system has to be good and hook the player. Several pshycologist goals need to be achieved for a player to fell statisfaction playing the game and be addicted to hit. The Hunter, The Collector, The Explorer, The Random Reinforce, The Social.. theese the basic things a good game needs to provide to a player to make him/her feel a sense of accomplishment that will bring him/her back and back to the game.

AC2 lacked a lot of theese, at the beta and after its launch, and thus the game was crippled right from start. Plus put that together with a money exploit company like Turbine with a bad customer service and you get a good recipe.

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MMORPG.com: What was the logic of releasing a new expansion pack, then promptly ending the game? Are you worried about a backlash from those who spent money on an upgrade that will soon be of no value?
Jonathan Hanna: The expansion pack was meant as an attempt to bring more people in the game by getting AC2 back on store shelves. We advertised the game on the web and in magazines too. Unfortunately the expansion pack didn’t really grow the game. 

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This is as lamme as a company can go. They sold the expansion already knowing they would be closing the game soon.. just to get some last few coins before closing it. Thats Turbines style...

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MMORPG.com: How many active subscribers did the game carry at the time of the announcement?
Jonathan Hanna: I can’t give out exact subscriber numbers.

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This is hilarious. Typical Turbine style again..

The problem is that this BS will go on and on on upcoming market games like Dungeons and Dragons Online. they gonna ruin it.. they already doing it and the game hasnt been launched yet.

Why didnt Wizards of the Coast picked another company to take license of DDO...

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Originally posted by Paldarion

AC2 was a fun game out of the box.  Almost immediately, Turbies started waving the dreaded "tweaking" bat and nerfed their player base into non-existance.  From this exerpt of Q&A, I can easily tell that they STILL don't get it!

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I agree this interveiw shows no responsibilty for the lack of success of A2. It leaves me very little in the way of a positive expectation for D&D or middle earth.

These game companies just don't get it. They don't understand the potential of the mmog industry or how to reach that potential. They still work on the model that people WILL play their game not realising that there is to much compitetion and available information for them to practice unprofessionalbusiness ethics/relations. These companies are creating reputations and for most of them those reputations aren't good.

As a long time fan and player of AC1 i found that AC2 lacked a tremendous amount of things that made AC1 so fun and interesting.  It used some of the AC1 lore and some creature names and designs but overall it just didn't feel like AC at all.  It tried to ride the wave of pvp centric games and didn't make a very good hybrid imo.

All the AC1 players got a beta invite and most tried it out and what seemed at the time and still now that most of them didn't like it at all.  If they wanted to make a PvP game then they should have thought up a new design completely and did it right. But they should just leave AC as what made it so great in the first place, a very unique adventure rpg.

I don't know if there is ever going to be an AC3 in the works considering their new games.  I'm sure DDO will have tons of resources  to be used for it and its development.  But if they do decide to work on AC3, then they should keep in mind what makes AC1 so great and keep to that as well as consider what makes those Gen 1 games so great.  Then just simply update and make the code more efficient with built in code to help resist against macros and cheat programs.  But the main thing they should concentrate on is the game's content and gameplay instead of features. 

Think of past major franchise games and why they are so popular, i.e. Civilization, Total War, Unreal Tournament, D&D, NWN, Elder Scrolls Series... Once you find that right setup of features to make the game addicting don't change that formulae just update content and overall gameplay and you will stay golden for a long while :)

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Originally posted by Ashenkhar

C) They won't release the server for other people to host their own games. Why NOT? They have proven again that they could care less about their fans. Who is it going to hurt? It's not going to compete with legitimate servers, because they are turning those off. They just figure since they couldn't do it, they don't want anyone else to either.

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It could hurt Turbine as a company if they were to release the server code. There's going to be a lot of proprietary information about building an MMO that's going to be contained in that source. Future competitors would be able to skip part of the learning curve when they attempt to build their own game. Turbine likely spent millions of dollars learning to solve certain problems. Why give someone the solution for free?

Not saying that it's a good thing (or even true in all cases), but it's the mindset that most companies have about their products.

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Originally posted by EduardoASG

MMORPG.com: What was the logic of releasing a new expansion pack, then promptly ending the game? Are you worried about a backlash from those who spent money on an upgrade that will soon be of no value? Jonathan Hanna: The expansion pack was meant as an attempt to bring more people in the game by getting AC2 back on store shelves. We advertised the game on the web and in magazines too. Unfortunately the expansion pack didn’t really grow the game.
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This is as lamme as a company can go. They sold the expansion already knowing they would be closing the game soon.. just to get some last few coins before closing it. Thats Turbines style...

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The game has to have been bleeding money for a while now, they really had to look at closing it.

Not giving something back to the people who bought an expansion for a doomed game is a mistake, though.

The following is my personal opinion only.

One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.

That AC2 was a sequel had little - if anything - to do with its inability to attract players. There are a host of reasons it did not succeed, many of which have be touched on in this thread

The game was kicked out the door too soon, it was being continually rebalanced underneath the players, the combat design was uninspired, it was too easy to reach the "end" of the game, the critical early period of community development was destroyed by the inability to get the chat servers working, the console game style segregation of high level and low level players to specific continents further sabotaged community building, it took too long to get fresh content into the game, and the world felt "soulless."

I don't deny the AC1 players who expected "AC1+" negatively affected perception. It should have been possible to move beyond that and gain a fresh audience. AC1 was a hardcore Explorer game. AC2 was a lightweight Achiever game. The initial attempts to sell AC2 to the AC1 playerbase were doomed to fail.

Nevertheless, all of these design and operations issues I listed above would all remain true even if AC2 had been a fresh IP. No; AC2 failed not because AC1 fans rejected it, but because it couldn't create AC2 fans.

If this "sequels are counterproductive" is truly the best lesson Turbine has extracted from AC2, then it saddens me to say AC2 was ultimately an entirely fruitless endeavor. Not only did few enjoy the game, Turbine learned nothing from its failure.

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Originally posted by stormwaltz
The following is my personal opinion only.

One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.
That AC2 was a sequel had little - if anything - to do with its inability to attract players. There are a host of reasons it did not succeed, many of which have be touched on in this thread
The game was kicked out the door too soon, it was being continually rebalanced underneath the players, the combat design was uninspired, it was too easy to reach the "end" of the game, the critical early period of community development was destroyed by the inability to get the chat servers working, the console game style segregation of high level and low level players to specific continents further sabotaged community building, it took too long to get fresh content into the game, and the world felt "soulless."
I don't deny the AC1 players who expected "AC1+" negatively affected perception. It should have been possible to move beyond that and gain a fresh audience. AC1 was a hardcore Explorer game. AC2 was a lightweight Achiever game. The initial attempts to sell AC2 to the AC1 playerbase were doomed to fail.
Nevertheless, all of these design and operations issues I listed above would all remain true even if AC2 had been a fresh IP. No; AC2 failed not because AC1 fans rejected it, but because it couldn't create AC2 fans.
If this "sequels are counterproductive" is truly the best lesson Turbine has extracted from AC2, then it saddens me to say AC2 was ultimately an entirely fruitless endeavor. Not only did few enjoy the game, Turbine learned nothing from its failure.

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A agree. If that was really their "take home lesson" from it all, I don't have very high hopes for the products Turbine is currently developing. Time will tell.

Yup as usual the Devs will never admit they are the problem..

Its like "hey dont blame us, we just created, managed and ran the game, what the hell makes you think its our fault"

One of these days someone is going to listen to players and give us the game we want, rather than assuming they know whats best for us and then arguing they failed for "many reasons"

AC2 was "ok" thats all just "ok" and in a highly competetive environment "ok" isnt going to cut it anymore....

Next!......

I have played AC2 from European Beta to September (August?) 2004. It was a heck of afun game, although it was my first MMORPG. I now know that AC1 has better lore and all that, but still, the Dereth of AC2 had a certain something *snaps his fingers* that I find lacking in other games. It has nothing to do with game mechanics, hero levels, skill systems. It's a feeling, the atmosphere.

I miss that in WoW, I miss that in EQ2, I miss that in Horizons, I miss that in every other MMORPG I've tried the past few years. Perhaps it's because AC2 was my first MMORPG, but still. Oh, and an other thing I really miss is playing my sage and hivekeeper. Those two characters (along with the healer) made it possible for me to enjoy the game for so many months.

Funny thing is I downloaded the trial version a few days before the announcement of the shutdown was made. Was ready to give it another go.

Ah well, AC2, I'll miss you.

I would have been suprised if Blizzard put AC2 in the public domain.  First of all, it would be giving up a great deal of their intelectual property.  It would be beneficial to thier compeditors and to them little good.  Next, the game is too big to run on some player's PC, so it would take at least a small company to operate and maintain it.  Finally, if Blizzard was loosing money maintaining it, who could afford to run it?  Even with just one low population world, it would take over a thousand a month to operate and that's without anyone to provide player support.  My guess is that it would take an investment of over $100K just to get a minimal world up and running.

Some players don't realize that these big MMOs are not like the old MUDs that you could just stick on a spare system in the back room.  They take a lot of expensive equipment to run and technical people to keep them running.

" the combat design was uninspired,"

Not meant as a flame but thats the worst argument you could come up with. Uninspired!, AC2 is quoted as having the best combat system in all games, it was the rest of the game that let it down.