The Four Shortest Lived MMOs, Page Two
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood takes another trip down memory lane this week, counting down four shortest lived MMORPGs.
#2 Fury
Launched: October 16th, 2007
Canceled: August 5th, 2008
What do you get when you take an MMORPG and strip it down to its barest, most savage man vs. man elements? You get Fury, a game from the Australian developers Auran. The game itself, which prompted players to “Unleash the Fury,” took the concept of a PvP centric MMORPG to the extreme. It removed or minimized those pesky RPG conventions like story, setting, quests, socialization, a rich game world and amped up the only part that the developers thought players cared about: combat, advancement, competition and loot.
;)
Auran hoped to get the word out that Fury was a competitive MMO, almost a sport. The developers even held contests in the game’s beta phase and just after launch that let players compete for real-world prizes. It’s a tactic that hasn’t worked with MMOs in the past (see: Risk Your Life Million Dollar Tournament) and it didn’t work here. After the game’s launch, players complained about the steep learning curve and that veteran players were just too much better for newbies to get involved. As with any game, the developers worked to fix the fan complaints, but there were just too many. After a mere 294 days of operation, Fury’s developers threw in the towel and the game took up the mantle of second fastest MMO Cancellation in history.
What Happened
It isn’t fair to hold up Fury as an example of why PvP-centric MMOs are doomed, as some critics have done. There was a lot more to it than that.
For one, while its graphics had the potential to be beautiful, that required a computer so ridiculously detached from what the average person owns as to be laughable. At best, day-to-day performance could be described as sluggish. At worst, unplayable would be more apt. This was made worse by the game’s fast pace and competitive nature. It sucks to lose, but it sucks even worse when the death can be blamed on a client hiccup.
The setting didn’t help either, at least with the Western audience. Clearly, they had an Eastern market/theme in mind when they developed Fury, but fact is, they launched the game in English and it would have been good if the setting matched that audience.
Even basic things didn’t go right. There’s no reason people should not be able to figure out how to fight in a fighting game.
They also failed to label it correctly. It was marketed as an ultra-violent, ultra-competitive MMO. In reality, it was probably truly none of those things.
Final Thought:
When Auran unleashed the Fury in 2007, it ran out into the street and got nailed by a semi.
#1 SEED
Launched: May 2nd, 2006
Canceled: September 28th, 2006
The prize for the shortest reign in MMO history goes to a little game called SEED. Developed by Runestone Game Development, the survived for a mere 149 days, just over half as many as Fury.
SEED was an ambitious concept. This comic-book styled MMO the exact opposite of Fury. It had absolutely no combat at all. SEED was a purely social MMO.
;)
The story went that humans had colonized the stars, and seed ships with a cargo of human DNA and other necessary ingredients for life were sent out to find a new world, terraform them and then create new human colonies grown from the samples. These humans, while infused with much of Earth's knowledge, knew nothing of the violence and war that had crippled their creators.
Unfortunately, the freshly grown humans awoke and found that their new world hadn't been terraformed at all. So they - the players - had to work together to make things right and finish the job their ships had failed to do. It was a pretty clever setup for a game that focused on social interaction and teamwork.
What Happened?
Runestone closed the doors on the game very suddenly. Simply, they ran out of money. They never had a publisher and the expense was too much for one little Danish company to bear. It turns out that the MMO community was not ready for a game that looked and played like a standard MMO, but didn’t include any form of combat. Like it or not, combat is the core of almost every game out there. It’s tough to find an investor who will put their money behind something so experimental.
Final Thought:
It seems that Runestone just didn't have a green thumb.
More The List Features:
More Editorial:
More Features:
Good rundown... but you never mentioned Phylon, which made it less then a month. It had shutdown notices within 2 weeks of launching, although many question whether or not it was ACTUALLY launched.
Phylon was featured here (MMORPG.com) in both articles, advertising, and a Podcast. Surely you recall it's short "Open Mid July" and "Closed in August" lifespan?
I'm afraid I have to disagree with what you said about Auto Assault... you say:
"Doing something different is always a risk. There's a reason that a most of the current MMOs follow a familiar formula. Auto Assault attempted to mix car-based games like Grand Theft Auto, or maybe more appropriately Carmageddon, with the MMO genre and it just didn't jive with players. It was new, it was original, but ultimately, it just was just a bit difficult to get into and didn't have enough depth once people did."
The problem with Auto Assault was that it didn't take enough of a chance. They took a great idea, multiplayer vehicular combat, and instead of doing it well, they just turned it into a skin for a game that was actually just freakin' Everquest under the hood.
I mean, c'mon... cars that heal each other?!?!? That's why they lost me, I'm just sick of companies shoehorning a different genre into the fantasy mold to try and make it more like EQ/WoW. It's why I hated Anarchy Online, too... they just replaced "magic" with "nanites," but otherwise didn't do anything very different.
Honestly, Auto Assault had one other problem with it, which could not be considered a small problem... they had support for steering wheel controllers, but it was really poorly executed. That didn't help. After NetDevil got dinged with the original Jumpgate for the game being unplayable without a good flightstick setup, they went too far the other way with Auto Assault and delivered a game where using a controller felt like an afterthought.
It's a shame, I would've really loved a well executed vehicular combat MMO, and I know I'm not alone, but the real problem with Auto Assault was that they completely blew it! Maybe Steve Jackson Games will get around to the occasionally promised Car Wars game. That'd be awesome.
Out of all those games I had high hopes for TR and thought it could succeed. I actually loved it until around level 40. The game did some things very very well and the logos was a great touch. However there just wasn't enough RPG elements or side activities to get involved in. Fast paced combat can only carry a game so far before players get bored and move on. Personally I thought it needed some more friendly zones that were lush and full of life. Players who want to play an MMO for a long time can get tired of gritty death ridden scenary. Sometimes its just nice to roam friendly territory and have some time out. (I wont mention the crafting because there wasn't one...you know what I mean)
Yeah, it just never really seemed to be properly launched, which is why I looked past it last night.
I played SEED regularly. I think the problem wasn't just that there was no combat -- there was not much of a fully functional game there. I think it could have been a nice niche game with the right resources behind it, and I would have paid as much for something like it as I do for my PvE games.
I can't beleive that they left out AC2 from that list!
David Bowman killed that game in an incredibly short time...
Final Fantasy XI , 1 whole day for installing and downloading and patching + registration. And I played for 1 hour and after the frustaration with the controls and chat system + the visuals I decided to uninstall it and never try it again.
Yeah I was in closed beta on it and it was very original but the lag was really bad. With some more money and people working on it I think it would be quite good. But the needed some new ideas also I think. Was kinda same thing all the time.
#4 Auto Assault
What a shame! It was a Kick @ss Game.
Played AA for about a year on and off and TR for a few months on and off.
Uninstalled Fury after an hour of beta and could only play a few hours of Seed beta despite wanting more.
These were all innovative games so it's a shame they got shut down but I hope future innovative titles like Fallen Earth take note!
I'm really enjoying these articles. You should do one on Ryzom next, been cancelled and brought back from the dead at least twice now. What a contrast to WoW.
Dude, take another look at teh article, it specifically addresseswhy AC 2 wasn't there.
As Jon wrote in the intro: "Asheron’s Call 2 survived a whopping 1,134 days."
You do realize that FFXI is one of the most successful MMORPGs ever created yeah? Just because you didn't take the time to really appreciate how detailed and deep the game is. don't start flaming it.
Dude, take another look at teh article, it specifically addresseswhy AC 2 wasn't there.
Yes, I had seen that:
"Sadly, in recent years, MMO shutdowns have become much more common and the corporate leashes a lot shorter. Older games like Asheron’s Call 2 and Earth and Beyond aren’t on the list. The sad truth is, not everyone gets cancelled as quickly as these four. Earth and Beyond ran for 729 days, while Asheron’s Call 2 survived a whopping 1,134 days."
I gues what I meant was that AC2 had a much larger budget than those games listed ( although I'm not sure of the figures for money spent on TR ) so even with a slightly longer running time, it cost investors far more in money lost.
Dark & Light.. does it count?
They pre-sold, pre beta invited, never really launched did they?
ohh i left out getting sued for the pre sells :)
...and shut down after it lost a lawsuit for stealing some technology.
Honestly, we are not even able to pin down when it died (exactly).
There are no doubt a few games that died faster, but many of those were so beyond screwed up as to not even have properly defined launch days, let alone anyone around to note that it went away.
This was more a list of notable games that died quickly.
where is HG:L in that list?
I was in the BETA of SEED what a trainwreck!!! testers were literaly yelling and screaming to developers about the obviously impending doom but the powers that be never seemed to listen and released the game FAR FAR from being ready I estimated it was only 10% ready (many MMOs try to sneek out the door at about 90%)
SEED did have a exceptionally good premice a starter colony on a mysterious strange new planet but so many things cripled it from the begining the fists of which was a pathetic and lame comic book environment that wouldnt keep a 4 year old interested
the charactor movement was mouse point and click, which might be fine for out doors or open places but was cripling in crowded hallways
what sparce little game play was in the game was so boring and repetitive as to cause convultions and death it entailed going around to a multitude of open panals and repairing them but they would "break" again in mere moments reducing this to a repetive and infinite wack-a-mole
we never got as far as combat because there was no "outside" world to explore, for this game theme such combat interaction would be critical and expected
I would love to see this theme attempted again usung a standard game engine as the theme hade emence possibilities ffor awesome game play,, exploring a totally unknown new world and trying to survive and thrive there, hell ya!
but id expect solid crafting, the ability to improve the city ship from a total wreck to something improved,, id expect strange plants and creatures and environments... are there inteligent life forms already here? are we the intruder aliens? are there other "SEED" colonies? are we friends or enemies? mucho possibilities!
I think the biggest problem with Tabula Rasa was the fact that they had such a big build up for it and when it was finally in front of the players, they didn't see the glimmering object that had been described to them
I remember playing it during the beta, it wasn't bad - but it wasn't great; there wasn't really anything in it that made me want to log on regularly -- the NPC bases to defend/attack were cool, if you had more players than just yourself to defend them -- i would have liked to have seen a better crafting system
interesting choice to make you buy your own bullets - even better was that pistol whips and rifle butts did more damage in melee than ranged attacks with ammo you had to buy (unless they changed that after i lost interest) [when i played a ranger in FFXI i never really worried too much about not having arrows to shoot, or bolts for a crossbow after i leveled up my woodworking, but in TR i always bought as many bullets as i could knowing that i would be spamming them later]
What about Myst Online: URU Live?
It didn't even get out of beta before Ubisoft pulled the plug and then with Gametap a few years later it lasts about a year and then is shut down, that at least should make it #5, lol.
The only game on the list that i weep for is SEED.
(well maybe Richard Garriotts original version of Tabula Rasa too)
SEED could be handled like A Tale In The Desert or Puzzle Pirates - a niche game w/ co-op game play. Yes it could use Conflict but Not Combat per se.
I really wish someone would pick this up, finish the game and release it with solid but small financial backing. Small is the key to success for this game - small stable funding, small passionate audience, small rich world, small steady income for a small dedicated dev team.
Auto Assault had a solid base, but NCShaft basically declared it dead after the game failed to outsell WoW on its first day. Reduced to a coding staff of 1, the game just couldn't make the needed changes and enhancements fast enough and so it languished.
The way NCSoft manages games makes me very reluctant to even try any of them. Thier strategy is to throw loads of shit at the wall and see what sticks, rather than actually try to make a few great games.
As an aside, having one of the first few games that delivered PhysX support go out with a whimper sure didn't do Aegia any favors, either.
Drev
Whats more Disgusting is the half-witted editing of THIS website mmorpg.com. They kept the ability to sign up for the same game that were just mention. Hell I bet they still have links to tabula rasa sign up.
Bad product is one thing. Idiots who advetise them is a whole new ballpark...
Tabula Rasa was a decent game and it couldve survived if the developers&fans wouldn't have overhyped it to seem like it was best thing since sliced bread.
fans were led to believe they were in for much more than what the game had to offer...yet, overhyping sells boxes but doesnt sell subscriptions
It was sad to see Tabula Rasa (TR) go away like it did. The game itself at the core was fun, I never really got into the ethical paribles, I just enjoyed the combat system.
I think the real problem with TR was that it had a crappy pvp system and no reall endgame that makes players want to keep playing after going through it all. The skill system was inovative, but I think that was another downfall of the game. The game allowed one to clone yourself and set yourself up into a new profession, which was cool, but I think it took away from the replayability of TR once you completed all the content.
Good read, thanks for the article!
Didnt Tabula Rasa last longer than Earth and Beyond or Motor City Online? Dont remember but played em all and really liked Motor City Online. Racing for pinks or cash added an addrenaline factor not yet found in other games. The Racing and being able to custom modify cars gave it the skill involved instead of button mashing.
No honorable mention for Mourning? The all time classic MMO distributed on burned CD-R discs..
Hmmm... no mention of "Horizon".
Wonder if anyone even remembers that game?
I came here to say just that, I was in beta for that game .. Dragons as a playable race /ugg, I did not even think twice about if I was going to buy and subscribe. Wonder if it actually was live to long for the list.
I came here to say just that, I was in beta for that game .. Dragons as a playable race /ugg, I did not even think twice about if I was going to buy and subscribe. Wonder if it actually was live to long for the list.
You both just flunked your MMOPRG test.
Horizons is still alive. it has not died out. Just recently the Games name was changed to Istaria (the name of the gameworld) and this year the devs dubbed it the year of the phoenix. their game is slowly rebounding and gaining subscribers.
You cannot put a 5 year old game thats still alive into a thread like this.
Horizons may have missed the list because it is still running -www.istaria.com/
Yeah seed could have gone somewhere. I actually started in late beta and kept paying afterwards praying they would get help and someone with money would pick it up and let them develop it. I loved the concept and kept waiting for the time when one day we could take our characters outside. The art was great. The downside was getting stuck in corners the movement ability was terrible and the lag the horrible horrible lag. I dont think I ever experienced lag as bad as that in any mmorpg before. I think if you know what second life's lag is like SEED's was worse! It could have become an awesome pve game if they had managed to get it off the ground and add proper crafting and a world outside of the ship.
AA was nice. TR even more. I really enjoyed my time there.. it was fun, but not the "log in every day and play for 4 hours straight" fun - it was niche. the real problem imho was (and still is) ncsoft with their greed. it's ok to have niche-games in the portfolio, yet charging the full mmo-fee is not.
AA & TR would have done better if ncsoft had been clever enough to offer a soe-like multipass. would have helped CoH/CoV's numbers too.
we'll, if soe ever needs a partner regarding incompetence, ncsoft comes to the rescue...
Ahh man, MCO and E&B. Two of my all time favorites. Both scrapped(along with UO2) to concentrate on TSO. That's when I quit giving EA any of my money. Boneheads, I tell ya.
TR was probably the MMO with best gameplay until now.
I mean when all you do in MMO is grind mob. Than in TR grinding (i mean fighting) was actually fun.
And mob AI, placement , way they moved as squads trough the maps. Way they actually attacked NPC settlements.
All that was , in my oppinion , the way MMOs should go.
Problem is that that was all TR had.
There was no game. It was basically a bare empty shell showcasing great combat.
If there TR was realised MMO world. If there was other things to do instead just fighting.
If it didnt have the lamest STORY ever. And if they had FACTIONS - PVP fighting each other for control of teritory.
It would be a best MMO around easily.
But R.G basically short selled the game.
It was a kind of a scam
Ahh man, MCO and E&B. Two of my all time favorites. Both scrapped(along with UO2) to concentrate on TSO. That's when I quit giving EA any of my money. Boneheads, I tell ya.
Same here, I loved MCO and E&B! EA is currently working on Need for Speed: World Online, which I'll probably tryout to re-live my MCO days. And since it's supposed to be free to play, we won't have to give EA any of our money. :-D
That's a shame. I totally agree with you that the FFXI install and setup is a legendary process, but I think you really missed out on what was probably the best pure PvE MMORPG I think I have played. That game has an absolutely staggering amount of content, and a massive world after all the expanions. But you are right in regards to the UI, it was designed for consoles as well. If you can get past some of the flaws and the early difficulty for new players, it really is a gem of a game.
I was in the closed beta test for Auto Assault. I am actually surprised it didn't last longer then it did. It wasn't a bad game at all.
And I had never even heard of SEED until this article. Ha.
Lmao!
Who knew Stradden had a sense of humor? Kudos^^
What about Mourning? I know it released, cuz I was silly enouugh to buy it (I still have the client on my PC). I know it didn't last long, but I couldn't tell you how long. I quit after falling though the world 500 times. Also the slew of pre-requisite abilities in the game might have been cool, be there were no descriptions or instructions on how to use them. Hard to belive they ever released this one. In the end it was almost worth the $20 to say, "yea, Mourning, I played that collosal failure".
Really interested to know if this qualified or if it lasted longer than these other games. Was it never acctually released? Did I pay $20 to play the beta? Oh the shame.....
Talin
Here is a ling to another post about the game:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/37720
I'm trying to find the connection between FFXI - a live game still ~500k players strong after 7+ years... and an article discussing the 4 shortest lived MMOs....
Gotta say, I'm drawing a blank.
Care to enlighten us on exactly why you think your personal experience with a game that's neither mentioned in nor even relevant to the article warranted an off-topic post about it?
Horizons is still going.... limping along, perhaps... but still running.
You both just flunked your MMOPRG test.
Horizons is still alive. it has not died out. Just recently the Games name was changed to Istaria (the name of the gameworld) and this year the devs dubbed it the year of the phoenix. their game is slowly rebounding and gaining subscribers.
You cannot put a 5 year old game thats still alive into a thread like this.
I'm sorry, but Horizons did flop!
It was court ordered to closed it doors and was re-bought, threw a shady deal and left investors with hundreds of thousands of unpaid $$, with nobody to sue! It re-opened a few weeks later under new ownership within months of it's initial release. The lead dev pulled a huge scam.
That is the same direction that Darkfall is headed. Aventurine will not be able to sustain their server with so few players, but the game/engine will be sold off for pennies on the dollar.
QFT...I beta tested TR and I also loved the combat mechanics, but the game itself was way too linear to be an MMO, and then there was the fact that it hardly had any PvP. That was the biggest turn off for me, there wasn't enough RPG to support it as a PvE game, and the fact that what we had was a tps game with no PvP simply killed it for me and I'm sure for many others as well.
I'm pretty sure MCO got close to 2 years... I could be wrong. I enjoyed it and I miss it, but I can see why it died. You had to know a fair amount about cars or you had a heavy learning curve ahead of you. That's why in racing games nowadays, they give the parts lip service, but just package them into "fast", "faster", "fastest" upgrades. Sad to think no developer will be crazy enough to create such a nuanced simulation racer, again.
For AA, and keep in mind I only ran through trials a couple times, the poster that mentioned it as EQII on wheels echoes my sentiment. I logged on hoping for an experience even remotely like Interstate 76, and instead got all the usual MMO mission platforms... seems I recall even having to collect X flowers at one point? There was rarely any feeling that you were in a car at all, save for the fact that you couldn't strafe and jumping was awkward.
There was a market for it, they just didn't deliver.
TR was a tragedy. What was broken could have been fixed, but it probably couldn't have recovered the subs. It was the polar opposite in focus to CoX; The instances and main gaming world were well thought out and interesting, but character customization was lacking.
The cloning, while marketed as an "innovation", was actually a copout. They didn't have enough content to level even ONE toon, so they provided a shortcut so that you didn't have to grind any after the first. I think I got to about the last 7-8 levels, realized there wasn't much left to hold my interest, and stopped playing.
That said, for its time it had the best toon to world interaction of any MMO, IMO. Tucking and rolling, practical sprinting, cover, etc. I think it could have been a great game; the framework was there. Just double the content, revamp crafting(it was god-awful; far too many recipes and necessary odd and ends for a resulting mod that's no better than most drops), add more social areas, more uniqueness in itemization(you know it's inadequate when people paint their armor 5 different colors to get noticed; SWG composite all over again), and... well... ok, that would require another year, easy. RIP, TR...
Still kinda surprising they don't just keep one server open for f2p ala Dungeon Runners. Maybe it's just too expensive.
Someone else mentioned Hellgate:London. Interesting how similar it and TR were to each other, though the random dungeons in H:L were annoying at best. Innovative in 1996; a copout in 2008...
I agree, I think there is room out there for a good "Mad max" kind of game but Auto assault just wasn't good enough. Eve is doing something around the same lines but in space instead and are doing well, the difference is that it is better implemented and more fun too play.
A car wars or a mech warrior game that was actually well made would be fun to play, I could play a online verion of GTA for that matter, I think rock start would have succeded a lot better with this kinda game since they make games their own way. But trying to be creative while you ripp off other games at the same time is very hard.
And then went on to Kill Horizions, shortly after he was ran out of the industry on a rail..the last I heard he was the manager of a Bojangles in Florence SC.
I'm trying to find the connection between FFXI - a live game still ~500k players strong after 7+ years... and an article discussing the 4 shortest lived MMOs....
Gotta say, I'm drawing a blank.
Care to enlighten us on exactly why you think your personal experience with a game that's neither mentioned in nor even relevant to the article warranted an off-topic post about it?
It's called hijacking. More than likely, it's just the result of reading the title but not reading the post or any of the responses. It happens all the time. If it bothers you, I would recommend reporting it instead of complaining, because hijacking is reportable. There are times when complaining just makes the thread veer off course, perpetuating the problem.
Personally, I haven't played any of these games, but it would be interesting to see a more comprehensive list of the titles that have flopped and been forced to shut down.
I tried three of them, subscriped to Seed and Auto Assault and was a beta tester for Tabula Rasa.
Auto Assault was a great game for the short time I played it (so wouldn't know if it got boring after a while), but it really lacked subscripers. Quests was about driving around in your car, which you would upgrade with items and "skills". Every time you went into a city, you got into character and could chat, trade a.s.o. as any other MMO.
Tabula Rasa was an interesting concept (dynamic world), but it didn't hook me. Some friends of mine loved it though, but like AA the game slowly died out (same company, eh ;). I did my beta-tests as I usually do (try quests, report bugs), but the patcher pissed me so off that I didn't touch it for months (turned out it was faulty RAM, not their fault).
SEED was clearly not a finished game and not even in beta-stage. I was playing and chatted on IRC, where we went "server up!" "server down" every 15 min. This actually moved the game to IRC, but I guess a lot of customers didn't know/want to use IRC, and missed out this part. I really understand if they would get mad and wanted to get their moeny back, since it was alpha-software.
I liked the concept that much, that I payed for serveral months, but their investors pulled the plug (there is only one international successful game-company in Denmark, IO Interactive (Hitman series) and the rest is really on uneasy grounds with investments). I guess they trusted to much on comunity support, but their expenses where apparantly to high.
Absolutely!
Ah, what I wouldn't give for an Interstate '76 remake...
A good mech MMO would be great, too. Heck, a new Mech game PERIOD would be nice. Seems like the only time you see mechs these days is in a RTS.
Anybody get the opportunity to use the mechs in TR? Just curious about what they were like...
I only played Tabula Rasa from that list, and growing up on Ultima Online I probably had hopes for it that could never be satisfied. The game itself was a lot of fun. Running around blasting aliens with my shotgun was a treat. The constant feeling of war and combat was a nice change from the other MMOs I was screwing around in. The drop ships were amazing too. Every MMO has some kind of respawn, and its usually just some sort of "pop up." But in Tabula Rasa enemy drop ships actually flew overhead and would teleport Bane to the surface. You could always hear them coming and it gave the game a very cool feeling.
Shame it didn't last. Of the four games listed I think it had the best chance at being a success. Hell, that SOE first person shooter/rpg hybrid is still alive. Tabula Rasa had way more going for it.
Maybe they should have called it World of Tabula Rasa...craft.
Auto Assault was a pretty good game until you hit maximum level. It's problem was that after that there was no further content, just repetitive and unbalanced pvp. This ensured that even players who enjoyed the game eventually tired of it and cancelled their subscription.
Tabula Rasa was a light but enjoyable sci-fi romp and the story of the Logos was one of it's stronger points, driving the story forward. It's downfall was really a result of a buggy release and then disastrous patch releases, destroying whole career archetypes which players had invested months of gameplay in. This was done with the goal of 'balance' for pvp, but since there was little meaningful pvp in the game it just pissed everyone off. MMORPG gave a shamefully lightweight puff-story when the game lead changed last year, when you should have been asking why buggy patch releases were being released despite terrible test-server feedback, resulting in players leaving in droves.
TR definitely released prematurely, with many bugs and design flaws. It also suffered from a completely illogical story foundation. These aliens manage to conquer the entire planet Earth with the snap of a finger, but they are on the ropes in their effort to tackle a few thousand survivors that fled to another world?
However, for me the biggest problem was the lack of content. The zones were few and tiny. The quests were completely typical and unimaginative. We all expected tons of depth and an abundance of content from "Lord Brittish", only to be presented a level of content not even sufficient to last a typical player a month.
Garriot basically mugged NCSoft for the money he needed to go into space, left a worthless game in his wake and crippled NCSoft financially to a degree that their strategy of producing games beyond the Korean market had to be greatly scaled back. The ripple effects have impacted efforts to fund MMO development around the world. He did more damage to the genre than people realize.
I also played SEED in beta, and I felt like it had the potential to go some interesting places, but it needed more time, money, and people to get it where it could have been.
I'd really like to see a good non-combat MMO that has interesting problems to solve plus the cut-throat politics of a lot of the text/forum based government sim games out there on the web.
As Jon wrote in the intro: "Asheron’s Call 2 survived a whopping 1,134 days."
They actually still have that for sale in my local gameshop lmao its in the bargin bin
I thought TB would make it but i guess not
Me too. It felt like more of a social experiment than a game tho. Would be interesting to see some University pick it up and either offer it online or on campus to see how it would play out.
Would be interesting to see what would get accomplished and what would not. While on a campuss I believe there would be more interaction outside the game than in. It could also add another layer of who is really who in game! hehe, hrmmm.......
Might have to look into that and see if you could sell it that way.....
It's called hijacking. More than likely, it's just the result of reading the title but not reading the post or any of the responses. It happens all the time. If it bothers you, I would recommend reporting it instead of complaining, because hijacking is reportable. There are times when complaining just makes the thread veer off course, perpetuating the problem.
Personally, I haven't played any of these games, but it would be interesting to see a more comprehensive list of the titles that have flopped and been forced to shut down.
I'm aware of what hijacking is. However, I was asking the poster to explain what brought them to submit that particular message. I don't see any logical connection, but who knows...
That said... I notice you didn't call out the other 2 or 3 people who actually *did* engage him in further conversation about the topic, but singled me out for asking him to explain what relevance he saw in it. Interesting.
That said...
I did try TR in beta and it really didn't grab me. Personally I think it'd have been better if they stuck with the original design they were going for. Tried Auto Assault as well and couldn't get into that game either. Surprised me that they both went down as fast as they did. Never played the other ones.
I knew SEED was going to fall even though I wanted to play it. Auto Assault was fun in my opinon and I wanted to playTabula Rasa for the longest. Sad to see those two go.
Never heard of SEED before reading this article, but it sounds very familiar. In the anime Trigun humans where trying to find a new planet to restart their civillization. I think the entire thing in the anime was projects seeds, and seeds was written on the ships because they were the seeds to a new life for humanity. Each ship had people in a type of stasis to be woken when the ships landed on a suitable planet.
On a side note I also think some of the uniforms matched that of the one shown in the article picture.
Maybe because no one could figure out if it was even an mmo !
Out of the 4 listed I only played Tabula Rasa. Played thru beta and a few months into launch, got my main character to level 49 so I knew the game well. No end game, no raids, poor itemization, generic armours, horrible crafting, no main game forums, too many issues to mention, it just missed the mark on too many things.
That being said, I think it brought about some fantastic ideas that I hope to see implemented in other scifi games: incredible mob AI, great music, fast combat, a constant feeling of battle on the warfields, great visuals and effects (who can forget the sound and look of Striders falling from bane ships and landing on the planet, only to slowly unfold and go about their deadly business), cloning system and fast teleport travel. It could have also used a "peaceful" place where one could just hang out, craft, hunt or gather resources and perhaps get a little tent/housing going on. It was too much about war.
I was a big fangurrl of TR at one time, I do mourn its death.
Why only 4 games?
Oh yeah to leave room for darkfall.
My 2 cents
I was sorry to see Fury go , good concept that was poorly implemented .
Still hoping to find a worthwhile pvp experience , so far no luck .
-seed
(( It turns out that the MMO community was not ready for a game that looked and played like a standard MMO, but didn’t include any form of combat. Like it or not, combat is the core of almost every game out there. ))
thats jus so far off it not funny, seed had a good community an it had jack shit to do with pvp on why it fail
it was.
radlock crashes
zones that dont load/crash
2 sounds in the whole game that you was lucky to hear once a day / for a game based on repairs to a ship ugh
missing gear made half the other areas a wtf zone/ some did get add later, so it was 3 zones a 4th one when you could get the lift to work
ect ect i wont go all day on the list, to put it simple it was pre alpha an on top of it they wanted you to pay for it,
but ya it was the missing pvp..
Did beta for both Auto Assault and SEED. Played TR trial and it was just terrible.
Auto Assault, to me, was the same concept as EVE Online that had already included non-combat player avatars in cities. It had amazing graphics and the gameplay was very fast paced. It would have been a nice single/multiplayer PC game but definitely not an MMO.
SEED was a very interesting idea and the cartoon graphics added to the whole atmosphere. Unfortunately there were many bugs and even connecting to the game was very difficult. Once in, there really wasn't much to do and I usually ended up crashing to desktop after a few minutes. This MMO was similar to Face of Mankind in that it left a lot of room for RP it just lacked the firepower.
And well TR. Its not even worth talking about.
Auto Assault is the only game from the list I really miss. It was different and nice in it's own way.
Like destructible environments and that "Snow Run" where you had a time limit to race through a blizzard while fighting off enemies?
I'm pretty sure Darkfall will make the list, i dont count on that game to finish the year.
Interesting to hear what I've been saying to friends for years in this thread... namely that Auto Assault should have been more like Interstate 76, and less like Twisted Metal. If you're going to be driving a car for hours on end as the main activity of an MMO, then I'd say half the effort in the development needs to go into the driving experience. In many ways AA ended up being just another fantasy MMO with car characters instead of bipeds.
What's always been fun about auto sims... actually any vehicle sim, is that a good program can give you the illusion of actually being able to operate that vehicle in the real world. Now add some rocket launchers and machine guns, and you've got the potential for an MMO that can grab players viscerally in a way that hotbars and cooldown timers can't. I think that's what a lot of us were hoping for out of Auto Assault, but didn't get.
Tabula Rasa could have been genre-defining, but somewhere along the way they got lost. In my opinion, if they'd worried less about trying to cram a good/bad/who cares Fable character development skeleton into the game, and worried more about giving you dynamic battlefields with solid teamwork goals and a sense of actually accomplishing things, they could have really been something. Instead, we got what we got... and then it went away.
I had never heard of SEED until reading this article just now. It sounds pretty interesting, too bad it didn't work out.
For any of you interested, the Seed community is alive and well, though it's small in size just as it was small when the game was actually running. Many of us feel that Seed was the best game we ever played while even more agree that it was the best online game ever. The fact that mainstream MMO players left it after a few minutes/hours/crashes is that it brought RP into the MMOG. It had brilliant writer team and a group of GMs (Alchemic Dream) who were real game-masters insted of just customer support. Also, it had a story that the players could join and shape instead of just watching it by doing quests.
If you are curious what happened with the community in the years since Seed closed, check out:
www.seedthecommunity.org
I hope some who missed Seed or lost track of the community will be glad for the link and join us on the forums or on IRC.
Cheers,
Dustman
PS.: I played Seed from beta till it's closed, best summer I ever had.
Well, that's bookmarked. Thanks.
Agreed, I Alpha'd and beta'd Fury along with some friends and family, and until they made some changes to the entire game world (which created a nasty nightmare for most pcs) it was really invigorating to play pvp in. Despite huge volumes of feedback from the veteran testers from alpha and early beta, Auren just didnt fix anything, and when they went to balance skills they nerfed em to oblivion and boosted the other ones to near godmode like levels.
Im actually surprised it lasted as long as it did, and even after release new players and alpha/beta vets kept screaming on fixing tons of issues.
Never got the chance to play the others on the list, I was watching TR a bit, but waited due to getting vanguard'd I wont buy games unless I get to beta test them or wait 6 months or more after release to check on em.
As for HG:L that game couldnt really be considered an MMO, since it was more like battlenet lol. I played it online for a while, just wasnt fun in groups.
out of this list i only feel bad about SEED
as far as i know they simply ran out of money and had to decide
to release it in an unfinished buggy version or never release it at all
Those are not the 4 shortist lived MMO's.
I kind of miss Seed, and I somehow don't. It crashed constantly for me, so I could never enjoy it really, otherwise I loved the graphics style and the crafting theme. That crafting alone can work one sees with Tale of the desert III.
Regarding TR and AA - both NCsoft games.... Glad they have CoX and GW as succesful titles, otherwise I would be worried about the upcoming Champions Online...
All 4 games lacked depth. It's not about combat or anything else, it's depth. You can hide lack of depth by adding a lot of colorful effects, like AoC for example, but your game will still fail.
WOW has solved this by endless grinds for epic and epicuberevenmoreepic loot but once players get their hands on whatever they wanted they quit. You can spend years of casual playing of WOW without noticing lack of depth, and this is a key to Blizzards success.
Guild Wars (a game that is dying slowsly nowdays) has solved lack of depth by not having monthly fee. How nice, you pay once and you can come back to it at any times without dedication. Problem solved but still your game will die once everyone reaches end levels. Still this is years we are talking about so no worries on getting your investment back (this is what it's all about, business justified investment).
EVE - now there is a true gem when it comes to gameplay depth. Becouse of that it has a steep learning curve and simply rejects casual players who are not ready to invest hours a day to achieve immersion into this player controled universe. EVE economy is studied in some business schools, and EVE politics is discussed and mentioned in mainstream media even. EVE wars last for years, which is something you can not really say for any game on the market. And all that despite CCP being a rookie, green and mostly clueless company when it comes to handling customers. If CCP managed WOW it woud have died 2 months before launch. The key was letting players create their own world.
And it is only about one thing if you want your game to achieve etenral life - Anarchy. And I'm not talking here abour burning cars and listening to Sex Pistols, I'm talking about the ability to step into a new universe an determine your own destiny with as few limitations as possible. Something bigger then just a sandbox, since even there you are limited by the amount of sand and the sandbox walls. If you can attract people to your universe (sci-fi or fantasy, it is not important) and give them full freedom, wrapped in a stable and logical environment, you have a game that will survive years to come.
On the other hand gaming idustry is like any other entertainment industry, music or movies. Profit is the leader. Game creators will target those who will leave them most money during shortest period possible. This is how WOW survives out there, as there is much more people who do not want full immersion but only temporary distraction (even if its a full year, it is still not long enough to be called immersion in my opinion). This leads to "gamehopping" as I like to call it, which is people trying out different games over and over again for years without finding "a home".
In music you have Pussycat Dolls or XtinaBritney selling more albums then some excellent jazz or blues artists, and same with games. EVE has 500k subs and WOW has 10 million or more. But I am ready to bet that in 5-6 years WOW will be just a golden record on Blizzard's wall, or a mere shadow of what it was, similar to SWG, while EVE will be forced to make biggest supercomputer to manage all the subs, unless they get unthroned by some other future game offering even better universe.
All of the above is my opinion only.
I really liked the idea of Auto Assault. It was a fast paced game which was fun. All they needed to do was fix a few things and it still would of been on.
It was a pity about Fury - during trials and hands-on demos, it played fantastic. Graphics were top notch too. The learning curve when you actually got into the game however, was really stupid - and they probably ran out of $$ to re-engineer it. The beta testers told the Devs loudly and often that it was far too difficult to learn.
SEED - Great concept but just didn't have the $$ behind them. Lag and server issues were the problem, not the game-play. It was also... pretty buggy.
See disclaimer below. ;)
Good summing up of what went wrong. I wasn't going to play initially because the idea of having a fast action fps style game with no PvP just didn't make any sense. What is stopping the devs making monster play or even have aliens as an alternative faction. Imagine coming down in a drop ship and trying to over take a base, quality!!
Crafting was too light and no real affect so I tinkered with it as a matter of curiosity. No housing or place to just hang was another issue imo. (I know there were big bases but you know what I mean)
The list is ok (and besides Fury I played them all ^^').
But why no mention about WISH? Ok, it was never really released (same for SEED if looked from a side) but to me it was the most hyped somehow successor of Ultima Online. It even looked good and for the early development it played well. But then, out of nothing, WISH is no more. To me, that was the shortest live of an MMO that many people had noticed.
No, it wasn't. That was problem number 2.
Problem number 1 was a jackass named Bill Roper who told everyone it was an mmorpg so he could tap the "subscribe to play" market.
I Miss Fury, it had some much potential it just never got there...
I was thinking the same, although I never got past beta.
I played all four of these games. Here are my thoughts on each. Whether you care about my opinion is up to you, of course.
#4 Auto Assault
Like several others, I played this while in beta. While it was interesting to play, since you could just run over enemies and you got those nice jumps you can take off ramps, it just didn't feel that fun. It was annoying having to go back to a repair center so often, and I mostly felt the car was an extension of my avatar, instead of feeling like I was actually driving a car. I think one of the tihngs they could have done to fix this was to allow you to get out of your car and move around, and perhaps use some type of remote control to call your car in case it got too far away from you. In fact, why not just make a Knight Rider MMO? That'd be awesome.
#3 Tabula Rasa
One of the more fun games I played. I played in the beta as well, and I played through a couple of free trials, both at different times in the game's lifespan. The first was near launch, the second was near its death. Some of the things were different, such as a redesigned tutorial and whatnot, but all in all it was a similar experience, as could be expected. The problem I had with this game was that I felt so weak and moving felt so slow. When I saw how far I had to go to get to another zone, and it didn't have an nearby towns to warp to, it felt boring. Many people were clamoring for something like a motorbike, but I guess that just never came to mind. Also, while I enjoyed the combat, I got tired of having to manage my ammo. I didn't like having to return to town every so often just to buy more ammo, when I could be having more fun out there. Also, I didn't really like the Logos concept. It felt more like an old-school adventure game with that stuff, but not in a good way. It was also difficult to gauge how strong your character was to the PvE creatures around you.
#2 Fury
I never really played this game, but that was for good reason. I think most PvP has the worst kind of players involved in them. Most of them are griefer idiots who try to find ways to exploit the game for their own advancement, and ridicule any and all people. A pure PvP game is difficult to sustain in a market like today's, since the social element is really switched from establishing friendship and game-wide communication, to animosity and unstoppable, unkind competition. But, that's just my feeling on all PvP in particular. As you can tell, a pure PvE game suits me just fine. Whether or not you agree with me is fine with me.
#1 Seed
Here is one game I was in the beta of, but I never really got to try. This wasn't from lack of interest, since I did read it once in a game magazine article and I felt compelled to test out such a departure from the norm. Of course, that was until I started reading the forums. Also, my own experience diluted my opinion of the game, as can be expected. First of all, I could never launch the game. Whenever I tried to, the servers were either not up or the game crashed. The only time, the one time, I was able to enter the game successfully, I could not see a thing except boxy graphics, the lag was terrible, and I was booted right back out when the game crashed. Needless to say, I gave up on the game after that. I mean, how am I supposed to enjoy the game when I can't even play it? Adding insult to injury, they tried to release the game because they were going bankrupt, but tis was still when the majority of players could not even get into the game, much less play it for extended periods of time.
This goes back to my original opinion about MMORPGs, as stated in another article. If you can't handle the responsibilities and costs of running an MMORPG, then either try something simpler, like a browser game or a single-player game, or just give up. You're better off trying to accrue as little debt as possible.
EDIT: Oh, and those of you that are interested in a game like Seed, although forgoing the sci-fi element, you could always try A Tale In The Desert. The game has zero combat, but relies on social interaction. In fact, there are even politics involved, as you can vote for or against laws in the in-game legal system, such as redistribution of an expired game account's items (meaning they don't just destroy it right away), direct banning of a player, or a sex change. Also, to enact a law into being voted on, the player submitting the bill must acquire a certain number of signatures on a petition.
Add to that that the president of eGenesis, the makers of the game, takes the in-game role as "Pharaoh", making this one of the most close-knith atmospheres you'll find, as there is constant interaction between the player base and the developers. So, if you still want to a play a game that's like Seed, don't mind the ancient Egypt setting, and a more realistic GUI, then ATITD is something you should check out.
Auto Assault was a really fun game that suffered from a few basic issues (some of which could have been avoided)...
1) The concept of Auto Assault was put through the "carebear" ringer, to try to soften it up and make it more like other MMOs out there. That was not the original intent and concept, but the NCSoft marketing gurus decided it had to have magic and fluff, rather than be the gritty post-apocalyptic game it should have been.
2) The hardware requirements when Auto Assault hit the stores were very steep in relation to the average PC specs that were in use at the time. They forgot that the first "M" in "MMO" is "Massively" as in want the largest number of players possible. If you want a game to be enjoyed by the masses, you have to aim the performance specs for more general targets than the top 15% or so of PCs in use at the time. You want the casual gamers, not just the bleeding edge hardware jockeys, or you'll never get the numbers you want for subscriptions.
3) AA was pushed to market way too early, and was not finished at all. The game balance was horribly skewed, missions didn't work, the endgame content hadn't been planned out completely yet, and even the wonderfully innovative integrated voice chat system was so horribly broken and buggy that it was eventually removed from the game altogether (a bit ironic, since I bought the collector's edition with the headset for voice chat, thinking it was gonna make the game rock). Basically, by all accounts from the developers, NCSoft wanted a specific launch date, and they got it, ready or not. A horribly buggy game that is changing and being nerfed and adjusted almost daily at launch does not attract lots of customers and generate good buzz.
4) Because the numbers weren't astronomically high, the plug was pulled early on. Those of us playing knew the game was over long before the actual end date was announced. With some tweaking and refining, and a bit of new end-game content brought in, it could have been a consistently played MMO. Hell, they even consolidated servers and made it even easier for their staff to maintain. But it wasn't raking in WoW or City of Heroes numbers, so it was judged a failure. Too bad it never really had a chance to pull itself out of the hole it had been thrown in at launch. The salvage/crafting system was great, it lent itself well to providing some alternative entertainment paths (and coincidentally helped to promote some guild social structure, with members making chassis and weapons for each other, and thinks like that). It coulda been a contendah...
Ah well, guess I'll join the rest of those hopefuls that something similar will pop up eventually. Car Wars / Autoduel / Mad Max, whatever it ends up, there is a waiting niche customer base scanning the horizon for something new to draw them in... Just make sure it's good, and allowed to be what it should be, not some nerfed "gotta be like everyone else" title, so we'll all love it and support it!
I only played two on the list: TR and AA. I heard of Fury but didn't like the premise so didn't try it.
AA was a lot of fun and the playerbase was exceptionally nice. Unfortunately, the game ran horribly on my machine and I gave up on it. I agree with those who say it was too expensive for what it offered. Had it been $5/month or so, I think it would have seen a healthy population. But the fact of the matter is that NCSoft didn't give it the support it needed to get anywhere. They were slow to release any changes at all or fix anything. There was no way in hell the game could have survived and I'm surprised it survived for as long as it did.
TR I absolutely hated. I didn't like the combat system overall. The idea of quickly spawning aliens and having to hold out against large groups of them was good, but the actual mechanisms of shooting put me off. It's not that I dislike FPSes at all, it is more to do with the fact that TR felt like a sluggish shooter. You could almost hit mobs without really targetting them properly with the mouse and there was no real twitch feel to combat. It was too much of a hybrid system. That was such a major offputter to me that I lasted only a couple of days in the game. It's one of the very few times I was pissed off at my own risk-taking in trying out new games. TR is definitely one game I regretted buying and trying out.
Edit - forgot to add: so based off of some of what Stradden said in this article, do people think it's too risky to be innovative in this industry? A lot of people discuss in the game developers' corner and in the pub their dissastisfaction with the current trends in MMOs yet here is a great example of why developers perhaps feel pressured into keeping with the trends...
Earth and Beyond should of been on the list. Good game play but lacked a smooth content curve after the initial starting levels and combat was too sparse at times.
AA had really poor controls. They went with too much realism and physics instead of fun. I found that the game did not provide a good vehicle control scheme. Having a lack control of your vechicle is not fun.
TB was an ok game, still kinda of puzzled by its demise. It certainly wasn't any worse then AoC or Warhammer.
I never played EnB, but a friend of mine did and I remember him being really really upset that the game was shutting down. I think he played till the absolute end.
I was in the SEED open and closed beta and I can't even remember what SEED stode for, it was an acronym S.E.E.D. I think.
The lag was too much and they let too many into beta, too many bugs were close to release, I remember getting a quest to fix a leaking pipe and going to a garden area. Real pity it shut down as the concept and story was solid and the potential was there.
3 out of those 4 are sci-fi and there are a lot of sci-fi MMO's out this year. Hopefully mistakes have been learned.
It is commercial suicide now to realise a semi-complete game with show-stopping bugs, it may have been acceptable in the past but definitely not now. Runes of Magic and The Chronicles of Spellborn have had relatively smooth releases the content is there and they are stable games. If free games can get it right, there is no excuse if you have to pay $20 for a box.
Where's Hellgate London then, that lasted about a year.
It says right there in the opening...
"Sadly, in recent years, MMO shutdowns have become much more common and the corporate leashes a lot shorter. Older games like Asheron’s Call 2 and Earth and Beyond aren’t on the list. The sad truth is, not everyone gets cancelled as quickly as these four. Earth and Beyond ran for 729 days, while Asheron’s Call 2 survived a whopping 1,134 days."
So, no, it shouldn't have been on the list. Not trying to be mean or anything, just that you're not the first person to suggest it should be on the list ,when in fact it lasted for almost two years.
I really had a lot of fun with Auto Assault. Of the games listed in the article, that is the one I would most like to be able to continue playing.
Auto Assault had real potential, sadly it didnt pull through. I left the game for good when it was hard to find more than 10 people online around me and it started feeling like a singleplayer game. TR on the other hand was pretty boring, felt like Planetside with quests.
EVERY mmo has/had "POTENTIAL", this word means nothing in mmo's now....
To the writer:
I don't get why you bashed TR in your latest article. I'm simply disgusted by the fact that you would say something like "Simply put, Tabula Rasa tried to be too many things to too many people and never managed to impress any of them." It's like YOU never played the game and met the community. Tabula Rasa passed with a good memory for most of the people that actually played the game-don't taint it with your generalized and stereotyped review.
I had the same experience with Anarchy Online.
Edit: Great writeup btw :-)
I played fury in its last 3 months and it ran great on my decent rig and was a whole lot of fun. I wish it was still around
tabula rasa not playable around south east asia, too many lags.
I always thought that the Tabula Rasa switch happened because the Koreans felt that they wanted their own people to do the "unicorns and ninja elves" setting. I mean, it seems like everything that comes out of Korea is ninja elves anyways. I've always felt justified in my thought when their next major MMO release turned out to be Aion.
"Foolish Garriott! We have plenty of Koreans to make unicorn world ninja elf fantasy! We hire American game company to make American style game for American audience! Now, switch...! Oh and btw, your game still needs to come out in two years! Haha, ha...ha!"
For what it was, TR wasn't terrible. I think it really just lacked compelling classes, good character customization, and interesting powers to use in combat. The team element of gameplay seemed sort weak too. Crafting seemed needlessly complicated... but I think considering what had all happened, the team didn't do a bad job.
It was really close to being cool, but because it was so different, people didn't really feel like switching from WoW to play it.
How long did Hellgate London last? Or is it not MMO-enough to be considered for this list?
That was one game that Hell-a tanked.
Dude, take another look at teh article, it specifically addresseswhy AC 2 wasn't there.
Guys, David Bowman was the "mastermind" behind Horizons before they sold it (after Dave Allen ran away from the project)....he never touched AC2 or was an employee of Turbine to my knowledge.
AC2 was a Turbine product.
What about Mourning...wasn't live for a week or two???? Oh, Oh what about Irith Online??? Wasn't that live for a few weeks? I had the displeasure of beta testing that one for a few hours...(mainly because it didn't work at all)
I think the "anarchy" you mention can be boiled down further to "player-generated endgame".
Game companies can't keep up with the demand for content created by players if those players end up congregated around max level over time. It seems the most cost-effective solution found so far is to go down the path of trying to create chunks of content that can occupy large groups of players for large amounts of player time i.e raiding.
The other option is to make the max-level game revolve around PvP as that is effectively player-generated content and doesn't require constant development (in theory). Potentially the best way of all is a well implemented PvP clanbox because in that kind of game the players themselves can generate infinite content through the rise and fall of player empires.
Not everyone likes PvP though which leaves me wondering: how can a PvE game create a player-generated PvE endgame?
I'm in no way an expert but...
My guess is the downfall is in the graphics - actually creating the models and the world and all the artwork is a huge endeavour on top of the coding and must cost a heap of money. However I think a lot of the time you wouldn't actually need any of that to get an (almost) fully working game. So my theory is game developers should focus on trying to get a fully working prototype using very basic graphics e.g go into blender or whatever and make a square block, color it brown and call it a bear, make a vertical rectangle, color it blue and call it a human, then, when you've got the game working you make a few slightly better models and beta test it a bit. If the game is good enough there'll be a few people who like it even with terrible graphics (remember Civ1) and if you get that then you'll know there's a market out there that makes it worth spending millions on 3D modellers.
I think both indie developers and large companies could use versions of this method.
I also wonder about Hellgate london. That closed down REALLY quick. God I thought that game was going to be amazing <.<.
But yeah, fury. I really enjoyed the game. I loved the idea behind it, the gameplay, the graphics.
But the insane graphics lag, the server lag itself, the lack of ANYTHING outside of PvP besides training areas were a big blargh. But the idea. Was amazing. The PvP was quite fun. The quick, fast, almost fps like gameplay was amazing. I would still be playing it if it was still up :\. Ah well.
Tabula Rasa, Die Rolls for combat? Completely WRONG. Ya couldnt miss in that game. It would be nice if the authors played the games they critisize. AA was a good game but just missing a big feel to it. TR was a great game but too much of the same all the time. TR had the best sound effects and combat effects ever, The shotgun blowback was great. They actually used a winchester lever action for that sound but whatever, it saw fine.
City of Heroes has come close to solving the problem of how to generate PvE engame with their Mission Architect feature that allows players to generate their own mission arcs. There may be some problems with the implimentaton and I think they really should offer more than just 3 published arcs, with five mission each, per account for members (additional arcs have to be purchases separately) but they are on the right track.
Looks like you need to add APB to this list. LOL
umm APB is in first place?\
edit: idk what happend when i read it a little bit ago they had APB listed as #1 must changed it or something? thats how i found out APB closed was reading this article lol
edit again: never mind i see he has a second one up now "revisted list"
I doubt APB is closed forever. Some other company will pick it up and run it.
SOE.
SoE is definately a possibility but I was thinking more along the lines of GamersFirst. When 9Dragons shut down GamersFirst bought it and got the servers back up and running a month later. Gamersfirst is really good at taking run down games and turning them around.
It's already been out over 18 months...