2008 MMORPG.com Reader's Choice Awards: Biggest News Story
This year, MMORPG.com kicks off the voting for our 2008 Reader's Choice Awards by asking our readers which of these six editorial staff nominated news stories was the biggest in 2008.
What was the Biggest News Story of 2008?
Activision / Blizzard Merge
Originally announced in December of 2007, the merger of goliath game studios Activision and Blizzard became official on July 9th of 2008, making it a contender for news story of the year in this year's MMORPG.com Reader's Choice awards.
Blizzard, owned then by the French media group Vivendi, are makers of such hit franchises as Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft, including, of course, the phenomenally popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
Activision, meanwhile, boasts such mega-franchises as Call of Duty, Quake, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk.
The idea behind the merger was to create "the world's most profitable games business" and was said to be worth, at the time of announcement, 18.8 billion dollars.
While this piece of news may not shock the average gamer to the core, It speaks volumes about the current and future strength of the current #1 MMORPG on the market and of course required a nomination for our Biggest News Story of the Year.
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Age of Conan Directorial Change
On September 17th, 2008, Funcom announced that Gaute Godager, the Game Director of Age of Conan, was stepping down from his position and that he would be replaced by Anarchy Online Game Director Craig Morrision.
Usually, a staffing change alone wouldn't be enough to garner a nomination for Biggest News Story of the Year, but this event get the nomination as much for the events that apparently led up to as for the event itself:
On May 20th, 2008, Age of Conan launched to apparently glowing reviews, but shortly thereafter, complaints began to rise up about, among other things, a lack of content in areas beyond the very well constructed Island of Tortage, performance issues, use of instancing, a lack of announced features like DX 10, and more.
While Funcom has, since launch, been working hard to eliminate these and other issues, the 16 year Funcom veteran cited dissatisfaction with certain elements of the game and a desire to get new, fresh eyes on the game as reasons for leaving:
"I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom. It is time to get new, fresh eyes on Age of Conan, and I wholeheartedly support the appointment of Craig. I have had a fantastic time these last 16 years, and I am very proud of the many things Funcom has achieved. Funcom and Conan will always be a big part of me, but as I now look to new ventures outside the gaming industry I am certain Age of Conan's future is in the best of hands."
Morrison, who is currently at the helm of the game, comes from a journalistic background and employs a style that relies heavily on player feedback: said Product Manager Erling Ellingson:
"We have a tremendous amount of faith in Craig as a new producer and game director. One of the brilliant things about Craig is his extensive experience with handling large online communities, and right now key to Age of Conan's future success will be to listen to player feedback, analyze that and act on that. And I think Craig is perfect in that regard."
All of that said, because of its possible impact on a troubled game that had been so highly anticipated, the resignation of a Game Director and the naming of his successor have found a way onto our nomination board for Biggest News Story of the Year.
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Bioware Announces Star Wars: The Old Republic
On October 21st, 2008, Bioware Austin finally revealed the truth behind what was almost universally known as the worst kept secret in the industry by announcing that the new MMO that they had been working on was indeed an online iteration of the popular Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise.
Rumors that the specifically opened Austin satellite of the Edmonton-based company was working on a new Star Wars MMO date back almost to the March 13th, 2006 announcement that Bioware was forming an MMO studio.
After years of having Bioware devs skirt the specifics in interviews, July 17th 2008 marked the first time that they game was "officially" mentioned by someone in power. The word, officially, appears so dramatically in quotation marks above because the reveal happened in a John Riccitiello interview with Portfolio.com.
From the article:
"We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development," said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. "And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about -- in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it."
It wasn't, however, until October 21st that we got official (no quotation marks this time) word on the game's existence. At that time, we learned that the game would be called Star Wars: The Old Republic, that it would take place about 3 centuries after the first two Knights of the Old Republic games and numerous other announcement-day details.
Regardless of how long we waited, or for how long we've all secretly known in our heart of hearts what Bioware's secret project was, October 21st marked an important news day for MMORPG industry followers. Was is this year's biggest news story? You decide.
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The Saga of Star Trek Online
Star Trek fans the world over have been foaming at the mouth to step foot into the Star Trek universe and have done so vicariously through five television series, ten (almost 11) movies, countless comic books, novels and video games but never before have Trekkers and Trekkies alike been able to actually exist within a persistent version of their universe.
That dream seemed about to come true for fans back in September of 2004 when San Francisco based Perpetual Entertainment announced that they had obtained the rights to make just such an MMORPG.
Development on the project continued much as with most MMOs tend to do for the next roughly three and a half years (In January of 2008) when, after a number of unpopular design choices, company layoffs, a company sale, the cancellation of the company's pilot project and even legal issues, the MMORPG community learned that Star Trek Online had been scrapped entirely.
Not to fear though, for fans of the franchise, the news of the game's cancellation came with a caveat... The franchise looked to be going to "another bay area studio".
Speculation about who the mysterious studio might be ran for quite some time, but at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas on July 28th 2008, everyone's favourite Vulcan Leonard Nimoy (take THAT Tim Russ), was on hand to participate in the announcement that former City of Heroes and current Champions Online development studio Cryptic Studios would be boldly going where only one failed MMO studio had gone before.
The official unveiling wasn't words alone, but included a gameplay footage trailer that seemed to be a way to tell the waiting audience that it wasn't likely to see a repeat of the trials and tribulations that plagued the game's original incarnation.
The re-announcement of an MMO based on such an important science fiction franchise was enough to get our attention and a nomination for Biggest News Story of the Year. Do you agree? Let us know!
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Tabula Rasa Closure
Perhaps the most recent of our Biggest News Story nominees, the November 21st 2008 announcement that NCsoft would be closing the doors to the barely year-old game bearing the name of a man that many consider to be the father of the modern MMO, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa.
When the game launched in November of 2007, there were those who liked it and those who hated it. The game itself seemed to be an attempt to mix the action of a first person shooter with the mechanics of an MMO.
With gun fights, lazers, diving for cover, alien intrigue, war and other exciting elements, combined with Richard Garriott designed features like Logos (a symbolic language that allowed certain humans to unlock amazing powers) and ethical parables (a chance for players to make actual decisions with their characters), this game had the potential to be a hit. Unfortunately, the audience simply did not agree and while Tabula Rasa has made an effort to improve itself since its launch, the decision was made to close the game's doors.
The announcement, however, didn't come as a complete shock to many who had been following the news surrounding it. On October 12th, the game's namesake, Richard Garriott, lived out his lifelong dream of blasting into space. On November 11th, less than a month after his return to Earth , Garriott made the announcement that he would be leaving the Tabula Rasa team:
I am happy to finally be able to write the players and community of Tabula Rasa. We've been on quite a journey together. First in creating a game unlike any other on the MMO market, then growing a loyal community and finally launching the game and its players into space with Operation Immortality. It has been quite an unforgettable journey, one that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
I am very grateful to you loyal players for sticking around through what I think we can all honestly say was a rough launch. I thank the development team for pushing hard to get polish, updates and new content out every month since launch...a feat that I think is unusual in MMO development. They have a lot to be proud of.
Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going to space. Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests.
This news is difficult for me to deliver. I am honored to have worked with the team I've had and I'm grateful to the community who makes this game so unique and fun.
Thank you and farewell.
That announcement was followed ten days later by the closure announcement. Biggest News Story of the Year? You decide!
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Warhammer Ditches Four Classes and Four Capital Cities
The last of our nominees for Biggest News Story of the year is the one that I am perhaps the most proud of. On July 11th, MMORPG.com was the first to report that Mythic Entertainment had decided to cut four capital cities (all but Altdorf and Inevitable City) and four careers (Choppa, Hammerer, Blackguard, Knight of the Blazing Sun).
While features get cut from MMOs all the time, it's simply a part of the process, what makes this story unique is that the announcement was made only two months before the game's launch in September and would certainly shape not only player opinion of the game going into its launch, but also what would seem to be the rather delicate balance between classes and sides that is required to run an RvR game (the decision left four of the game's six races without one of their careers).
The decision, we were told, was made because neither the cities nor the careers in question were of the quality that Mythic had hoped to capture:
Said Mythic boss Mark Jacobs of the career cuts:
"This isn't something that I can say that it is really a good thing for the player," he began. "We're cutting out some classes. I can say that we are doing this for quality, absolutely. Unfortunately, what I can't say, and I won't because I've never lied to the player base and while this would be a great place to start, I'm not going to."
"Four of the classes that we've been working on, we just couldn't get great," he continued. "We looked at them and we said these careers are just not great... and we tried, and they weren't coming out well."
Did this announcement have a significant impact on the game, or even on the MMORPG genre as a whole? Was this decision 2008's Biggest News Story? Let us know!
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Star Wars: The Old Republic !!!!!
Yeah, pretty sure Bioware is gonna win this one. Its what I immedietly voted for.
Yep Star Wars is nailed on for this.
What about Diablo 3???
While the Star Wars announcement was big, it wasn't that much of a mystery. For me the Star Trek online announcement had me going nuts and put me in that prelaunch excitement a year or 2 before the game even launches.
The WAR Announcement had me. Bioware announcement was also interesting.
Yeah, SWTOR.
We all knew it was coming, but that didn't stop it from hitting the gaming world like an ICBM.
This is why I do NOT believe SW-TOR is the big story. EVERYONE knew. Why does that equal big news.
Tabula Rasa closing is my pick. We did not assume it would close THAT soon. Especially with so much money tied up into the game, and the constant "No, we are not closing" news press releases.
Duh!
This is why I do NOT believe SW-TOR is the big story. EVERYONE knew. Why does that equal big news.
Tabula Rasa closing is my pick. We did not assume it would close THAT soon. Especially with so much money tied up into the game, and the constant "No, we are not closing" news press releases.
Duh!
Hehe when you say "it would close THAT soon" so you knew it would close maybe alittle sooner than you thought so why is that different from knowing about the Star Wars title but when you got the news it was big news?
This is why I do NOT believe SW-TOR is the big story. EVERYONE knew. Why does that equal big news.
Tabula Rasa closing is my pick. We did not assume it would close THAT soon. Especially with so much money tied up into the game, and the constant "No, we are not closing" news press releases.
Duh!
I don't know. There were alot of us that kept reiterating TR was gonna tank hard and soon. So I'd say it was pretty well expected.
My pick was SWTOR. Regardless of the rumors beforehand, having final acknowledgement that one of the greatest rpg makers ever was jumping into the mmo ring, and with Star Wars to boot, definitely hit the spotlight brighter than anything else this year.
And for the guy who asked what about Diablo 3, when Diablo 3 becomes an mmorpg, maybe it'll get in the running.
Definately the selling out of Mythic and them dropping content that should have been ingame at launch like the careers.
Gunna have to go with SWTOR. Nothing to do with expectations or anything, of all of the news it just seems to be the only one that really mattered in the long run. Tabula Rasa, at some point, just stopped mattering and only an insignificant number of people will actually care about its closure (people who play it now), the WAR class and city cuts were slightly expected given the closeness of release date and how little info they really gav e on them by that point, really thinking about it, the blizzard and activision merger doesn't change a lot, and post-release the directorial change is sort of expected, just sooner then most games would change directors.
SWTOR is easily the most genre effecting announcement of them, and its impact is entirely negligable. This year, thinking about it, is entirely disappointing, actually.
Definitely SW:ToR. Even though the removal of the cities and careers in WAR, and TRs coming closure were relatively huge, ToR takes the cake.
What about Diablo 3???
Umm, Diablo 3 is not an MMO, and this is MMORPG.com
Tabula Rasa got my pick. I never expected it to close so soon.
I think I will have to say that the Activision / Blizzard Merger was the biggest news for me this year.
Not that the news are positive to me in any way, infact I see this merger as a catastrophe for innovation within the MMO market. I still recon though, that this piece of news will be the one of biggest impact in the time to come.
I agree(voted). Though it seems like SWTOR is going to win this vote. The Activision/Blizzard annoncement is the one news story that will win in the long run, be it positive or negative.
Personally, I'm more excited about Cryptic's Star Trek: Online, but there's no question here: the official confirmation that Bioware is making Star Wars: The Old Republic is the MMORPG story of the year.
The announcement of warhammer 40k online was the biggest story of the year.. Of the choices offered it would have to be SWTOR since star trek was all ready in production by perpetual before they went other and the other stories hold no real interest at all...
This is the way that I see things:
The change of leadership at AoC and the closure of TR were what I think of as "house keeping" headlines. Things that happened that needed to be done. There was also Richard Garriot jumping ship shortly before the closure.
The cutting of content from WAR, well.. some things never change. Cutting content from release is standard. Sucks, but it's standard.
In the end, I see a MMO release by Bioware as the news that directly affects the MMORPG genre the most, especially with the (dare I say almost delicious) drama yet to unfold as we see its inevitable affect on SWG.
First of all, what's a preader? ;o
I voted for WAR only because the other announcements were a long time coming or hinted at along the year. The WAR story (as the AoC changing content just before launch last year), was a true shock. In my opinion the changes have drastically changed the game, and not necessarily for the better.
T
The Bioware one was fairly common knowledge, so it wasn't THAT big of a news story. Secondly, the information released was rather overwhelming compared to what I believe most people were expecting.
The TR one was not surprising, or terribly important.
STO reannouncement was not terribly surprising either, as that information was easily accessible through financial information, and a game announcement, like the SW game, is not that life-changing of an event on the MMO scene.
AOC story shouldn't have been nominated. Company shifts happen all the time, this shouldn't affect its players in any significant way. The game releasing in such an unfinished state is the bigger news.
The WAR announcement was not only surprising, but also seriously put doubt into many gamers about the state of that game upon release.
The biggest news story, while not "new" was by far ActBlizzard. It is important because it is part of the overarching trend of monopolizing the gamining industry, and also has made individuals concerned about the future of Blizzard games, especially with the 3x Starcraft purchases that people must make, regardless of what Blizzard is saying about their products. It also is the newsmaker that will affect the game industry the most out of those that were listed. This is big news that is generally viewed in a BAD way by most people.
Even though it wasn't news and it'll probably suck....... ToR.
I agree with Star Wars: The Old Republic crowd. Th is announcement was by far the biggest news of the year, hands down. I haven't been this excited about a game since I first heard Star Wars Galaxies was being make years ago.
Yes I'm a Star Wars fan, but its also the new approach they are taking the game. I just love the whole idea of being story-driven and choice-driven. For better or worse you have to live with you actions with no save button.
Plus the companions sound cool too, thats one thing I liked in Guild Wars as well. Although I didn't like Guild Wars that much anyway, companions and the free to play business model is the only things Guild War ever got right. I hope Bioware and LucasArts goes the same way with The Old Republic. I wouldn't mind paying for a new exspanion every year or so, if normal every day game play is free.
Not an MMO.
What about Darkfall beta?
Not an MMO.
What about Darkfall beta?
Seeing as Darkfall beta has been promised on and off for years, its hardly news
My thoughts as well. I think that SW:ToR will be a big disappointment, but it is obviously a major story. It may not have been a surprise, but it is important.
The biggest news and mystery is "Tabula Rasa is closing yet SOE's vacant and pure crap game SWG still continues on".
That is like solving the Bermuda Triangle mystery, will never happen.
Let's see:
Tabula Rasa Closure //dead, doesn't matter
Age of Conan Directorial Change //old news, no big deal
Star Trek Online Re-Announcement //not great to have a reannouncement. Small story.
WAR Ditches Cities and Careers //old news, game is hanging on
We are left with: Activision / Blizzard Merger OR Bioware Announces The Old Republic
Activision / Blizzard Merger is certainly worthy of big news. It is very telling for the future of the industry (ie growth). But since this is a gamers site and this is a reader's choice mergers don't feel right.
Clear Winner: Bioware Announces The Old Republic!!! The real beauty is that without more detail information, we can let our imaginations run away with possibilities. Therefore, in my mind, this is got to be the most amazing thing going on!
Age of Conan Directorial Change.
TOR, etc. is news for 2010-2011.
TR closure does it for me.
STO made me way more excited than anything else listed....Star Wars is great and all...but its still controlled by Lucas so I don't expect to much out of it...Surely nothing as good as the SWG PreCU was.
I guess for me it was Blizzard +Activision.
Here we have the most successful money making game in MMO's WOW and there owners[Blizzard/Vivendi] decide to share the wealth?this made zero sense to me.WHY?Would a company having success take on a partner?does this show they lack confidence in themselves and feel a total Blizzard melt down was coming soon?
On the other hand we have a fairly decent long standing successful company in there own rights [Activision]why do they all of a sudden want to merge with a proven failure when comes to finances in VIVENDI.They own some kind of record for most money ever lost in there stock market or something like that,fact is they handle money poorly and OVER spend foolishly.The only real success coming out of Vivendi's camp was WOW,until then they had a bunch of freebie kids hanging out on there battle.net.
Does Activision actually forsee Vivendi/Blizzard as making something of the future or are they just riding the coat tails of WOW?it really baffles me from both sides.
Ok i think the biggest reason y star wars is getting such hype is cause of the star wars bug... Star wars galaxies was an awesome game till lucas arts screwed up the game with its updates... and since this game is by a diffrerent company... it has alot of work too do too get us too like it more then SWG was. but also everyone has always like the movies and the games... its like Mario... mario is the master in Nintendo, Sonic for Sega, Halo for Xbox and Final Fantasy for Playstations. Star Wars falls in all those categories... any system it comes out in... it tends too be great... your only problem is... which system do you want too play it on lol. usually Xbox if you want too play online with others... PC if its like a MMORPG type game ect... But i will definitly keep an eye out on the new Star Wars game and see what they are gonna do with it :).
I did forget too mention one thing i do hate about blizzard/bioware ect.... when they come out with a release date... i get mad... cause you know you have too add 1-2 years too that date... it will always get pushed ALWAYS... ex: WoW was pushed for 1 1/2 years before it came out... StarCraft came out almost 2 years after its release date ect... So get ready too WAIT everyone.
STO is my favorit.
I think personally ST:O was the biggest announcement. I;ve been waiting for over two years already. Perpetual going under was a big hit to my hopes for the game, but now that Cryptic has it going again, they've somehow been able to keep interest. Perhaps it's because they have more community interaction than Perpetual ever did. Anyways, i'm extremely excited by ST:O's eventual release, and so that makes it the biggest story for me.
Intresting post Wizardry. I saw it as the biggest news story for the year simply because the gaming industry is headed towards a future that is controlled by a handful of giant corporations.
Star Trek Online was by far the biggest story of 2008. We had a scare there, that it might not come at all.
SW:TOR for sure. That one of the really great rpg companies develop an mmo on this ip, especially this ip is big news. I do hope they manage to keep the quality and storytelling that make their singleplayer rpg's great and use it to make their mmo great. A triple-a scifi title is needed aswell. Way to many fantasy clones around.
SW: ToR :)