The Daily Grind: Are MMO sequels doomed to fail?
Massively's Justin Olivetti has been covering the late great Asheron's Call 2 in this month's Game Archaeologist series. In it, he and his interview subjects suggest that the early closure of the game was due in part to the fact that AC2 was a sequel -- and worse, it was a sequel to a game that was still running alongside of it.
It isn't as though all sequels are failures; EverQuest and EverQuest II are both still around, after all, though EQII has never quite risen to the relative prominence of its predecessor. And Guild Wars 2 is right around the corner ("when it's ready"). But we can certainly point to other sequels that never even made it to launch, like Ultima Online 2 and Ultima X: Odyssey, which were canned specifically because the developer believed they would hurt their big brother, classic Ultima Online. What do you think? Are sequels generally a bad idea, too risky, doomed to fail? Are GW2 and EQII among the few exceptions that prove the rule? Or should we embrace a modern, graphically enhanced "re-envisioning" (as PlanetSide 2 is putting it) of old and beloved games?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
