The Perfect Ten: Final moments of MMOs, part 2
LAST TIME ON THE PERFECT TEN: Games were shut down, tears were shed, memories were dragged unwillingly from long-term storage, and videos were shown. Also, Marty totally suckered Biff into driving into a truck full of manure and then got his parents to kiss at a dance so that he wouldn't be erased from the space-time continuum.
AND NOW FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUSION!
Is it completely morbid to want to revisit (or see for the first time) the final moments of MMOs? Yes, but also no. Really, it's just interesting to me, and I have no great agenda at play here. Sometimes seeing how a game goes out can tell you a lot about its community and dev team. So join us now as we hit the second half of 10 videos showing the last few minutes of these online RPGs.
6. City of Heroes: November 31, 2012
This is a long video that has a narrated introduction, a few final battles, and a lot of guild chatter, but what I'd like you to do is to jump to 21:15 and watch from there to the end. While it may not be much to look at -- a superhero standing against the American flag -- the voice recording of players chiming in when each server goes down is quite sobering.
"OK, globals are down."
"Goodbye Justice. Justice is down."
"God, this feels unreal."
"There goes Victory."
And so on until Freedom loses connection to mapserver one last time.
7. Glitch: December 9, 2012
It's always sad when a game is shut down, but Glitch refuses to wrap things up without a little snarky comedy. I find that fitting for the game's attitude, really. So in this video, a bell-ringing horse-man prances around screaming that, "The end is neiiiiiiiigh!" while players come to terms with the last eight minutes of virtual existence.
"God" announces the final minute in general chat and asks the crowd if they've finished up yet. "Oh wow, you're still here?" God then asks. "Get a move on, lil doggy!"
Finally: "We really, really, really love you. You have no idea."
8: Final Fantasy XIV: November 11, 2012
This is an odd entry on the list, but I'd hate to leave it off because it was one of the coolest ways to shut down a game (or at least a version of a game) that I've ever seen. Leading up to the final minutes, a giant red moon grows larger in the sky as clouds and lightning provide all the atmosphere that the doom-n-gloomers could ever want. Right at the last second, the game goes into a lengthy CGI cutscene involving a dragon, explosions, a massive battle, and a mage who flings all of the player heroes five years into the future right before the world ends.
Now that's how you want to go out!
9. All Points Bulletin: September 16, 2010
If the world was ending, what would you do? If MMOs are any indication, you'd get together with a lot of people in an open area and then jump around because jumping is fun. Another option, according to this video, is to form a conga line of people walking crouched over.
The end of the world doesn't need to make sense, folks. It just is.
10. LEGO Universe: January 30, 2012
It's got to be so surreal to see your MMO freeze as the servers are shut down and you're unable to log in for the rest of time. Here we have the final couple of minutes of LEGO Universe as one player seeks to preserve the ending for the history books. Or at least YouTube.
In the end, I think it's telling that he spends those minutes contacting his friends to say goodbye. In the end, it's the connections that mean the most.
Justin "Syp" Olivetti enjoys counting up to ten, a feat that he considers the apex of his career. If you'd like to learn how to count as well, check out The Perfect Ten. You can contact him via email at justin@massively.com or through his gaming blog, Bio Break.
