dead-mmos
Latest
Ask Massively: Misconceptions about new, old, and sunsetted MMOs
As the editor-in-chief of Massively, I make it a point to read as many of our comments as I can. We have some really smart people here chatting at the bottom of our posts, and I learn a lot from them. But I also see the same illogical statements and easily countered arguments being made independently by different commenters across many different threads and games. I'd like to address some of those misconceptions today in the first part of a new Ask Massively miniseries. Today's misconceptions are all about new, old, and sunsetted MMOs.
ChangYou plans to bring Shadowbane back in China
MMOs die. It's a very sad reality, but a reality just the same. And more often than not, there's no chance for a revival. But every so often the stars align just right and fans get lucky, which is almost the case with Shadowbane. Nearly three years after the game's shutdown, it looks like it'll be getting a new lease on life... as the basis for a new title developed by ChangYou. There are no firm details on what the new game will look like, although it appears to have been in development for roughly a year at this time. Preliminarily titled World of Shadowbane, the game is still too far in the future for any sort of launch information, much less discussion of whether or not the game will see an American release. Still, it's closer to a chance at revival than the game has had in the past three years, and that's something.
One Shots: Goodnight, sweet prince
With the change in the new year, we bid a fond farewell to Dungeon Runners, which shuffled off the Internets last night. It's always sad to see an MMO go, especially a wacky, fun, free-to-play title. Thankfully, Massively reader Ripper McGee was on-hand last night to capture this screenshot from the final moments. We'll turn it over to Ripper to explain: Dungeon Runners was shut down for good at midnight last night/this morning. Here [is a shot] from yesterday. [This] is me on my main character next to the bomb Steve Nichols planted in the middle of Townston. All of the players assumed the bomb would go off at midnight, but it was actually just decoration. At midnight, we were all simply disconnected from the server.... Prior to that, though, the server population was completely full (first time in a long time)!If you have any screenshots from the end of Dungeon Runners -- or indeed any sunsetted MMO -- we'd be glad to feature them here. All you have to do is to email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit!%Gallery-9798%
The Daily Grind: What MMO would you like to see be brought back to life?
Today is a day where we should honor our fallen. Motor City Online. Tabula Rasa. Auto Assault. Asheron's Call 2. Earth and Beyond. Underlight. Shadowbane. Castle Infinity. The Matrix Online. The Sims Online. Seed. All of these games, and more, are MMOs that have launched, played, and then died.Each of these games has a reason for why it was cancelled, but the outcome remains the same -- they aren't online today and their clients are nothing more than wasted code sitting on a disk. Some of these games were our introduction to the genre. Others were our favorite games -- the ones that could trump even the largest names in the MMO business.So Massively readers, which dead MMO would you like to see be resurrected? Tell us some stories as to why you pick your game of choice, and drop them all in the comment box below. Mourn with others, we encourage it!
The saga of Mythica (and other tales of MMO death and delay)
To say that delays are common in the MMO production schedule would be a fantastic understatement. Warhammer Online and Age of Conan's now almost-comical dancing act away from a release date can probably be traced right back to last year's launch of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Rob Pardo's well-known mantra of "polish, polish, polish" finally has a sort of anti-hero poster boy; a sterling example of what not to do when making one of these games. But, of course, WAR and AoC are just the latest examples of this trend. MMOs have been delaying or dying off since the days of Ultima Online. Over at 1up they have a whole feature dedicated to notable game delays, and the Massive genre is proudly represented among those titles. At least, standing cheek-by-jowl with the likes of Daikatana and Sin Episodes, the MMOs on the list represent a lot of (wasted) potential. From the recent Gods and Heroes collapse all the way back to the on-again-off-again development of Ultima Online 2, the list takes in the long messy road of dead and dying MMOs. Probably the one I regret most is the 2004 cancellation of Microsoft's Mythica - a unique norse-themed instanced heavy fantasy title. Everyone that even knew about MMOs back then was very excited for it, as the designers and developers were very gung-ho about the creation of real storytelling experiences inside these crazy 'instance' things. Whole tiny pocket worlds! Amazing!Living the dream, of course, was not to be. At least the game's idea lives on - along with the likes of Auto Assault, Imperator, and the quirky title-that-never was: Middle Earth Online.
