counterfactual-history
Latest
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: True Fantasy Live Online
As an extremely amateur historian -- and an extremely attractive archaeologist -- I've always been fascinated with the "what ifs" of gaming's timeline. What if Blizzard had pulled the plug on World of Warcraft during development as it did for Warcraft Adventures? What if Hellgate: London had a lot more time and resources before it launched? What if North America had embraced the free-to-play model much earlier instead of the subscription model? What if Shawn came to his senses before he hired me? Life would've been a lot better. Or worse. That's the problem with counterfactual history: We can make educated guesses, but we'll never really know. While it's sad to see MMOs shut down due to underperformance, it's especially maddening to contemplate MMOs canceled before they even made it to the starting gate. In a new periodic series here at The Game Archaeologist, I'm going to look at a few of the "what ifs" of prematurely terminated MMORPGs. And to kick us off, I'm tackling probably one of the most frustrating, painful subjects that still linger amongst potential fans. I'm talking, of course, of True Fantasy Live Online, the game that could've shown the true potential of console MMOs. Or, y'know, not.
