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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Stop digging up the grave
My original plan for this week's column was to discuss themes and tone in superheroic games, but that got pushed to the side when Jack Emmert's comments about City of Heroes lit up the imagination of pretty much everyone still pining for Paragon City. For those who haven't already seen it, here's a helpful link to the video of the PAX East panel wherein Emmert makes a brief statement that the shutdown was not a good thing and that NCsoft should call him. Friends of mine from the City of Heroes community let me know about this. People I don't know from the City of Heroes community let me know about this. Random strangers let the entire Massively team know about this. Never mind that I was at the PAX East panel where it happened and thereby already knew about this beforehand, that's not really important right now. You are probably expecting me to join the crowd of the hopefuls, but no. We're long past that point, and even if we weren't, this is not a chance to start hoping that the game will return from the grave. Fact is, it's past time to stop hoping.
Nexon closing North American Dungeon Fighter Online
Nexon is closing the North American version of Dungeon Fighter Online according to a post by CEO Min Kim on the title's official website. "Sadly, Dungeon Fighter Online has not attracted enough player interest to properly service the game," Kim writes. "Internally, we struggled deeply with the popularity of DFO in North America as the title is immensely popular overseas. For more than three years, we went through many milestones and several pushes before we came to this very difficult decision." Nexon will close DFO's cash shop on April 11th, and the game itself will sunset on June 13th. The company is also compensating players who purchased permanent and durational items over the past six months.
Gpotato's Sevencore meets an early demise
Despite recently seeing the first of what players hoped would be a string of new content, gPotato's new title Sevencore announced today that it will be closing its doors. A forum post says that the game "has proved to be less attractive to players than anticipated and thus [it's] become unprofitable for the developer to be continued as a game." The developers hope to transition active players by undertaking the following: Reimbursing all gPotatoes spent between the 1st of February and today as well as between 30% and 75% of purchases prior to this date, Closing the in-game shop with immediate effect while considering making all shop items available for free, Keeping the game open until the end of April, Boosting experience gain and running events during the final period of the game, and Encouraging players to migrate to other gPotato games with special enticement packages. This bad news comes on the heels of the news that Webzen recently purchased gPotato and Gala-Net. Perhaps the purchase will breath new life into the developer after it showed a dip in quarterly sales when compared to the last year.
The Soapbox: No game lives forever
The lifespan of a video game is a funny thing. There are some games that have a definite end, yet you'd wish they'd last forever. These games measure life in replayability, run-through length, or multiplayer matches, but they lack permanence and persistence. Still, you can usually dust them off years from now and still have fun with them. MMOs are a different breed, aren't they? They promise the inverse of the solo game, with a world that goes on, content that keeps flooding in, and the illusion that it will last forever. Yet when the switch is turned off, there's no going back. You can't pick it up 10 years from now and give it another go. It's why the news that an MMO is closing up shop comes as such a devastating blow to many of us. As MMOs attempt to emulate the persistence of life, so too do they illustrate the finality of death.
Around Azeroth: Alterac Valley revisited
A reader that we will just refer to as Mark sent us this amazing screenshot from Wrath of the Lich King's revamp of Alterac Valley. No, no. These three aren't on defense, nor are they AFKing. No sir. In fact, they're the offense. It turns out in Wrath, you don't even need to leave home base to win. Drek'thar and Vanndar come to you. It's a little unbalanced though, Drek'thar isn't very good at crossing bridges.Seriously though, Mark says him and a few buddies were taking a little break (and drinking a little ale) after defending Stonehearth from a few waves of Hordies and he decided to snap this picture. If you have any pictures our readers might like, sharing it is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. And, please, no more sunsets! Unless it's a sunset full of delicious candy that I may eat to sate my undying hunger for flesh. I mean sugar.%Gallery-1816%
Remembering the 8-bit sunsets
We've spent the week regaling releases of yore, celebrating the intricacies and conventions that made them so memorable, but if there's one trait about some of these retro titles that we don't remember fondly, it's trudging through waves of enemies and uninteresting levels only to find our efforts rewarded with little more than a shot of the protagonist staring off into the sunset.These twilight scenes weren't anomalous, phenomena exclusive to games of a certain genre or limited to a few occurrences. With just a cursory check, Games Radar was able to dig up no less than 18 NES titles that featured these over-the-horizon endings. Were developers just too lazy to try for anything more? Or was it something more sinister -- a secret cabal of Apollo acolytes looking to resurrect their solar deity with these 8-bit tributes? Think about that the next time you wonder why the sun seems to have somehow increased in size since you last saw it ...
