What? It's from 1998.

It’s unfortunate that Another One Bites The Dust exists, but necessary. This column chronicles the fateful announcements ahead of an MMOGs’ downfall, a company closure or, in some truly sad cases, both. Grab your Big Gulp and let some hit the floor for the fallen.

NCSoft, perhaps best known in the West for being the publisher behind the Guild Wars franchise (and my favorite Sci-Fi MMOG Tabula Rasa) recently announced that the company will be shutting down Lineage in North America. The early MMORPG title continues to support itself in its homebase of South Korea, but North American gamers have moved on, perhaps to its sequel Lineage II or sister product Aion.

NCSoft is giving all players, current and previous, a chance to partake in the title’s final moments. Any player that is in good standing (i.e. not been banned) has had their account reactivated. All billing has been cancelled from last week on. If that describes you, you’d best join in, as the development team promises a few live events before Lineage heads to the digital graveyard.

Given that it’s remaining online elsewhere, I wonder if the closing moments of Lineage will have any impact on other realms. I’ll always remember Lineage as the game that introduced me to the horrors and joy, in that order, of MMOG PvP, and Eastern MMOG developers.

The North American servers for Lineage will close on June 29, 2011. That’s assuming the world doesn’t end on May 21 like those nutjobs keep saying.

In not-so-directly-related news, former NCSoft development partner Cryptic Studios is having its own issues. Atari, the company’s owner since 2008, announced in its financial report that it considers Cryptic Studios to be a “discontinued operation.” Gamasutra reports that the original developer of City of Heros/Villains (now at NCSoft subsidiary Paragon Studios), Star Trek Online, newly free-to-play Champions Online and the upcoming Neverwinter RPG will be sold off.

Atari and Cryptic Studios have separately stated that the developer’s products will remain unaffected, at least for the immediate future.

Atari is dropping the recently-acquired studio to focus on its new business strategy “of fewer but more profitable releases and further expansion into casual online and mobile games.” Losing some $25 million in the past two years probably didn’t bode well for Cryptic. The studio has not divulged if Champion Online’s move to the F2P genre was as successful as past endeavors by other companies.

All the best to those affected by the decisions.

I’d like to welcome everyone to 2011. A year I’d officially call “The Year of Hope” for the MMOG industry. We can all attest to what a disappointment 2010 has been for the most part. We’ve seen new releases with a severe lack of content, major intellectual properties turn in to games that don’t do them justice, and were even ‘lucky’ to witness the shortest lived MMOG in history. As such, most gamers will remember 2010 with a sour taste in their mouth, and hope that this year will more than make up for the failures of the past.

2011 sure does promise a lot of new games worthy of our attention…or so it seems at first glance. Perhaps, a few of you have lost all hope for innovation in the industry at this point. No? Then let’s examine some of the concepts that new games aim to either introduce or develop further in the year 2011.

“If everyone is different…are they not the same?” – Philosoraptor

Probably the most noticeable difference is the expansion of the term ‘MMO’ to include games that significantly differ from each other, much as their single-player colleagues do. Judging by existing games like Global Agenda, Need for Speed World and upcoming titles like Firefall, World of Tanks and Tribes Universe, it seems that the ‘MMO’ label can be successfully slapped onto a sandwich, provided that it is eaten by fifty or so gourmands at the same time. Whether this adds more choice to the genre or is just a cheap way to monetize gameplay, which should have accompanied a single-player release, varies largely from game to game. Coupled with a wider acceptance and prevalence of free-to-play projects, this can lead to some interesting combinations. Let’s just hope that these newer titles are examples of quality before quantity, which was a problem of the early F2P genre.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a T-Rex (Ed’s Note: Someone training to be a paleontologist?)

Combat in 2011 is moving towards relying more on action elements and player skill, rather than pure number-crunching we’ve been used to in the ‘good ol’ days.’ Games like Blade and Soul and TERA aim to challenge our agility, precision and situational awareness. For some gamers, this really brings out the issue of player skill, one that has been lacking severely in old-school games. Finally, we get games where gear isn’t the deciding factor and where true winners can carve their own success.

To others, this might be an unwelcome introduction to a genre that previously took a deliberately slower approach to action and was (somewhat) akin to a speedy game of chess, albeit one with unicorns (Charlie!) and spells. With existing projects like Vindictus and DCUO beta, another important issue has been brought up in the fact that some players can’t always handle the physical strain that these games deliver. Thus, whether the newer releases will create a successful blend of both traditional and new combat systems is still up for debate. Continue Reading

It seems we have a prophet among us, Lore Hounds. Your fellow viewer, Nextgener was spot on when he said:

you’ll be back.

they always come back.

And so I will. After being dumped like a sack of maggot-ridden potatoes, STO lost its new car smell; not to mention its reason to be played. Many issues surrounded the intense, and once highly desired, relationship I had with my fellow Trekkie. Sadly, it ended a month later. In that time, I at the very least, was able to glimpse more into the newer IPs of the MMOG market.

I am back, and in full force. I have 33 days from now, to get my Kingslayer title. I’m after it. That is my Prime Directive (ha, ZING!) to bridge the gap between expansions. My agenda later then follows:

1. Attempt to finish up Loremaster. Though, this probably should be at the bottom of the list of “most likely achievable”.
2. Get spec / items in order on my alts to level them up in Cataclysm
3. Pre-Cataclysm events.

Continue Reading

Durability taken from this will be very expensive.

At the peak hours of Friday night, I had acquired much-needed money. Much-needed funds in a discretionary way.  I used the greenbacks to accommodate what I’ve been after, Star Trek Online. Sadly, I realized that I don’t have enough to pay for both WoW and STO. With the classic dilemma that iTZKooPA managed to explain, I needed to make a serious decision, and fast. Fantasy or sci-i, orcs or klingons, daggers or phasers – an ever-lasting discussion. Before I get into the specifics of the scenario, let me educate you on the background of what has happened in my “fragile” MMO life.

• Raiding has died.

Around four months ago, I had begun to actually experience what raid progression was like. With a guild of four close friends, we created a raiding guild and recruited others to join us. Week after week, we downed each wing and mastered the previous. Week 3 is where it all went down hill. Sindragosa, not only wiped the raid, but the entire guild! Eleven attempts in, we could only ever get her down to 25%.  **shakes heads in shame**

We wiped every time because people were falling asleep, losing focus, probably both. I, having engagements the next day, and seeing that we were not progressing, said “After the next two attempts, if we don’t get her past 25%, I’m out for the night.”

My raid leader (who was also my close friend, and guild master) threw a gasket. “None of this three attempts BS. If you’re out, you’re out.” So I dropped the group. He soon whispered me with “Don’t bother coming to the raid next week, you’re not going.” (Side note: I was the one who always scheduled the raids, made the group, and then gave him raid lead when he asked.)

Taking what was rightfully mine (stuff that I put in the guild bank), I /gquit. Soon later, he took the rest of the guild and convinced them to faction transfer to Horde on Archimonde, save my three real-close friends. They caught other flak of their own nature and decided to say “Snuff you.” Continue Reading