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MMORPG Circle of Life
The Massive Gaming market continues to change. Wednesday marked the sunset of Earth and Beyond, a decision made by EA back in March due to a refocusing on future projects. While E&B heads out of the picture, the new French MMOG Saga of Ryzom opened its first US server this week after a lengthy beta period. Impressions of the game are available at Gamebunny and MMORPGDot. And looking towards the future, the Dungeons and Dragons Online website just went live yesterday.
E&B was an awesome MMORPG, and I don't even like MMORPG's. I just loved flying my ship around however I wanted and building up my ship's abilities. It was also cool walking around inside the bases and "talking" to other players and NPCs.
I was in the beta of E&B, but after it wasn't free anymore, I didn't pay for it, so I guess it wasn't fun ENOUGH to capture part of my wallet. This may explain why it failed, but normally you couldn't pay me to play an MMORPG.
Chris
For pure MMORPG's:
Earth & Beyond is no longer in service. After an amazing two years of galactic adventure, Electronic Arts has made the decision to close Earth & Beyond in order to focus resources on future games.
We hope you've enjoyed the game as much as we have and we'll see you again in another great EA game!
Thank you,
So, you pays your money, and then you are no longer able to play that game.... I am not fully up on the details, but I would be fskd is GTA VC stopped working on my PC one day (ok it ain't a MMORPG, but it is a game - I just don't play MMORPGS)
So what is the deal with that? [airline peanuts?]
If a game relies on these servers, and content, do the users know the minimum time they will be supported?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
... except for the fact that you have to put up other people in them.
AdsJunction.com Ad Network
No you won't.
EA Bought Westwood Studios and then cut E&B's budget so it would go hurling into the ground.
E&B had an excellent foundation and it's story was the most interesting of any other MMO that I've played or looked into so far.
EA bought out Maxis and put an end to their product diversity. Now they just stick with one sure-fire money maker and churn out endless expansions and revisions instead of entirely new simulator games.
And now they have the nerve to tell me I can't run certian software alongside their games because I might be a pirate. Nice way to treat your customers.
EA will never see another penny from me.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
There were rumours back then of a Linux client coming out for SoR as well, though I haven't heard much news about it since. Does anyone else know more?
Is there any talk of unofficial fan run servers, etc? This seems like it would be a good oppertunity for some small company to get into the market... buy the rights to the game, the source code, and maybe even the old hardware and pick up where EA left off. Anyways, are there any other games similar to this out there that could fill it shoes?
Yeah, I know, every time someone throws away a game people scream open souce it! But seriously, I beta tested this game. I really enjoyed it but didn't want to pay $13/mo for a game that I would only play from time to time. Just want to log in a spend a few hours once and a while.
That said, I've secretly been thinking of making a game much like this but GPL. One of the coolest things about it was you could make money in so many different ways. IIRC, the most money was to be had by traders. They would buy cargo ships and level up skills in trade. Then haul cargo across the galaxy. Sounds boring but they could make more in one trip then the fighers could in a lifetime.
It also had a neat aspect that you could "make" your own items. Weapons, ammo, etc. Your skill level would produce a higher/lower quality item. This, of course, could then be sold to players/NPC.
Some of the best times I had was when I few combat patrol for cargo ships. They would share the money they made trading with me, and I would protect them from enemy NPCs so they could reach good space docks. Also, in a team mode, you would share XP. I would get some levels in trade for their good trading skills, and they would get combat XP.
If we could convince EA (doubt it but worth a shot) to release the Server/Client, people could setup their own servers. This would be awesome because everyone could create "mods" and the game would evolve over time.
was that E&B would have made a great single player exploration/quest game... kinda like Star Control 2 but in 3D
apart from the XP sharing benefit of teaming up with other people, the game didn't motivate me to chat it up with other people or otherwise cooperate with non-NPCs.
Holy crap, a game website that isn't crippled with mandatory Flash intros and Flash-only site navigation! How are they ever going to sell games without it?!
I'd say the precident groundwork has been laid. Has anybody approached EA with the intent to purchase the code and rights from them? Granted, there's a bit of a difference in scale between 3DO and EA, but you never know.
I have no idea what the % of E&B players were that migrated to Star Wars Galaxies, a game without space ships when it started, or EVE. I left E&B for SWG, EVE had no draw for me as I couldn't get out of my ship and be a true person in a RPG world.
E&B had player balance issues as do all MMORPGs, the ID Matrix giving certain users on the server godlike abilities compared to the 1000s of other players out there and then nerfing them down to worthless status. I was one of the lucky ones who got to make tons of items with one. When the nerf came down, I left the game and started playing SWG. I knew they had database issues using flat files and no good editing tools, tons of devices and weapons had bad or non-existent drop rates and crafting became insane with tons of items never learnable after countless failures in deconstruction. The buyout and closing of Westwood all predicted the death of E&B long before this.
I had loads of fun living out in space, helping newbs out with my top notch building and travel tours, and performing scouting duties at Tada-Oh gate for my guild.
Hopefully the Sci-fi genre can produce another game with a budget to do it right again and keep getting better.
I wonder how many people's first reaction to "DDO the MMO" is, "Wow, finally, I can dance off against people online!"
The MMO market is now "mature". A lot of people have found that they have games they like, and won't leave them. You have to differentiate. A lot of games will have great stories and a few interesting features, but getting a 4-year EQ players to drop his subscription and his plans for EQ2 is going to take some work.
City of Heroes, however, is a bona fide hit; they're proving that they can break the formula, both in setting and in gameplay, and be rewarded for it. It was over 180,000 subscribers at last count, and still growing fast (atop the retail sales chart). They're also pounding out updates, have their sequel in full development, and will have an additional angle on updates powered by their release to euro and asian markets (which NCSoft obviously knows).
D&D Online, however, is going somewhere weird. Originally, I read they were "doing away" with attack bonuses and planned to do "combo attacks" instead, but now it sounds like you'll have to use keyboard combos to use all your attacks your attack bonus entitles you to. This is scary. Real time-ish combat which does away with the long-in-development nuances of attacks of opportunity and initiative hurts the ruleset - witness the issues with Neverwinter Nights, and stupid likes like 1-action spells being interrupted by random attacks that just HAPPENED to be scheduled by the engine during the animation sequence of the spell. If there hadn't been all this weirdness, I would have been very enthused over DDO.
There's also the Matrix MMO coming out soon; people are getting their beta test entries now. They certainly have interesting combat animations. We'll have to see how the gameplay goes; I know a lot of people won't even touch it unless the word of mouth is incredible, since they're bitter over the final 2 movies and the buggy PC game. (which I thought was very fun, but it DID have some issues)
Can't say what they will give you -- though Vendetta Online is just comming out of beta. It runs on Windows (many versions), Linux, and OS X.
The forums might have more details.
Sign up for the beta before they ship!
Summary of Vendetta: A team game with some personal character development. Very smooth flight sim -- very playable. Some eye candy, though not tons. The universe is dynamic and huge; each sector has over 100 areas in it and there are dozens of sectors. Wormholes to other sectors. Have up to 6 characters in any of the 3 factions. Factions 'own' sectors. Faction standing is based on your actions. Defense and pirate bots. Status and skill lead to new/bigger/powerful ships. Cruisers and larger ships will play a role (haven't seen any in months...though they take some heavy pounding before they can be destroyed).
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
they chose the part of their newest campaign setting that isn't anything like traditional D&D. I wish they'd just spun Greyhawk around in its grave for D&D Online..another fucking for that CS isn't anything bad..
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Whoa guys, hang on here. I was in the beta too, and in my not so humble opinion, E&B SUCKED. Every single aspect of it was little more than a poorly disguised leveling treadmill. Combat was utterly worthless... fly to target, use special ability A B or C, set most powerful weapon to autofire, wait until someone dies. Dogfighting? What's that? Hell, space wasn't even 3D - it was a flat plane with about 15 feet of vertical space before your ship magically leveled off - so you couldn't even manuver if you wanted to (Not that it actually did anything gamewise, mind you). Trading? Nonexistant. Apparently 100 years in the future the market is 100% stable. Prices never change, supply never dwindles or overfills... leaving a handful of "most profitable runs" for your trading ships to run over and over and over until you're ready to puke. Mining was no better. Float up to rock, zap the rock, see whats inside, pull out the good stuff... move on to next rock. Last and least was exploration, which was no more than a glorified game of connect the dots. See a "?" on your map? Fly to it for 50 exp. Repeat for every tiny little insignificant fucking node rock and planet in every system everywhere. Congrats, you're exploring! Its stuff everyone else knows about and can see on their map, but technically its new to you! Wow! Oh, i'm sorry, I forgot about the "hidden" nodes. Yeah, those were fun. Fly 10,000km off the beaten path in the hopes of finding something cool, only to find a lot of sweet fuck all. Woo. I found more 'hidden' and 'secret' shit by accidentally stumbling into it while chasing space monsters than actually roaming around looking for stuff. Not that any of it was worth anything other than the one-time 200xp bonus. Yippie.
I'm sorry, I really tried to like the game but it was just so horribly executed. Sure, the universe was big and there was a lot of stuff to see, but everything you did was so horribly wafer thin it couldn't possibly hold my attention for more than a few minutes.
The only previous comment here i'll agree with was the looks. E&B did have its moments... I'll always remember the first time I visited the Saturn sector and saw a huge rainbow of rocks (saturns rings) reflecting sunlight back at me. That was freaking awesome. Unfortunatly it wasn't the most beautiful space MMORPG i've ever seen... that honour goes to Jumpgate. While on the whole it was shorter on visuals, the most stunning thing i'd ever seen was the Pulsar sector (I think thats what it was called... it was in the very center of the map and had HEAVY flux activity). Flying into this thing was like swimming in a rainbow. I was utterly amazed at the time.
Otherwise though, I don't really see what you guys are talking about. Leveling up and creating your ship fell right into the same old RPG trap of "good, better, best" (Diablo 2 anyone?) where you were worthless if you didn't have the 'perfect' setup. The insides of bases were spartan, to say the least. What were they, three, maybe four rooms? Sprinkle a couple of NPCs and some mission terminals around, then fill the place with players madly rushing from one NPC or mission terminal and back to their ship. To me it looked more like a feedlot than the insides of a space station. And as for ballance... I dunno, maybe it got better as things went on, but in the beta at least, they could never get the damn game right. First, everyone uses lasers because they rock. Then lasers get nerfed, everyone loves missiles. Missiles get nerfed, everyone's using projectiles. We just went around and around and around from one "best" to the next, there wasn't ever a sense of ballance.
Maybe i'm just a cranky old bastard today (quite possible)... but of what I remember from the E&B beta it was a good idea, horribly executed. I'm not an MMO fan by any stretch of the imagination though, so maybe there are people out there who really did like it. I found it far too thin on substance for my liking though. Even a great story can't hold me for long if the gameplay is the equivalent of dining on cardboard.
But hey, thats just me.
Cheers.
Actually, most online games are surprisingly resistent to death. My own game, Meridian 59, was shut down by 3DO then bought and resurrected by a couple of the former developers. We've kept the game going and growing; we just released a new graphical client which includes Direct3D support, dynamic lighting, mouselook, rebindable keys, all things that weren't included in the game when it was released originally in 1996. It's not exactly cutting edge, but it looks pretty fine for a game that's about 8 years old.
Really, I think that online RPGs are probably a much better deal if you want longevity from your games. There's still thousands of people playing Meridian 59. How many games released in 1996 are you honestly still playing? Most people ignore a game after a few years, anyway.
One more thing to remember is that EA has had a startling amount of success in killing old online games. Earth & Beyond joins a long list of games that EA has shut down permanently. This is an aberration, not the norm.
Have fun,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Been playing the game since it opened up, and it's the most beatiful game I've ever seen. EVER. The gameplay is completely orginal from any other MMORPG, this is one of the best MMOs coming out throughout the world.
Just like when the bastards at EA killed Multiplayer Battletech.
Hell, they could have started charging for what they already had in the beta with *no additional development* and I'd have bought it.
I still say the beta of MPBT:3025 was one of the most entertaining games ever made.
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