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.

Comments

Brings up a startling question

[tod_miller]

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?

Re:Brings up a startling question

[chromaphobic]

I would be fskd is GTA VC stopped working on my PC one day

In all likelyhood, one day it will stop working. It probably will be a long time from now, but at some point Windows will most likely be updated to the point where old software stops working.

I haven't had it happed to any of my PC games just yet, but I have a stack of old Mac games that only work with OS 9 whose CD's are headed for the trash bin soon.

At this point in time, I wouldn't expect the devlopers for the Mac port of the original Driver (for example) to go back and update it for OS X after all these years. I just accept it as one of the costs of forward progress.

But, yeah, I might be a little upset if I'd put a lot of time into a MMO game and they just killed it one day (despite the fact that it's inevitable that every MMO will one day shutter it's doors.)

Re:Brings up a startling question

[tod_miller]

I think the inevitability of a MMO closing doors is sad... :-( a good network model wuold mean you could upgrade 'software' like windows, and keep playing the essence.

Good point about PC software, I know that my amstrad copy of elite doesn't work on my PC anymore :-( It used to work at least 10% of the time on the amstrad :-(

Seriously though, originals of frontier, and frontier 2, DOTT, Sam and Max, all these DOS days games.... *sniff* haven't figured out how to get them runnig on SCUMMVM (haven't tried, well how replayable is an adventure game?)

I hope frontier first encounters is released for the Pocket PC. I noted David Braben about it... would be aaaaaace.

Re:Brings up a startling question

[warnerve]

I think you are trying to compare apples and oranges. That is like complaining that GTA stopped working because you got rid of your PS2. If you want to continue to use GTA on the PC, then you need to maintain a machine that is capable of running it. The user base of the mmorpg don't have that option.

MMORPGs are great ...

[monsterhead78]

... except for the fact that you have to put up other people in them.

Earth & Beyond

[jafuser]

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!

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.

Re:Earth & Beyond

[Enucite]

I think we have all said the same thing about one company or another but lets be truthful here. Next time they come out with a game you really want they will see about $50 of your pennies.

If they come out with a game he really wants, he can get it without anyone--except his ISP--seeing a penny for it.

I'm not saying it's right, just that it's possible for him to play any good games EA happens to ship without EA ever getting a penny for it.

I think developers and publishers need to pay attention to this. When they don't care about the quality of their product (shipping buggy software and taking a "we'll fix it later" attitude) and treat their paying customers like criminals (telling users what they can or can't run on their computer, using copy protection that affects quality of gameplay), why should they expect their potential customers to care about supporting them?

Ryzom

[Frostbeard]

I played Ryzom back in the early beta days, and it was great fun even back then. The problem, I found, was that it was a bit needlessly complicated. Specifically, the skill system was kind of cumbersome.

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?

Farewell to E&B (a year later)

[BumbaCLot]

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.

some make it, some don't

[MattW]

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)