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Asheron's Call 2 Goes Sunset
In the wake of so many new MMOGs, it was inevitable that one would sink beneath the waves. Turbine's Asheron's Call 2 has called it quits, with a message on the official site stating that AC2 will close as of the end of December. The move comes at a somewhat confusing time, only three months after the release of Legions, the newest expansion for the two and a half year old gameworld. Gamespot has a report as well. The notice on the site reads: "In spite of our hard work and the launch of Legions, AC2 has reached the point where it no longer makes sense to continue the service. We will be officially closing the Asheron's Call 2 service on 12/30/05. Until then, we plan to run live events, but we will not be adding any content or features. We deeply appreciate the many dedicated fans of AC2 who have stood by us over the years. You have our sincerest gratitude. "
It seems like MMORPG sequels have a rough time. Ultima Online's sequel died in the womb, Asheron's Call 2 had a rough time getting customers and is now dying, and Everquest 2 is near the bottom of the population statistics charts.
Meanwhile, the original games continue to chug along, not gaining new users but also not hemorraging their core fans.
Sequels rarely live up to originals in any medium, but I suppose that effect is amplified in a genre where titles are considered a billable service and "persistence" is the main attraction.
If the game never ends, why would a player pull up the stakes in a game where so much time and effort is invested just to move into a newer, shinier world and start all over? On the other side of things, why would a new player going to join a game that already has the history and culture associated with it?
It's a shame though. Turbine got a lot right with Asheron's Call 1 that hasn't been seen in other MMORPG's since. AC2 was supposed to be the update that filled in all the cracks of that flawed masterpiece. And the next we can expect from Turbine are derivative medival fantasy franchise titles like Dungeons and Dragons and Middle Earth Online.
What an incredibly short-sighted comment. Turbine makes online game technology and online games. They have two (soon to be one) products running and two more in development. There is no way Turbine wrote a new server system for each of those games. All four of those games have servers that share a codebase to a certain degree. If Turbine open sourced the AC2 server code base they would be, in one fell swoop, giving away a huge part of the value of their company and giving nefarious players the roadmap to cause havoc on their running and future games.