Project Lore

It's with an unusually heavy heart that I report that earlier this week Sega announced the company's intentions to shutdown the PS2 and PC servers for Phantasy Star Universe.  PSU is being shuttered on March 31, after just over three years of being the second MMOG to come from the Phantasy Star world.

Ironically, the sequel to the first wildly successful console MMOG will continue to live on Xbox 360, including additional content past tomorrow's update.

Tomorrow, January 29, will be the last day that gamers can create a new account on the dieing platforms, and it will coincide with the launch of the "long awaited" MAG+ event.  From that day on, the game will be free-to-play.  Unfortunately, it appears that Sega is not opening the game to new users.  So we won't be able to see what we missed, be a part of closing events, or possible get sucked into the 360 version.

I really enjoyed that last few hours of Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, two titles that I played during their respective launches.  Although I never played Phantasy Star Universe, I do wish I could be a part of its sign-off.  That's because I did play its predecessor, Phantasy Star Online.  In fact, PSO is the MMOG that I cut my teeth on back in the Dreamcast days.  I even carried over that casual addiction to the Gamecube version ($$$), going so far as to purchase the system's super-rare broadband adapter.

For those unfamilar with Phantasy Star Universe, it's a third-person hack-n-slash game set in a science fiction universe.  It's not like WoW at all, being far closer to a Diablo meets Mass Effect title, with MMOG aspects.  The irony here is that the game is fully playable in "network" mode or as a single-player experience.  I may pick it up to rekindle the desire to slaughter rappies since the price of the PC version is almost at rock bottom ($13.53).

Phantasy Star Universe had one expansion, Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus.

According to Sega, the affected server platforms aren't being shutdown due to production costs of new content, or lack of subscribers, at least not directly.  The main culprit is the spread of the population, which is mostly on 360 now.  Sega should attempt to merge the game's databases and offer a move to the 360 version if at all possible.  I'd bite if I had a soon-to-be-dead character.

Phantasy Star Universe GM Edward@Sega told Escapist, "If you've played on PC/PS2 recently, you also likely know why we are shutting these servers down," he wrote. "The population is simply too low for us to be able to continue to support this platform."  He went on to say that the 360 version's content should now catch up with the Japanese edition of the game, thanks to the singular focus.

Did anyone else try either incarnation of Phantasy Star MMOG?

MythWare, BioIc, thicWare, BioMyth? Have you heard the news?  Electronic Arts is merging Mythic Entertainment, maker of Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, with BioWare, creator of Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic and the upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic.  EA's announcement, first officially confirmed by Mythic, followed another huge announcement in the video game industry, the purchase of id Software by ZeniMax (the parent company of Bethesda Softworks and Game Studios).  After nothing since E3, the pair of announcements on the same day caught everyone off guard. EA's bombshell was short on details, but here is what we know:

• The "studio group" is still unnamed.
• BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka is now the Group General Manager.
• BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer.
• Mark Jacobs, former GM/VP/CEO of Mythic, will be leaving EA.

The Mythic/BioWare merger isn't exactly surprising, specifically because it makes business sense to have the developers of MMOGs close together.  On top of better using one's resources, there is also that little issue with Warhammer Online, it simply didn't meet Mark Jacobs' standards for success, 500,000 subscribers and no server mergers.  EA last stated that WAR was around 300,000 and Mythic has already merged servers.  Thus, as part of the on-going restructuring at Electronic Arts, the company has smashed Mythic and BioWare into a “MMO/RPG studio group.” The brevity of the announcement has left me with a few questions:

• Was Mark Jacobs axed for his title's, he was Lead Designer after all, shortcomings, or did he walk?
• Will WAR's post-launch development be hampered by Jacobs loss, or the merger?
• Is BioWare going to take any advice from Mythic, who is far more experienced at MMO developing, or go it alone?  Will they have any impact on SW:TOR?
• Any chance the merger will hinder the development of BioWare's RPGs, Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age: Origins?
• Does the select wording of the new entity, studio group, mean there will be no further layoffs at Mythic?  Perhaps just a new management chain?

Here are my expectations in short; he was likely asked to leave due to the "failure" of WAR and development will continue per usual in the short term. BioWare would be stupid to ignore launch advice and community ideas from Mythic and the company's RPG titles will be unaltered by the merger.  No further layoffs, just a change at the top. From following Mark Jacobs' career at Mythic I would speculate that his departure was a little from column A and a little from column B.  The man played nearly every roll in his formerly small company, which would lead one to believe that he's a workaholic perfectionist and likely a control freak, for better or for worse.  For someone like that selling his company to Electronic Arts must have been difficult, and merging with another developer would be impossible.  So with that in mind, and the sluggish adoption of WAR, Mark likely took an offer to walk out.  Knowing that one of the studio heads, himself, Muzyka or Zeschuk , would be demoted or asked to leave, the choice was probably easy.  No matter which way it went down, we'll likely never know, I wish Mark all the best and thank him for his contributions to the video game industry as they stand. This is by no means at the level of the "Another One Bites The Dust" column, but it is still huge, far reaching industry news.  Are there any other questions that you feel have been left unanswered?  What do you think the company should be called?  Could the move actually make WAR better? For the FPS/RPG fans out there, id Software has detailed exactly why they sold out.  Now for a little bromance; I love John Carmack.  He's clear and concise when discussing business or pleasure, which to him is building unheard of technology, without being arrogant or coating his statements in sugary PR lingo.  Quite possibly, the coolest uber nerd ever. <3 Not to be outdone by a simple WoW blogger, John Romero also chimed in with his thoughts on id. Note: EA responded to the departure of Jacobs this morning.  A spokesperson for EA stated that Jacobs is "a visionary thinker, and one of the pioneers in online gaming and is, at heart, an entrepreneur."  Sounds amiable enough.

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Obvious Pun It's quite sad that we are able to make this a column, but the death of MMOGs is inevitable in the industry.  Some games just never meet the company's expectations.  Others flounder after launch, and a few are supplanted by follow-ups or sequels.  As shocking as it may sound now, there will even come a time when our beloved World of Warcraft is taken offline.  Although knowing Blizzard it'll be supported, at least in maintenance mode, for a very, very long time after it loses its massive popularity. As noted in the original dust biting post, losing an MMOG is never a good thing.  As human beings we like to see "our" products succeed in the market for the simple reason that we spent money on them (HD DVD).  We supported them (Dreamcast), therefore we want them (Virtual Boy) to last forever so our investment seems sound.  The ugly side of this trait is that it causes us to tear down competing products as evidenced by the WoW vs WAR debate.  A practice that is both pointless and harmful to the industry at large.  Rather than cheer that our MMO "won", let's mourn the loss of someone else's cherished hobby. The Matrix Online (MxO) had a mix of classic MMOG issues at launch.  The title by no means broke sales records or gained a huge following.  In many opinions this is thanks to the degradation of the intellectual property before its release.  Way to go Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions.  Despite this, it kept enough subscribers aboard to stay afloat and support its continued development.  After all, it is doubtful that Sega, Monolith, and later Sony, would have kept the game alive for four plus years if it was bleeding money AIG-style. Enough melancholy, let's get to the good stuff, the single feature that kept MxO alive and well for over four years, story progression.  While I didn't get hooked by MxO due to its odd gameplay, I was line and sinkered by the IP the title was based on.  The link between the two projects forced me to keep an eye on the game's big events.  You see, MxO was given official canon status of Warner Bros.'s The Matrix universe.  What this means is that everything that happened in the game officially happened in The Matrix storyline.  I've never heard of another video game taking over as a product's main form of progression, but the idea fits perfectly into an MMO. Monolith Productions took things even further with Live Events, which were carried to Sony Online Entertainment's development as well.  In these scenarios crazy stuff could and did happen (ie Machine/Human truce broken).  The events and people partaking in them became legends.  For example, let's say that by sheer luck and skill your character managed to hold off a passageway leading to the center of Zion during an event.  Your act of bravery, if discovered and appreciated by other players, could be added to the story of the event, thus cementing yourself a place in the official story of The Matrix.  Forget about having an impact on the game world, you'd have an impact on the official game/movie/comic lore.  Forever!  How cool would that be? Check out this post by the lead game designer, Rarebit, if you are interested in finding out what The Matrix Online brought to the overall story.  Hopefully a more comprehensive update is made in the near future.  Perhaps the silver lining in the closure is that MxO will be going out with one final bang before it shuts down at the end of July. From the goodbye post: "The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won’t be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It’ll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone’s RSI just one more time?" Now what am I going to follow for my SyFy (sorry, I mean sci-fi) fix?

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