Project Lore

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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I am not sure how many of you may have heard of this game, but earlier this week it was announced that Tabula Rasa, a MMORPG set in an original science fiction universe, will be closing early next year. The closure of another AAA MMORPG title is never good for the market, as it scares potential publishers and other investors away from the sector. This is no exception due to the fact that the man behind the title is considered the father of modern MMORPGs, Richard Garriott.

Garriott, creator of Ultima Online, had high hopes for his latest title, which was developed by Destination Games, a company he co-founded with his brother Robert and Starr Long. After negotiating a deal with the big name in Korean MMOGs, NCSoft, to become NCSoft Austin, the company announced its first original project, Tabula Rasa. Tabula Rasa was launched in late October to slightly positive reviews, highlighting its differentiating features such as combat that involved targeting, cloning of characters, and putting players in the middle of a war.

Yet, Garriott's title failed for a myriad of reasons, although I place the blame on its initial lack of end game content upon release. Upon discovering this, players including myself left en masse upon completion of the trial. This was something that alpha/beta testers had been warning the company about.

The fact of the matter is, many MMOs are shoved out the door before they can reach that final level of polish. In my mind, World of Warcraft's initial success was due to the incredibly polished opening levels, as seen in territories like Westfall. Granted, WoW's endgame was incredibly difficult at release, but Blizzard's title had it. Age of Conan's launched product was a buggy mess, while the latest big name MMO, Warhammer Online, has receives hotfixes every few days to address remaining bugs. This is something its subscribers appreciate.

Had AoC and Tabula Rasa been given another six months of development, perhaps they would have held onto their playerbase. I know Tabula Rasa surely would have held onto me. Since launch the developers behind TR have addressed many of the main complaints, adding endgame, more PvP options and a much needed auction house. Sadly, few players ever take a second look at an MMO they left because “it sucked.”

The death of Tabula Rasa in late February will lend more credence to the genre being a very risky market,  causing fewer new products, and fewer companies trying to be innovative. Competition is a good thing, and we now have one less title that was trying to be something besides a WoW-clone.

Along with the announcement, NCSoft has laid off an unnumbered amount of workers, retaining the core development team to run the game till end of life. I will be revisiting Tabula Rasa once the free play starts on January 10^th. Hopefully the closing events are worth revisiting something that could have been awesome.

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