The Daily Grind: 2009's defining moment

IMHO, TR wasn't that bad of a game. Certainly not as bad as a lot of others out there. I liked it. /shrug
The closing had to do with the axe NC had to grind with Lord Brit. I think they were more interested in running him out and discrediting him, more then anything else.
TR didn't deliver after "indulging" him as much as they did with 10's of millions of dollars.

The habit of game designers to figure out a way for you to "pay to beta" instead of doing proper "open betas". You will end up having worse games because the people who pay to pre-order are probably "fans" already and thus less critical than they should be.

2009 for me was the year I fell out of love with WOW and after trying contless other MMOs came to the staggering realization that as "bad" as WoW may seem to me, in comparison, most other MMOs are utter garbage, especially in the light that they expect me to pay a monthly subscription for the priviledge of betatesting their piss poor excuses for a game. I think the only one of the lot that I can say little bad about is LotRO, but it too has failed to "grab" me like WoW did.

2009, I feel, is the year in which companies had their last ditch attempt to make the subscription based model work, with pipedreams of stealing playerbase from wow, and finding that all such attempts ended in bitter failure. 2010, I believe, will see the rise of quality F2P games, especially if Allods Online works well (which I have high hopes for), maybe that will be the impulse to change the way the MMO market works, and is solidified with Guild Wars 2 in 2011 or so.

The end of The Matrix Online. It was my first MMO, and for all its faults, I haven't found one MMO that captures my interest as much.

I'm not sure I would define this as "the year of free-to-play," since I view this phenomenon as an insidious parasite that will likely grow more insidious as the years goes on. My only hope is that it's evil bubble will horribley burst before players can lv 1 to 85 or get tier 12 gear at a swipe of a credit card.

That all being said, the only defining moment of this year for me was Champions Online. That is, its the first game to really zero on to me that I should never play a game on release. But rather wait a few months or years after the game is out...then perhaps then is more refined and matured so there's better quality value for my subscription. Or it might have the plug mercifully pulled on it by then, so I don't have to waste money on it whatsoever.

And oh yes, there's CindyL's coining the phrase, "McWoW."

I cry every time you guys mention Tabula Rasa.

All kidding aside, I really don't know why I have such an attachment to that game. I didn't even keep an active subscription for very long - it was always an off-and-on thing. But now that it's gone I keep foolishly hoping that some beautiful, wonderful, glorious game developer will come along and say "we're making an improved Tabula Rasa clone!"

I want to blow up some aliens.

23rd october, 2009; log entry Major Richardson.
This year for MMO's has been horrific, just as every year has been ever since that monster W.o.W. launched. But i've got a positive feeling that if we wait patiently... I'll cheer up the division and spread some of my private supply.

16th November, 2009; log entry Major Richadson.
Constant, never-ending coming of titles that sport different colors and names but they're all like Blizzard's abomination at heart. It's a terrifying nightmare, i wish i could shut down the net so MMO's couldn't exist anymore. If i think about them, i wanna die to stop seeing clones in front of my eyes or at least gouge them out of the orbits.

3rd December, 2009; log entry Major Richardson.
It's horrible. kill MMO makers, please.

20th December, 2009; log entry Major Richardson.
Bubbling blurs... buzzing they.... pass.... still.

24th December, 2009; l0g entre Mj Richdson.
hsiogfhr4 5492-35f night vf

30th December, 209; loh ent M richzn.
bbbbbvvvv.
.
[no more log entries]

I would think that you could describe the MMO's of the year with one simple title: "The Death of Originality"
If 2009 proved anything its mmo players can be easily turned on by a developers dribbling screenshots and snippets of video to the point that they camp out the night before a game releases to be the first nerd in the door. Only to find a few hours later that the highest pinnacle of cool the game will ever achieve WAS the screenshots and trailers. At this point level grinding and loot carrots are starting to run out of shine for the majority of us. Yet developers keep going back to them like a lazy chef having another restaurant deliver food to the back door of the kitchen.
They need to accept that the crap there trying to pawn off on us as "Groundbreaking" and "Genre altering" has already been done by WoW, and probably far better. And most of us have already gotten bored with it.
Tabula Rasa going under really drove home for many of us that the time were investing into our "Toons" will not provide permanent gains. At any time five months of play time can poof and disappear into the ether. The fact that it was probably the only really original mmo game to come out this year drove that nail home in a big way.

To quote my brother "Lately I have just gotten bored with them (mmo's) and im finding myself playing allot more single player games. There more fun and better written anyways." Too bad Dragon Age isn't multi player eh?

Rather than a "defining moment" I've noticed what I'd consider a "defining trend." I've watched a lot of people trend away from the "massive" part of MMO. With the whole MMO market oversaturated, you just get tired of dealing with the incompetence of so many players.

You see it in big games like WoW even where the raids have gone from 40 to 25 to a lot of 10s. Myself and a lot of friends played "smaller" RPG like Dragon Age this year. For people who still miss playing with friends, smaller friend-only co-op games like Left 4 Dead and Borderlands seem to be doing very well proving the "Multiplayer-Online" part of MMO is still very important.

And yes, I know this site is called "Massively" but I see what I would say is a trend where that is becoming less important as time goes on and games catering more toward a group of friends playing online rather than the online community-at-large (if that makes sense).

2009, after playing AoC, War, EVE, CO, Fallen Earth, and LoTR, I finally went back to WoW confident that it IS and always WILL BE the best game out there.

Sorry and sad, but it's true and no amount of "burnout" can convince me otherwise. The depth, diversity, and downright playability that WoW has and which Cataclysm will just increase is astounding.

2009 is the year I realized it just doesn't get any better than WoW.

I started this year playing WoW. I ended this year playing WoW. What happened in the middle was another matter.

I gave several new games a try, most notably Champions Online. In each case, I saw half-baked, poorly-planned ideas implemented in half-finished games that had been slopped out to market. That became a something of a depressing trend for both this year and last; incomplete games with terrible launches. While its tempting to say that some of them could have spent more time in Beta, Champions Online was in such a half-arsed state when launched as to be painful.

I'd like to think that developers have learned from this. Odds on they haven't.

As for me and WoW? Hmm. Yes, 3.2 and ToC were abit of a dud, but by comperison, they weren't terribad by any stretch of the imagination. Both 3.1 and 3.3 delivered excellent new content; Uldar and Icecrown may just be the best raids in the gmes hisotry.

However, for me, the defining moment of WoW in 2009 was theb implementation of the Dungeon Finder system, with its Random Heroic lottery. Why? Being on a low pop server, trying to get a heroic together previously was a herculean effort. With this system? Easy. I think I've run more Heroics since 3.3 came out then I had in the previous year.

Definitely Tabula Rasa.

Since Mid-2005 I had been consistently subscribed to at least one MMO (and sometimes more than one). By Mid-2008 I canceled my last extra subscription in order to devote more time to TR. And now, after TR ended at the beginning of this year, I have not been subscribed to an MMO since.

Sure, I've done some free trials, some beta testing, and used my free Aion "severance package" time; but ever since TR, no MMO I've played before or after has given me as much all-round and consistent joy & satisfaction as TR did. And so, for the first time in about 4 years, I am MMO-less & back to single player games.

RIP TR

I think that 2009 saw the undercurrents that have been stirring for 5 years start to make their presence felt in a concrete way.

Developers of "persistant worlds" are almost certainly aware of the growing discontent at the stale environments games are currently presenting & how no matter how polished a gameworld you create, it's static in too many ways.

I think 2010 will be the year work starts on games that will try to build dynamic worlds, changing worlds, "places" that are designed from the ground up to change, to alter to beinfluenced by players in micro-ways & in macro-ways, individuals will be able to affect tiny changes, masses to affect massive changes, the systems & technology that will enable this to become a gaming reality are still very much in their infancy, but I think that the evolution of the genre will be forced in that direction.

The playerbase is getting bored all too fast, it needs something radical, a paradigm shift, & I think it wont happen until someone puts up a phenomenal investment, builds a massive team & creates something that will require the released product to come out with an as yet unseen level of quality.

The watershed to come is overdue, but the current economic climate may stymie it. WoW "opened the door" now someone has to show the world what lies behind it.

It seems to me most of you guys just try a game a few hours after release, make a quick opinion and start flaming how this is "the most horrible, bug-infested MMO I ever played". Some people here speak of originality which is something WoW clearly NEVER had. I bet latency goes at release one time under 80ms and you will state that "the serverstability was a nightmare". Whatsoever, some games you try to utterly destroy here really shine. WoW is just outdated, it is a horrible anachronism and it shouldn't be titled as "the best MMO of all time". WoW should now be nothing more than ultima online a loveable memory only played by hardcore fanboys anymore. But Aion is another game with unbelieveable high ratings(in mags) for what is delivered, especially when u take into account it is already live since 1 friggin year. Most horrible grinder ever! I really never will understand why people support games like Aion and WoW so much while critisize good games to death. Same thing with music industry, why does everyone love Timbaland, Lil Wayne(e.g.) while you have to feel like a freak when hearing good indie music. Gdi something is certainly wrong with the big majority...

Without a doubt, the closing of Tabula Rasa was the thing for me. It was a beautiful, lustrous home among the stars for the Allied Free Sentients. I mourn its passing even now. Semper Memoria Terra! Shooter from Centaurus will always be out there somewhere...

But there have been good points, too. The opening of Champions Online has given me new hope for the genre, with an open play system, responsive and involved Devs, and a userbase that feels comfortable and companionable. Plus, it has awesome vanity toys :)