Neocron 2

As a long-time movie buff, I've always been fascinated by sequels. I know, they have a terrible reputation and everyone gets this face like he's digesting a porcupine when discussing them, but there's something fun about them as well. I think we always want a good story to continue, to see what happens next, and to answer the question, "What would the first film be like if it were put in the hands of a complete boob?" It would be an entertaining trainwreck, that's what.

Even though the MMORPG genre is in its toddler stage, it's seen a number of sequels, prequels and spin-offs, just the same as other types of entertainment. Video game sequels for hit titles are safer financial investments than striking out into new territory, so it makes sense that MMO studios would follow this pattern as well.

Right now there are loads of MMO sequels and spin-offs in the works -- including EverQuest Next, PlanetSide Next, Guild Wars 2, Mabinogi 2, MapleStory 2, Phantasy Star Online 2, Dust 514, and even a possible Ultima Online sequel -- so it's safe to say that the trend won't be dying down anytime soon. However, today I want to look at 10 sequels that already made it to release and briefly examine how they stacked up to their predecessors. Oh yes, there will be blood after the jump -- and I will drink your milkshake!

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The MMO genre is more than World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. Here's what's going on in the rest of the world.

Mabinogi welcomes Generation 3
The MMO that bills itself as "your fantasy life" has gotten its next upgrade with Generation 3. Now Mabinogi players will have the ability to marry each other, complete with license and wedding attire for both genders. An overarching quest will require warriors to recover dungeon seals to prevent the Fomor from entering the world. And finally, the pet system gets an overhaul, with new interactions, behaviors, and controls. The removal of the combat cap, increased UI options, and new items all await players in Generation 3.

Neocron 2 developer declares insolvency
10Tacle Studios AG, parent company of Reakktor Media GmbH, developers of Neocron 2, declared insolvency on August 6th. They are awaiting an insolvency administrator to determine what will happen with the game servers. In a later update to the original forum post, Kirk Lenke, CEO of Reakktor Media announced that the insolvency will not affect business operation of Neocron 2, and that they are still in development for upcoming title Black Prophecy.

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But the Neocron 2 community got to find out what happens when the multiple hard drives of the login server simultaneously fail, sending the account data and character data into the land of infinity. The result was seven days without Neocron 2, forcing the community into the standard MMO withdrawal syndrome as their favorite game was unaccessible.

The servers were finally available again yesterday, and everyone once again piled into Neocron for their cyberpunk first-person shooter experience.

Reakktor Media, the operators of Neocron 2, will not be providing current subscribers with free game time for the server outage. Instead, they are preparing a special in-game present to everyone who had a trial account or full account during the outage.

When reached for further comment, Reakktor Media declined to provide further information, stating what was on the forums was all the information they were willing to release regarding this matter.

[Thanks, Mike!]

(Edit: Corrected photo caption. - Colin)

Almost every MMO has them; the typical pet class. Whether it's charming a beast of nature, raising one from the corpse of a fallen enemy or creating one from scratch, the mechanics of the pet classes are always intriguing to players. Over at Van Hemlock's blog, he tears down the basics of the pet class and shares his experiences with his favorites on various online games he's played through the years.

His feature example is from 10tacle Studios' Neocron 2: Beyond Dome of York. In this game, there's a Rigger class which enables a drone as it's pet of sorts. Van Hemlock goes on to describe exactly how this drone works and why it intrigues him so much in spite of the fact that the game is several years old, and there are so many other online games out there with similar classes.

[Via VirginWorlds]

As my compadre Eli writes here, there is reasoning available that Fantasy MMOs have flourished due to there being a greater preponderance of Fantasy titles, in various media, upon which to draw inspiration to sustain an MMO. The lack of substantive Science Fiction titles of the time, therefore, leads to the correlating dearth of such MMOs. However, this argument only mentions in passing what I think is the more crucial element, which is this:

Fantasy titles are about the Hero's Journey, or the Epic. Science Fiction titles are about exploration of ideas. One of these story types makes for better adaptation to immersive gameplay. Guess which?

Now, I will back up a bit and acknowledge that as a blanket statement, what I said does not (and should not be considered to) cover every Fantasy or Science Fiction title everywhere. Clearly, Star Wars is the most well-known Epic SF story, but then again, Lucas based the plot almost entirely on Joseph Campbell's monomyth, which was itself formulated around the epic myths and stories of history. And perhaps one of the finest Fantasy titles ever written, John Crowley's Little, Big, uses Fantasy tropes to examine the idea of the complexity of human relationships, rather than one character's journey to overcome evil. But having made those concessions, let me make my case.

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