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The Daily Grind: Is maintenance mode better than nothing at all?

Brianna Royce — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

In the last few years, long before rumors that Vanguard would be heading down the F2P path were confirmed, players groused about the state of the game, complaining that SOE was allowing the game to languish with no devs and no updates. Those were exaggerations, of course, but the players were vocal about their perceived neglect, throwing around dirty words like "abandonware," and worse, "maintenance mode" -- the idea that an MMO is just kept as is with no updates and only enough attention to keep the servers running.

Of course, players whose games were sunsetted entirely (Tabula Rasa, Asheron's Call 2, and The Matrix Online, to name a few) might have wished for maintenance mode rather than death. Getting no updates might suck, but at least you still have a game to play.

What say you -- is maintenance mode better than nothing at all?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The Daily Grind: Is maintenance mode better than nothing at all? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist seals up 2011

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: A Tale in the Desert, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, Lineage, Meridian 59, PlanetSide, Shadowbane, Everquest Online Adventures, The Game Archaeologist, Miscellaneous

You know what I love about the end of each year? The lists. Man, but I'm a sucker for lists, especially when they come in "best of" varieties. In the lull between Christmas and New Year's, there typically isn't a lot happening in the world of entertainment, so it's a good time to look back before we head forward.

And so it is for The Game Archaeologist. 2011 marks the second year I've been doing this column, and it's been one of my personal favorite series to write. Every week I'm learning more and more about the history of the MMO genre, and I'm encouraged to see just how much passion and interest there are for the titles that started it all and got us to where we are today.

So before we head into 2012, let's take one last glimpse back at the road we've traveled. If you've missed out on any of these columns or want to revisit your favorite classic MMO, I've compiled a huge list of everything I talked about this year, from histories to interviews to player stories. There's also a special request for you (yes, you) at the end of this column, so do me a favor and hit that jump!

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The Game Archaeologist seals up 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The community

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Culture, Opinion, The Game Archaeologist

Time machines are expensive, and with gas the price it is today, it's not always viable to fuel up your DeLorean and travel back to the early 2000s just to check out some of those long-gone MMOs. Fortunately, jawing about them with former players and developers is the next best method of revisiting canceled MMOs.

It's been a personal treat to spend the month covering a game I never got to see when it was live. Asheron's Call 2 seems like it was a special game that tried hard and resulted in spectacular ideas and flaws alike. We've gotten to hear from former fansite owners and a developer on the team, which leaves just one group to check in with: the players themselves.

So today it's all about reminiscing over AC2 with the players who still carry a torch for this title and perhaps have a poster of it on the ceiling over their beds. I wouldn't be surprised if there's one or two people out there who made "children" out of discarded Asheron's Call 2 boxes and have enrolled them in elementary school only to be declined because they couldn't be authenticated. That's just how much love there is out there for this game.

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The community originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The former dev

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Expansions, MMO industry, The Game Archaeologist

I've been a long-time follower of Eric Heimburg on his blog, Elder Game, where he and a friend have spent years delivering insightful commentary about MMOs and supermodels (well, mostly MMOs). Because I'm not that observant a fellow and I assume that most fellow bloggers are mere players like I am, I didn't realize until a little while ago that he and his co-writer were former Turbine developers who had worked on Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2.

You can see where this is going.

Once I learned that, I knew I had to get him to contribute to this series. I began a multi-year wooing campaign that involved skywriting, cupcakes, celebrity kiss-o-grams, envelopes stuffed with unmarked bills, and all the tea in China. Of course, this was well after he'd already said "yes" to it, but I like to keep up appearances.

So hit the jump as I talk to a guy who was on the flipside of Asheron's Call 2 as a producer and generally swell fella!

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The former dev originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Are MMO sequels doomed to fail?

Brianna Royce — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

Massively's Justin Olivetti has been covering the late great Asheron's Call 2 in this month's Game Archaeologist series. In it, he and his interview subjects suggest that the early closure of the game was due in part to the fact that AC2 was a sequel -- and worse, it was a sequel to a game that was still running alongside of it.

It isn't as though all sequels are failures; EverQuest and EverQuest II are both still around, after all, though EQII has never quite risen to the relative prominence of its predecessor. And Guild Wars 2 is right around the corner ("when it's ready"). But we can certainly point to other sequels that never even made it to launch, like Ultima Online 2 and Ultima X: Odyssey, which were canned specifically because the developer believed they would hurt their big brother, classic Ultima Online. What do you think? Are sequels generally a bad idea, too risky, doomed to fail? Are GW2 and EQII among the few exceptions that prove the rule? Or should we embrace a modern, graphically enhanced "re-envisioning" (as PlanetSide 2 is putting it) of old and beloved games?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The Daily Grind: Are MMO sequels doomed to fail? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The fansite managers

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Interviews, The Game Archaeologist, Post-Apocalyptic

Back when I covered Asheron's Call for The Game Archaeologist, I got an impassioned email from a former fansite operator who made me promise that I'd drop her a line when the time came to talk about Asheron's Call 2, as she was not only a huge fan of the title but still in contact with many former players who carry a torch for Turbine's long-departed MMO. One thing led to another, and I ended up talking to both her and a fellow AC2 fansite manager about the ups and downs of covering the second coming of Dereth...

The Game Archaeologist: Please introduce yourself, your current job position, and how you got involved with Asheron's Call 2 back in the day?

Kiersten Samwell: I'm Kiersten Samwell, Community Relations and Social Media Manager for KingsIsle Entertainment, the creator of Wizard101. I used to be the Site Manager for Warcry's Crossroads of Dereth/Asheron's Call site as Ellen Ripley, so it was natural to work with the site manager of their Asheron's Call 2 fansite as well. His name is Roberto, and he was just an incredible site manager. Of course, being an avid AC1 player, I enjoyed AC2 for both its similarities to and its differences from AC1.

Robert Hackett: Hi, I'm Robert Hackett, the Managing MMO Editor of GamersInfo.net. I actually got invited to one of the betas along with a friend of mine. The lag was so bad (the day I logged in may have been a stress test; I can't remember) that I told my friend that there was no way my rig could handle that. Fast forward to the month after release and Ophelea from the old AC Crossroads site begged me to come over to AC2 and be an editor for the database she was trying to build. Logged in and the game was a million percent better. I stayed to work on the database and eventually fell in love with it beyond "work!"

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The fansite managers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The highlights

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Classes, Expansions, The Game Archaeologist

MMO sequels are funny animals. Sequels (along with prequels and "reimaginings") are ingrained into the entertainment industry so deep that it makes sense that MMO studios would follow suit. And yet these types of games -- with their ever-growing nature and heavy involvement with loyal playerbases -- are not always conducive to such projects. More often than not, a sequel to an online game becomes its ancestor's main competition, which is not a desirable outcome for the studio.

Perhaps back in the early 2000s, studios simply didn't know better. There's good evidence that the typical "hit video games need a sequel" mindset ran rampant across the industry, from the multiple attempts at Ultima Online 2 to the release of the don't-call-it-a-sequel sequel of EverQuest II. Perhaps developers didn't realize that MMO players didn't necessarily want to be uprooted and moved to a new game every few years.

While sequels, spin-offs and remakes are still present, the genre learned a hard lesson with Asheron's Call 2 in the first half of the decade. Asheron's Call was a success on Microsoft and Turbine's behalf, and a sequel -- with vastly improved graphics and deeper gameplay -- seemed like a logical next step. Unfortunately, it was a Greek tragedy in the making, destined for a short but memorable life in our world.

This month we're going to look at the brief shining star of Asheron's Call 2 and get all sorts of misty-eyed romantic over it!

Continue reading The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The highlights

The Game Archaeologist answers Asheron's Call 2: The highlights originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Ultima X: Odyssey

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Ultima Online, Humor, The Game Archaeologist

Last week on The Game Archaeologist: Murder most foul! A promising sequel to a hit MMO cut down in its prime, left to die on the front steps of EA's headquarters while its team was banished into exile! With special guest star, Richard Garriott's hair braid.

And now, for the exciting conclusion!

As disappointed that some MMO fans were over Ultima Worlds Online: Origin's cancellation, the truth is that the industry still was young, these MMOs still had their "new car smell," and hey, there was always Ultima Online to play. It was probably the right call at the time to not create your own competition, but if that was the case, EA should've never begun it to begin with.

So did the company have a major case of cancellation remorse? Or did it look at other industry sequels like Asheron's Call 2 and EverQuest II and feel as though it was being upstaged?

Whatever the reason, EA decided that it had been too hasty, and it greenlit development on yet another Ultima Online sequel, this one titled Ultima X: Odyssey. It would go deeper and further into development, gather more acclaim, and generate more hype than UWO:O, and in fact would get within spitting distance of launching.

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The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Ultima X: Odyssey originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: Player sagas

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Interviews, The Game Archaeologist

It's an odd thing to realize how far MMOs have come right in front of our eyes in a relatively short span of time. After all, 1999 wasn't that long ago, despite what Prince and Y2K would have you believe. One day we'll be telling our children -- if we aren't already -- about the primitive MMOs that didn't feature RealGore[TM], motion sensor-linked emotes, and mostly nude elves dancing for tips on mailboxes. They may gasp and sputter in disbelief, but you'll assert that it is true: You experienced an era when polygons were blockier than LEGO pieces, people logged in over dial-up connections, and the community was small enough for GMs to host personal live events.

There's been a lot of love flowing into my email inbox and Twitter since posting the first Game Archaeologist on Asheron's Call, enough to tell me that this title is a dear old friend to many a seasoned gamer out there (including a few on the Massively staff who won't stop writing epic haikus about AC in its honor this month). As a result, I got in touch with two die-hard fans of the game, and they agreed to scribe their memories of this MMO for future generations to discover, generations who will undoubtedly marvel at the hardship and perserverence that such scrappy gamers showed in being part of the first wave of MMO players.

Without further ado, please give a warm round of applause to Amanda and Jon. No, nobody can hear you clap over the internet, but it's the thought that counts.

Continue reading The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: Player sagas

The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: Player sagas originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: The highlights

Justin Olivetti — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, MMO industry, The Game Archaeologist

It's hard being the youngest child -- you get the hand-me-downs, suffer through swirlies by older siblings, and eventually develop such a neurosis that it requires seven different brands of horse tranquilizers to make it through the day. Not that I would actually know, being an oldest child and all. But I suppose it would be a hard-knock life.

In a couple ways, Asheron's Call was the youngest of the three MMO siblings that comprised the first major MMO generation. Ultima Online, the big brother, had prestige and legacy behind it, and middle child EverQuest quickly became the most popular at school. And then there was Asheron's Call, poking its head on the scene in late 1999 as a cooperative project between developer Turbine and publisher Microsoft. AC never got the recognition of Ultima Online nor the numbers of EverQuest, but this scrappy title became a fan favorite and endured even to this day -- beyond its own sequel, believe it or not.

Instead of plowing through a stale history report of Asheron's Call today, I thought it'd be fun to come up with a list of the eight most unique aspects of this fairly innovative 11-year-old MMO. Ah lists, how I adore thee -- let me count the ways. Eight ways, to be precise!

Continue reading The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: The highlights

The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: The highlights originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Where do you go after the end of the world?

Eliot Lefebvre — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Server downtime, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Let's say that the unthinkable -- or at least, the undesirable -- happens tomorrow. Your favorite game's servers shut down today for good, and you're left with fond memories and little else. In the ancient refrain of the bartender, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. So that leaves you with the obvious question: where do you go now?

Some people would prefer to take a break from MMOs as a whole for a while, since the idea of investing time and effort into another one seems a bit less reasonable after you've watched one die. On the other hand, some people would like to get right back into the business of questing and slaughtering, even if they have to move back to an old standby to do it. Still others jump on to the next big thing with renewed vigor and start talking about how it'll be everything the now-dead game wanted to be but wasn't.

So what's your feeling? If your favorite game went belly-up this morning, would you soldier on to a different game, start looking for an upcoming release, or just move on with your life and leave MMOs behind?

The Daily Grind: Where do you go after the end of the world? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The failure of the beta defense

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Bugs, MMO industry, Opinion

There are always people willing to defend a game, no matter what its flaws. You could have a game where the fundamental means of communication was broken for two months straight, and it would still have fans piping up and explaining why that isn't such a big deal. But with one high-profile game (Star Trek Online) finishing its beta, and several others slated to finish or start theirs, one of the classic defenses for a game's problems is losing much of its strengths: "well, it's still in beta."

Some of you may well recall our recent feature on betas, in which several developers alternately lamented and stated that the "open beta" is now essentially nothing more than a preview. Bio Break expounds on this point, noting that more often than not the defense of "it's just a beta" would only be valid if there was some large launch-day patch on deck to fix everything. Those patches, it's worth noting, occupy the same space as unicorns and fairies.

Broken parts of a game in open beta, more often than not, now mean that there will be something broken in the game at launch. That doesn't mean that the developers aren't working on fixing things, but it does mean that defending the beta as sacrosanct is lacking validity.

The failure of the beta defense originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When crafting community, little goes a long way

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Forums, Grouping, Opinion

Yes, that looks like a typo in the subject line and it ought to be "a little goes a long way." It isn't. Little itself goes a long way in making a community, as discussed in this recent post by Eric Heimburg. Speaking from his experiences both on Asheron's Call 2 as a producer and Aion as a player, his core contention is that smaller communities decrease anonymity and make politeness far more common for interactions among strangers.

One of the core reasons behind this is the question of reliance. The community of group-based games tends to be stonger than that of games where you can be almost wholly independent, since you rely upon others to work with you. By way of contrast, examine some of the behavior found in World of Warcraft's random dungeon tool, where you find yourself working with people whom you're statistically unlikely to ever see again.

One of the laments about solo-friendly games is the death of community, and while that's not altogether true, Heimburg's post certainly makes a number of compelling points. Well worth examining if you're interested in building a community or just in the ways groups develop.

When crafting community, little goes a long way originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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