Behind the Curtain: Take a look back

by Craig Withers Jan 3rd 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Fury, Culture, Events, in-game, Expansions, Game mechanics, Launches, MMO industry, New titles, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Tabula Rasa, Behind the Curtain

Brace yourself for the obligatory 'New Year' post. I'd resolve to lose weight, tone up and be kinder to my fellow man, but I'd be lying. Not because I'm weak and won't follow through on them, but because I don't need to. I'm practically perfect in every way.

Except not really. I'm lying. I also hate Mary Poppins with a cold, implacable hatred. But that's neither here nor there.

It's been a year of ups and downs in the MMO world. We've seen World of Warcraft go from strength to strength with an expansion pack which knocked the socks off of Burning Crusade. Say what you will about Blizzard, but it's always good to see a company that's willing and able to learn not only from its past mistakes, but its past successes. We've seen the long-awaitied launch of Warhammer Online, but we've also seen some downers, with Tabula Rasa going down the tubes, and Fury falling over. Although, not as many people were upset about Fury, given that it was terrible from start to finish.

Don't worry, I'm not going to get into the usual, "What would you like to see from the new year?" Unfortunately, I'm a miserable so-and-so around the New Year. At a time when we should be trying to look into the future, plan ahead and think about all the exciting things the future can hold for us, I always end up moping around.

Misery loves company though, so I thought I'd spread some around here. Have a think back at the year gone by. Try to remember news-worthy items that caught your interest and may have stuck in your memory. I'm talking both good and bad things here. Which of these things would you change? Which of them would you not change?

For the former, I'll go with Tabula Rasa. I played it a little in Open Beta, and it seemed okay, if a little rocky. It didn't blow me away, but then I wasn't in the market for another MMO to play anyway. We've covered the closure quite a bit here on Massively, but I still don't get it. No, the game is not amazing and it's not a WoW-killer, but it's still a good game. It may not have been perfect, but what MMO is? The game has a solid playerbase, a decent universe behind it, and given time there's no reason to think that it wouldn't have made it. You don't have to have played a game to know that its absence is a bad thing. It might be a little weird to miss a game that you haven't really played, but that's just how I roll.

I'll be completely selfish about the latter. Matthew Rossi over at WoW Insider mentioned this in his retrospective on Warriors in 2008 yesterday – the awesome changes to the Protection tree for Warriors. Even before it got really good, I was levelling my Warrior in full Prot spec. I can't get enough of it. I love the idea of a Warrior dishing out dirty great Devastate attacks, or Shield Slamming things into the dust. Despite Matthew's love of it, my Warrior won't be dual-wielding two-handers, nor will she be working herself up into a Fury every few minutes. That's just my take on it though.

Your turn. What made you QQ or /wrist last year? What made you :D or /dance? Let us know – you know how it works by now.

Tags: behind-the-curtain, burning-crusade, featured, fury, new-year, retrospective, tabula-rasa, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Greeen said on 12:51PM 1-03-2009

yes indeed, it was quite a year.
I was in both WAR and AoC beta, played both during launch. AoC dissapointed, one of the main reasons being, that all ones friends left, so one did as well.
WAR I can still imagine to play again, it's a great game. For me, the problem I think is, that I was starting to get Fantasy burn-out, another reason I didn't get attracted by MoM, or TCoS. I am pretty glad in a way, since it would be too much to play otherwise, lol.
WoW doesn't have that effect on me, probably because I know it fairly well.
Even more so suprising with all these news is, that I got hooked on SWG again. One reason probably the scifi theme, another the sandbox.
Two controversial games, out of the multitude of 2008 choices, but heck, who cares, I am enjoying myself and have no problem using /ignore on flamers.