Massively

When Star Wars Galaxies died I and alot of my friends (real life and internet) have spent the past 4 years searching for a new mmorpg. The problem is nothing else out there offered what Star Wars Galaxies did, it was one of a kind. I just wish'd LA and SOE just made a new tutorial, worked on balance and added new content. I mean imagine what they coulda done with PRE CU 4-5 years later where we're at now. I know my WoW friends have gotten bored of WoW and they wanted more complex mmorpgs and some of them have moved over to EVE when they woulda come with me to SWG Pre CU.

Planetside died because SOE released a crap expansion and then BFRS and everyone quit and because everyone quit they stopped making new content for that game. It's really just slowly died over the years because SOE havn't bothered with it. Again theres no other MMO out there or any game that offers what it can.

We all know Everquest died with Luclin and PoP and them players have still to find anything else out there that offers what EQ did. I mean EQ back then was very much like an EVE where guilds fought to control areas because there wasn't instances so they wanted control over spawns.

World of Warcraft died for me when they added battlegrounds and killed world PvP and suddenly the game stopped being social and became this massive single player solo game.

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Well, my buddy Beachhead, leader of The Tetragrammaton, was my buddy in real life. He called me up one day and said, "dude, Matrix MMO. Go to Gamestop and preorder, you get a beta key!" So I thought wow, an opportunity to get into an MMO based on an awesome IP, a real-life friend to play with, and the thought of hundreds of hours of in-depth roleplaying? So win-win. We leveled up some, recruited a few competent players, and no sooner than a week into playing, we had enough members to start our faction. Some of these people would be with us all the way-- through thick and thin.

I remember when I went with Beachhead to Comic-Con in 2007, we met up with faction member Mithuial. We all bought black fedoras (part of our faction's required outfits) at a hat store. It was this really awesome feeling for us all to be tooling around San Diego in a black Charger, wearing our fedoras. I got a real kick out of that.

At the very end of the game, I spent the last few moments with six friends-- RedLeopard, Cadasuane, Eleutherobia, Beachhead, Mithuial and Sykin-- reminiscing about our times together. At the very end, we stood in a circle atop the Ascension Monument in Roger's Way, crumpled just like we lived-- as friends.

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I was a big fan of Tabula Rasa -- it had issues, certainly, but it was one of the most entertaining MMORPGs I'd played up to that point. The members of my former RP guild had decided to "get the band back together" so I had just resubbed when the announcement came that they were shit-canning the game. I was upset about it -- I still get a little nostalgic sometimes.

I loved the concept -- I've had space marine fantasies since I was a teenager reading "Starship Troopers" and sneaking into the den to watch "Aliens" whenever it would run on cable. Tabula Rasa allowed me to play out some of that pent-up "space soldier" stuff. It was a sci-fi lifeboat in a sea of fantasy clones.

The guild I was in split up -- some went to SWG, some started a roleplaying guild in advance of Stargate Worlds. I've been playing other games to pass the time before Star Trek Online and SW:TOR come out -- LotRO and Age of Conan, which I'll probably play for a while. But TR whet my appetite for playing in a sci-fi universe so... I'm really just counting the months.

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I absolutely loved Tabula Rasa. I knew a lot of the team from Ultima Online so I was already very biased towards the game. But rightfully so. It appealed to me and despite it's issues (I won't deny them) I chose to endure.

I can't think of anything worse than a fan being asked to endure a poor outcome and then being told you can no longer endure at all. Your game is over. It's not about "wasted time". I'm not a material person. I play for the experience.

I gave up on MMOs at that point. I continue to play EVE and Ultima Online but I'll never touch a new MMO again. WoW and it's endless (failure) of clones has shown that MMOs have evolved from their original concepts into something that resembles a massive single-player game than a multiplayer game. WoW is no different to 10 Neverwinter Nights sessions running simultaneously with a common lobby...

I rarely kept in touch with fellow players outside the game. Besides the mourning period with TR in a community forum, that was it. Most of my friends had left to other games by then.

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I had lots of fun with AC2, but as with everyone else that played both AC games, man, they shouldn't have everquested the fuck out of it. I miss it, but I'm fine with its death despite playing it for about a year.

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Generally, I'm not there at the end. I'm not the first to bail, but I'll probably never be the last, either. When the company running a game just flat gives up on it, or when the money just obviously has run out, when I can see the writing on the wall, I give up.

What do I do then? Go back to whatever MMO I had been playing that I only left hoping for something better. For the last five years, that's been City of Heroes, for me. I rode Neocron most of the way down, and rather than go back to Anarchy Online, tried City of Heroes. Then I quit it for SWG, saw it was going down, went back to CoH. Then I quit it for Auto Assault, rode it most of the way down, went back to CoH. Then I quit it for Tabula Rasa, rode it most of the way down, went back to CoH. Then I quit it for Warhammer Online, saw that it was going to go down, went back to CoH.

Most of them are merely fond memories, or at least fond memories of what might have been. Until the exploiters took over the servers, I never had more fun than I had defending keeps in WAR's RvR, but I don't miss it all that terribly. The only thing I've done in any MMO that was nearly as much fun as keep defense was control point defense in TaRa, but leaving it behind hasn't hurt all that much. I weep for the beauty of the concept of original SWG, while admitting that it never worked and was never going to get fixed. (And I must have had some fun in Auto Assault, although off hand I can't think of any.)

No, the only one I still actively grieve over was Neocron 1. It's been SEVEN YEARS since that game came out, and I have still never found any PLACE in any MMO that I've ever loved the way I loved the Plaza, Via Rosso, Pepper Park, the Industrial Area, and the Outzone of Neocron City. It's been five years since I left, and I still dream about it.

*shrug* As a wise sage once told a king, "This, too, shall pass." In the meantime, I've got City of Heroes as an old reliable fall-back place to hang out.

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I really wish someone had electro-shocked Tabula Rasa back to life. TR was a decent game that deserved better than it got.

I think TR would have worked well if it had been set up like Guild Wars: buy it once, play it forever, and purchase additional expansion packs as they became available as MTs or something. Throw in some AI Heroes and I'd have been so there, baby.

Sometimes MMOs die because they are not any good or because they are just "played out." TR, however, was a decent game with a lot of potential that died due to piss-poor management and accounting decisions, as far as I can tell. Now, that's just sad.

For me, I was really sad when Guild Wars started dying. Yes, I know it's still online and running, but it is moribund and nothing new has been or will be ever added to it. I stop in to visit the poor bloke occasionally, but the pallid skin and vacant stare are pretty depressing. NCSoft all but unplugged life support on that game and still, it lingers....

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Has SOE announced plans to lower their Station Pass price yet? I know they had to raise the price from $25.99 to $29.99 when they added Vanguard to the list, I'm just interested to see if they lower the price since the pass is now a game short and it's value has decreased.

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I met my boyfriend of eight years on Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast. (I know most people don't consider PSO an MMO but in my mind if Guild Wars counts than so does PSO >__>)
By the time the servers closed we had already moved on but it was still sad hearing about it. I guess a bit similar to what it must feel like if two people met for the first time at a restaurant and then the building gets torn down. :(

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TR’s closure wasn’t that sentimental to me. I think anyone that was playing the game, saw the writing on the wall long before the closure was announced. Especially when there was a different lead dev every 4 months, and countless other staff changes. After reading the blog by the former employee Adam Martin http://www.massively.com/2009/01/16/opinions-flair-from-ex-ncsoft-employees-about-trs-closing/ where everyone internally at NC Soft felt the game wasn’t ready for release, I understood why it did fail.

The problem was there was to much of the core game that had to be revamped, before the end game could be addressed. Coupled with bumbling development cycles where things were being worked on for to long, and eventually scraped. It all added up to a limited experience, in a genre where players expected more.

Except the combat. But, I still think the combat system of TR was by far the most inventive and engaging of any MMOG I’ve played.

What I miss the most was, towards the end there was a really REALLY tight knit community. Obviously b/c there weren’t that many people playing it, and those that were loved it for what it did offer. But, I don’t think I’ll ever get to feel like that again. The devs communicated w/ the players on a daily basis. They helped with every event planned. They handed out prizes at events. They frequented the community forums (planetTR) as much, if not more then the players. They were in our vent server from time to time (Invictus). We had a report with them that was unparallel to any other game I’ve ever felt. I understand that it was doable b/c the community was so small, but it was an amazing ride where players really felt appreciated by the devs and community managers.

That’ll never happen again for me. That’s my biggest loss.

The silver lining is in SW:TOR. They hired TR’s Comm Manager, and she’s awesome. I hope she doesn’t lose her touch going from a “big fish in a little pod, to a big fish in a ginourmous oversized ocean”.

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Nope. No remorse whatsoever because I never play the games that have died long enough to get attached. Seems like most of the gaming world agreed otherwise they wouldn't have shut the games down. Tabula Rasa and MxO to me were just horrible. I'm actually glad they died to infuse their small playerbase into other, better mmo's or newer ones.

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If The matrix had been better managed as a product it would still be around. Sony don't do a very good job of marketing their products - I'd played beta, saw the writing on the wall; but if they had offered me, at some point the actual game for free with the first months subscription, I'd have probably subscribed. Same with quite a few SoE products...

And TR...well it was obviously unfinished but I kept hearing good things about it. If they had had a decent marketing drive and stopped trying to put the road block of purchasing the game in the way...they might have enticed me in.

Sames true of DAoC btw. I'd have picked it up and resubscribed on multiple occasions IF their expansions brought me up to date; but nope, every box I saw needed the purchase of the base game (which was never on sale anywhere). I wonder how long it will last....

Point here is that MO and TR probably died before their time due to poor management and marketing. Anyone recall any of these games experimenting with things such as cut price subscriptions, free base game and expansion packs to bring players up to date etc etc in order to entice back old players and draw more cost-consious ones in? Nope, me neither.

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Hmm. None of the games I really enjoyed playing (and played for a significant time), have 'died'. Not the perma-death that MO just had.

Guess I just don't like to play crappy games.

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AO died for me when I couldnt level past 213 without going a month.
I recovered by reactivating and realizing that I could not remember all of my stacking self buffs to put BACK on my weapon.

PSO died, and I recovered by playing on private servers- and mistakenly aquired super rares- hacked, and beat the game into a pulp.

Monster Hunter for ps2 died and I never recovered.

SWG got changed and I recovered by playing more World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft died for me when I found a 2x better job that I couldnt manage to raid with.
I recovered by slapping myself repeatedly with the biggest wad of cash I have ever carried around in my pocket.

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I remember playing Phantasy Star Online on the Sega Dreamcast, it was a really cool game for it's time & I built up some close friendships there, it was pretty tough letting go after having had so much fun there, but it's kind of an evolutionary thing with gaming.

I felt similarly about my c64, snes, but with the multiplayer element added it makes it all the more involving & I still miss my PSO days.

I played MxO for several months casually & really enjoyed it, it had it's faults though and I'm not surprised it folded right about the time the game's creative dev left for pastures new, pretty sure the game woulda died a lot earlier if not for his great writing & storytelling prowess.

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Although I played TR for awhile, I wasn't there for the end of it. That game was the classic case of "This game could have been so dang good if...". I've never felt more immersed in my environment as I did there. Running from area to area, seeing more and more bane coming to the planet via dropship was just brilliant. No spawns, dropship deployments! That made the game feel very real even if a lot of the drop sites were kind of static.

I rode SWG to the CU, at which point most had already left for WoW and I joined them. I recently went back to SWG and, although the progression is different, it still offers a lot of what it used to. Unfortunately, the holes it does have are HUGE (such as all the community tools suck or are not very friendly).
~~

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