i'd be curious to know what lotro's player numbers are doing.

LOL, EvE.

I think LOTRO is fine. Servers still seem busy and active. Certainly nothing on the level of WoW, but I think they have a solid, enthusiastic base that sticks around.

Also, LOL EvE all you like. They keep slowly getting bigger over time, which is not an easy task in this industry.

Very well said nt. That is how I play my games for the fun. Tabula Rasa was a perfect example. I enjoyed it very much and knew the numbers were not great but I enjoyed the game and was still able to find people for groups when I needed.

And I met my goals in the game. No regrets picking the game up in the bargin bin.

Exactly, goodness I think it's important to give your two cents about how a game could improve, and it's ok to be sad when things don't work out, but yes avoiding a game just because it might 'fail' or close down is denying yourself of the experience you could have had there, and if it does shut down you can never say: "I was there when.."

Self fulfilling prophecy indeed, if enough people believe something will fail, it will that is inevitable. So maybe it's high time for some positive thinking from the community? Maybe that would be a nice wish for 2010.

Got the right idea there. Although it's nice to have a lengthy period of time to play a game and create relationships to the game and players, it's also about your personal fun. I only played Tabula Rasa for about 2 months and I bought it when it was about $40. I have no regrets doing so cause the experience was worth it.

And I still bounce back to SWG for a month here and there just to mess with decorations and speeder around the planets.

I just clicked Comments to say the exact same thing that you already did.

No game is forever. It's all the same - time spent having fun or not. If I have a lot of fun during a time a game is up, that is a great thing. It's not like it's real work, with real value, it's just entertainment.

It's like TV. FLCL was one of the shortest anime runs in history, on purpose even, but I loved it and enjoyed my time with it. A long drawn out series that continues on forever, yeah those can be fun to (but I can also get bored with them, depending on the series).

No game is leaving you "high and dry" as long as you have enjoyed yourself while playing. Am I going to miss out on some excellent title because I'm scared it may not be around forever? No way!

Tabula Rasa was a great experience that I will always remember and it was definitely a different game than what was out there. I am super happy that I got to play it while it was here. If I hadn't signed up for it and missed it totally, that's when I would have felt cheated and upset.

If a game looks fun for you, buy it, don't avoid it being scared that it won't be around forever. You'll miss a good time, no matter how long it is, and maybe miss one of the best memories you ever would have kept for that game.

Get what feels right and fun for you, don't listen to this article and avoid a game worried that it may not keep going. Heck, if enough people did that, they may kill off a game that would have kept going, but they all were so scared to buy it, that it never got to take off.

I would not say any article telling you to avoid a game that may not stay here for long is "excellent" - I'd call that anti-fun, detrimental, full of BS, and a lot of other things, but never "excellent".

However with other games you can always go back, whereas with dead MMO everything's gone forever.

I think the only reason that those games haven't completed capitulated is because of the Station Access. If you have players who are already paying for something like EQ2 and maybe Free Realms, it doesn't seem too hard to imagine them also trying out Vanguard and SWG (or you can replace any of the titles with each other). That would keep just enough of a player base to cater for, I would suppose, but it does make me wonder how long they can keep that up.

Almost makes me wish there was an Atari pass, for games like DDO, STO, and CO. I'd probably actually re-up my CO in February, if that was the case, and getting some added benefits would have me dusting off my DDO characters, as well.

Speaking of SOE's Station Pass. SOE raised the Station Pass monthly fee from $24.99 to $29.99 using the excuse that they were adding Vanguard to the list of games. So I'm wondering, did they ever go and lower that price back down after Matrix Online was shut down for good?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

CCon99, I know it's hard but do try to show a hint of intelligence. SOE took down MxO. They currently have 2 projects in the works. Both potentially to be released next year. One can make an educated guess that these will also be added to the station pass. Where, if they had lowered the price, they would merely bump it back up again, causing backlash for "increasing" the price, when they were merely moving it back to the price it was at when they had the same number of games. If the station pass angers you so throughly you do have the free will not to purchase it. Or you can do any number of things to save that extra $5 to counter the difference in pricing.

LOL, So was that a no? "kthxbaibai"