The 2007 MMO Deadpool
Posted by Stropp on December 31, 2007It’s an unfortunate fact of life that not everything goes to plan.
Every year, new computer games are announced, some of which will never see the light of day. Business decisions, or simply sucky gameplay can lead to a game being dumped before it is released. This applies as much to the developers of MMO games as it does to any other product. The difference for MMOs is that sometimes the game gets released, only to be closed down a short time later. Earth and Beyond and Asheron’s Call 2 are good examples of this.
For a game to be in the Deadpool does not necessarily mean that it’s not been a success. It’s entirely possible that one of these days the Everquest 1 or even World of Warcraft servers will be finally turned off. When that happens, these games will go into the Deadpool, because they are well… dead. But for much of the foreseeable future, it will be the corpses of unreleased MMOs, or games that were released but failed to meet their publishers expectations.
2007 has seen a number of MMO games fall into the Deadpool.
Gods and Heroes
Gods and Heroes was under development by Perpetual Entertainment and was recently put into indefinite hiatus (read cancelled) so that they could concentrate on the development of their other MMO, Star Trek Online. Unfortunately, what looks like dodgy dealings has led to a lawsuit that also involves the STO licence. It’s looking like STO will be a member of the 2008 MMO Deadpool.
Auto Assault
Auto Assault was inspired, in part, by the Mad Max films; featuring vehicular combat in a post apocalyptic setting. It was released in 2006 by NCSoft and barely made a year before the announcement of its closure on the 31st of August 2007.
Citizen Zero
Big World: Citizen Zero was announced years ago (2000) by an Australian company: Micro Forte and was said to be a SciFi MMO set on a planetary penal colony. The last real information released on the game was in 2004. However, this year Micro Forte announced it cancelation to make for a Spy MMO, and I believe the Big World engine was also being licenced to other developers.
Monato Esprit
Monato Esprit was a free Korean fantasy MMO based in a Sprite dream world. It was shut down in 2007, however the Wikipedia entry mentions that there is an English version of the game in beta. This may be one that gets resurrected.
The 2008 Deadpool: Predictions
It’s probably too early to make any real predictions for the 2008 MMO Deadpool, with one or two exceptions.
Star Trek Online: As mentioned above, I expect Star Trek Online will fall into the Deadpool. My guess is that this will happen in the first half of the year, possibly but unlikely before March. It will depend heavily on the progress of the lawsuit.
Fury: This game completely failed to meet Aurans expectations. So much so that the company is facing bankrupcy. If they can’t pull themselves out the mire, Fury may close. The other possibility is that it will be acquired by a company like SOE and added to their stable of games.
Dredging the Deadpool
It’s likely that I missed a few games that were closed or cancelled in the last twelve months. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments.
Credit: The term Deadpool is used on the technology blog Techcrunch generally for internet technology companies or products who have made big announcements and have subsequently failed and closed down. The expression is just as valid for our particular industry which is why I’m using it here. But credit to whom credit is due, in this case Techcrunch.
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I think that Stargate Worlds could be the sleeper hit of 2008…if it gets released!
Erm Asheron’s Call 2 was online for over 3 years? Not exactly folding soon after launch, i’d have thought.
Slowly failing games:
Vangaurd – too many bugs on realease, nothing new, too complex
Lord of the Rings – no mid level content, have to group above midgame
Tabula Rasa – too many beta testers played the game when it was real buggy and had no content – they never came back
Hellgate London – too many bugs on release, double billing mistake, really a solo player game “online”, character animation meh
Warhammer Online – will deadpool – graphics quality, character animation, spell effects average, will turn off many, pvp will be great but too complex for people to understand
Age of Conan – adult theme violence will be too much for mainstream gamers, huge bubble of interest then deadpool
@JimD
Have you even played Vanguard? Damned near everything it does is new, and nothing is too complex. A crafting system that actually requires you to think may be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in an MMO, and the fact that a small group of players, or one player even, can change the attitude of an entire city with the Diplomacy system they have means hours of fun, experience, items, and quests, without grinding.
Used to work on Gods and Heroes…sad it went down the tubes. Lot’s of hard work thrown away. Just remember, a few “bad eggs” can completely ruin a project. Don’t have anything official since my friends on STO are keeping quiet, but it doesn’t sound hopeful. I would not be surprised if it got canned in Jan.
@DM – Stargate Worlds looks like it could be a spectacular game. RDA once commented that the gate is one of the best props ever, because you could go anywhere. The same applies to thegame. The possibilities are endless.
@ScottF – True, 3 years isn’t that short, but when you compare it to the average run of MMOs in the same class, it’s not really a long time. Especially when you consider that it’s predecessor, Asheron’s Call (1) is still running. Perhaps ’short’ was the wrong word.
@JimD – That’s an interesting list, but I don’t see any of those games going into the Deadpool in the next year, or even for a few years. I’ve posted a new entry titled 2008: A MMO Odyssey that talks about some of that.
@Jimes – Thanks for letting us know about the new content in V:SoH. I still reckon that it had a lot of potential which was squandered by an extremely premature launch, and poor development management. But it sounds like it might be worth having another look at. Now where did I leave that time?
@Mundinator – I know how you feel. I’ve worked on a few software projects (not games) that have been sidelined for one reason or another. It’s always disappointing to see all the effort you and good ideas you put in go for nought. That’s an interesting prediction about Jan, we’ll have to keep an eye out. Thanks for the scoop.
Yeah I’m pinning my hopes on SW for 2008/09 the other fantasy based MMOs are very unappealing just now. I did read that guilds in the game would be able to develop technologies for building their own space craft…need to do a bit more research I feel on the game!
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