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General: MMOWTF: 2006 Year in Review
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
2006 was an eventful year in the world of MMORPGs, and Dan Fortier returns to his MMOWTF column this week to give us a look back at the year that was.
The year started off with so much promise. Warhammer Online went from a cancelled vapor title into Mythic's new flagship game. While Dark Age of Camelot had received a few graphical upgrades courtesy of a new expansion, it was clear that an RvR successor had been chosen. Shortly after April Fools day, Mark Jacobs, the CEO of Mythic, came out and told us that not only were they not selling out to EA, but that they weren't even in talks with them about a merger/buyout. Imagine our surprise when a mere two and a half months later he inks a deal that puts EA in front of Mythic's name. Paul Lee, the President of EA, was later seen doing a /chicken atop the Mythic HQ in Virginia, but all photos have since been bought or destroyed.
Read the column here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
So, ummmm, does this mean that this year you (the site)will actually aproach the various dev teams out there,their games, and your written information on them from the perspective of a customer,rather than that of a company living off the finacial droppings they send your way ?
Now,wouldnt that make 2007 an improvement over 2006 in at least some small way,for the consumers ?
I've never understood the mentality of not doing this. UO lost out when EA cancelled UO2, and they'll keep going down that road for some reason...
Think about it. As a company would you rather own one of the many games out there for a given genre, or two or three? So what if they are "competing" against each other; they also can share tech/resources/etc. just like big companies do when they merge to gether. This whole concept of not competing against one's self is "management school" thinking, and doesn't really work once you reach the streets.
Not only that but they just did it AGAIN at the end of December...unbelievable.
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
Dude this entire column is tongue-in-cheek . . . . get a sense of humor
POS Entertainment hahahaha . . . never heard of them before but that cracked me up
I don''t really know when Humankind will die out but i''m guessing about 6 years before WOW.
-BarCrow
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
The columnist can write but sometimes I question some of the content of his writing.
Other than that, I really view 2006 as a rather bleak year. Here's to 2007!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Read the column here.
What are you...F&%$ing stupid or something? What...the FBI can only do one thing at a time?
You've made some pretty stupid comments during your short tenure as a "writer" but this just shows how friggin' stupid you really can be.
I guess the Feds can't take a few ( out of several thousand) employees to invetigate a Federal crime that you apparently think they should allow to be broken.
I don't expect you to read this since this would interfere with your "writing" your next column...apparently you can't do two things at once and assume the same for others.
I guess that since you suck at your job you assume others can't be successful either...wake up dude. i dont think you get he point of mmowtf really i mean come on man.
but anyway
Back in February Sony Online Entertainment asks current and former Star Wars Galaxies testers to participate in a focus testing group and pays them $125 for two hours just to prove that they made the right decision after all.
lol
I'm Here. I'm Awesome. Get Used To It.
Yes, 2006 was definitely a year of "marking time" with my old standby games (CoX and AO, mostly) while I waited for something truly fun and innovative to be released, which never happened. There are certainly MMOGs out there worth playing, but they're all beginning to feel a bit dated. Here's hoping 2007 will bring something new to the table.
2006 could be "The Attack of the Korean MMO". Its getting scary out here guys. Lock your doors, tuck in the kids, and hide your wife.
I agree. It was odd to give no mention of Auto Assault or Dungeons & Dragons Online. I think DDO is a great non-MMO game, that is better categorized along with titles like Guild Wars and Diablo 2. I enjoy playing it, on and off, during the year. Turbine/Atari made the huge mistake of trying to market it as an MMO and we've seen the result of that ill-conceived attempt.
MMOWTF said:-
Dark and Light and Horizons continued to run their respective traveling circus shows, each drawing shudders from audiences across the country with their sideshow tricks and snake oil salesman routine.
While neither game has worked right from the beginning, it takes a special kind of suck to surprise me and these two have succeeded. Tulga Games, the developers of Horizons, were swallowed by EI Interactive in July which in turn was eaten by Pixel Magic just last month. Throw in some unsecured billing transactions and a PR smokescreen and you can’t do anything but shake your head. Dark and Light has had it’s share of bungles in the financial department this year too. Not only do they still not have a button to cancel on your account page, but they also charged hundreds of players that never signed up for a subscription.
not entirely accurate - Tulga Games bought Horizons from the squabbling greedy backstabbers aka Artifact Entertainment who developed the game. EI's theiving ineptitude was cynically pushed to one side as essentially the same concern rebranded themselves as Pixel Magic. the lessons the MMO community continue learn from this soap opera continues to break new ground
Here's my perfect 2007 in review:
January: A group of Mythic employees splinters off of EA Mythic to create "Impertator", but as a MMOFPS instead of a classic MMO. (Plantside ain't seen nothin' yet
)
Febuarary: E3 is revived in the form of the World Electronic Game Expo. Hosted annually in Seattle, WA. Every booth in the expo is REQUIRED to have at least 1 booth babe.
March: Dragon Warrior(Quest) Online and Secret of Mana Online are announced for the Wii.
April: J.R.R.Tolkien rises from is grave to strangle the Creative Director for LoTR Online and take his place in development of the game.
May: Age of Conan releases along with the annoucement of a 5-part movie series. "CROM!"
June: All the employees at Code Masters are found at the site of a mass suicide with a single note pinned to one of the bodies reading "We're so sorry, Dragon Empires"
If anyone wants to continue feel free, if half of these things happened it would make 2007 the best year ever!
.....................................
...but time flows like a river...
...and history repeats...
-Leader of "The Fighting Irish" in DAoC on Hib/Kay-
A guy names his column WTF and my post gets deleted because I question his ignorant comments and call him stupid....WTF?
I guess the author can make disprespectful comments about others, using the "I'm a columnist so I can do that" crap...but don't do it back to him.
I guess it's nice to know ya can't even exclude politics in any discussion... keep your priorities straight sir.. or was that your plan from the beginning? Other than that little blip of idiocy the rest of the column was rather nice.
Oh, and what I mean is this-
The FBI does this:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). At present, the FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes, making the FBI the de-facto lead law enforcement agency of the United States government.
And the CIA does this:
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Government. Its primary function is obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons, and reporting such information to the branches of the Government.
So yeah, the FBI doesn't have anything to do with securing homeland security. They enforce it.
Ah the internet where Wikipedia drains the abilty to think from everything it touches.
The FBI site seems to give that impression.
http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/waronterrorhome.htm
Although it was just a joke, he is right that the FBI are responsable for investigating and breaking up criminal/terrorist plots that DO threaten the security of the whole country. They don't have unlimited resources, so yes, tracking down hackers who are just running a game server is pretty dumb.
A guy names his column WTF and you take it serious and post bucket of selfrighteous indignation... WTF?
I guess there's no helping people lacking a sense of humour or just not allowing for others to have a different kind of humour.
As always, I loved the culumn. Too funny!
Heh... and there were so many things I'd forgotten or hadn't even heard of :P - For me, 2006 was a pretty low-water year in the MMORPG genres. So many games not out there for me to get involved with for any longer than the trial *smiles wryly* And so I have to settle for Puzzle Pirates *sighs*
:P
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
OMG OMG
Here is to the #1 2007 MMORPG release upcoming
FBI Online
I can't wait to bust all you guys.....oh oh ohhhhhh A FREE FBI Jacket with purchase
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
Well, Dan, the FBI has the same priorities as Microsoft. As experienced in a Security WTF earlier this year, MS bypassed their normal Monthly Patch Tuesday and pushed out a Windows Media Player patch about 3 days after exploits surfaced allowing people to defeat their DRM. Which is more important - Keeping millions of PCs safe for operation, or making sure people do not un-DRM their content? Based on their patch releases, we know which is more important to Microsoft. Why should the FBI be any different? They have to be tough on crime terrorism people running free servers!
A few comments:
1) Don't make cracks about the FBI, they do a very hard job for us. I'm sure that when they were informed of the crime, they took action. Congrats to them for doing their jobs, not just enforcing the laws they think are important.
2) Dark and Light (DnL) is not a game, but a financial scam. They have tried to "accidently" charge folks twice in 2006, and with no ability to cancel the game. There is so little actual gameplay that calling it a "game" is not correct. It's no surprise that the developers of DnL are located on a small island out in the Indian Ocean to avoid prosecution for fraud.
3) 2006 is clearly one of the worst years for new MMOs. There are 2-3 highly anticipated MMOs that are set to release in 2007, so I hope this year makes up for a lackluster 2006.
Lengthy post edited out because I found out they are making the Marvel MMO for consoles, It will stink like PSU, and post CU.
2003 Microsoft cancels MW5, 2004 WoW is launched, 2005 Sony mangled SWG, 2006 Turbine screwed up DDO, 2007 Cryptic will screw up Marvel Comics. /cry
From now on games will only be made to impress 12 year olds..............I'm being serious...........clickclick......static