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CEO David Brevik of Gazillion is leaving the company, prompting much angst and worry among forum posters. Brevik is represented somewhere in the game, apparently by a cow on the cow level, was very involved in many aspects of the game among its small team, and was previously the head of Blizzard North. Seems this guy is the real deal. Good luck to him and hopefully greener pastures in the future (see what I did there? I amuse myself).
I am also amused at the posters angst, worrying about games being shut down. Some of these guys must be 20 years old and playing their first games. But….. That did start me thinking. What MMO’s have I played that are still around, and which ones are gone ?
Vanguard – Closed during Summer 2014, I remember promising myself I would resubscribe just to be around when the servers went dark. I’ve never had that experience. Of course, I forgot all about it after returning from summer vacation, and the game is now closed.
A quick Google search reveals……. something I don’t understand, a Steam community page for the game. A search of the Steam Store does not reveal this title, so maybe it was up for a short time and then closed. I was years out of playing the game, though, once it had closed.
Pirates of the Burning Sea – Closed down at the end of 2012 apparently. I attempted to get it running again via the SOE launcher at some point and was unsuccessful, nor did I find it in existence via Google Search. Seems I was misled – the game is in fact still running. It would be fun to reinstall this one, the visuals always were awesome and the ship combat fun and balanced. The economic portions of the game were awful.
I wasn’t the only one saying the economy sucked. They apparently revamped it during 2014. But my original characters seem to be GONE !
Everquest – My first MMO is still going strong, with no end in sight, despite the many changes over the years. But I have no desire to go back, it was always too hard core and too social for a hermit like myself.
Everquest 2 – Still going, the MMO I’ve probably invested the most in and which you can read far too much about (it’s past) on this blog. I’ve tried to jump back in, but when I did, most of my gear was not able to transition with me in free-to-play, and I had to go through a huge song-and-dance to get my account re-enabled after billing issues.
Not playing, because no more monthly subscriptions for me. And Free-to-play doesn’t really work if I can’t continue with my main character.
Champions Online, and Star Trek Online, are available via Arc Games. I really thought Champions was gone for good, but it seems to have gotten a new lease on life. The more recent Mechwarrior Online is still running, although I didn’t enjoy the game very much. I’m sure I needn’t mention the various Armored games I’ve played in the last couple of years.
The Secret World is an interesting parallel – it’s still available. Shortly after its release the CEO left the company, but the game has lived on. Perhaps that’s all that needs to be said about losing All-Father Brevik.
Old MMO’s rarely die, as evidenced by both this list and any reading of TAGN‘s blog, but people hyperventilate that such things will happen.
Vanguard has a well-advanced emulator project going. Like many MMOs before and since, official closure doesn’t mean the end of the world. Literally!
And on TSW: the game is not only still alive, but by now according to FunComs business reports also doing quite well.
Since the Lego project cost a lot of licensing fees before going south, the company is in real financial trouble and nobody can tell if they survive 2016. But according to their last business report The Secret World is lucrative and development is ongoing. Not only did the game itself several content updates (Issue 11, 12 and 13 were released in 2015, along with new dungeons, a new raid, etc. ) but also The Park was released, a standalone single player game based on the IP of The Secret World. And while we don’t have numbers for The Park yet (it as released after the annual business report), developers on the forums hinted that it sold quite well and is considered a success.
@Bhagpuss and emulator projects:
Yes, they exist. I consider taking a look at the Warhammer emulator occasionally, but generally I have little confidence in them. I at some time took a look at one of the SWG emulation projects, and while the game died in 2005 (yea, I know a zombie lingered on till 2011) the emulators did not look convincinv yet just a few years ago.