Goodbye AC2, we hardly played you.

[Margalis]

And perhaps you have some sort of problem distinguishing your opinion from fact. You say FFXI LOOKS AND FEELS better. I say it doesn't. You haven't presented any objective argument other than 'i say so, in WoW characters flail around.' Ok. Whatever.

I've given plenty of examples, but in the end it's a subjective point. If you love the look and feel of WoW that's fine, some people like to eat shit. (Literally)

As far as FFXI being a bad game - yeah, it is. I think it's interesting but in the end basically unplayable. WoW, on the other hand, is playable but totally uninteresting. AC2 was much the same - it was playable, but why would you want to? AC2 is basically WoW with less of everything, no towns and no quests. It does kind of feel like it could be WoW version 0.5.

As fa as people not caring about the end of AC2...it was a train wreck from day 1. How many years did it take them to fix chatting? (Did it ever work?) It is odd though to see a MMORPG sequel die while the original is still going.

[Kail]

The only major game I know of where the devs have said "we give up, here, do something with it plz" is Microsoft's Allegiance multiplayer space combat game. It's doubtful Turbine will be releasing any of their IP, they still make games probably using much of the same tech, while Allegiance was the start and end of one product line.

-Weeps silently for Allegiance for a moment-

Yeah, but that's also one of the few major games where the dev basically has (er, had) to be present in order for the game to work.  If I want to install and play Unreal Tournament, I can do that whether Epic is still in the green or not.  With Asheron's Call, or (to an extent) Allegiance, the disappearance of the dev would mean that your game will not run.  At all.  It does nothing.  Coaster time.  I'm honestly surprised companies are allowed to do this at all; let you buy a product and then deliberately stop you from using it to do what they said it would do.  And even if it's not explicitly forbidden, it still seems like a bad business choice.  Knowing how badly AC2 players got the shaft would reeeeeeally make me think twice about buying AC3 (or whatever).  However bad the game was, presumably some people liked it, and in a business where your income is based on long term subscriptions, you'd think that pissing off those customers so that you can keep whatever magic secrets are in your three-year-old netcode would be a bad trade-off.  I didn't even buy the game, and it's got me upset.

[stray]

Well, I don't see how they'd ever let AC2 come into the players' hands (as much as I'd love to see that)....So complaining about it is pointless. Or maybe there is a way, I don't know.

I just think that for players to get full control of it, they'd need to have access to the source (or at least part of it) -- and that isn't going to happen. DDO still uses the Turbine engine, for one (albeit enhanced), so some bits of AC2 are still a part of Turbine's (viable) product line.

[Cheddar]

The only major game I know of where the devs have said "we give up, here, do something with it plz" is Microsoft's Allegiance multiplayer space combat game. It's doubtful Turbine will be releasing any of their IP, they still make games probably using much of the same tech, while Allegiance was the start and end of one product line.

-Weeps silently for Allegiance for a moment-

Yeah, but that's also one of the few major games where the dev basically has (er, had) to be present in order for the game to work.  If I want to install and play Unreal Tournament, I can do that whether Epic is still in the green or not.  With Asheron's Call, or (to an extent) Allegiance, the disappearance of the dev would mean that your game will not run.  At all.  It does nothing.  Coaster time.  I'm honestly surprised companies are allowed to do this at all; let you buy a product and then deliberately stop you from using it to do what they said it would do.  And even if it's not explicitly forbidden, it still seems like a bad business choice.  Knowing how badly AC2 players got the shaft would reeeeeeally make me think twice about buying AC3 (or whatever).  However bad the game was, presumably some people liked it, and in a business where your income is based on long term subscriptions, you'd think that pissing off those customers so that you can keep whatever magic secrets are in your three-year-old netcode would be a bad trade-off.  I didn't even buy the game, and it's got me upset.

I have yet to meet an active player of AC2 who did NOT think it was going to close.  I fired up an account about 2 months before the expansion was due to arrive, and no one believed it would stay open.  And also, as has been pointed out numerous times, the source code is part of the "Turbine Engine."  This would be bad mojo to release to the public.  If you played this game and expected it to have a future you may of had bigger problems then losing access to your chosen esape from reality.  Not saying this is/was/will be your case, just sayin' in general.

[Kail]

I have yet to meet an active player of AC2 who did NOT think it was going to close.  I fired up an account about 2 months before the expansion was due to arrive, and no one believed it would stay open.  And also, as has been pointed out numerous times, the source code is part of the "Turbine Engine."  This would be bad mojo to release to the public.  If you played this game and expected it to have a future you may of had bigger problems then losing access to your chosen esape from reality.  Not saying this is/was/will be your case, just sayin' in general.

I'm sure that for the last while, yeah, the writing has been on the wall.  I'm sure that people saw it coming.  I'm sure some of them might not be upset about it.  That's not what worries me.  What worries me is that a company can take a game, charge you money to buy it, and then deliberately block your use of it on a whim.  When you pick up a box at the store, it says "this is a multiplayer role-playing game," not "this is a flat, metallic disk of no real value," and the fact that someone out there can arbitrarily decide which of those statements is true irritates the hell out of me.

The server code being part of the Turbine Engine is an issue that I as a player should frankly not have to know or care about when I'm making a purchasing decision.  Turbine wrote the game.  They programmed it (intentionally) so that it wouldn't run without a server.  They didn't have to do this, but they chose to anyway, and because of that, it's their responsibility to come up with a fix.  If they don't want to release the source, fine, they can distribute a compiled server program, or release some new version where it's only optimized for about a hundred players.  Whatever.  They chose to make the game that required a server to run, and they chose to shut down the server, so they can provide the alternative.  Choosing not to do so would be... well, it would really, really piss me off.

And again, I'm not saying they are likely to release the code.  I can see why they wouldn't.  It would just really bug me if that turned out to be the case.

[Merusk]

It says something that the farewell to AC2 turned into a gripefest about combat systems in general in less than a page.  This is how a world ends, not with a bang, or even a whimper, but with a collective "Meh" and a shrug.

--Dave

I was thinking this exact same thing..

But I didn't care enough about AC2 to post it.

-Edit: Hell this was my 1k post.  What a way to blow that wad.

[Cheddar]

I'm sure that for the last while, yeah, the writing has been on the wall.  I'm sure that people saw it coming.  I'm sure some of them might not be upset about it.  That's not what worries me.  What worries me is that a company can take a game, charge you money to buy it, and then deliberately block your use of it on a whim.  When you pick up a box at the store, it says "this is a multiplayer role-playing game," not "this is a flat, metallic disk of no real value," and the fact that someone out there can arbitrarily decide which of those statements is true irritates the hell out of me.

The server code being part of the Turbine Engine is an issue that I as a player should frankly not have to know or care about when I'm making a purchasing decision.  Turbine wrote the game.  They programmed it (intentionally) so that it wouldn't run without a server.  They didn't have to do this, but they chose to anyway, and because of that, it's their responsibility to come up with a fix.  If they don't want to release the source, fine, they can distribute a compiled server program, or release some new version where it's only optimized for about a hundred players.  Whatever.  They chose to make the game that required a server to run, and they chose to shut down the server, so they can provide the alternative.  Choosing not to do so would be... well, it would really, really piss me off.

And again, I'm not saying they are likely to release the code.  I can see why they wouldn't.  It would just really bug me if that turned out to be the case.

When you purchase an MMORPG you are NOT purchasing a game.  You are purchasing access to a subscription based services.  I agree, ethically you should be able to play forever, even if the company dies a painful death.  But it is their IP, and as such it is their right to do what they may with it.

[Kail]

When you purchase an MMORPG you are NOT purchasing a game.  You are purchasing access to a subscription based services.  I agree, ethically you should be able to play forever, even if the company dies a painful death.  But it is their IP, and as such it is their right to do what they may with it.

I don't deny that it's their IP, and that legally, they can do what they want with it.  But if you're not purchasing a game, they sure as hell put a lot of effort into convincing you otherwise.  It's in the game store, on the shelf marked "games," sitting in between two other games, in a box with the same dimensions and design as a game and selling for the same price as all the other games on that wall.  The only difference is that AC2 has a tiny box that says something to the effect of "requires a subscription to play."  It doesn't really follow, in my opinion, that you can interpret this as meaning "you are not purchasing a game."  It would seem more likely to mean that you are purchasing a game, you just can't play it without a subscription.  And while there's nothing on the box saying "you will be able to get a subscription," (I assume, having not seen it) it seems at least implied that such a service is available.  Yeah, I'm sure it's legal, but many things which are legal are still damned annoying.

But, I get the sense that we're both trying to convert each other to the same religion, here, anyway ("It's legal, but mean!"  "It's mean, but legal!").

[stray]

It's just the nature of purchasing Service. If laws were changed, it'd have more ramifications outside of video games probably (and not all would be good).

[Strazos]

This is the most preposterous argument I can remember popping up here in recent memory.

Does anyone honestly think, or even expect, that an MMO is going to, or even has an obligation to, run forever?

[stray]

This is the most preposterous argument I can remember popping up here in recent memory.

Does anyone honestly think, or even expect, that an MMO is going to, or even has an obligation to, run forever?

I seem to hear it a lot actually. Mainly from Diablo junkies for some reason.

[Fabricated]

This is the most preposterous argument I can remember popping up here in recent memory.

Does anyone honestly think, or even expect, that an MMO is going to, or even has an obligation to, run forever?

The problem with companies dying anymore is that their stuff doesn't become abandonware or get GPL'd. Mostly because everyone licenses this or that technology to other living companies, or in the case of many, the massive entity that bought them out (EA, etc.) decides to stubbornly hang onto both the creative and technical property just because they may possibly be able to wring a little more cash out of it later...even if they never ever do anything with it.

[Llava]

The reason it doesn't work is this:

Let's say you have cable.  You pay a certain amount a month.  But before you can even do all that, you have to pay an installation and activation fee.  That fee is something you pay to obtain the right to pay monthly for access.  Silly sounding, but that's how it works and that's how this will work.

[Soukyan]

Actually the engine is quite good and solid. A lot of the issues in the past were Microsoft problems.

Anyhow, I think I'm the only person on here who enjoyed AC2 so I wish they would release the source, but it's highly doubtful that they will since MEO and DDO game engines are both newer versions of the AC2 engine. You could make one hell of a neat game using that engine. Ah, well. Life goes on.

[Nevermore]

I have to say that AC2 had an amazingly fun music system.  I had a lot of fun finding instruments and playing in pickup 'bands' during beta.  The rest of the game had potential, but the horrible problems with chat and rubberbanding coupled with a severe lack of content turned me off to the game.

[Strazos]

I remember there was an actual animation for when you dove off us a high place into water.

That was cool for about 20 minutes.

It's a shame; The game had potential, but someone decided to fuck it in the ass and ruin it for everyone.

[Roac]

Some PC games say "requires subscription".  All of them say "requires a PC".  I'm not aware of any that say it, but most assume that electricity is required too.  If you don't have all the required things, you can't play.  Exactly what about this is mystifying and/or confusing?

[Kail]

Some PC games say "requires subscription".  All of them say "requires a PC".  I'm not aware of any that say it, but most assume that electricity is required too.  If you don't have all the required things, you can't play.  Exactly what about this is mystifying and/or confusing?

For, me, it would be the fact that if Compaq goes bankrupt, they won't come to my house and take my PC.  If my power company stops providing service, it won't stop my stuff from working if I move to another city and plug it in there.  But if Turbine decides to pull the plug, that's all she wrote, game over, man.  Turbine wrote a game that deliberately will not work if they do not provide a service, and now they've decided that they're not going to provide that service.  They could have written the game so that it wouldn't require their input, and it would have taken almost exactly the same amount of work, but they didn't, because they wanted to be the only option for their customers.  Now they're cutting off that option.  That's not very nice.

Again, I'm not saying it's shocking, I'm not amazed that this is happening, I'm not shaking my fist in the air and saying "There oughtta be a law," I'm not implying that these are the End Times, or anything like that.  I'm saying it would be nice if they'd show some consideration for the people who supported them. 

I don't deny that it's legal for them to do it; I'm sure that somewhere someone has covered that angle fairly well.  It's just depressing to see a game vanish so utterly, when presumably at least a few people enjoyed it.

[Merusk]

I...

...

Yeah.

So don't buy an MMO.  Ta Da, no angst.  The service you're recieving requires things to work in this manner, it's part of the business model.  No, they couldn't have just coded it ' so that it wouldn't require their input.' and still produced the same game.  They also didn't do it because 'they wanted to be the only option for their customers.'

   To say that shutting-down the server is 'not very nice' is naive.  That the game WILL be shut-down so nobody can play it someday is inevitable.  If you don't accept that as valid, it's as easy to not purchase the game as it is to puchase it.. easier in fact.  This 'omg thing of the consumer, how much they supported you!' anguish is silly. Obviously not very many people supported them, or they'd have been able to continue to move forward and pay bills.

[Cheddar]

When you purchase an MMORPG you are NOT purchasing a game.  You are purchasing access to a subscription based services.  I agree, ethically you should be able to play forever, even if the company dies a painful death.  But it is their IP, and as such it is their right to do what they may with it.

Purchasing a computer is NOT purchasing support.  That is seperate.  The electricity company has nothing to do with the electrical stuff you own.  Apples and oranges.  How is this a hard concept?

[Strazos]

Also, if you have a Compaq, having taken away would be more of a blessing than a burden.

[Llava]

Well, guys, you know, he's right.  It would be nice if, as a last gesture, they gave up some information on how people might maintain their own UO-style fan servers, or maybe sell the game to someone who can run it more cheaply and possibly stay in the black.  He isn't calling for them to be hanged in the town square.  Nor is he saying they're obligated to help people keep playing after the game's death.  But it would be nice.

[Calantus]

Yeah, a little "here's what we ran on our servers, throw that onto a dedicated box and you and a few friends can still play" would be nice. Even if they charged a few bob for it.

[Strazos]

We have no idea what their server architecture looked like. For all we know, it's impossible to run on a small scale like the aforementioned example.

[Merusk]

Not to mention that whole, "Hey the netcode for the next 2 turbine games is in there. I wonder if the Hackers would do anything with that," angle.

[Strazos]

Or the, "Hey, lets this engine to run our own little MMO...and get 'donations' from people" angle.

[dEOS]

I played AC2 from its beta/release until november 2004.

What I liked:
- Just like for AC1, the guy who made lugian toons animation is truly an artist. I congratulated them for it once and some of the devs responded that they indeed hired some guy to do that work specifically for AC1 and were so happy that they brought him back for AC2 and that he did lugians.

- Combat: Some of you are referring to the old AC2 combat system, a totally imbalanced one and pretty boring as well. They attempted to make it more interesting. They nerfed at lot of classes on the way and brought up the difficulty of group monsters. Some of the classes were made more interesting to play, some were basically left behind and that felt. It was looking in 2003 but in 2004, it all fell apart, I guess due to lack of dev resources to really reimplement some classes instead of just changing a few numbers. AC2 combat was fast-paced and intense. That was very good.

- Community: AC2 community is one of the best and one of the most educated. Look at www.ac2hq.com offtopic forums. One of the most interesting MMORPG-players opinion forum. Some are regular posters on CorpNews as well.

What I didn't like:
- Eternal grind: They introduced a "hero" system and basically extended the level grind. We went from a cap at lvl 50 to a lvl 150 cap with an XP curve that grew exponentially. I played for over a year after they introduced that system and my highest toon was still 55. They are closing down the game 2 years after they introduced that system and the most hardcore players haven't even reached lvl 90. Add to that significant advantage due to level in PvP, fellowship requirements of +-5 levels, and you had a recipe for disaster as players in guilds could not play together if some of them were playing more than others.

- Small world: AC1 has the largest 3D landmass than any MMORPG out there. AC2 felt very very small in comparison.

- Lag: Can't even have 20 people on screen without having some severe visual / network lag.

- Too little too late: They focused on class rebalance and didn't add significant content. Got old after months of nerfs and nothing new to see.

[Wasted]

In every game I have played since ac2 beta though I jump of a cliff at least once into water and miss the diving ac2 had.

[Calantus]

I said it would be nice, I didn't say anything about it being feasible.

[Hoax]

Oh yeah that diving thing was damn cool.  I forgot about that.

[stray]

I've got somewhat of a horror story about the diving, but it's probably best that I not get into it.

[WayAbvPar]

We went from a cap at lvl 50 to a lvl 150 cap with an XP curve that grew exponentially. I played for over a year after they introduced that system and my highest toon was still 55.

Sweet fancy Moses.


How is it that this is not a bestseller in Korea?

[Stormwaltz]

It would be nice if, as a last gesture, they gave up some information on how people might maintain their own UO-style fan servers, or maybe sell the game to someone who can run it more cheaply and possibly stay in the black.

It seems they've already decided not to:

MMORPG.com: Will Turbine offer any support, or at least the legal ability, for players to host their own independent free AC2 servers?

Jonathan Hanna: No. We have no plans to open source the server code.

 http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?gameId=1&setView=features&loadFeature=208&fp=1280,1024,1314517968,20050830115235

[Cheddar]

We went from a cap at lvl 50 to a lvl 150 cap with an XP curve that grew exponentially. I played for over a year after they introduced that system and my highest toon was still 55.

Sweet fancy Moses.


How is it that this is not a bestseller in Korea?

No school girls in skirts.  Or elves.  ^_^

[Hoax]

You cannot penatrate the korean market without bondage elves, or is that you can not be penatrated by...  anyways, there was a severe lack of boobies.