But let's face it. Society is largely driven by consumerism. Everybody likes new shiny things. People like giving and receiving gifts. So let's embrace this and live with it and give thanks for all the great things yet to come.
We are coming up on the completion of the fourth month since MMORPGf2p.com went live and we are very thankful for all the support that we have received thus far and are looking forward to a whole new upcoming year of reporting and discussing free to play MMORPGs.
When new things arrive in our lives sometimes old things lose their luster or their importance to us and it's the same with gaming and any other entertainment venue. Things run their course and the time comes to say goodbye to these things.
We add new games to the MMORPGf2p.com Ultimate Games List all the time and now, in what I hope will become an annual tradition we must set aside games that have left us and take them off of our list. Some games have been mourned, some have left with very little warning and the passing of some games has led to anger from its players. So let's put these games aside with a last look at them and a ceremonial purging from our list.
Now, keep in mind, that as opposed to the opening of a new game the closing of a game usually has little fanfare. Game publishers don't put out many press releases to commemorate the shuttering of their game title. So the information may be a little bit sparse for some of these departed titles.
Change of Address
Probably the easiest way to cope with the loss of your favorite game is if the game really doesn't go away. Sometimes publishing deals in certain regions will run out, or services may close in one region and continue in another. Such is the case with a few games this year most notably Archlord (http://www.archlordgame.com/).
Archlord was developed by Codemasters and NHN Corporation and was released in Europe and North America in 2006 to generally unfavorable reviews. In August of 2007, the game moved to a free to play model and Codemasters continued publishing the game in the Western world until the service transition, as stated in Wikipedia;
Due to failure to reach an agreement with NHN, Codemasters is unable to renew their license for ArchLord and will no longer be able to provide the game to European and North American customers. As of September 1, 2009, all credit purchases have been disabled and the game servers will be shut down on October 2, 2009. On October 3, 2009, the game will be turned over to Webzen, a Korean publisher, who will be in charge of running the European and North American services. The current character data will be retained and should be available when then Webzen version comes online.
So Archlord (http://archlord.webzen.net/) players are still able to play and have access to their characters and it was probably the best solution for a bad situation.
A few other games changed address over the course of the year;
- Dragon Raja (http://www.dr-int.com/) now redirects to Dragon Raja (Europe) (http://www.dragonraja.eu/) although there isn't an actual game yet, only forums.
- Martial Heroes (http://www.martialheroes.com/main.php) North American version now redirects to a European version of Martial Heroes (http://martialheroes.gamersoxygen.com/) at GamersOxygen.
- The Southeast Asian English version of Rappelz (http://rappelz.asiasoftsea.net/main/top.aspx) was published by Asiasoft from October 2008 but was dropped by the publisher on September 1st, 2009. There is another version of Rappelz (http://rappelz.gpotato.com/) at the gPotato.com web portal though.
- Finally, Last Chaos (Malaysia) (http://www.lastchaos.com.my/index.php) closed their doors but the game lives on at Last Chaos (http://lastchaos.aeriagames.com/) at the Aeria Games web portal. Last Chaos was mourned in this blog posting by a player at Aeria Games.
Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away
On July 1st, 2009 Shadowbane shut its doors for good. The game had a long history and was quite popular when it was first released on March 25th, 2003 by Ubisoft. It focused heavily on PvP and had a dynamic game world. Originally a subscription based title Shadowbane moved to a free to play format on March 15th, 2006. On March 19th, 2008 Shadowbane was "rebooted" and everything on the servers started anew to a popular response. However, all good things must come to an end and it was announced on April 17th, 2009 that the game would close for good. After a brief stay of execution, the game finally closed on July 1st.
Recently Ubisoft has once again trademarked the Shadowbane name for "non-MMO gaming purposes" and it has led to speculation that the game may come back in a single player form.
Best To Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
A couple of games this year seemed to vanish without much warning, that is, if they were ever here at all. The Lacon or The Last Conqueror (http://www.thelacon.com/) apparently went through a beta and things just kind of slowed to nothing. The developers of the game say it is coming back in a message on the site but that seems to have been a long time ago now.
Gate to Heavens (http://www.gthonline.net/) was apparently a game that had bounced around for a long time with not a great amount of popularity. We had linked the game before we opened but we can find hardly a trace of the game online other than some pretty disparaging forum posts, which we can't really print here.
Would You Like some Vanilla Gate Ice Cream to go With That Pi Story?
Pi Story (http://global.pistory.com/) is still with us even though you can't play it. For some inexplicable reason, the games publisher, NCONY ENTERPRISE still insists on keeping the Pi Story website up even though the game servers were apparently shut down in February of 2008.
If you hurry you might catch a last glimpse of the Vanilla Gate (http://www.inixgame.com/Vanillagate/) website. Service for the InixGame title ceased operations on November 18th.
The Turkey of the Year
To wrap up our special Thanksgiving report we present you with the main course, the Turkey of the Year. On August 3rd, 2009 in one of our first reports we announced the launch of the YS Online - The Call of Solum (http://www.ysonline.com/) open beta. The game was region blocked and only European players had access to the game. Probably a good thing. The game was being published by Key to Play (http://www.keytoplay.com/) who also published a European version of Priston Tale II.
We even announced the free release of the YS Online soundtrack on September 29th. [editor's note - which I actually happened to download if you are interested] . On October 28th Key to Play made this announcement on the YS Online website. Note - the announcement link leads to some pretty rough language.
Ys Online Europe is going to closeTags: So long!We inform you that the game, Ys Online - Call of Solum, is going to go out of service, in our portal by 30th of November. Please be aware of it when making your purchases. We remind you that the KTP's can be used in the store of our other game which is in service at Key To Play, Priston Tale 2.If we receive more information, we will be more than happy to share it with you.We apologize for any inconvenience that closing this service may cause you and we would also like to thank all of you who participated and got involved in this project!Key To Play
This announcement was met with rage by the few players who actually seemed to care anymore and as of this time, a full 4 days before the 30th of November the YS Online, Priston Tale II and Key to Play websites are all inaccessible. In the space of less than 4 months YS Online went from open beta to vaporware.
Tags: So long!
Well that brings to a close our 1st Annual Thanksgiving Turkey. We hope you enjoyed this Thanksgiving meal and we remind you to tune in later this evening for a giveaway you may be interested in.
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