I actually found an online-related thing to post about today. This blog doesn't have a stated agenda, really, any more than my thoughts, but this is in keeping with the cyberpunk-theme that it has revolved around a bit.
EA Games is closing down The Sims Online. (The article calls it EA Land, but the game used to be called The Sims Online, which is what I assume most of us will know it as.) And what are they giving to all those people who paid $9.99 a month since 2002, hoping that the game would get better? The people who believed the hype at the end of last year that the game would be significantly improved and all those things they had been promising would finally arrive? A $15 gift certificate.
Now, I only ever played this game's free trial, so this is no skin off my back. But consider the ramifications: EA Games, a huge game company, is just dropping a game like it has the crabs. Well-loved old games like Everquest and Ultima Online chug on even in the face of new competition (read: World of Warcraft), but something like this only plays on one of my oldest fears:
Scenario: I spend thousands of hours online. I pour my heart and soul and waking hours into a game and a character, developing a person that is real in all but body, giving him the very best gear, position, stats, and everything else I can. I make friends, real friends, people I share ups and downs with, share my thoughts with, spend hundreds of hours with.
Then, it's all gone. The character, the world, the time is as though it never happened, except for the memories. Some of my friends go one way, some go another; we try to keep in touch, but it goes away.
I felt this a little when World of Warcraft supplanted Neverwinter Nights, but at least I can go back and play a bit for nostalgia, and I never had to pay for online play. But imagine when this happens to World of Warcraft, which I'm sure it will, sooner or later. What then?
This is why I'm terrified of falling in love with an MMO. I know that, sooner or later, it will go away, and then I'll be hurt.
The Charming Mr. Wheaton
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My Dearest Gentle Readers,
It is with the greatest pleasure that I am able to inform you that on this
very day I was so delightfully privileged as to meet t...
15 years ago
But Illidan promised never to hurt me.
ReplyDeleteIllidan said a lot of things.
ReplyDelete"This is why I'm terrified of falling in love with an MMO. I know that, sooner or later, it will go away, and then I'll be hurt."
ReplyDeleteThis is one reason why I'm tired with RPGs (pnp and computer versions). So much time is required in order to play these kinds of games and too often the games just end. All that time spent preparing for and playing the game is just wasted.
At least when you play a pnp RPG, the friends you played with stick around. Well, for the most part. And if they don't, you can always stay in touch over the internet. ;)
ReplyDelete