This is an amazing read: Raph Koster revisits the fabled time of game development that lead up to the launch of Star Wars Galaxies(SWG) and it's initial game systems for attaining Jedi status.
I've never really gotten over SWG, what it could have been after launch, and its eventual collapse. Reading this article from Raph I get the sense that he was as heartbroken as we were as initial forum goers and beat testers. Raph's words bleed a passion and intelligence that is absent in today's game design. They are what hooked us then and what I think will let us close the book on the SWG chapter in our MMO careers.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Battlefield Heroes to close
Sad news; Battlefield Heroes is set to shut it's doors this July.
This is unfortunate news alongside EA's other announcements about shuttering the rest of their Pay 2 Win ... err... Free 2 Play titles.
Personally I felt that Heroes was one of the better games of the Battlefield line up right behind Battlefield 2 and the original Battlefield 1942. Heroes was easy to get into and offered an amazing amount of game play for free. Unfortunately that is likely what has done it in over the long run.
At it's peak Heroes had reported player numbers of 10 million (geez, remember when we thought 250,000 was A LOT when talking about online games), but I suspect many of those millions were non-paying entities. Eventually more and more "pay 2 win" aspects crept into the game. Before long and about the time I stopped playing players had to pay up or go home.
In my opinion I don't think free 2 play has much to do with this closure at all. EA is well known for closing down old games and shutting off the servers. Heroes will just be another on the pile of games long abandoned by EA. The real question for us to be asking is what, if anything, EA will change in the future to mitigate their constant disappointments with maintaining games with online components. As a regular player of free 2 play titles and other online games these moves certainly don't give me any confidence in EA's ability to provide any decent long term investment.
EA is basically death for most of what it touches.
This is unfortunate news alongside EA's other announcements about shuttering the rest of their Pay 2 Win ... err... Free 2 Play titles.
Personally I felt that Heroes was one of the better games of the Battlefield line up right behind Battlefield 2 and the original Battlefield 1942. Heroes was easy to get into and offered an amazing amount of game play for free. Unfortunately that is likely what has done it in over the long run.
At it's peak Heroes had reported player numbers of 10 million (geez, remember when we thought 250,000 was A LOT when talking about online games), but I suspect many of those millions were non-paying entities. Eventually more and more "pay 2 win" aspects crept into the game. Before long and about the time I stopped playing players had to pay up or go home.
In my opinion I don't think free 2 play has much to do with this closure at all. EA is well known for closing down old games and shutting off the servers. Heroes will just be another on the pile of games long abandoned by EA. The real question for us to be asking is what, if anything, EA will change in the future to mitigate their constant disappointments with maintaining games with online components. As a regular player of free 2 play titles and other online games these moves certainly don't give me any confidence in EA's ability to provide any decent long term investment.
EA is basically death for most of what it touches.