Post by Morreion on Aug 26, 2021 11:55:45 GMT -5
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs that waved goodbye without ever making it to launch (Massively)
That's most of them these days, isn't it? This list doesn't touch a lot of older games I would have listed such as Wish, Tabula Rasa and Imperator, but they did point this one out:
The Game Archaeologist: The rise and fall of Landmark and EverQuest Next (Massively)
1. Project Titan
All right, everyone knows this one; it was Blizzard’s never technically announced second MMO that apparently got yoinked because it was supposedly never all that fun to play, and some portion of the work done on it eventually turned into what we now know as Overwatch. It’s hard to say how much of a loss this one was simply because the game exists in that fuzzy state of never having too much revealed about it, but Overwatch seems to have done all right for itself. Or… it was doing all right for itself, at one point.
All right, everyone knows this one; it was Blizzard’s never technically announced second MMO that apparently got yoinked because it was supposedly never all that fun to play, and some portion of the work done on it eventually turned into what we now know as Overwatch. It’s hard to say how much of a loss this one was simply because the game exists in that fuzzy state of never having too much revealed about it, but Overwatch seems to have done all right for itself. Or… it was doing all right for itself, at one point.
That's most of them these days, isn't it? This list doesn't touch a lot of older games I would have listed such as Wish, Tabula Rasa and Imperator, but they did point this one out:
The Game Archaeologist: The rise and fall of Landmark and EverQuest Next (Massively)
Daybreak crashes the party
In early February 2015, ominous music started to float about the industry, which was then followed by the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment had been sold to Columbus Nova, an investment firm, and was going to be renamed the Daybreak Game Company. Soon thereafter, a huge round of layoffs rocked the studio, and Daybreak began shedding itself of its smaller properties. Big EverQuest names such as Linda Carlson and Dave Georgeson were among those let go, and the collaboration with Storybricks was called off.
Uncertainty and worry began to crop up around the future of the twin EverQuest projects, but Daybreak’s remaining staff assured fans that it was going to be “more than OK” and that it wasn’t vaporware. But that, alas, was a big, fat lie. Our own optimistic MJ began to fret that EverQuest Next was in trouble, but tried to give the restructured studio the benefit of the doubt...
The other shoe finally dropped in March 2016. A day after the studio announced a chunk of new content for Landmark, Daybreak officially cancelled EverQuest Next. Daybreak President Russell Shanks wrote a letter to the community saying that the game simply wasn’t fun and failed to meet the internal expectations of the company. Fans were angry and saddened, with the general consensus that Daybreak was just giving up instead of figuring out how to bring EQN to fruition. The death of the game became the biggest MMO story of 2016 and the biggest disappointment, according to MOP’s year-end awards.
In early February 2015, ominous music started to float about the industry, which was then followed by the announcement that Sony Online Entertainment had been sold to Columbus Nova, an investment firm, and was going to be renamed the Daybreak Game Company. Soon thereafter, a huge round of layoffs rocked the studio, and Daybreak began shedding itself of its smaller properties. Big EverQuest names such as Linda Carlson and Dave Georgeson were among those let go, and the collaboration with Storybricks was called off.
Uncertainty and worry began to crop up around the future of the twin EverQuest projects, but Daybreak’s remaining staff assured fans that it was going to be “more than OK” and that it wasn’t vaporware. But that, alas, was a big, fat lie. Our own optimistic MJ began to fret that EverQuest Next was in trouble, but tried to give the restructured studio the benefit of the doubt...
The other shoe finally dropped in March 2016. A day after the studio announced a chunk of new content for Landmark, Daybreak officially cancelled EverQuest Next. Daybreak President Russell Shanks wrote a letter to the community saying that the game simply wasn’t fun and failed to meet the internal expectations of the company. Fans were angry and saddened, with the general consensus that Daybreak was just giving up instead of figuring out how to bring EQN to fruition. The death of the game became the biggest MMO story of 2016 and the biggest disappointment, according to MOP’s year-end awards.
