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According to 1up

http://www.1up.com/article2/0,2053,1617493,00.asp

"Based on a detailed review of where our industry stands and the level of interest in the gaming community in taking some of our premier properties online, we are now pursuing several options to fund our entry into massively-multiplayer online gaming with titles including Fallout," Caen said. "Initial feedback from our investment bank and ongoing dialogue with others in the gaming sector appear to confirm that the combination of our valuable and popular intellectual properties with the rapidly growing online gaming community is the best way to maximize Interplay shareholder value."

Today's announcement makes no specific mention of earlier announcements regarding the revival of Interplay's Kingpin franchise, which came up in earlier quarterly financial reports. However, it does note that Interplay will "likely continue to develop select games for personal computers and next generation gaming consoles as well as develop purely online games."

Im excited and worried at the same time, anything related to fallout creates immense interest for me, but.. an mmorpg? Then again, a post apocalypse setting with the style of fallout is pretty much whats missing in the mmorpg world, too many metrosexual elves with same old medieval setting and not enough modern scenarios. Its still interplay though, not quite what they used to be -_-

 

[WarPig]

I don't see it ever coming out.

DFS.

 

[TheGreenGiant]

I would buy this is this was remotely decent. I'll warn you guys first though. I will be a PK. The game's universe encourage this. On second thought. how is this going to work?

One of the biggest fun elements in the Fallout games was stealing. This will make the game holy fucking annoying. Imagine having your gun+1000 stolen.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

No good came of this.

 

[Archaix]

Hey, fuckstick. Fallout 3. All of your time and resources. One more fallout side-story game and I will find a use for all of these mailbombs that Atlus made me set aside when they announced SMT3.

 

[way more]

This would be the first MMORPG I would buy.

 

[explodet]

Hey, I thought Interplay was dead!

There was a thread and everything!

 

[stonedwal]

Somehow I don't think that it would be wise for Interplay to announce a risky venture such as an MMORPG, given their dodgy financial situation.

Just release Fallout 3, for the love of Jet.

 

[Suikoguy]

Just what we needed! Another MMORPG... for god sakes MAKE SOME OFFLINE GAMES

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

Hey, fuckstick. Fallout 3. All of your time and resources. One more fallout side-story game and I will find a use for all of these mailbombs that Atlus made me set aside when they announced SMT3.

You're my twin!

 

[Mrbob]

No more MMORPG games.

I just got the latest CGW in the mail, and they preview 16 new MMORPG games. Good grief.

 

[Mumbles]

I want Fallout 3! Fallout 3! Fallout 3!!!

*bursts into tears*

 

[kevm3]

i'm starting to hate 'mmorpg's'... Just give me a regular fallout dammit!

 

[ManaByte]

I just got the latest CGW in the mail, and they preview 16 new MMORPG games. Good grief.

Of those, maybe 8 will actually make it to store shelves. Of those, about 4 to 6 will actually gather enough users to survive.

The MMORPG market probably cannot sustain more than six games at once with a large enough userbase to keep it alive. There are some MMOs that HAVE NOT yet been announced of even hinted at that should just flat out be canned as they won't be able to compete against similar games in the genre that are FREE (one is another MMO first person shooter that will be destroyed by the new Battlefield).

Right now you have the top tier games like EQ, FFXI, CoH, SWG, and DAOC.

Then you have the "meh" games that are doing "OK", but pale in comparison to those. These are games like Asheron's Call 1, Anarchy Online, Lineage II, and Ultima Online.

NOTE: I put Lineage II on tier two as CoH has well over 150,000 subscriptions now and Lineage II barely has half that. NCSoft announced the numbers initially as 160,000 total for both. That was 100,000 for CoH at the time. Since then they have grown a bit.

After that, you have the scraps that hardly anyone plays. Horizons, Second Life, EVE Online, The Sims Online, A Tale in the Desert, Earth and Beyond (shuts down in Sept.), and PlanetSide (development has halted on the game - only a skeleton crew remains).

Of the five "big ones", FFXI is doing the best with the most subscriptions.

EQ is still doing well, and better than the other three, but it took a small hit when SWG released, a small hit when FFXI released, and a pretty nice chunk when CoH released. Apparently a bunch of big EQ guilds moved over to the superhero MMO.

SWG is apparently picking up steam after it stalled at about 220,000 subscriptions. The bug fixes, new content, free trial, and expansion is apparently helping.

CoH is still selling well and has a nice following. It'll be around for a while.

I look at Mythic's server numbers on the Camelot Herald and it makes me sad. Servers that used to have 1000+ people on during prime time cap at 700 now. It's a shame. DAOC is probably the best fantasy-based MMO in retail right now, and Mythic is one of the best MMO developers in terms of mind-set out there. Sure the game has class balance problems, but they do still strongly support it and its PVP and website character tracking is something more MMOs should look at.

Also, despite their falling numbers, they still make money off DAOC so it'll be around for a while longer.

 

[Takuan]

Hey, fuckstick. Fallout 3. All of your time and resources. One more fallout side-story game and I will find a use for all of these mailbombs that Atlus made me set aside when they announced SMT3.

You're my twin!

It looks like we have triplets!

 

[cuccoo]

i'm very skeptical about this. even great developers are having trouble with mmorpg. if they fail here, i'm pretty sure they'll go bankrupt. its not cheap and it takes forever to develop. Even Blizzard's WoW takes almost 4 years, and still counting.

 

[hobbitx]

Today's announcement makes no specific mention of earlier announcements regarding the revival of Interplay's Kingpin franchise, which came up in earlier quarterly financial reports. However, it does note that Interplay will "likely continue to develop select games for personal computers and next generation gaming consoles as well as develop purely online games."

Please don't let them give up on the Kingpin sequel, I am dying this, with the crime sim genre huge as ever, this and another Fallout would be their best bet.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

DAoC has still got a healthy population going. The merlin server on peak times still reaches close to 3k which is outstanding given all the hate the expansions have been generating. New Frontiers (free PVP expansion) seems to have added a lot of cool stuff, including adding battlegrounds for all levels, and increasing the XP you get frm killing a player by 8x.

I still think it's the best MMO out there and it's a shame that no one on the forum seems to play it anymore.

 

[ManaByte]

DAoC has still got a healthy population going. The merlin server on peak times still reaches close to 3k which is outstanding given all the hate the expansions have been generating. New Frontiers (free PVP expansion) seems to have added a lot of cool stuff, including adding battlegrounds for all levels, and increasing the XP you get frm killing a player by 8x.

I still think it's the best MMO out there and it's a shame that no one on the forum seems to play it anymore.

It's still healthy, but it has dropped a bunch since September/October and looking at the server numbers makes me sad.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

where can u find numbers for subscribed user base?


in comaparision I went back to neocron and there are like 300 people on the most populated server (cries)

 

[Ferrarisimo]

If Interplay releases a Fallout MMORPG (or any game, for that matter), I will eat my shoe.

 

[ManaByte]

If Interplay releases a Fallout MMORPG (or any game, for that matter), I will eat my shoe.

There is an unannounced post-apocalyptic MMORPG in the works in Austin. It isn't Fallout, but if the company making it was smart (which can definitely be argued), they would go to Interplay and license the Fallout name for their MMORPG.

This post-apocalyptic MMORPG is NOT "Auto Assault".

 

[Mrbob]

How big a chunk is World of Warcraft going to take in the MMORPG market? You would figure these small time players would be hesitant to enter the MMORPG market with WoW right around the horizon. Heck, some of the big boys are probably sweating it a bit.

Honestly, it is the only MMORPG I care about and I doubt I'm the only one. Blizzard has an awesome reputation for content and support form their previous titles and I expect this to be embellished a couple fold with WoW. The MMORPG PC market is going to need a good shakeout and I can see it happening soon.

 

[Mr_Furious]

I think Interplay should be worrrying about paying their employees first (including their benefits) and finding a new roof to place over the company's head (since they've since been evicted) before making such stupid announcements of a game that will most likely never come out if Interplay doesn't get their shit together, and quick.

 

[Razoric]

How big a chunk is World of Warcraft going to take in the MMORPG market? You would figure these small time players would be hesitant to enter the MMORPG market with WoW right around the horizon. Heck, some of the big boys are probably sweating it a bit.

Honestly, it is the only MMORPG I care about and I doubt I'm the only one. Blizzard has an awesome reputation for content and support form their previous titles and I expect this to be embellished a couple fold with WoW. The MMORPG PC market is going to need a good shakeout and I can see it happening soon.

I agree. WoW is going to destroy the competition. I even think EQ2 wont sell what they are expecting. The only other MMORPG I can see doing really good on the market is Guild Wars. For two reasons, it has NO monthly fee and it really seems to innovate the MMORPG genre instead of perfecting it like WoW and EQ2 are trying to do.

No point in even looking forward to this Fallout MMORPG... if it's going to be good it's at least 2+ years away if it makes it out at all.

 

[Phoenix]

Just what we needed! Another MMORPG... for god sakes MAKE SOME OFFLINE GAMES

I can tell you why they are looking online - cash flow. Interplay at last check has a little over a million dollars in the bank, was being fined nearly half that for not having insurance for employees, and being sued for not paying royalties. The company is in dire financial peril. A MMORPG will give them monthly cash flow so that they can pay the bills and keep the doors open while branching into other projects. A standalone game for Interplay right now is a bad move (not that the substantial costs to develop a MMORPG are available for them), and they may be able to secure monies from their investors for a MMORPG as that is an area where investors are willing to seed large sums of money.

 

[kevm3]

These companies need to chill out with the MMORPGs. It's sorry enough that you have to pay 50 dollars for a game you can't just pop in and play... Why can't they sell the software for 10 or 20 bucks or give the client software away for free since you're eventually going to have to pay a subscription fee to play? Nobody's gonna be buying tons of MMORPGS and setting themselves up for numerous $10 subscription fees. I can't wait until this MMORPG phase passes and developers get it out of their system. I just want a nice, single-player Fallout is all.

 

[ManaByte]

These companies need to chill out with the MMORPGs. It's sorry enough that you have to pay 50 dollars for a game you can't just pop in and play... Why can't they sell the software for 10 or 20 bucks or give the client software away for free since you're eventually going to have to pay a subscription fee to play? Nobody's gonna be buying tons of MMORPGS and setting themselves up for numerous $10 subscription fees. I can't wait until this MMORPG phase passes and developers get it out of their system. I just want a nice, single-player Fallout is all.

You obviously have no idea the costs involved in developing and maintaining a MMORPG. Thus your post is moot.

The box price goes towards paying the extremly costly development costs.

The monly fee goes towards maintaining the servers, support, and further development costs for a game that is always changining.