Jeffrey Anderson, CEO of Turbine Entertainment, announced yesterday that, as of 12/30/2005, they will be closing service to Asheron's Call 2.
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Now, some of us aren't overly suprised by this move. It did, however, feel a tad sudden.

I feel for the AC2 community. They've put so much time and effort into the game and their characters. But, some of the responses really make my head hurt. MMORPG.Com referred to it as "righteous anger" and I can't really think of a better way to put it. And, where I definately believe those players have the right to be annoyed and grumpy, I feel compelled to point out that neither Turbine nor the developers owe those players anything. Their "righteous anger" is misplaced and pointless.

We pay to play these games on a month by month basis. The EULA's state that the characters/items within the games do not belong to us. Whether we quit or they close the servers, we got exactly what we paid for and no more than they promised... entertainment.

Think of it like going to a movie. If we pay to go and enjoy the movie, then the movie theatre decides not to show it anymore, we can be angry, but we don't really have the right to complain; we got what we paid for.

Editted to add:
The movie analogy comes from a simple straighforward observation that both the game and the movie are povided as entertainment, we own no part of either because of the time or money we've invested, and we have no control over the continued existance of either once we've gotten the service that was promised for the money that was spent. Simple does does not make it wrong.

So yeah, if you're one of those people with huge amounts of "righteous anger", leave it off these forums. You'll find no sympathy here.

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And to all of those of you that have emailed and PMed me about this closing, please keep in mind... I read game-related news sites every day. Some of them I read 3 times a day: morning, afternoon, and at night. So, where I appreciate your attempts to keep me informed, those attempts are, most often, entirely unnecessary.

I hereby offer my sincererst 'condolences' to the avid AC2 players. I have never played the MMO, but I can imagine the 'righteous anger' if not a bit misplaced.
It seems these days the veteran MMO's, rapidly have to make place for the newbies on the block. This is a sad development, but has a bright side to it. Maybe now the serious MMO-players from these veteran games will join the newer MMO's and diminish the 'kids percentage' significantly.
Seeing someone NOT dancing in a fireplace and NOT running around naked through the forests might be a nice change.

I never played it myself. Even then I felt a sort of a "Wow really", type emotion when I found out about this today.

Then I imagined an exec stuffing AC2 into a hotel nightstand, and wondering how long it might be untill its discovered.

A random analogy, but for some reason it came to mind first.

I know there was a hardcore fanbase, and hope they find a new home in the tons of new games comming out. :twisted:

I can understand how angry these people must be, honestly I think I would feel the same way if [a game I play] were shut down. More people do need to start reading the EULA.



PS This is my first time posting, but I have read the panel and the forum describing how you came up with it every day for nearly 2 years, keep up the great work!

EULA or not lets think of this logically shall we? If the business has seen that is not making money of this franchise, and cannot see any way of it ever picking up, the most logical sence would be to close down that franchise. Same as any shop really. How many of you were sad when small corner shops started closing due to the Super Markets? Its a normal way of things.

Although I can understand the sadness of loosing all that time and effort they have put into a game, one has to ask what am I going to achive by screaming and shouting? I mean, its not like Turbine will say "Hell, we are loosing money from this MMO, but lets keep it running anyway so our fanbase will stop screaming". I might be off base here, as I do not know why the MMO is closing. From what I have read in most forums, it has a limited appeal. Point is, the market is saturated atm. Too many MMOs and only so many players. There will be a battle for subscriptions as more and more MMOs are released. The era or EQ and UO being the only names in the market is long gone.

Lets hope that as gamers, we can all find a place to "live" when the dust settles...

my 1sp, 67cp anyways

HAHA! when i see the info on another gaming site, i just knew i had to check GU comics for the next buzzer! and indeed it was here HAHAHAHA

Turbine must have wanted to make AC2 work or they would not have taken the trouble to buy it back from Microsoft, set up their own support and billing, then work on shipping a full expansion to the product. What I fail to understand was their lack of advertising to match the commitment.

Still, if the numbers don't add up its undeniably their right to close it down. The timing of the decision just seems so odd having shipped that xpack. No doubt the skills they learned will be put to good use with DDO ramping up toward full beta over the coming months.

While you certainly don't own your characters, or the world they live in, for that mater, you do own the time you spent playing them and the impact they have made on you. Not to get too mushy, but I know *I* get pretty attached to some of my characters, and I can only assume others do to. I can certainly understand some frustration and a lot of sadness, but not really anger.

Well, odds are there will be servers run by individuals now...

It is up to Turbines to hunt and close them, or ignore it (or charge a minimal fees).

Didn't AC2 had anounced an expancion? Truth is at least a few new players come aboard just at the look of a box on the shelves or anouncements of an expancion. I do think players that just got into the game do may have a bit of right to feel very let down.

That off course, is depending on the date. What is it? when is it closing down?

It makes me sad though, i realy hoped on the day that AC2 would be THE next generation game.

If anything, i still hope they use the AC2 graphic engine to enhance AC1.