How many people resubscribed today SoE? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
Maybe the problem with keeping MxO up, and running, is right there before your eyes.
For four years you have maintained the game after Monolith sold it, but thats all you really did...you maintained it, you never really made it better...you never truly added to it, in fact, in several respects your CR2.0 took away from it, just like the NGE took away from SWG.
But now you say "thats it, its over, we're shutting it down"....and you see suddenly there there are thousands of people that love this game and that would be here all the time, if you'd just....do something with it for real, and not just leave them sitting there to grind pointlessly to level 50 and become bored thereafter.
Is running/developing for this game really any more costly than maintaining/developing for Planetside...or Everquest 1? Is it really worth scrapping this title and putting all your money on that craptastic Sims meets WoW G Rated Kids Game Free Realms?
MxO doesn't have to die. MxO shouldn't die, I can think of....at least five games, off the top of my head, right now, that are in far worse shape, in profitability, than this title could be if you would simply give it the chance it deserves and give it the attention it deserves.
I mean...who am I to talk I left because you were taking it over, all the customer abuse through EQ, the SWG debacles, I had a right to be cautious so I left when I heard Monolith was selling it. But there are thousands who never did and made a life and a world here that has been, largely, one of the most spectacular massively multiplayer online role playing games of the past decade.
And you're willing to bury that, even though this community has shown you more dedication than any community you have had to date in your game portfolio. Tell me your EQ players aren't a bunch of mercenaries that leave every time WoW puts out another shiny patch. Tell me that your Planetside player base is as loyal and as in love with that game as the players of this game are.
Tell me, that if you announced you were shutting down Planetside, right now, that tens of thousands of people would resubscribe simply to get that one last taste of something they enjoyed...and to be there at death bed's side, to see it go.
I don't think so, in fact, I know it wouldn't. If you shut down EQ1 today, there wouldn't be protests, people would just move to EQ2 or WoW, if you shut down EQ2, people might protest, but they'd just go to WoW.
Where are all these customers going to go SoE? There not going to go to EQ2 or Planetside or SWG, they're here, and customers of yours for one reason, and one reason only, that is The Matrix, and what living in that world means to them individually.
It is my wish, and request, that the managing developers and community managers of this title, propose to SoE corporate, that they give the title 1 year, and true support, before they go through with this closure.
1 year of true development and support, 1 year of true new content additions, on the monthly scale, like you've been doing with SWG....and tell me in 1 year, that it wouldn't have been worth it.
Summary of this is, please, not yet. Give it the chance it deserves....cause you never really did. All this game got was the bare minimum it took to keep it going. Had you done something with it, it would, I believe, be your strongest title offering on the US market at this time.
You have too many broken toys SOE, broken toys that people love so much they play through the brokeness, out of love alone.
And just like that favorite stuffed animal of a childs, you don't throw it away because it becomes ripped and torn, you mend it, you patch it and restuff it, and make it new again for them, because that child loves that stuffed animal, and it doesn't matter how many new ones you buy them....it will never make up for that one that broke...that you chose to throw away, rather than repair.
This is my plea. For all the good it will do. I love this genre, I love the world this game presents. I don't want to see it go the way of the dinosaur simply because no one has tried to mend it, patch it and restuff it. Not for me who beta'd and played til Monolith sold it, not for the players that have been here since the beta and never left...and not for the gaming industry as a whole...which deseperately needs titles like this to succeed, so there can be variance in a market dominated by World of Warcraft. MxO gives a unique and beautiful option, and its loss will be a terrible loss, not just for these players, but for the gaming industry in general.
Thank you for your time.
