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| 2001, EverQuest announces first official fan fest outside U.S. taking place in Europe. |
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The 2003 Yearly Round-up
Last year was a time of a lot of changes, as we saw new games announced, old games awaiting launch and some faces within the industry change places. While we waited for games to come out, they were not that pretty at launch after a number of delays. Here are the significant events of last year within the MOG community.
The 2003 Yearly Round-up -Div Devlin
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January
- EA and Maxis announce "The Sims Online" heated up News Year Eve with over 5000 parties hosted by players online.
- Sony, in response to doubts about "PlanetSide," reaffirmed that it was committed to an "end of q12003 release" that never appeared.
- "There" a Sims style game officially announced they were in development. People wept.
- Alien Pants creates an Online and Multiplayer Game Consulting Division. Themis has competition?
- Ubi Soft and Wolfpack Studios for Shadowbane changed everything with an official site makeover while setting a new release date of March 25th. People were worried.
- MOG Magazine the first print rag for massively multi-player gaming returns to production for issue number two.
- Electronic Art's puts the boot down and crushes Westwood Studios. "Earth and Beyond" team relocated from Vegas to California.
- Shadowbane lets in 8000 new beta testers, releases a new patch which crashes network as 15,000 users try to download.
February
- The world mourns as the United States space shuttle Challenger explodes upon re-entry. All lives lost.
- Shadowbane EU publisher Swing! declares itself insolvent, company shares suspended from trading. Development of Shadowbane beta halted in Europe until further notice.
- EA ships its newest expansion, "Age of Shadows" for Ultima Online to stores. Like previous expansions, it did not work.
- After more then four-and-a-half years of development, Sony cans Sovereign.
- Project Entropia from MindArk goes gold.
- Melantus, currently acting as Community Manager over at NCSoft for "Lineage" leaves their employ.
- Asheron's Call 2 from Turbine and Microsoft, announces they will include player mountable horses. Another taxi type service?
- A Tale in the Desert, by eGenesis launches. A game based strictly on baking bread does work.
- Jessica Mulligan becomes a published author as the book she co-wrote with Bridgette Patrovsky titled, "Developing Online Games: An Insiders Guide" is released.
- Two publishers later, the NDA for Shadowbane is dropped. A new era of flaming begins.
- The Ultima Online billing system encounters a "glitch" in which players panic as their accounts expire. Housing decay fears set in.
- Sony announces that the latest expansion the "Legacy of Ykesha." for EverQuest releases.
- EA decides that Motor City Online fails, and announces its cancellation.
- Childhood icon Mr. Rogers passes away.
March
- Ubi Soft, the North American publisher for Shadowbane announces the game has gone gold.
- Vivendi Universal posts the largest net loss in French History of $25.6 Billion U.S. for 2002.
- NC Soft announces development of a new MMOG in a post apocalypse setting.
- Gordon "Tyrant" Walton leaves EA expressing a desire to return to Austin, Texas.
- Purge Online the FPS/MMO by Free Form Interactive goes gold.
- Mutable Realms, Inc. announces development of "Wish" which will take MMO gaming to Ultra-Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming. They trademark the name, Ultra MMOG.
- Ultima Online closes their official forums telling the community to go away and use Stratics.
- Dransik by Asylum Soft goes gold. Client is available for download.
- Mythic Entertainment receives $32 Million in funding from TA Associates, a leading equity and buyout firm.
- Shadowbane goes live after being so long in development. A week later an entrepreneur posts first Ebay character for sale with a buy it now option of $850.00
- Artifact Entertainment announces that Atari will publish the long awaited Horizons.
- Purge Online goes retail. No brick and mortar stores carry copies.
- Dave "Mahrin Skel" Rickey of Dark Age of Camelot fame, leaves Mythic employ.
April
- Ken Troop leaves the Asheron's Call franchise to help design one of Turbine's upcoming "un-named" projects.
- Green Knight Publishing announces development of the Pendragon Online game. No details available.
- Majorem Ltd., developers of the MMO/RTS game, Ballerium, announces the start of beta-zero, inviting twenty would-be testers.
- Our very own intimidating 15 year old, "Acheus" gives up living in basements gaming his days away to join the U.S. Air Cav.
- Hibernians flood the test server in Dark Age of Camelot protesting that their realm is unfair and not equal.
- IGN Network purchases venerable gaming site Voodoo Extreme (V3DE).
- Mythic Entertainment announces a free, downloadable expansion titled "Foundations," for Dark Age of Camelot that will introduce player housing.
- Stratics Network announces their new pay-per-view model eliminating banner ads for subscribers with the "Stratics Premium program."
- EverQuest announces their plans for an RTS game, based on the EverQuest world titled "Lords of EverQuest." Initial impressions remind people of WarCraft.
- Jessica Mulligan becomes the Executive Produce for both the Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2 franchise at Turbine Games.
- Rumors abound that UBI.com is hacked, and Shadowbane player's accounts are stolen, with in game player owned cities being destroyed and players characters being deleted.
- Eve Online, the Sci-Fi/Space MMOG developed by CCP and published by Simon and Schuster goes gold.
- Microsoft announces their new MMO game named "Mythica" set in a Norse themed game world.
- In its second recorded week of sales, Shadowbane falls off the sales charts after making a debut in the number eight spot after release.
- Etheral Evolution officially launches the website for Universe Unlimited, their game in development.
Next: May, June, July and August!
Discuss: What was your most memorable moment of 2003?
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