Perhaps you’ll recall that several reasons, one or all, were cited by various people for Wish’s demise: point-n-click movement, a single shard/server for all players, and, the big one, no PvP. Irth Online addresses all three: WASD & mouse movement, multiple servers (if they get the players), and heavy focus on PvP.

It’s too bad all those people were wrong about the reasons for Wish’s demise. The reactions to Irth Online have been … poor. Much more so than Wish at the time of its cancellation.

There’s a lesson here somewhere.

I think they can only go up, especially now that they’ve signed up Peter S. Beagle to write for them. The biggest problems I had with the game were that (a) their customer service was nonexistent and (b) the game ended up being an obvious succession of tougher grinding. That said, they had a reasonably consistent backstory (and most importantly, a reason why the mobs were where they were), and they really did involve the players in changing the world–not to the same extent as the original premise, but still impressive and recently imitated by EQ2.

In 2004, I bought and played CoH, Lineage 2, AC2, EQ2, WoW, and DAOC: Catacombs. In 2005, I played WoW, EQ2, a couple days of DAOC, tried some indie games, and bought GW and CoV–all in all, a really bad years for new MMOs. I’m looking forward to 2006, with plans to check out Tabula Rasa, MEO, and DDO, and maybe even Auto Assault if it turns out to be a fun and innovative game.