Saying Goodbye: The End of a Service
by Phoenix, HSM team writer
Sometimes it’s very hard to say goodbye. It doesn’t matter if it’s a person or a thing we have a great attachment to — it is hard to say goodbye. I have had this dilemma for a few months now; I didn’t know how to say goodbye to something that has changed my life in some very substantial ways. Months ago the rumor surfaced that Sony was shutting down a server. This server was connected with a game I play, WKC.
As with most rumors, there is a never-ending murky pool of disjointed information trickled down to the masses. So when I heard this, I began searching for the original announcement. Sony had announced officially it would be shutting down the servers, but there was no mention of the servers for WKCII. The announcement only mentioned the NA region as well.
To those that don’t know, WKC is White Knight Chronicles. This game is the first in a two part series from Level-5, and then D3. The game was an RPG series, created by Level-5 and SCE Japan, and published by SCE for PS3. It revolved around a third-person perspective. The player could chose which character to use, even creating a customized character to use along side the others. It offered hundreds of hours of gameplay as the characters gained XP and leveled up.
The first I’d heard of the impending server closing was nearly a year ago. I figured it couldn’t be true, since people were still playing the game on this side of the world. It had only been released in the US in late 2010, so to hear that the online game play was going away was more then I could believe.
The WKC series was created for online co-operation. There are quests created for multiple players to assist each other. This was the appeal of the game from the beginning. This was my first PS3 game. I actually bought a PS3 to play this game. I had the instinctive feeling that this would lead me to many adventures. I was at a place in my life where I craved adventure. I had never played any games online before this, other than Uno on Xbox, and a Lost Planet 2 demo. So you can imagine my excitement when I finished the story mode and signed on for my first online quest.
It was amazing!
I was hooked after that. I played online everyday for week. There were so many people I met, from so many countries, and so much fun and adventure. Not just in the online quest, but interacting with real people, the people behind the avatars. Eventually I had played all the quests and re-birthed twice in the game to power up my character. I played this game for over a year after finishing story mode — most of the time with a group of friends I made in the first month of online play. Several of them are still on my friends list, and we played the second WKC together when it released in the states.
I wasn’t happy to hear that the servers were coming down for a game that had given me so many hours of enjoyment, but I thought, well there is still the second game and its servers. Now, imagine the feelings I had when just two days later it was announced by D3 that those servers were coming down as well. That June 18, 2013, would be the last of the servers for both games in the NA community. It was hinted at, and then left to drop that EU servers for this game would be taken down too.
So here we are with June around the corner. Many of my friends have played and replayed the game numerous times. After hearing the news, I attempted to play one more time. But I found I had lost my desire to quest again. I felt the pang of sadness at not being able to meet up with those people that have meant so much to me. Yes, as I said, some are still on my friends list. Some became very close friends, while still others are like family. I have not to date discovered a reason for the server closings. I have searched the web for news articles and found conflicting theories — everything for not enough players to a lack of advertising for the series. One theory even says it was a choice Sony made to give more support to the games, while another suggests it is freeing up servers for the PS4.
Like as not, it will probably be awhile before concrete answers appear as to the reasons for the shutdown of the servers for WKC I and II. I don’t know if I will ever play the game again. The story mode and private questing are both still options. But the questing part of the game was designed to interact with other people, to share the skills of your main customized avatar with others. We bonded in those daily hours of monster hunting and slaying. In those hours of leveling up and honing our skills, building our towns and aiding someone on a special quest for binding ingredients, to create new and stronger amour and weapons. This wasn’t just a game played for something to do. It was a true online social experience. There is nothing like WKC, and I don’t think there will ever be.
So what happens when an online game is no longer available as an online game? What do we really say goodbye to? Do we say goodbye to the friends we made? In some cases, yes, I’m sure some do. Do we say goodbye to the desire to play the game itself? Yes, in some cases we do. These were the questions that have plagued me. I wasn’t even sure what I was sad about with the servers going down. I had to admit that I don’t play the game as much as I used to. I also have to admit that I still have a bond with most of the people I played with. So what was it that I was mourning?
It is that old feeling we have about change. Though it is a fact of life that change comes to everything, it is still something we must face even if we don’t want to. Letting go of something that changed your life, no matter how small the change, means accepting that it will no longer be there. It means accepting that memories are all you will have of a thing, and that as life goes on memories fade, and are replaced with new ones.
Instinctively we want to hold on to happy times. We want to see them as the best times of our lives. When faced with the prospect of losing something, we only see the good in it. We put those rose colored shades on, and go on about “the best of times.”
Maybe they were, but that was then. I don’t know why the servers are being shut down. I do hope, however, that whatever the reason, it will be for something that I will share in, that will garner new and happy times for me to share.
So I bid a melancholy goodbye to WKC I and II.
To, British James, King, Quik, Timeless, Connecticut James, Clust, Loser, Rob, Crest and everyone I quested with. May we met again questing someday.
RIP Philly.
For any WKC fan and supporter here is a link to a petition on ipetitions.com to save the online part of this game.
June 8th, 2013 by Phoenix | 3 comments
Phoenix writes poetry and is a photography enthusiast, along with writing for HomeStation Magazine. She is currently studying for a BFA in Creative Writing and BA with concentration in Photography. psn ID phoenixstorm21
youtube.com/user/phoenixstorm21
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I have WKC 1 and 2. I have played the multi=player with friends a few times and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t have the time to really dive in much. The building a town idea was very cool, it is sad to see this go, especially for those who love it. I have a few friends in the category, you included.
TY Burbie.
When I first started this game I thought it was the most generic, lamest RPG I had ever played. I always hated on the story, the characters, the battle system, and the lack of explanation on how stats worked for each class. But I persisted through the game because I wanted to earn that White Knight costume for PS Home.
As I slowly worked my way up the guild ranks, watching my character grow stronger bit by bit, I eventually grew to have respect and appreciation for it. I wrote adventure logs I knew no one but a handful of people would ever read, just out of the sheer enjoyment of writing them. My friends didn’t like my initial negativity towards the game, but they were completely surprised by how I changed.
I ended up buying WKC2 and even though its days are numbered, I continue to visit Geonet and update my adventure log, hoping to reach a conclusion I’m satisfied with for my character Eilam. I plan to build a level in LittleBigPlanet consisting of all the logs I wrote and the pictures I took, and eventually I will construct my own vision for a WKC3 in LBP2.
The servers will close, but my journey isn’t over.