Hun-Speak

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October 1, 1999 -- Requiem for Shogo: Where Did We Go Wrong?

I'm a little upset. OK, a lot upset. The first-person shooter which I believe was the best since the original Quake, Shogo, is in its death throes. Actually, it has been in its death throes for many months now. What used to be a tight-knit group of very talented people now has whittled down to a precious few. It's amazing how far a great game can plummet in less than a year's time.

What caused such a rapid fall from grace? Why did the online game that loonyboi and many others raved about stagger and fall? I could point fingers in many directions. The easiest target is Monolith. It seems obvious that they bit off more than they could chew with trying to publish the game on their own. Patches to deal with big issues such as lag and little issues like multiplayer start points never materialized. After the 2.2 patch was released in the beginning of March, official support of Shogo more or less ceased. "Your six months are up, fan-boy, now get out."

The biggest problem of all may have been the 2.2 patch itself. It seems like the day it was released, Shogo died. Popular mods like Squishie, CTF, and others were never updated to work with the new patch. Way back in March, I had a feeling that trouble was brewing. I was right.

Then in late April it was discovered that it was a small matter to change the weapon firing rates on the client-side, giving people with a special rez file an unfair advantage over everyone else. Like the Zbot and other hacks in Quake 2, this nefarious rez--and others that followed--wreaked havoc on what once was a very enjoyable online experience. Solutions to the cheating problem have been tried, but have introduced their own problems, often adding the last thing any online game needs: more lag.

I used to check the PlanetShogo forums and other Shogo sites religiously every day. I even started the Haus of Shogo in December as a repository of information I was gathering on the game. There's not much to read anymore. I am the last original member of the Old Married Guys [RIP], which was saved from extinction with the help of Quantus. We have two cool new members, J and GTG, but lost an old friend and one of the community's greatest assets, Joltox. We still try to get together on EZ-Net to play Bloodbath 6, but it's hard to get all four of us together at the same time.

Some might say, but A.T., what about the ports to Amiga and the Mac? Those are fine and will no doubt attract a few more people to Shogo. But the fact is that any mod would have to be recompiled to be used on either of those platforms. Our extremely talented but small group of developers would have little reason to go to great lengths to port their mods for little reward.

Even now on the PlanetShogo forums, the topics of debate are more likely to be the Dreamcast or Final Fantasy VIII or God only knows what, but not Shogo. I haven't updated the Haus of Shogo in months--there's just nothing to write about! Am I mad? You bet. Am I being melodramatic (after all, it's just a game)? You could argue that. It's just sad to see a great game like Shogo dying before its time. Many gamers will never get a chance to find out what a great game it was.

I've made some great friends in the Shogo community, ones I hope to keep for a long time. I want to thank the people who helped me learn the game along the way and who made the community the best game community on the web--bar none. Kudos especially go out to the past and present members of RIP, the best collection of loonies anyone would ever want to meet.

I had a lot of fun playing Shogo. May she rest in peace.