Motor City Online
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Motor City Online | |
|---|---|
 North American boxart |
|
| Developer(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release date(s) | October 10, 2001 |
| Genre(s) | MMOG/Racing |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: E (Everyone) |
| Media | CD-ROM, download |
| System requirements | PII 333 or equivalent, 64 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM, 8 MB VRAM, 800 MB, DirectX 8.0 |
| Input methods | Keyboard, Mouse, joystick (optional), Wheel & Pedals (optional) |
Motor City Online was a racing massively multiplayer online computer game released by Electronic Arts on October 10, 2001. The point of the game was to buy classic cars (mostly American muscle cars) ranging from 1930s to 1970s models, tune them up, and race them against other players. The game went offline on August 29, 2003 so EA Games could focus on their current online game at the time, The Sims Online. EA, however, is developing a new online racing game, called Need for Speed: World Online.
Originally conceived as part of the Need for Speed series under the title Need for Speed: Motor City [1], all single player elements that may have been developed for the game were discarded in favor of an online-only model. The game featured some RPG elements, such as levelling up after completing tasks (e.g. winning races), and a functional, supply and demand economy for players to get involved in.
Aside from EA focusing on The Sims Online, another contributing factor to MCO's demise was the game's technical setup. Lag, as with most online games, was a problem, with cars acting unpredictably during times of high latency. Falling subscription rates (from an alleged peak of 36,000 [2] ) and a lack of new interest in the game eventually led to its downfall. Previous Motor City Online users were offered access to The Sims Online, Ultima Online, or Earth & Beyond. [3] However, while Motor City Online was dead, an MCO fan developed Motor City Offline, a version of the game designed for play offline. It contains 34 converted car models from the original game and many of the same tracks. Motor City Offline was built using a modified version of the NFS High Stakes engine.
Contents |
[edit] Cars
The vehicles featured in Motor City Online were all American models, ranging from coupes, Coupe Utilities, sedans and station wagons of the 1930s to 1950s, to muscle cars from the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the vehicles could be modified, providing the vehicle with an additional suffix on the vehicle's name (i.e. "Ford Ranchero Chopped", "Ford Coupe Bumperless&Fenderless"). Older vehicles could also be available as convertibles, while a handful of older models were also available in the form of a body only. The game also offered rare specialty paint jobs that were very hard to get.
[edit] Note
At the end of the run of Motor city online, two foreign cars were available. One was the 99 Mitsubishi Eclipse. The other was the 97 Toyota Supra. Both cars were equipped with V-8 engines.
[edit] Awards
- E3 2000 Game Critics Awards: Best Racing Game
[edit] References
- MMOGCHART.COM - Bruce Sterling Woodcock's tracking of MMOG subscription data. (Some english language.)
- IGN Review
- IGN Review - Dead Game.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
This Electronic Arts-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
