Sailing Off

If I had posted, a year ago today, that We Rule would close up shop most of you would have laughed. It would have been April Fool's, after all. A few wise souls saw it coming. I, who called so many things right, did not. In fact, I said it probably wouldn't happen.

This year my April fools joke is posted on Ask Tabby, where our polydactyl Siamese Jenny Manytoes explains bizarre people behavior to cats around the world. I type it for her, so you will still be hearing from me.

Shameless promotion aside (although you really will like her blog) (honest to goodness), is a day of morning for We Rule fans everywhere when the universal and final “unable to connect” was flashed on the game page.

(Speaking of shameless self-promotion, don't forget you can still buy my books Raising Hell and The Worst Noel for $1 on Amazon, Nook and iBooks. And we are finishing proofreading on Cigerets, Guns and Beer a thriller about bad cops, a bank robbery gone very wrong and maybe, just maybe, the crash site of a flying saucer. If you enjoyed this blog, you will enjoy those books.)

Yes, it's gone and we knew it was coming. Some of us simply gave up. Some mourned it's loss in the comments section, and others, like JennyManytoes tried valiently to leap through as many levels as they could. I took orders and sent them back, but really lacked the heart to progress any further. At 3 billion xp, it was doubtful there were any more significant milestones to reach.

Last night I redesigned my main realm to show ghost ships sailing off to tumble over the falls and crash into ships docked in the level below. Poor symbolism indeed.

And so the ghost ships sail off the edge, a symbol of my mixed feelings about spending (I am now embarrassed to admit) hundreds of dollars on mojo. I had more than 3000 so I could speed up buildings and plant numbers when ngmoco:) announced it would all be for naught. Had only they warned me.

The biggest tragedy of all is that they don't even maintain the small amount of server space that would allow players to at least visit and tinker with their realms. I hope you kept screen shots for your digital scrap books.

Players who enjoyed the game to the end can relish the memories, and it was fun. Players who still feel bitter and know a good class action attorney might consider pursuing a law suit. After all, players did blow hundreds of thousands of dollars in the belief that the game would be there as long as they wanted to play. If you know one, my wife an I may sign up.

I could end on a positive note, but there is no reason to celebrate. I no longer begin social network games because I know they're all dead ends. Snoopy's fair crapped out on me, leaving me with nothing as did every Zynga game I started. ngmoco:) has pretty much killed every good offering they launched: Touch Pets, Godfinger, and all the We games. I played Farmville 2 for a day, which was long enough to convince me I wouldn't be interested in We Rule 2 (should ngmoco:) raise the money to develop one).

I still play the Simpsons Tapped Out, but it's been a month since they added anything new and I have yet to trigger the events that would let me earn them. I'm not sure I have the patience to rack up 3 million points for a giant magnifying glass to torch the popsicle skyscraper that cost 2 million. The jokes are still funny, but I have seen them so many times now it feels like watching re-runs of Star Trek.

It's sad, because We Rule got a lot of things right. They were too frequent with new items, but at least they offered them on a regular basis. The characters were entertaining, and the events would have been really fun had they not crashed all the time. Looking back at all the social network games I played, there was a reason We Rule was so popular. It showed it's age, but it was still the best and most likely to keep players interested month after month.

 

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