Motor City Online

Motor City Online
North American boxart
Developer(s)	Electronic Arts
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	May 11, 2001
Genre(s)	MMOG/Racing
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E (Everyone)
Media/distribution	CD-ROM, download
System requirements PII 333 or equivalent, 64 MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM, 8 MB VRAM, 800 MB, DirectX 8.0

Motor City Online was a racing massively multiplayer online computer game released by Electronic Arts on May 11, 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, developed a new online racing game, called Need for Speed: World. Many fans of Motor City Online consider Need for Speed: World a Spiritual successor of Motor City Online, although EA has denied any direct link between the two games.^[1]

Originally conceived as part of the Need for Speed series under the title Need for Speed: Motor City,^[2] 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^[3]) 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.^[4] 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. Motor City Offline was built using a modified version of the NFS High Stakes engine.

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. Later in the games life, 3 classic truck's were available. Most of the vehicles could be cosmetically modified by chopping the roof, removing bumpers, which gave the vehicle an additional suffix on its name (i.e. "Ford Ranchero Chopped", "Ford Coupe Bumperless & Fenderless") painting the car different colors or with Scalloped/Flamed paint jobs. You could also add little trinkets like fuzzy dice, and even change the sound of the horn. Convertible versions of certain cars were available, as well as specialty and ultra rare paint jobs on cars. These paint jobs couldn't be purchased from the modification shop, the car had to be purchased with the paint job already. Some of these cars came as shells only if they were particularly rare. The cars in the game are as follows: 1932 Ford Model B Coupe, 1940 Ford De Luxe Coupe, 1947 Cadillac Series 62, 1948 Cadillac Fleetwood Station Wagon, 1949 Mercury Sport Sedan, 1953 Ford Crestline, 1955 Buick Century, 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, 1957 Chevrolet Corvette C1, 1957 Ford Fairlane, 1957 Ford Thunderbird, 1957 Ford Ranchero, 1958 Chevrolet Impala, 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray C2, 1963 Ford Thunderbird, 1964 Chevrolet Impala 2-door, 1964 Ford Galaxie, 1964 Ford Mustang Convertible, 1966 Pontiac GTO, 1966 Shelby Cobra 427, 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 427, 1969 AMC AMX, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS/SS, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28/RS, 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray C3, 1969 Dodge Charger Convertible, 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee, 1969 Ford Mustang Cobra Jet 429, 1969 Ford Torino GT Fastback, 1969 Oldsmobile 4-4-2, 1969 Plymouth GTX, 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, 1970 Chevrolet El Camino SS, 1970 Chevrolet Nova SS, 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, 1970 Plymouth Duster 340, 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, 1993 Toyota Supra, 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX.

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, and were made to be rear wheel drive in the game. This caused a lot of controversy amongst the MCO purists who believed that any car going into the game should be true to its real life mechanics. So outfitting a FWD Import with a V8 engine and RWD was ruining the experience. By the time these two cars were released EA had already announced that they were shutting down the game. They were experimenting with import cars as an attempt to attract a wider variety of players.

Awards

• E3 2000 Game Critics Awards: Best Racing Game

References

1. ^ http://superiorversion.com/?p=194
2. ^ http://www.gamerevolution.com/previews/featured/nfs_motor_city.htm
3. ^ http://www.multiplayerbattletech.com/index.php?q=node/64
4. ^ http://www.shacknews.com/redir_comments.x?id=25195

Notes

• MMOGCHART.COM - Bruce Sterling Woodcock's tracking of MMOG subscription data. (Some English language.)
• IGN Review
• IGN Review - Dead Game.
• Motor City Offline site
• Superiorversion