Okay, I didn't get on board with the MM series until 6 came out. I loved it and thought 7 was an excellent sequel.

MM8 was a decent game. I acually enjoyed doing a solo Necromancer run. But by that time the engine was SO old that I think MM8 hurt the series more than anything else.

CoMM was dogpoopie. The controls and fighting were decent, but the AI was so primitive that it wasn't hard to "solve" combat. Even that is forgivable, but 90 percent of the game was one long tunnel of evenly spaced enemies. It made me think more of MDK perhaps than a RPG. Still I actually finished the game. Or, actually got to the point that they said was the end. Yet it seemed evident that there had been perhaps another act planned that was scrapped.

I never played WoMM, but it seemed to tank pretty hard.

LoMM was the big problem. I don't know how much they put into trying to develop a MMORPG, but LoMM probably didn't recoup much of that cash, which meant MM9 was probably their chance to break even.

So my guess is, in order to try and keep the ship from sinking, they rushed MM9. Of course that didn't work. The core ideas that make MM games fun are still there. But it's obvious that the tech and 3-D experience just weren't there to make MM9 properly.

I'm pretty glad that Ubi has the license now. I doubt we'll see a real MM sequel, but if they get enough interest, who knows?

I think the only other team I might want to have the MM license more is Bethesda. Oblivion is hard to put down right now, and I can only salivate over what a MM game might look like in their hands.

Still, developers are so console-minded now. I think the days of PC-friendly RPGs like the MM series are coming to an end.