out of this list i only feel bad about SEED 

as far as i know they simply ran out of money and had to decide

to release it in an unfinished buggy version or never release it at all

Those are not the 4 shortist lived MMO's.

I kind of miss Seed, and I somehow don't. It crashed constantly for me, so I could never enjoy it really, otherwise I loved the graphics style and the crafting theme. That crafting alone can work one sees with Tale of the desert III.

Regarding TR and AA - both NCsoft games.... Glad they have CoX and GW as succesful titles, otherwise I would be worried about the upcoming Champions Online...

All 4 games lacked depth. It's not about combat or anything else, it's depth. You can hide lack of depth by adding a lot of colorful effects, like AoC for example, but your game will still fail.

WOW has solved this by endless grinds for epic and epicuberevenmoreepic loot but once players get their hands on whatever they wanted they quit. You can spend years of casual playing of WOW without noticing lack of depth, and this is a key to Blizzards success.

Guild Wars (a game that is dying slowsly nowdays) has solved lack of depth by not having monthly fee. How nice, you pay once and you can come back to it at any times without dedication. Problem solved but still your game will die once everyone reaches end levels. Still this is years we are talking about so no worries on getting your investment back (this is what it's all about, business justified investment).

EVE - now there is a true gem when it comes to gameplay depth. Becouse of that it has a steep learning curve and simply rejects casual players who are not ready to invest hours a day to achieve immersion into this player controled universe. EVE economy is studied in some business schools, and EVE politics is discussed and mentioned in mainstream media even. EVE wars last for years, which is something you can not really say for any game on the market. And all that despite CCP being a rookie, green and mostly clueless company when it comes to handling customers. If CCP managed WOW it woud have died 2 months before launch. The key was letting players create their own world.

And it is only about one thing if you want your game to achieve etenral life - Anarchy. And I'm not talking here abour burning cars and listening to Sex Pistols, I'm talking about the ability to step into a new universe an determine your own destiny with as few limitations as possible. Something bigger then just a sandbox, since even there you are limited by the amount of sand and the sandbox walls. If you can attract people to your universe (sci-fi or fantasy, it is not important) and give them full freedom, wrapped in a stable and logical environment, you have a game that will survive years to come.

On the other hand gaming idustry is like any other entertainment industry, music or movies. Profit is the leader. Game creators will target those who will leave them most money during shortest period possible. This is how WOW survives out there, as there is much more people who do not want full immersion but only temporary distraction (even if its a full year, it is still not long enough to be called immersion in my opinion). This leads to "gamehopping" as I like to call it, which is people trying out different games over and over again for years without finding "a home".

In music you have Pussycat Dolls or XtinaBritney selling more albums then some excellent jazz or blues artists, and same with games. EVE has 500k subs and WOW has 10 million or more. But I am ready to bet that in 5-6 years WOW will be just a golden record on Blizzard's wall, or a mere shadow of what it was, similar to SWG, while EVE will be forced to make biggest supercomputer to manage all the subs, unless they get unthroned by some other future game offering even better universe.

All of the above is my opinion only.

Nice article.

Why isn't Hellgate London on the list ?

It was certainly an mmorpg and I think it folded within 1.5 years.

---

Now do the reverse: make a list of all mmorpg's which annouced they would go for the 1.000.000 or even multi million subs market and .... failed to achieve anything like it.

They didn't "fold" of course, but many people folded them.

And then explain what happened :)))

---

I really liked the idea of Auto Assault. It was a fast paced game which was fun. All they needed to do was fix a few things and it still would of been on.

It was a pity about Fury - during trials and hands-on demos, it played fantastic.  Graphics were top notch too.  The learning curve when you actually got into the game however, was really stupid - and they probably ran out of $$ to re-engineer it.  The beta testers told the Devs loudly and often that it was far too difficult to learn.

SEED - Great concept but just didn't have the $$ behind them.  Lag and server issues were the problem, not the game-play.  It was also... pretty buggy.

See disclaimer below.  ;)

Originally posted by m240gulf

It was sad to see Tabula Rasa (TR) go away like it did.  The game itself at the core was fun, I never really got into the ethical paribles, I just enjoyed the combat system. 

I think the real problem with TR was that it had a crappy pvp system and no reall endgame that makes players want to keep playing after going through it all.  The skill system was inovative, but I think that was another downfall of the game.  The game allowed one to clone yourself and set yourself up into a new profession, which was cool, but I think it took away from the replayability of TR once you completed all the content.
 

Good read, thanks for the article!

Good summing up of what went wrong. I wasn't going to play initially because the idea of having a fast action fps style game with no PvP just didn't make any sense.  What is stopping the devs making monster play or even have aliens as an alternative faction.  Imagine coming down in a drop ship and trying to over take a base, quality!! 

Crafting was too light and no real affect so I tinkered with it as a matter of curiosity.  No housing or place to just hang was another issue imo.  (I know there were big bases but you know what I mean)

The list is ok (and besides Fury I played them all ^^').

But why no mention about WISH? Ok, it was never really released (same for SEED if looked from a side) but to me it was the most hyped somehow successor of Ultima Online. It even looked good and for the early development it played well. But then, out of nothing, WISH is no more. To me, that was the shortest live of an MMO that many people had noticed.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Nice article.

Why isn't Hellgate London on the list ?

It was certainly an mmorpg and I think it folded within 1.5 years.

 

No, it wasn't. That was problem number 2.

Problem number 1 was a jackass named Bill Roper who told everyone it was an mmorpg so he could tap the "subscribe to play" market.

I Miss Fury, it had some much potential it just never got there...

Originally posted by Hammertime1

I can't beleive that they left out AC2 from that list!

David Bowman killed that game in an incredibly short time...

I was thinking the same, although I never got past beta.

I played all four of these games. Here are my thoughts on each. Whether you care about my opinion is up to you, of course.

#4 Auto Assault

Like several others, I played this while in beta. While it was interesting to play, since you could just run over enemies and you got those nice jumps you can take off ramps, it just didn't feel that fun. It was annoying having to go back to a repair center so often, and I mostly felt the car was an extension of my avatar, instead of feeling like I was actually driving a car. I think one of the tihngs they could have done to fix this was to allow you to get out of your car and move around, and perhaps use some type of remote control to call your car in case it got too far away from you. In fact, why not just make a Knight Rider MMO? That'd be awesome.

#3 Tabula Rasa

One of the more fun games I played. I played in the beta as well, and I played through a couple of free trials, both at different times in the game's lifespan. The first was near launch, the second was near its death. Some of the things were different, such as a redesigned tutorial and whatnot, but all in all it was a similar experience, as could be expected. The problem I had with this game was that I felt so weak and moving felt so slow. When I saw how far I had to go to get to another zone, and it didn't have an nearby towns to warp to, it felt boring. Many people were clamoring for something like a motorbike, but I guess that just never came to mind. Also, while I enjoyed the combat, I got tired of having to manage my ammo. I didn't like having to return to town every so often just to buy more ammo, when I could be having more fun out there. Also, I didn't really like the Logos concept. It felt more like an old-school adventure game with that stuff, but not in a good way. It was also difficult to gauge how strong your character was to the PvE creatures around you.

#2 Fury

I never really played this game, but that was for good reason. I think most PvP has the worst kind of players involved in them. Most of them are griefer idiots who try to find ways to exploit the game for their own advancement, and ridicule any and all people. A pure PvP game is difficult to sustain in a market like today's, since the social element is really switched from establishing friendship and game-wide communication, to animosity and unstoppable, unkind competition. But, that's just my feeling on all PvP in particular. As you can tell, a pure PvE game suits me just fine. Whether or not you agree with me is fine with me.

#1 Seed

Here is one game I was in the beta of, but I never really got to try. This wasn't from lack of interest, since I did read it once in a game magazine article and I felt compelled to test out such a departure from the norm. Of course, that was until I started reading the forums. Also, my own experience diluted my opinion of the game, as can be expected. First of all, I could never launch the game. Whenever I tried to, the servers were either not up or the game crashed. The only time, the one time, I was able to enter the game successfully, I could not see a thing except boxy graphics, the lag was terrible, and I was booted right back out when the game crashed. Needless to say, I gave up on the game after that. I mean, how am I supposed to enjoy the game when I can't even play it? Adding insult to injury, they tried to release the game because they were going bankrupt, but tis was still when the majority of players could not even get into the game, much less play it for extended periods of time.

This goes back to my original opinion about MMORPGs, as stated in another article. If you can't handle the responsibilities and costs of running an MMORPG, then either try something simpler, like a browser game or a single-player game, or just give up. You're better off trying to accrue as little debt as possible.

EDIT: Oh, and those of you that are interested in a game like Seed, although forgoing the sci-fi element, you could always try A Tale In The Desert. The game has zero combat, but relies on social interaction. In fact, there are even politics involved, as you can vote for or against laws in the in-game legal system, such as redistribution of an expired game account's items (meaning they don't just destroy it right away), direct banning of a player, or a sex change. Also, to enact a law into being voted on, the player submitting the bill must acquire a certain number of signatures on a petition.

Add to that that the president of eGenesis, the makers of the game, takes the in-game role as "Pharaoh", making this one of the most close-knith atmospheres you'll find, as there is constant interaction between the player base and the developers. So, if you still want to a play a game that's like Seed, don't mind the ancient Egypt setting, and a more realistic GUI, then ATITD is something you should check out.

Auto Assault was a really fun game that suffered from a few basic issues (some of which could have been avoided)...

1)  The concept of Auto Assault was put through the "carebear" ringer, to try to soften it up and make it more like other MMOs out there.  That was not the original intent and concept, but the NCSoft marketing gurus decided it had to have magic and fluff, rather than be the gritty post-apocalyptic game it should have been.

2)  The hardware requirements when Auto Assault hit the stores were very steep in relation to the average PC specs that were in use at the time.  They forgot that the first "M" in "MMO" is "Massively" as in want the largest number of players possible.  If you want a game to be enjoyed by the masses, you have to aim the performance specs for more general targets than the top 15% or so of PCs in use at the time.  You want the casual gamers, not just the bleeding edge hardware jockeys, or you'll never get the numbers you want for subscriptions.

3)  AA was pushed to market way too early, and was not finished at all.  The game balance was horribly skewed, missions didn't work, the endgame content hadn't been planned out completely yet, and even the wonderfully innovative integrated voice chat system was so horribly broken and buggy that it was eventually removed from the game altogether (a bit ironic, since I bought the collector's edition with the headset for voice chat, thinking it was gonna make the game rock).  Basically, by all accounts from the developers, NCSoft wanted a specific launch date, and they got it, ready or not.  A horribly buggy game that is changing and being nerfed and adjusted almost daily at launch does not attract lots of customers and generate good buzz.

4)  Because the numbers weren't astronomically high, the plug was pulled early on.  Those of us playing knew the game was over long before the actual end date was announced.  With some tweaking and refining, and a bit of new end-game content brought in, it could have been a consistently played MMO.  Hell, they even consolidated servers and made it even easier for their staff to maintain.  But it wasn't raking in WoW or City of Heroes numbers, so it was judged a failure.  Too bad it never really had a chance to pull itself out of the hole it had been thrown in at launch.  The salvage/crafting system was great, it lent itself well to providing some alternative entertainment paths (and coincidentally helped to promote some guild social structure, with members making chassis and weapons for each other, and thinks like that).  It coulda been a contendah...

Ah well, guess I'll join the rest of those hopefuls that something similar will pop up eventually.  Car Wars / Autoduel / Mad Max, whatever it ends up, there is a waiting niche customer base scanning the horizon for something new to draw them in...  Just make sure it's good, and allowed to be what it should be, not some nerfed "gotta be like everyone else" title, so we'll all love it and support it! 

I only played two on the list: TR and AA. I heard of Fury but didn't like the premise so didn't try it.

AA was a lot of fun and the playerbase was exceptionally nice. Unfortunately, the game ran horribly on my machine and I gave up on it. I agree with those who say it was too expensive for what it offered. Had it been $5/month or so, I think it would have seen a healthy population. But the fact of the matter is that NCSoft didn't give it the support it needed to get anywhere. They were slow to release any changes at all or fix anything. There was no way in hell the game could have survived and I'm surprised it survived for as long as it did.

TR I absolutely hated. I didn't like the combat system overall. The idea of quickly spawning aliens and having to hold out against large groups of them was good, but the actual mechanisms of shooting put me off. It's not that I dislike FPSes at all, it is more to do with the fact that TR felt like a sluggish shooter. You could almost hit mobs without really targetting them properly with the mouse and there was no real twitch feel to combat. It was too much of a hybrid system. That was such a major offputter to me that I lasted only a couple of days in the game. It's one of the very few times I was pissed off at my own risk-taking in trying out new games. TR is definitely one game I regretted buying and trying out.

Edit - forgot to add: so based off of some of what Stradden said in this article, do people think it's too risky to be innovative in this industry? A lot of people discuss in the game developers' corner and in the pub their dissastisfaction with the current trends in MMOs yet here is a great example of why developers perhaps feel pressured into keeping with the trends...

 Earth and Beyond should of been on the list. Good game play but lacked a smooth content curve after the initial starting levels and combat was too sparse at times.

AA had really poor controls. They went with too much realism and physics instead of fun. I found that the game did not provide a good vehicle control scheme. Having a lack control of your vechicle is not fun.

TB was an ok game, still kinda of puzzled by its demise. It certainly wasn't any worse then AoC or Warhammer.

I never played EnB, but a friend of mine did and I remember him being really really upset that the game was shutting down. I think he played till the absolute end.

I was in the SEED open and closed beta and I can't even remember what SEED stode for, it was an acronym S.E.E.D. I think.

The lag was too much and they let too many into beta, too many bugs were close to release, I remember getting a quest to fix a leaking pipe and going to a garden area. Real pity it shut down as the concept and story was solid and the potential was there.

3 out of those 4 are sci-fi and there are a lot of sci-fi MMO's out this year. Hopefully mistakes have been learned.

It is commercial suicide now to realise a semi-complete game with show-stopping bugs, it may have been acceptable in the past but definitely not now. Runes of Magic and The Chronicles of Spellborn have had relatively smooth releases the content is there and they are stable games. If free games can get it right, there is no excuse if you have to pay $20 for a box.

Where's Hellgate London then, that lasted about a year.

Originally posted by Kilgore

 Earth and Beyond should of been on the list. Good game play but lacked a smooth content curve after the initial starting levels and combat was too sparse at times.

It says right there in the opening...

"Sadly, in recent years, MMO shutdowns have become much more common and the corporate leashes a lot shorter. Older games like Asheron’s Call 2 and Earth and Beyond aren’t on the list. The sad truth is, not everyone gets cancelled as quickly as these four. Earth and Beyond ran for 729 days, while Asheron’s Call 2 survived a whopping 1,134 days."

So, no, it shouldn't have been on the list. Not trying to be mean or anything, just that you're not the first person to suggest it should be on the list ,when in fact it lasted for almost two years.

I really had a lot of fun with Auto Assault.  Of the games listed in the article, that is the one I would most like to be able to continue playing.

 Auto Assault had real potential, sadly it didnt pull through. I left the game for good when it was hard to find more than 10 people online around me and it started feeling like a singleplayer game. TR on the other hand was pretty boring, felt like Planetside with quests.

Originally posted by tubelight

 Auto Assault had real potential, sadly

EVERY mmo has/had "POTENTIAL", this word means nothing in mmo's now....

To the writer:

I don't get why you bashed TR in your latest article. I'm simply disgusted by the fact that you would say something like "Simply put, Tabula Rasa tried to be too many things to too many people and never managed to impress any of them." It's like YOU never played the game and met the community. Tabula Rasa passed with a good memory for most of the people that actually played the game-don't taint it with your generalized and stereotyped review.

Originally posted by patrikd23

Final Fantasy XI , 1 whole day for installing and downloading and patching + registration. And I played for 1 hour and after the frustaration with the controls and chat system + the visuals I decided to uninstall it and never try it again.

I had the same experience with Anarchy Online.

Edit: Great writeup btw :-)

I played fury in its last 3 months and it ran great on my decent rig and was a whole lot of fun. I wish it was still around

tabula rasa not playable around south east asia, too many lags.