MMO players and The Hulk have one thing in common... you wouldn't like them when they're angry. Over the history of the genre, there have been a few games that have nearly resulted in players forming posses with torches and pitchforks. In this week's column, Jon Wood takes a look at five such titles.

People who are passionate about MMOs are naturally going to get angry and upset about some games, or features or trends that come along with the industry. That's just a fact of fandom. If people care about something, it's going to bring up strong emotions, either good or bad.

Below, you will find a list made up of five of the most infuriating MMOs of all time. These games (as well as a few others that I couldn't find enough info on to include), for various and sundry reasons, bring out "Hulk Smash!" feelings in people at the mere mention of their names.

It's funny, when researching for an article like this; you would think that information about the events surrounding these games would be readily available. As it turns out, this just isn't how it works.

In some cases, the events were so convoluted that it is difficult to separate rumor from truth. In each descriptive section I have done my best to explain, at least in vague terms, why that title deserved to be listed amongst the most infuriating games of all time.

Read Five Infuriating MMOs

I still think SWG should have been placed higher on the list. While it did not have an offense as great as some of the others, the sheer volume of subscribers effected gives it more of a collective transgression.

I suppose EQ never made this list or two reasons.

1, No desire to put the same company on the list twice.

2, There was never a single large event in EQ that generated anger, it was absolutely every single thing the company did.

 Heh, and here I was, thinking I'd see games like:

- Warhammer (postponing actual classes)
- Champions Online (Monthly Fee + suddenly discovering RMTs will be there at release and with shady information around them = 500+ pages of flames, along a lot of fiascos happening non-stop)
- Age of Conan (DX10 at release, where? :P)
- Darkfall (I don't know how realistic it is, but this was probably the most flamed game in MMORPG.com forum history)

But these games make the ones I mentioned look like some newbie scamming compared to the epic proportions of your mentioned games.

I'm impressed!  That makes this 3 high profile negative critiques of SWG in like a month! Way to go MMORPG.com!

Should have made this much noise about it YEARS ago.

Yeah, D&L should've been #1 though...HUGELY disappointing MMO.

I too would have initially placed Starwars higher, since I was a player.  But after reading the synasis of the others,  I feel lucky that I never Played those others... you have my Condolence.

Originally posted by Dafong

I suppose EQ never made this list or two reasons.

 

1, No desire to put the same company on the list twice.

2, There was never a single large event in EQ that generated anger, it was absolutely every single thing the company did.

EQ is just slowly evolving in directions that not all of its players want to go. It has never pulled any real crash and burn stunts like SWG.

Oh wow, some of those stories are epic fail lol.

I'm very surprised that Darkfall didn't make the list with their limited release junk, and their general abuse of their playerbase, AND their debacle with Eurogamer, AND their billing snafus.

Originally posted by EricDanie

 Heh, and here I was, thinking I'd see games like:

- Warhammer (postponing actual classes)
 

They did a lot more than that, oroginally every race was to get their own cities, 6 cities quickly became 2 (along with their broken PvP system there, although i think they've went some way to remedy that) and at least they filled in the classes.

not enough to save the game though, especially with that engine not to worry, Mythic will probably design a live event or 8 to disguise every problem with the game even more.

Oh I remember Dark and Light all to well.. I actually got to play for a bit and even had my Dragon mount to whisk me away to the mountains where I did some snowboarding, however it was short lived.

I got screwed on this game to as well as our infamous SWG.

When will I ever learn.

Wow, I've never even heard of three of the games, only SWG and DnL are known to me.  And the only reason I'm in MMOs today is because of SWG - until that game, I had no interest in playing a MMO at all, and I still don't care to try most of them.  I contend SWG should have been #1, but that's an old argument by now.   All in all, nice article, kudos to the author.

After reading this article I am glad I didn't end up subbing for D&L I was so close...

 Makes me feel a bit better with the disappointment AoC gave me, compared to these games anyways.

Mark me down for 1 out of 5, but barely 1 because I jumped ship from SWG before NGE went into effect. That's when FFXI was first released on the PC and I was gone quicker than a kid hearing a ice cream truck jingle. Dunno maybe because I have a streak of luck....Only game I ever bought that was canceled was Earth and Beyond......damn EA for swallowing that game a sinking it!

I remember waiting in anticipation of Mourning.  I was so close to buying a pre-order and then Myself and a friend made it into beta... Wow!  Nothing worked, constant crashes, then all of a sudden... gone...  So happy I didnt buy it.

But!  SWG == Epic Fail!   And for some reason I bought the space expansion thinking it might be fun... nope!

The interesting thing about many of these examples are they still happen and no one does anything about it or learns their lesson.

Amazingly people still buy pre-orders and expect a good game. Perhaps it should be reminded of people that buying a preorder can land you in a lot of trouble if you dont get the feedback first. And Beta reviews are NOT reviews of the final game! 

Two games I can add to the marketing hype (both of which i liked) Tabula Rasa and Hellgate:London, both had large amounts of advertising, it is a wonder if developers realize an MMO is for the long haul, not the short?

I can see many people are hoping Aion's Hype won't end similarly

I never really thought about it before, but now seeing those games listed like this I'm glad that I saw through the hype and didn't waste my money on those failures.

SWG is the only one that I put money into, but come on, no one saw NGE coming.  It blindsided the fanbase.  I would have put it at #1 simply for this fact.

RYL, The Chronicle, D&L, and Mourning on the other hand.  I could smell the failure coming from a mile away.

Originally posted by Strayfe

I'm very surprised that Darkfall didn't make the list with their limited release junk, and their general abuse of their playerbase, AND their debacle with Eurogamer, AND their billing snafus.

QFT.  Not to mention the game simply isn't FUN on top of that all.

City of Heroes should have gotten a honoreable mention, with with the Controler Nerf, the Regen Nerf, the Purple Patch, The Global Defense Nerf, ED, the Regen Nerf, the aoe and taunt nerf, the regen nerf, the pet nerf, the regen nerf, the regen nerf, and the regen nerf.

(i think i missed a couple regen nerfs as well as other non regen nerfs) by the time Jack was booted out the player base was cut in half, Positron/Matt Miller has done wonders to repair the damage but the Great Tanker Exodus will never be forgotten.

SWG would be my #1 because of the number of players it impacted and because I was one of them, lol.

SOE is certainly the dev house I have the least respect for, top to bottom. Needless to say, their products aren't allowed in my house (my wife played SWG so it's just an understood around here) and all of my MMO gaming buddies and their wives feel the same.

Nothing will ever beat Age of Conan in terms of infuriating me. If Funcom did the Blizzard thing and released it when it was ready, it could have actually competed with WoW.

Just imagine if they spent one more year of development. Don't say its been over a year now and things are better because you have to remember thats a year of development AND maintaining live servers and performing hotfixes and so on.

If they spent one more year developing DX10, optimizing the DX9 and DX10 engines, adding more endgame content, and making sure sieges and whatnot were functional, it could have been amazing. Problem is by the time AoC is truly "fixed" there will be too much competition for people like me to even consider going back to AoC. The first impression of a MMO is critical as every MMO is fun at the start since everything is so new. Problem is if you lose those people, its harder for them to come back because the game has already lost the "new" factor to them.

People can hate blizz if they want, but most people know in their heart that when Blizz releases their new MMO that they hope and pray its their kind of game, because Blizz is one of the few who truly sticks to the its ready when its ready mindset.

Interesting list well researched. LOL @ RYL. Only one I would add to the list, Mimesis Online. A friend and I foolishly paid to demo it and... I can't type because I am roaring with laughter right now remembering the absurdity. Most people thought it was a big scam, I think it was as well. Look it up, you should find some funny stuff.

I would also add Neocron to the list. It never fails, so many times people will play a beta, game seems cool,  then the massive nerfs or "balancing" come near the end and the game sucks. I understand the need for balance but sometimes it seems like companies are unaware of whats good in the game and whats not.

I think you would have to include Anarchy Online if you were judging based on the anger of players. This was a game that promised to much new and innovative ideas at launch but technical difficulties or partially implemented things had players quitting in droves in the first free month.

I recall at the time EQ was #1 at ~400k subs and AO sold 100k boxes on day 1 and was thought it was going to shatter this number soon after but so many things were broken that people left in droves and almost put Funcom out. Couple of things i remember most and happened to me directly was not being able to zone at times and being stuck in a noobie zone or city for days. Other things like server outages for 24 hours while they tried to fix things or worst of all random server crashes that caused character rollbacks that sometimes lost days of xp/items etc were untollerable.

This was really the first example of how players were not going to tollerate bad launches or promises that did not deliver and made a dev team pay (literally).

Playing on this theme your next article should be most hated or infamous lead devs. Gaute Gadager who finally paid the price here with AOC was at the heart of AO as well. You could add Richard Gariott of Tablua Rasa and Mcquaid for Vanguard in the mix. This would be an interesting article as well.

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

I'm impressed!  That makes this 3 high profile negative critiques of SWG in like a month! Way to go MMORPG.com!

Should have made this much noise about it YEARS ago.

I'd say it's because we are seeing so much SWTOR, and fear the darkside. And, the avatar of the darkside is not some random sith... it is the horrible CUNGE.