EQ2 to me is better then VG, simply because of the following

a) people play the game, there is a community around so it actually feels like an MMO

b) character customization other then gear grinding.

VG's character classes are all exactly the same, thats what I hate about VG

Difficult to know how you would define underated but games which I think were either great games which could have been superb with a little more effort or already superb but under-populated are;

VG - I still play the game because you can get more from it than most games out there. With minimal additions and a bit of polish this game could be re-released under a different name and it would get a big following.

Planetside - Another SOE game which suffered from poor managment and direction, could have been so, so much more and is already one of a kind.

I think I'll go with Vanguard and SWG , and I chose SWG because even after all the bad blood and controversy... its still a pretty decent game.

I'll go ahead and say EQ2, BUT there really isn't much to choose from.

If EQ2 would fix its joke of a PvP and BG then I could confidently say its underrated.

I think most MMOs are rated fairly. Most are pretty darn poor.

Originally posted by Myrdynn

EQ2 to me is better then VG, simply because of the following

a) people play the game, there is a community around so it actually feels like an MMO

b) character customization other then gear grinding.

VG's character classes are all exactly the same, thats what I hate about VG

Can't comment on VG now, so things may have changed, but at release and 6 months in there was no raids or gear grinding as such. The classes also GREATLY differed, much more so than any other level based MMO's I've played - my wolf shaman played NOTHING like my bard, and I had so many unique and interesting abilities on each...

That was actually one of the things I enjoyed the most about the game, the depth of classes. They were easy to lern, yet hard to master. If you really knew your class you could easily take on multiple equal level (or higher) opponents and win. Hell, I our small PVP group consisting myself, a Bard, and a Necro took on a guilded group of 10+ players and won... consistently. Good times!!

I loved my class in VG, so much so that I often find myself wishing I could import him into most MMO's.

I personally could never get into EQ2.

Just my 2c.

Originally posted by Sigilaea

3. UO - if this game had a 3D engine, everyone would be playing it. No game has ever matched its content. Every system was robust and complete in design. 

      A. Housing - buy and sell over a dozen different house styles from one room shacks up to multi-level castles. Place them anywhere you want (if someone hasn't already...). You could put hundreds of items/furniture in your house and decorate it any way you wanted, literally stacking furniture or changing its facing direction. Store chests full of your loot in the house. Hang items on the walls.

    B. Pets - The best animal tamers could tame any pet and transfer ownership to you...even dragons It was your responsibility to feed it and keep it loyal. If you did it would fight for you and carry your stuff. If you didn't, it would go wild again...

    C. Mounts - mounts ranged in variety from horses, to ostards to bugs. They carried inventory and fought for you and some were so powerful that only a tamer could tame them the first time. You could stay on your mount everywhere, even indoors and fight from it.

    D. Crafting - whew. Hundreds of items, that required material gathering and selection. Subitems had to be built and put together to make other items. You could even make bombs and booby trap crates; leave them out and if someone opened it, BOOM. This was one of the driving forces of the economy becuase the items made were needed by everyone, including non-craftsman people, which meant crafters sold their items coninuously over time.

    E. Alchemy - alchemists made potions that did everything from teleportation to poisoning. A top posioner could poison a common weapon with such powerful juice that if you got hit with it, you literally had 10 seconds to treat yourself with an equally powerful anitidote or you died... yes, 10 seconds.

   F. Skill system - the skill system offered the same choices to everybody and you picked the combinations you wanted. There were no "classes" or limitations. You could mix combat styles with magery, sneaking, and thieving with provoking animals; the combinations were near limitless. You had 750 points and you trained the skills you wanted. You could be a GM in 7 skills with 50 points left over. Not happy with your choices? Re-train something else(it was work though).

    G. - Combat. Once they got the combat balanced for pvp, it was the most flexible system I ever saw. A little too flexible. My buddy killed 4 people by himself. He pvped every single day and practiced it, even learned new stuff on the test server. And combat wasn't limited to which skills you chose or your gear. Different combinations of fighting skills were viable. And people were often surpirsed at the unique combinations of killing people came up with. Everything from leveraging their pets' skills, to trapping people and slowly grindign them down. We never saw a limit to the innocation people came up with.

    H. Test server. This was one of the shining points of this game. Their test server was a REAL test server. You logged in and you had a type of God-mode client. You could give yourself any skill, any item, any amount of money, etc... So we "dialed  up" whatever we wanted in minutes,  and then we went off and played the game. People didn't spend their time macroing skills or grinding. Even the conversations were different. People didn't obsess over getting the next point of resistance. Everyone was running around PLAYING. The test server became so popular they closed it down.

 

SOrry for the long list on UO, but it belongs on my list for a reason. We had good times.

Exactly. UO. Even when you put other games before it and then start listing traits from each said game, UO always ends up turning into a long list because it did so many different things that no other game to date has been able to accomplish. Mounts, crafting, housing, balanced PvP, reputations - these were things that UO did as the first major MMO that games 13+ years later still haven't been able to master let alone implement. I know it has a huge fan base but I still think UO never gets the amount of credit it deserves. Years from now we'll all be playing some next generation, fantastic looking, sandbox MMO. I can assure you that all the elements in that game will be influenced and traced back to UO. It's just how great that game was during the prime years.

Oh, I have just logged back into SWG again; after being away since 2008. I am soon level 10, and it is such a blast. It is really great so far.

If the game keeps deliver after I am leaving the newbie station, I will have to replace DFO with SWG. I am amazed how much fun I have had so far. If the game keeps on delivering the same way, this game is very underrated. But I will hold back my "hype" yet for a few days before I give it a full verdict.

Originally posted by haratu

The MMO I think was most underrated is not actually listed on the game list: Tabula Rasa.

• Battlefields were dynamic and always changing
• Targetting system was simply awesome, not first person, not click and shoot, it was a perfect blend to make a system that just simply worked
• Storyline was intriging and interesting.
• Spawning made sense in terms of the storyline
• Dying made sense in terms of the storyline
• Instances were adaptive and could be done with less than a full group.
• Some instances could be completed multiple ways depending on quests you had or your personal choice.
• They had got rid of the old crafting system and put in a new one... which most people didnt realise.
• They were listening to the player base and making changes t annoying systems (like crafting)
• Expansion was coming out... which didnt make it due to cancelling of game
• PvP was good
• PvE was good to keep people interested.
• There was an easy way to add content as the storyline was interplanetary.

In fact the only negative I can think of that I did not get to experience before the cancellation was not much end game content, considering that an expansion was due out then ths may have been an obsolete issue if the game was not cancelled.

Nail on the head!

TR is still to this day one of my favorite experiences with video games. It was unlike any fps, rpg, or mmorpg I've played and I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the game. My heart is torn a little that such a great game was canceled.

Adding to TR though I gotta give props to...

Age of Conan - Absolutely outstanding. Where they've come from and where they are now makes a perfect example for MANY other MMO companies to follow.

Vanguard - Took the best from every MMO and made it better. Very well done.

Planetside - Simply epic. If they were smart they'd update the graphics, polish up some design for the factions and send it to the massses and it would make millions. Hands down.

I think Istaria, Ryzom, and Mabinogi are pretty underrated. I dont understand why everyone is saying Vanguard is underrated. Its actually a highly rated mmo by most gaming websites including this one. Low population doesnt necessarily mean underrated. I think some folks here are a bit confused.

Maybe the thing is that Vanguard is underrated by SOE

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

I think it is Fallen Earth.

So many MMORPG readers lament the lack of sandbox MMO's with features like no fixed character classes and a real challenge. This game has all that and more, yet not many people actually gave it a chance. Sure the game was tough as nails in the begining at lower level, that has somewhat been eased. But its a post apocalyptic setting.... survival is supposed to be a challenge.

I'm with The Crow. Fallen Earth needs some love.

I still carry a torch for chronicles of spellborn... Sadly it seems it is dead forever, but at the time (before it collapsed) it had a magic to it I have not felt in a game since. My class - the trickster - was genuinely unique; the combat system was intriguing, the universe was unusual... the idea of multiple warring houses - (and their unique storylines) was lovely, pvp was fun and manic...

I have played a tonne of MMOs, but somehow I remember the details of playing spellborn so much more vividly than other games. It really was special. Sigh. A real lost opportunity.

At least on this site, I feel that Vanguard is one of the most overrated MMORPGs here, not underrated.

Sure, it has some really nice features and world designs. But it's ruined by a lack of progression diversity, horrible animations and character customization, a clunky and downright ugly user interface, and more.

My vote for underrated goes to City of Heroes. It has a phenomenal amount of content, an easy to pick up and use crafting system, multiple layers of progression for your character (vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and more), an RP-friendly game design, great animations and effects, the game looks really great for a title released 7 years ago, player-created content,  character creation that is almost unmatched by any other game, a combat system that is simply fun, and so much more. I eventually burned out on WoW, but I ALWAYS find myself coming back to City of Heroes.

Vanguard

I think it's underrated because for a game that screams MMORPG (points listed already by others in this thread) it's being ignored by it's owner.  The funny thing is I bet every person who plays knows, at this point at least, it will get no more updates or patches.  Yet people still pay to play because of how great it is.

Off topic: EQ2 is a great game and is really deep.  It is a themepark however and this is what seperates it from Vanguard in my eyes.  There were plans for an AA system in Vanguard but never happened for obvious reasons. 

Istaria

Similar to Vanguard in a couple ways including its bad rep after launch, but it gets no hype while Vanguard has a new post a day.

The games probably have the same population number as well aside from the fact Istaria actually has a development team.

Originally posted by chrisel

I am curious about this. What MMO do you reckon to be the most underrated here, and the reason why? Heres 414 MMO's and I must admit that I DO look at the ratings before I try the games; a low rating means I do not even bother, because I trust those ratings.

The game I personally would say is the most underrated here would be... hmmm.... hard one, but I let my vote go for Darkfall Online. It is a great game with "FPS", full & full PvP, and a great community. It offers a thrill I never experieced in any other game. I want to keep it as short as that, and I hope you all can do the same.

So keep it coming, but please; do also keep it constructive.

Cheers!

Im the opposite of what you are i dont care about ratings i first go investigate alot and make up my own opinion if game is worth playing or not i dont led myself lead by others opnions for most maybe very small percentage and it depends on who's opinion it is also.

Darkfall got most attention here as indie game it was a huge HYPE before launch even bigger then many Triple A big budget titles but its indeed under rated.

Also Saga of Ryzom is under rated.

 But for that matter many sandbox are under rated thats mainly becouse themepark reviewers and themepark fans rated also sandbox games for darkfall this happen with mmorpg.com's review rated by a themeparker and site and biggest FAILOR for rate Darkfall and had a huge negative impact was EUROGAMER trash site and reviewer that was worse ever review by a sandbox free for all pvp hater, prolly most stupid ever reviewer.

For semi themepark/sandbox kind of hybrid mmo most under rated was Asherons call 2.

There's a few, but i'll go ahead and give Istaria my vote. It's one of the very few solid sandbox games thats been around for several years.

Ghost - It was the only arcade-ish MMO that felt like a true arcade game. I damn near cried when it got shut down...

TCoS - I was in the beta in like 2007 (?). I don't really know what happened to this game, or why I stopped playing. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and I had no idea it shut down until now...

Originally posted by osc8r

Originally posted by Myrdynn

EQ2 to me is better then VG, simply because of the following

a) people play the game, there is a community around so it actually feels like an MMO

b) character customization other then gear grinding.

VG's character classes are all exactly the same, thats what I hate about VG

Can't comment on VG now, so things may have changed, but at release and 6 months in there was no raids or gear grinding as such. The classes also GREATLY differed, much more so than any other level based MMO's I've played - my wolf shaman played NOTHING like my bard, and I had so many unique and interesting abilities on each...

That was actually one of the things I enjoyed the most about the game, the depth of classes. They were easy to lern, yet hard to master. If you really knew your class you could easily take on multiple equal level (or higher) opponents and win. Hell, I our small PVP group consisting myself, a Bard, and a Necro took on a guilded group of 10+ players and won... consistently. Good times!!

I loved my class in VG, so much so that I often find myself wishing I could import him into most MMO's.

I personally could never get into EQ2.

Just my 2c.

I didnt mean depth of classes, what I was trying to get at was that

my ranger was exactly the same as your ranger,  etc, no customization, I loved the combat of VG, the reactives, the skills and such, but no personaly customization

ISTARIA FTW