TCoS looked great and different, but I never had the chance to try it out.

Tabula Rasa!

Earth & Beyond. fucking EA...

Originally posted by sexypanda198

my vote is matrix online. i miss it so bad. just wish another company had chance with it. F2P with cash shop or something. i understand why it failed at $15 but was not bad game.

Matrix Online failed long before F2P even took hold in the Western market. I don't think it would have done much better even if there were F2P to be honest. It had too many issues and SOE let it slip too much, in my opinion.

If SOE hadn't bought it up to keep it on life support as "added value" to their Station Pass thing, it'd have shut down a lot sooner. It was a very fun game, I had a great time in it. Monolith just couldn't keep up with it, between the bugs and trying to keep the live content as frequent as they were.

I applaud them still for their efforts. They tried to bring a level of interaction and story-telling to MMOs that I have not personally seen before or since. MxO also had - hands down - easily the best community I've ever had the pleasure of being part of in any MMO, for at least the first several months of its live service. Was amazing how active and involved the community was in that game. I'd place it above FFXI's during its first few years, which is saying a lot as I hold FFXI's community during that period as the "standard" by which I judge it in all other MMOs.

All that said...

Personally I voted for Asheron's Call 2, though. That game was fantastic and, by the time they made the decision to shut it down, it was a stable and quite complete game... Unfortunately, it was too little too late. They lost too many people in the beginning thanks to Microsoft screwing up hardcore on the chat system; people were unable to communicate for weeks as I recall. There were other issues that persisted in it for some time. I remember there being a lot of lag in the beginning.

Sad that it turned out as it did. That game was ahead of its time in so many ways... was a truly unique setting, unique races, a unique class system.. very story-centric. If that game had not gone offline, it would have probably become my long-time MMO. Since it did go offline, though, FFXI took that spot instead.

Graphically, the game was ahead of its time. Self-shadowing characters; characters' hips would rotate appropriately to keep their feet flat on the ground, even if standing sideways on an incline; reflective and refractive water; bump-mapped surfaces; fields of "real" grass.. and on and on. All things that we take for granted nowadays, but were unheard of in MMORPGs when it came out in 2002. LoTRO and DDO both use an updated version of the same game engine.

Also, though it seldom gets mentioned, AC2 was actually one of the first - if not the first - MMOs to implement what is now commonly known as "the WoW interface" - yes, even before WoW launched.

Fortunately for those of us who remember and miss it... excellent progress is being made on an emulator :). I have my original game boxes (original game and expansion) here on my shelf waiting for the day I can log in and play again...

It would be Pre-CU SWG for me.

June 26 2003 - April 27 2005 was the best time I've ever had in 23 years of gaming.

- Around 40 different professions

- 9 huge planets to explore on the ground and the space surrounding the planet to fly in.

-Non instanced player housing and cities

- You could play as a full time crafter/store owner, a socialization focused entertainer, or a doctor that patches people up in a hospital. These weren't seconday things, they were your complete class. You could, if you wanted, never kill one mob in the game and advance to the top of these professions and have lots to do.

- Strong player customization

- The most in depth crafting/harvesting system I know of.

- A built in flight sim in the form of space combat with customizable ships outside and inside and statistically

- Those in the bounty hunter profession could track and kill other players who had a bounty placed on them.

- World PvP was common.

- Hundreds of emotes, moods, and other such tools for roleplayers.

- The Creature Handler class, could tame baby forms of adult mobs, raise them up over several days, turn them into rideable mounts or use them to fight for him/her. At one point you could have up to 3 creatures out at one time. (My personal favorite)

- Entertainers who were musicians could form a band and have several different instruments playing together on a dozen or more songs. People regularly hired/invited musicians and dancers to player events such as parties, weddings, and such.

- and much more...

- This is an opinion, where as the others were facts, but IMO the best community of the dozens of MMO's I've played.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I doubt I'll ever find a game that ever comes close.

I miss that game so much. <sniff> Someone have a tissue?

I'd wager that there weren't a whole lot of people playing MMO's at the time Earth and Beyond was up and running, so to be in second place is kinda cool.

I enjoyed SWG for a little bit until they started making shit to easy for all the crybabies who didn't wanna invest too much effort into it. I don't know about greatest. But for me the lesser of the MMO fails would be SWG.

I have to agree with alot of people on here and say Tabula Rasa.  Its really sad that it was closed not due to it being not successful, but rather due to politics inside NCSoft.  The whole thing makes me feel like NCSoft doesn't know how to manage their company.

I really wanted to vote for Auto Assault, but I voted E&B instead. I would really have liked to play both of them.

I voted other.

My vote goes to a game that if not cancelled could have influenced how mmo's shaped over the following decade if it had been released when planned. Also it's parent company would have influenced mmo's instead of vanishing from the market until buying up companies 10 years later.

Ultima Online 2.

This game was cancelled even though it was very far along in developement. After which EA fell out of the mmorpg market and all the developers left to influence other companies. Pretty sure it tried to go more toward the EQ model but would have steered the mmo market away from the themepark sink hole we suffer from now.

Once again it goes to show just how stupid EA can be at times. Gaming companies are run by accountants now and gamers who love games lost any control of how games are made.

UXO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwt-ErkbzTQ&feature=related

Still makes me mad and sad at the same time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FvQ8Bq8PHk

The ONLY reason I bought a damn Xbox

Originally posted by Disastorm

I have to agree with alot of people on here and say Tabula Rasa.  Its really sad that it was closed not due to it being not successful, but rather due to politics inside NCSoft.  The whole thing makes me feel like NCSoft doesn't know how to manage their company.

Of course they don't. Hell. One of their bigwigs ran off, took not only some employees with him, but also the L3 code as well. I think it was L3.

This will be pretty one sided since SWG is the one getting cancelled this year. I personally chose The Chronicles of Spellborn

I'd have to say matrix online. It had so much potential, it really was different. Sure it had a series behind it but it was a very different idea from what usually you expect in an MMO. Star Wars galaxies was a pretty good game though, don't get me wrong, it just felt like it fed off the Star Wars Name to much rather then what it had to offer. Space themed MMos aren't anything new though it by far did an amazing job with pushing it into being a likable format. I luvs the space combat! Taba-rosa I was mildly interested in though its not usually my genre. I'd say more to it but truth be told, I didn't really play it to really judge it.

I played in the chronicles of spellborn and even made a thread about my gameplay it didnt get to many replys though.  It definetly had a great ora about it although even when I played, it felt static to a great degree, you could smell something was foul that didnt make it any less fun at the time though.  That and the player characters looked hidious beyond anything imaginable, it made me think more of horror then fantasy.

If hasn't been said yet... Ultima 2 has been picked up by a foreign company.  It's in the works so we'll see what happens with that.

Fury handsdown.

Had so much pvp potential yet blew it.

First game that always comes to mind for me is Tabula Rasa.  Great concept, poor mechanics and execution.