SWTOR for me :( Spent 150 on the collectors. biggest waste ever....it was a bad call Ripley it was a bad call.

I would go with SWTOR just because I loved the beta and I pre-ordered knowing the bugs.

But then the end game was terrible

For me it was Champions online, it did teach me a good lesson - wait till after launch and the player reviews on sites like this before paying for a game. (edited for spelling).

Definitely WAR

Probably Everquest 2.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad game at all, but as a long time veteran of the original, I was expecting a lot more.

Honorable mention would go to Horizons, except that by the time it came out we knew it was going to suck.  Still, that game should be a lesson to anyone who buys into early pre-alpha hype of a game.

Warhammer Online without a doubt.  The classes and their  abilities were great. The world layout, scenarios, crafting, and two faction system sucked. Should have just made DaoC 2 and reaped the rewards, now GW 2 (hopefully) gets to take that prize.

Hmmm, I've never really been burned per se, probably because I usually keep my expectations in check.

However my two dissapointments were my first mmo, lineage 2 and Aion.

I thought mmo's were going to be more like a mixture between morrowind (with the large open world waiting to be explored) and neverwinter nights (3rd person, lots of abilities and spells, some for battle, some for utility, etc).

Once I started playing Lineage 2 I realized that it was a different beast all together and adjusted my expectations for the most part. Still, I missed some of the depth that the single player games had.

I then became interested in Aion.

From the first in game movies I thought it was going to be a large open world, ready for exploration, it had climbing, each server was going to be different depending on how the community played, etc. Or at least that's what NC said.

I went to the launch party at PAX in the space needle, got to speak with the head developer, bougth the collector's edition and then when I played the game I realized that it was a bit more confining than I thought.

I still liked the game but it wasn't what I was hoping it would be.

for me Vanguard,but not because its a bad game..in fact i think its fantastic..its the way its been handled by sigil and soe.2yrs i gave my time for this game and soe wait til now to do something..little to late maybe?

Warhammer sure did burn a lot of people...another one I think of is World War II Online...I thought it would be amazing.

Originally posted by kostoslav
For me it is MO
What is that Dark & Light u talk about and what did happen?

It was the first WoW killer. Yes I said that with a straight face! (almost)

Originally posted by Melangel

Originally posted by StarI

Dark & Light

 

Thought me well. Never burned again.

OMG so true! DnL. Not the first game I played, but it is the first game I "followed" pre release. Got into beta quite quickly and learned the lesson of keeping an NDA no matter WHAT. Anyone who kept the NDA in that one deserves a medal myself included. Watched from afar as it burned on release day. Taught me well also. Every game is suspect lol!

Hehe, yup.

I was as well a hyped up follower (blindless fanboi) for the first (and last) time. Too naive for internet, never thought such a "big" project with so manny followers could be a scam. Whole community spamming forums day in day out about oh so many awsome features... just to than log into an empty, featureless and completely broken world.

But it was a good school which helped me avoid a few other failed releases and disappointements.

Well at least I got to fly on a dragon for a few days.

Originally posted by kevjards

for me Vanguard,but not because its a bad game..in fact i think its fantastic..its the way its been handled by sigil and soe.2yrs i gave my time for this game and soe wait til now to do something..little to late maybe?

You said exactly what I was going to say. Had the whole Sony/Sigil/McQuaid thing gone down smoother, or better yet, never happened, what a gem that game could have been. Like you, I still had a great time and played through the myriad of launch bugs because I felt it was something special, but the terrible launch killed it. If only they had enough cash to stay away from Sony and polish it for at another 6 months, then I think we would have seen it really take off. Such a waste of potential.

Originally posted by StarI

Originally posted by Melangel

Originally posted by StarI

Dark & Light

 

Thought me well. Never burned again.

OMG so true! DnL. Not the first game I played, but it is the first game I "followed" pre release. Got into beta quite quickly and learned the lesson of keeping an NDA no matter WHAT. Anyone who kept the NDA in that one deserves a medal myself included. Watched from afar as it burned on release day. Taught me well also. Every game is suspect lol!

Hehe, yup.

I was as well a hyped up follower (blindless fanboi) for the first (and last) time. Too naive for internet, never thought such a "big" project with so manny followers could be a scam. Whole community spamming forums day in day out about oh so many awsome features... just to than log into an empty, featureless and completely broken world.

P.S. Empty just about sums it up! Except for the dead mobs that wouldn't disapear. Like some mad scene from an evil abattoir

 

But it was a good school which helped me avoid a few other failed releases and disappointements.

 

Well at least I got to fly on a dragon for a few days.

The dragon was about the only thing that actually worked haha! Empty just about sums it up. Except for the dead mobs that wouldn't disapear and kept piling up like some scene from a psycho abattoir horror film  Ah good times even though they were oh so bad. I've some old screenshots of DnL that I look at from time to time. Hype medication!

Even though I had low expectations, it's easily SWTOR. Then EVE and AoC.

SWTOR was not mine.Anyone with any mmo sence and who tried the beta weekends and wasn't blinded by the BioWare name could see where that game was going,lucky for me i didn't fall for any of the above.

Dark&Light was mine although i actually had more fun when it went FTP,i still post on the forums now with a few other ex players.

trollface

For me, it was GW2. After so much hype and so much reading into it and testing, I had high hopes for it... but then while playing, I realized level 1 was the same as level 40, and the same as level 80! There was no incentive to really play the game other than to kill some time before the next MMO came out. And what really did it in for me was the inclusion of the cash shop. They said it was only going to be for cosmetic stuff, but then they kept on adding stuff. first revival orbs, then mounts, and finally timed items that would grant you a bonus for a few minutes at the cost of a few dollars. I couldn't take it anymore so I quit.

O wait... too soon??  /trollface

(Let me have some fun :-P )

I have to say SWTOR as it was my first foray into MMO.  I fell into all of the hype. The trailers were incredible!!  I frowned on KOTOR 1 and 2 as SWTOR was going to be THE Star Wars game I needed to own/play as I was a huge fan.  I admit the first 20 or so levels were amazing.  I started out as a padawan, leveled up, created my own light sabre complete with cinematic cut-scene.  Got a ship and did some flashpoints with other young jedi.  It was great.

By the time I hit my late 20s, all of a sudden I started to feel cheated.  What do you mean I cant explore space?  Where is everybody in the Catina?  Where else can I go besides these narrow corridors and paths?  This is Massive? I had more freedom in Dragon Quest for NES than this.  Almost made me give up on MMOs in general... then EQ2 brought me back.

For me, total dissappointment for a game that could have been the greatest to a fan of the Star Wars Mythos.

Actually made me wish I knew about Star Wars Galaxies before it went away forever.  Now Ill never know and was left with an experience severely lacking.

Originally posted by Sephastus

trollface

For me, it was GW2. After so much hype and so much reading into it and testing, I had high hopes for it... but then while playing, I realized level 1 was the same as level 40, and the same as level 80! There was no incentive to really play the game other than to kill some time before the next MMO came out. And what really did it in for me was the inclusion of the cash shop. They said it was only going to be for cosmetic stuff, but then they kept on adding stuff. first revival orbs, then mounts, and finally timed items that would grant you a bonus for a few minutes at the cost of a few dollars. I couldn't take it anymore so I quit.

O wait... too soon??  /trollface

(Let me have some fun :-P )

Interesting, are you saying there is no 'level' progression in GW2? 

The biggest disappointment in an MMO for me has been LotRO.

The game launched really well, but seemed to me to have suffered from a severe lack of vision and a "design by management committee" mentality.  Every update and step after the Moria expansion was a slow train wreck downhill.

The game was moderately successful and profitible, but the producers realized they could gouge for more money and converted to a F2P business model lying about it all the way.  The game design is now cetnered around the cash shop and is a pale shadow of what it once was.