Originally posted by Dezyne
Hmm. Fury if you can call it an mmo, and The Chronicles os Spellborn seemed to crash and burn pretty swiftly.

Actually The Chronicles of Spellborn wasn't that bad and it was quiet a decent game :)

Dark and Light is the biggest fail for me

FFXI was my biggest let down ... /sigh

Originally posted by mmoguy43

World of Warcraft because it changed all high budget MMOs into themeparks

So true; the time where MMO innovation died, and imitation began.

The single worst failure of all time would still have to go to Star Wars Galaxies. This failed so hard after the NGE that people are still hating on it 7 years later. No other game can claim that. Not even close. They took a moderately successful game at the time and changed it right down to it's core mechanics trying to chase after the WoW golden ring and it failed hard. Not only did they alienate a substantially large portion of their existing fan base but they also scared away any potential new subscribers because they had disgruntled gamers on every forum making them out to be the devil right up to this very day. This has to be the biggest failure in MMO history just because they took an established game with a dedicated fan base and through it all down the toilet trying to cash in on the WoW craze.

 

Bren

World of Warcraft-The MMO with training wheels or the MMO for droolers, this MMORPG single handely took the MMORPG behind a shed and raped it,once a  genre of virtual worlds and turned them into an instanced lobby games, made accessible (dumbed down-ezmode) and started a neverending nightmare for years till this very day of studios and greedy publishers churning out clone after clone hoping to lure customers into a van and have their way with them to find out that their game is just like WoW , why did we need another training wheels MMO when you have one that's more established? There is only so many gamers out there don't you think its time to start making unique MMOs again?

Seriously I think for all the clones out there including WoW , when are people going to get tired of this same treadmill: Level, Raid, PVP. Don't get started on crafting cause that's a laughable joke now. Thousands of great ideas and lots of great features from older MMOs and all that devs can come up with today in modern MMOs is kill, rinse,repeat?   What happend to the social side of MMOs, the minigames, the communities? The non-combat activites? Non-Combat roles?

 

Age Of Conan- Hyped to no end, a once mighty hype machine, hyped and brought to you by the same people that hyped, Warhammer, TOR, and now GW2, this crowd follows all the new shinies, but in the end this game failed to live up to expectations and let a lot of people down, but don't forget the good times like the time after launch a GM was caught cybering a player. At least that was worth some chuckles.

Warhammer-From the people that brought you Dark Age of Camelot (an actually good MMO) how could this go so wrong, a pvp centric MMO which once again failed to live up to expectations, which resulted in failure, flash to today certain former Mythic Devs now work on TOR , which once again didn't know how to deliver even a decent PVP experience (thats for the next entry below) this game hangs on life support, but that didn't stop the hype machine before it was released and that same bandwagon of fanbois have faded away and jumped onto the next big game.

Star Wars The Old Republic- Once again history is repeating itself once again just with a different studio (Bioware), but with Lucasarts and EA behind the scenes to ruin another Star Wars experience in the name of chasing WoW numbers.

Once again the hype machine has tempted fate once again with people's minds. Where do you even begin with this train wreck, with the recent pull of ranked warzones a few hours before the 1.2 deployment , the powers that be are desperately trying to save this sinking ship, from a huge budget that went into VO's and cutscenes so players can just wear their spacebar out by skipping that "Fourth Pillar" something that's only good one playthru the rest of the game and MMO part is lacking or just isn't there.

Made for the ultra casual there really not that much there after leveling your first toon to justify paying a monthly sub to this game, also as many are waiting for that next quarltery report on how the 1.7 million players are still playing the game when the complaints on the offical forums are still there about low populations, but that's ok somehow they will manage a way to make it seem that there is a 100% rentention rate when that really isn't the case, hell their even giving away a free 30days game time if that doesn't ring alarms I don't what will.

Bioware really doesn't know how to make a MMO worth playing and I hope its the last time they make one cause in the end their 4th Pillar of Story didn't cut it to a growing number of people out there.

Vanguard:Saga Of Heroes- A good MMO on paper, horribly implmented, rushed to release , left to die like a hooker in a alley, neglected till this day, buggy, the game still has a lot of promise and worth a play , but not worth now inviesting time into when it could be next on SOE's chopping block. I do actually like this game but I think with the right people developing and with some TLC this could of been a real hit with people. Just another case of bad managment and Brad Mcquaid and of the guys at SOE (go figure)

APB- Enough has been said about this game that was shut down in what 2 months? By far the biggest failure in MMO history.

Alagnon- I remember the days of certain posters were trying to push this game on these very forums to other people, pushing how the game was so unique and so different and was for the causal player that didn't like to grind and do things that take time to do , so after was all said and done this became the epitome of what a WoW clone was, and a special guest suprise from the legendary flame war master Derek Smart, his antics for a small bit made me go to the Alagnon forums with popcorn to see if he popped off to anyone just to give me a giggle or 2. Ever since then to this game I havent heard a peep about this game making any kind of ripples, guess people didnt' really want another WoW clone did they?

Earthrise-Was in Beta for this game, another game that had great potential was squandered away, extremely unstable, buggy, devoid of content, and was recently shut down due to lack of interest.

Star Wars Galaxies-By far my favorite MMO of all time, and in opinion makes TOR look like the Special Olympics of MMO's, I have criticisms of my own favortie MMO, ahead of its times, a unique MMO even up till its closure in the sea of mediocrity and trash it is one of the 2 MMO's that held my subscription for years on end/

Highly mismanaged by SOE and its pedophile uncle (Lucasarts) ruined twice by changing the game as everyone knows the story. Launch was a bugged filled mess, connection loss, crashed servers, there was lots to complain about especially in the first 2 yrs it was devoid of content, of course the mystery in the early days of unlocking that force sensitive slot was quite fun, the crafting kept you busy, ruinning a business, and socializing witha great community was what made the game,but it lacked things to do quests, more fun things as some players of that type began to express their concerns people started to trickle out. That content didn't really come till post NGE 2 yrs after the NGE hit the servers, the game became flush with things to do. The game went from a sandbox to a pure hybrid , what a lot of people didnt give SWG a fair shake after the NGE. I was upset as well, making Jedi available to everyone , removing professions pissed me off to no end. 

I stuck it out post-NGE, the game did get better, I think if it wasn't violated by SOE/LA I think the game wouldn't been shut down and still around today with people playing it regularly instead of playing its retarded cousin (TOR)

 

AoC, for failing to be anything close to what it was supposed to be.

FFXIV, because literally everything about this game, other than the graphics, was terrible at the core level.

Darkfall, for not being anything even close to an actual sandbox game.  AV has absolutely no idea how to design sandbox style systems, or how to interconnect them, and it shows.

Originally posted by Brenelael

The single worst failure of all time would still have to go to Star Wars Galaxies. This failed so hard after the NGE that people are still hating on it 7 years later. No other game can claim that. Not even close. They took a moderately successful game at the time and changed it right down to it's core mechanics trying to chase after the WoW golden ring and it failed hard. Not only did they alienate a substantially large portion of their existing fan base but they also scared away any potential new subscribers because they had disgruntled gamers on every forum making them out to be the devil right up to this very day. This has to be the biggest failure in MMO history just because they took an established game with a dedicated fan base and through it all down the toilet trying to cash in on the WoW craze.

 

Bren

Was it really that bad? I thought people loved it and they didn't want the game to be shut down?

Originally posted by ForTheCity

Originally posted by Brenelael

The single worst failure of all time would still have to go to Star Wars Galaxies. This failed so hard after the NGE that people are still hating on it 7 years later. No other game can claim that. Not even close. They took a moderately successful game at the time and changed it right down to it's core mechanics trying to chase after the WoW golden ring and it failed hard. Not only did they alienate a substantially large portion of their existing fan base but they also scared away any potential new subscribers because they had disgruntled gamers on every forum making them out to be the devil right up to this very day. This has to be the biggest failure in MMO history just because they took an established game with a dedicated fan base and through it all down the toilet trying to cash in on the WoW craze.

 

Bren

Was it really that bad? I thought people loved it and they didn't want the game to be shut down?

Yea, a game that was finally forced to shut down (because ot TOR) after running for nearly a decade was horible; they must have had to pay people to play...  *boggle*  Poster obviously has a lot of game hate issues, lol.

 

  Most people don't even really know that much about the NGE controversy (there weren't the MLLIONS of people playing back then that there are now), they just jump on the "hated it" and hate SOE bandwagon... sad really.

 

I want to know based on that guys list what is a success... while I think w0w did dumb EVERYTHING in the MMO industry down, it's far from a failure.  Every MMO in the industry could be listed for a lot of failures.  Lot sof them (warhammer for instance) also has had their mechanics copied in almost every major MMO since (the journal, public quests, achievments, etc.).  Not what people wanted it to be? no... but innovated the market.

 

To list a few failures... (that AREN'T still up and running):

 

Auto Assault

AC2

Tabula Rasa

The Matrix

Hellgate

 

I do agree that FF IV was and still is apprently a flop... to say anything compares to having to give people free time for a year... come on.

AoC was terrible. I dont think anything can ever beat that. But Swtor is bad enough to be number 2. We will have to wait and see if GW2 can give them some competition. But I hope not...

Originally posted by mmoguy43

World of Warcraft because it changed all high budget MMOs into themeparks

I agree this is one of my top 3 failures.  Now we all know that is'nt technically a failure but still with the release of WoW (which I loved for 6 years) the development and innovation of the MMO genre was stymied and stunted for a very long long time as game company after game company sold out innovation and originality in the hopes of the almighty $$$.

 

My other top 2 MMO failures are:

Ultima X: Odyssey getting canned so near release

and

Any Free 2 Pay MMO

NGE makes all other fails look like victories.

SW TOR

Biggest MMO fail?  World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. 

Most people will chalk up WoW's population decline to all of the other games that have released over the last 2 years, but you can't deny that there was seemingly a 'mass' exodus shortly after Cata's launch.

If any other game on the market suffered the kinds of subscription losses that WoW has suffered, they would be out of business.

Looking at WoW's constant population increase from launch, it really was somewhat of a shock to see the game and company take a nice sized shot on the chin. 

If I were going to try to list other games that were 'epic' failures.. sure, Age of Conan, SWG, Matrix Online, RIFT, Warhammer Online, etc.,.. None of these games amounted to the WoW killer's they were hyped up to be.

So, really, Cataclysm was the single most epic failure of any MMO in my opinion.

I'm going to go with Auto Assault. 

I played Auto Assault during beta and found it to be fun so bought it but no idea what they did but it was full of bugs upon release and I just stopped playing.

Originally posted by DamonVile

Originally posted by Suraknar

I would not say Failed, but rather disappointing MMO's, for me and my friends.

 

EQ - PVE oriented, progression based (Same old same old)

How can the second mmo and the first of it's type be same old same old ? Every fantasy mmo on the market takes whole chapters from EQ's book.... You can't fault the original because later games copied it.

 

 

The biggest fail mmo of all tiem is dark and light  ( aka Settlers of ganareth ). It's the only one I know of that was actually a scam.

Vanguard had everything it needed to make a great mmo but it also sadly had Richard who lied his ass off and screwed MS over so much they sold the rights and bailed on the game. The dev team left was faced with a 6month launch window from pretty much scratch. amasing what they did in that time but it was still just a shell of a game because of it.

 

 

I think you mean Brad not Richard.

 

The biggest fail is Dark and Light.

 

If a game is still operational it is being played by someone and is at least somewhat successful - even if I personally don't like it.  There are actually quite a few games that no longer are operational that I think should come back from the dead under new management  Dark and Light is not one of those.

It's hard to categorize small budget MMOs as big failures.  Also, SWTOR has issues but still has tons of subscribers and a strong foundation.

 

AoC and WAR were major failures

 

SWG was just never designed to be a popular MMO.  Sandbox, poor definition of Jedis and no space combat on release.

 

LOTRO - Could of been Massive.  Lack of second faction and thus true PVP was a killer.  They also chose to focus on Angmar rather than go right to Moria, Lothlorien and Isengard.

 

EQ2 - Didn't offer anything to EQ or WOW players.

Originally posted by Brenelael

The single worst failure of all time would still have to go to Star Wars Galaxies. This failed so hard after the NGE that people are still hating on it 7 years later. No other game can claim that. Not even close. They took a moderately successful game at the time and changed it right down to it's core mechanics trying to chase after the WoW golden ring and it failed hard. Not only did they alienate a substantially large portion of their existing fan base but they also scared away any potential new subscribers because they had disgruntled gamers on every forum making them out to be the devil right up to this very day. This has to be the biggest failure in MMO history just because they took an established game with a dedicated fan base and through it all down the toilet trying to cash in on the WoW craze.

 

Bren

Agree...no other MMO, or computer game, that I can think of matches the shear level of failure that the NGE wrought on SWG and SOE.   7 years on and SOE is still paying the price for their attitude toward their player base.  They tossed them under the bus and laughed while doing it.

swg before NGE was in the top five of biggest fails, and it's tiresome to see the same handful of people who enjoyed it keep posting constantly about how great things were, when they were crap.

 

SWTOR is easily the biggest mmo failure in the history of the genre.

Originally posted by BlackWatch

Biggest MMO fail?  World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. 

Most people will chalk up WoW's population decline to all of the other games that have released over the last 2 years, but you can't deny that there was seemingly a 'mass' exodus shortly after Cata's launch.

If any other game on the market suffered the kinds of subscription losses that WoW has suffered, they would be out of business.

Looking at WoW's constant population increase from launch, it really was somewhat of a shock to see the game and company take a nice sized shot on the chin. 

If I were going to try to list other games that were 'epic' failures.. sure, Age of Conan, SWG, Matrix Online, RIFT, Warhammer Online, etc.,.. None of these games amounted to the WoW killer's they were hyped up to be.

So, really, Cataclysm was the single most epic failure of any MMO in my opinion.

Yes. I really liked WoW vanilla. But today I think the game is terrible.

Originally posted by Fluxii

Originally posted by ForTheCity

Originally posted by Brenelael

The single worst failure of all time would still have to go to Star Wars Galaxies. This failed so hard after the NGE that people are still hating on it 7 years later. No other game can claim that. Not even close. They took a moderately successful game at the time and changed it right down to it's core mechanics trying to chase after the WoW golden ring and it failed hard. Not only did they alienate a substantially large portion of their existing fan base but they also scared away any potential new subscribers because they had disgruntled gamers on every forum making them out to be the devil right up to this very day. This has to be the biggest failure in MMO history just because they took an established game with a dedicated fan base and through it all down the toilet trying to cash in on the WoW craze.

 

Bren

Was it really that bad? I thought people loved it and they didn't want the game to be shut down?

Yea, a game that was finally forced to shut down (because ot TOR) after running for nearly a decade was horible; they must have had to pay people to play...  *boggle*  Poster obviously has a lot of game hate issues, lol.

Ummm... no. I actually thought it was mediocre at best when I played it in beta. When I went back a full year after the NGE I thought the game had improved but it was still lacking something.... other players. Whenever I played the servers were ghost towns compared to other games. I was never one of the "Distruntled SWG Vets" as I never really played the game all that much to begin with but I got to deal with them every day on every MMO forum I've visited since 2005. The fact of the matter is that it was shut down and it was failing hard long before SWTOR came along and sealed its fate. I do however sympathize with the SWG Vets to some degree. What SOE and Lucas Arts did to them was pretty dispicable. They took a game that people had years invested in and totally changed it down to the core mechanics. SWG was barely surviving on life support long before SWTOR came along to put the final nail in the coffin.

 

Edit: In fact if you go back into my post history you'll find that I'm one of the main posters on this forum that used to tell the SWG Vets to "STFU, I'm sick of hearing about it". Some of the first posts I made here back in 2006 were on that very subject. Times have changed though and after a few years of reflection I can see now why they are so upset over it. Soe and Lucas Arts really screwed them over hard. I may have not been a big fan of pre-NGE SWG but I can still see how upsetting changing your game that drastically could be on those that were big fans.

 

Bren

Ok, seriously guys. It really is Earthrise. I know I posted this already, but I feel the need to explain why.

For those that don't know earthrise was a full loot open world PvP sandbox with a scifi setting.

Let me list some ofthe more interesting bugs that I can remember.

There was a bug where all the mob in the entire world would disappear. They were invisible but could still kill you. Since you had to aim to kill them they would kill you, and you would drop all of your gear. This was very common.

Random death. Sometimes you would be walking and just die for no reason. Drop all of your gear.

Teleporter deaths. You used teleporters to travel in the game. You would frequently die on the other side and drop all of your gear. In this case the gear was unrecoverable (lost in the teleporter?).

Terrain exploits. Players could delete terrain assets from the game files. They could then go stand where a boulder was and shoot people who couldn't see through the boulder.


Un-compiled game code/scripts. All of the scripting files were plain text files that could be opened and edited at will. A common exploit was to edit quest rewards to reward insane amounts of BP (xp) and money. Other exploits existed with this as well. Everything was client side.

Rocket launchers. Seriously the most OP thing I have eve seen in a game. Ever. Not to mention there were exploits associated with doing double damage with the already OP weapon. Actually, there was a complete and total lack of balance of any kind.

Zone crashes. If too many people (15-20) got together in a zone it would often bring down the server for that zone. Locking everyone in the zone out of the game. My guild frequently caused this to happen while trying to do a group activity.

Extreme performance issues. I played on a high end PC and frequently got 10 Fps in the main city.

Grind. It was the only thig to do to advance your character Grind mobs endlessly.

Rampant duping. Self explanatory. Crafting mats, money, quest items, you name it they duped it.

There were many many other issues with the game. This is just a small sample. It may have lasted longer than a game like APB, but it fell harder than any other game in my opinion.