1. Anything made by Funcom.

2. Anything made by Sony.

Thats already more than 5 but im going to throw Asherons Call 1 and SWTOR into it. If Asherons Call 1 was remade, exactly the same gameplay but with modern graphics I wouldnt touch another game...and if SWTOR was made like an actual MMORPG and not a single player online game...the same.

what jtcgs said....

AoC? War? Eq2 (yeah to me its dead >.>) ....loots of goods with potential wasted...

I agree with the Vanguard posts. That game had so much potential that was wasted after a terrible launch and some pretty significant problems in gameplay. It is a terrible shame that more people haven't seen that world, but frankly, I didn't enjoy playing the game.

Shadowbane! Yeah it had ist fair share of problems but man, what a fun ride that was!

edit

Folks, don't include VG on  the list. The game is not dead... yet...

Yep, loved The Chronicles of Spellborn! It was a great game and I have only ever liked 2 MMO's, AO and WOW :)

Of all of those listed, Matrix Online is the one I really had a blast playing. Everything said in the article is spot on. The interaction with the Live Team was fantastic and, in my experience, unmatched before or since.

I was at an in-game wedding one night and it was while Morpheus was trying to stir up trouble to get Neo's body back (the machines were holding on to it). Out of fear that he would reignite war against the machines, assassins were sent out to kill him... or at least that was my understanding of it. In any case, during the wedding, someone happened to look up at the balcony of the church and saw the assassin. We all immediately went after them, but they were too quick and escaped. We all reconvened in the church. Shortly after, someone in the group received a PM from Morpheus who said "I understand you had a visitor at your wedding ceremony".

Here's what happened. In Matrix Online, you could add characters - including the story-related ones (Neo, Morpheus, Niobe, etc) - to your friends list so you could see when they "jacked in" (logged on). Someone in the wedding party had done this, and contacted Morpheus to ask if he would show up and say some words at the wedding ceremony.

This contact triggered a Live Events Team event, set up and carried out on the spot, specifically for us at the wedding.

The way it played out is that the assassin intercepted the message between Morpheus and our Faction (guild) member, and decided to go to the church and wait, just in case Morpheus showed up. It's not known if Morpheus would have or not, because the assassin was sighted relatively quickly (we'd only gotten in there a few moments earlier) and run off.

However, after speaking with the faction member, Morpheus asked for the names of those being married, then contacted them both to give his congratulations.

And that was just one such event that I happened to be around for. Things like that were happening for people all around the game. Players were actively brought into the storyline, not just passive spectators of it. Even if you weren't a role-player, it was still a blast to get involved.

It's a damn shame that game didn't go anywhere with Monolith running it, and that SOE completely squandered the opportunity once they acquired it. It was a unique game with an awesome community, fun gameplay (even if repetitive in several areas, which did need work and was a weak point of it) and an awesome level of interaction via their live team.

That said, the one game I would add to this list that isn't there is Asheron's Call 2. That's a MMO that had a lot of potential that was ultimately wasted thanks to a very rocky launch that they never really recovered from.

How could Star Wars Galaxies not make the list? That game was still alive and kicking when it was shut down. SWG still had massive potential and a lot of life left in it. Only reason SWG was shut down by Lucus was so TOR wouldn't have competition. Such a shame.

As much as I loved SWG I don't see how people can claim it belongs on this list. I'd even be leery of adding Matrix on this list. Both games made it to launch and had time to compete. SWG competed fairly well against other MMO's, despite the CU. NGE killed the more fickle of the fanbase. MxO never had anything that kept people playing either. I was in beta for that and never could stand to play for long.

The list above isn't about whining about why the game you currently love isn't getting more attention, but games that never got a chance. TCoS belongs on that list for sure. Dominus, not sure as very little was known or seen of the game. WISH would definitely be on that list (but could be because I played in beta.) Imperator was a game I was dying to see finished, but was killed for a lackluster WAR. Conceptually (not sure if anyone remembers this) Dragon Empires had fantastic PvP potiential both with combat and politics.

The Agency is the one from that list that I would like to see someone try to do again.

Several people have mentioned Star Wars MMORPGs. I also missed seeing SWG on that list.

Star Wars Galaxies as implemented for the Combat Upgrade was the game that they should have stayed with. Some of the starter professions needed a serious reword as did the entirety of Jedi.

The number of starter professions related to combat needed to be streamlined and written with full hindsight in place to make the stacking of several starter professions to make invincible characters impossible. This would have fixed the biggest problem with that game.

Going through the Village system gave everyone a predictable path to being Jedi if that is what they wanted. But Jedi needed to be revamped to be no better than other professions. With the removal of permadeath, which was good, and the FRS, which was also good, there was no need for Jedi to be more powerful than other combat professions. The XP penalty on earning XP for Jedi and the XP loss from death also needed to be removed.

For SW:TOR it is a good start but is bleeding subscriptions just as fast as SWG did in the first two years. The development team at EA is currently making decisions that are upsetting players. The first was the reward for level 50 by a certain time. Many people that were taking their time and enjoying the story left because they felt that this limited time reward showed that EA had no interest in players that were not at end game. More thought the emphasis on leveling alts with the Legacy system showed that the SW:TOR view of an end game was go level an alt and these people did not want to play a game with that philosophy. The final reason why people are leaving is that many of what people expected to be in game at launch is now promissed to be in game by the first anniversary if all goes well. So many are leaving the game and looking to see if it has what they are looking for next year.

You forgot to mention World of Warcraft.

Sure its alive and breething, but its because its plugged to the machines...but brain is dead.

The MMORPG genre itself had a ton of potential if you ask me.

R.I.P

None of those games were very good and do not deserve to be brought back IMO.  Dominus could of been ok, but the gfx were very bad and it was Sci-Fi so that sealed ot for me.  Chronicles was ok, it had some innovative features like the skill deck/wheel but it was implemented poorly. 

Star Wars Galaxies ...  this is all  I need to say.

 Star Wars Galaxies ... remember it before the CU and then the amazing theme park on Mustafar !

Good to see i'm not the only one who put  Auto Assault on the list... It was the first mmo which died off under me unexpectedly (i mean without any telling signs, or something, right out of the blue)

Still don't know why they cancelled it, was a unique and fun game to play. I've seen many game closes since then, but Auto Assault is the one i really miss.

Ah Shadowbane...So many memories, some fond, some not so fond. I chuckle sometimes when I remember I played it back when it was actually subscription-based.

I'll admit I'm bummed I never got to play SWG or Matrix Online. Back when I was in highschool I had friends who played both and they would always gush about how much fun they were but sadly between car payments, food, and other expenses I just couldn't afford a computer that could run them. And by the time I got my laptop Matrix Online was dead and I was too invested in WoW to even bother with SWG.

1. mythica

2. meo

3. horizons

Neocron (even if it is technically not dead yet).

In terms of features, it was far ahead of its time end would still count as decent today. Unfortunately, the coding quality sucked hard, and so the potential of the game remained potential instead of reality

Tabula rasa was shut down mostly because of a dispute between NCSoft and Richard Garriott’s.

Richard Garriott announced that he was leaving NCAustin and Tabula Rasa in an open letter to the community, though he now claims this letter was in fact written by NCsoft as a means of forcing him out.

It was pretty strange how NCSoft at the time just wanted to shut down the game and pay back subscriber somehow with other goodies from them like prepaid time for other NCSoft games.

Richard Garriott sued NCsoft for $24,000,000 USD.^[35] Garriott sued for damages relative to his termination from the parent company NCsoft.^[36]

. In July 2010, an Austin District Court awarded Garriott US$28 million in his lawsuit against NCsoft, finding that the company did not appropriately handle his departure in 2008. NCsoft stated that it intended to appeal the decision

And of course they appealled and....

NCSoft had appealed a July decision which ruled in Garriott’s favour, awarding him $28 million. Gamasutra reports the increase to $32 million covers legal fees and interest accrued between the first judgement and the close of the appeal hearing.

Anyway this game was pretty nice I thought and I think of it sometime. It might have taken time but this game could have been one still standing with a good community right now, who knows?

I really enjoyed Tabula Rasa.  I reallly wish that someone out there can bring in a sci-fi MMORPG and really make it work.  Wish Tabula would have done better, but hey, Richard Garriott is basically the Terell Owens of MMO gaming development.  I hope he keeps his paws off of future projects.

I agree with spellborn. It had a lot of potenial to be a great MMO.