1) SWG (the game launched and ran through episodes 1-3 releasing and should've done better, but was botched by SOE.  How they managed to fumbled one of the strongest IP's ever... who knows?)

2) Tabula Rasa  (hope for a good sci-fi game vanished at launch.  underwhelming.  Richard who?)

3) AoC (probably the most overhyped game in history.  went along with a nice flame-war with WAR fans. launch was worse than Windows Vista)

...

Other future, current, potential, or previous let downs of various measures.

WAR isnt' everything I expected either, to be honest.

LotRO ended up being too carebear/pve oriented for my liking.  A CoH/CoV type of split should've been considered for the lines between good/evil in this game, too.  Then gradually letting them live together and have open world PvP eventually. 

Hellgate: London... loved the concept of a 'modern' (slightly futuristic) game based in a 'real world' setting.  WTF happened with this game?  Probably the same thing that will happen to Huxley, tbh. 

Dark Fall/Fallen Earth/Earth Rise... should merge somehow.  In some odd way, they are bound. 

Star Trek is now going to battle with SW:TOR. 

Chronicles of Spellborn will be the next Saga of Ryzom. 

Jumpgate Evolution will reveal it's true identify as a spin-off Dance Dance Revolution MMO after it loses it's competitive edge and basis for the IP to Stargate Worlds.

Stargate Worlds will be a blend of Tabula Rasa + a lot of good stuff.  Let's just hope there isn't much of that Tabula Rasa feel in there and it doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the good stuff.

SUN... seriously.  That's the whole name?  Is this game about using a magnifying glass on various virtual items to see what kind of mayhem you can cause?  Or is this about harmful UV rays? 

Second Life... has no business being listed as an MMO.  Please list MySpace and FaceBook and all of the old AOL Chatrooms... and maybe the Yahoo! chat client, too (with avatar).  I don't see Hello Kitty listed here... wtf?

MapleStory.  I love Canada, too.  When do the other countries get their own MMO's?  And, what tree's or syrup flavors might they be named after?

Age of Conan . . . All the more disappointing because Funcom should have learned so much from Anarchy Online, not just its failures but its many eventual successes. How could we not expect something more ambitious than AO for their followup offering? But even the things Funcom has proposed for the distant future are less sophisticated than stuff they added to AO years ago.

Pirates of the Burning Sea . . . I never really got as far as the sailing. They lost me at the swordfighting on the boats and the running around in cities. Here they were with all this hype and all these innovations and Sony behind them, and the control of basic human forms in the most ordinary environments possible are more awkward and stilted than anything out there, present or past. And that counts the Earth & Beyond beta. This is the one game I would not try again even if you installed it for me and paid for it.

Asheron's Call 2 . . . My favorite game of all time - destroyed by unfettered cheating, a chat system that somehow broke several months after launch, Turbine's foolishness in the face of the problem, and Microsoft's terrible act of apparent decency in allowing them to walk off with the rights to the game and go independent. Three months after releasing an expansion pack Turbine announced the game would be shutting down, and three months after that the servers were turned off - on New Year's Eve, if I remember correctly. Turbine will not discuss with anyone any path to reviving the game, and their website treats it as if it never existed.

All the recent MMOs have been a let down, starting with D&D online, then Vanguard, AoC, WAR

I guess LOTRO is okay. I can't seem to get a character over level 30 though.

1. Aoc.........Nice graphics, but the rest was...........well.........crap.

2. Vanguard.........Over-hyped and released about a year too soon.

3. Tabula Rasa........Poor gameplay.

1. Dark and Light ... The grand-daddy of using the word potential. Never even came close to realizing it though.

2. Age of Conan ... A close second to DnL. Perhaps with a different management team and 6 more months of dev. time... it would have realized some of it's potential.

3. Tabula Rasa ... Probably marks the end for me with Richard Garriot games. Just not sure how he thought this game was ready to release.

A quick tally of the top 10 scoring titles that are the biggest disappointments. Only counted games once per post even if they had them in all 3 slots. Only counted games listed in the 1-3 slots even if they listed more.  Just did a quick count by tally-sheet... so chill if it's not 100% accurate. 

10.  Dark and Light - 10

9.   World of Warcraft - 15

9.  Pirates of the Burning Sea - 15

8.  Dungeons & Dragons Online - 16

7.  Lord of the Rings Online - 17

6.  Everquest 2 - 19

5.  Star Wars / Star Wars NGE - 20  (10 votes each... put it tied with DnL if you disagree putting them together).

4.  Tabula Rasa - 24

3.  WarHammer Online - 37

2.  Vanguard - 38

and the biggest disappointment of MMORPG's among mmorpg.com users...

1.  Age of Conan - 64  (Far and away the "winner" in this list)

Found it funny/odd that very few games escaped at least a vote or two by someone.  A couple noticeable absences were:

Asheron's Call

Dark Age of Camelot

Ultima Online

ShadowBane

PlanetSide

There were others not mentioned as well from the left-side column... but those that I mentioned above were the ones that I remember playing and so it was interesting to not see them on the list.  I guess that's a good thing... even though they are all older games and pretty long in the tooth.
 

Originally posted by Dragonking60

Ok, I 've had my fair share of BS in mmorpgs, so I've collected 3 F2P games that totally shattered my desire to play them in the first hour(listed in descending order, 3 being the worst.)

1.Dofus

-this piece of sh*t claims to be excellent tactical mmorpg, and the screens for some reason look before playing, but beware this game isn''t worth touching even if you got the money for premium.

Features of uselessness

1.No Army-WTF did my entire force just leave before game even started, last time I checked 99% of TRGs let you have an army of cool classes.

2.Below Average graphics-They suck, and are  even worse then a normal TRPG.

3.Premuim Area-What, the you mean I can't explore most of this demeaning game without a premium account, screw you!

4. Limited Class selection- ya know most TRGs are known for like 16+ classes, this game barely has 5 and at that they are still uninteresting, oh yeah I'm pretty sure their no class changing either, what a rip-off.

 

 

 

Next Game-

2.Magic World Online

This game seems to play like a diablo clone, but I soon I'll disetch it and tell you whats wrong.

The Features of Uselessness

1.File Size-Huge 2G, and for what?! Some sub-par graphics and poor gameplay?!

2. Out of Date-I think game was in beta when I played, I mean WTF beta in 2007?! Your making a game this cheap in this day and age, c'mon almost every F2P game looks better than this.

3. Combat animation-lacking-boring, uninteresting combat animations that are repettve and equally lame make this game horrible.

4.Lack of things to do-so far this game just seems like buy items and kill monsters, what fun...

5. Everyone is exactly the same-For a 2GB game, you might expect a massive awesome detailed, character creation process, but no you pick a class, a name and boom your in, wasted.

6.Diablo Just did so much better-Everything in this game has been done 10 years ago by diablo 1 and 2, and they mangaged to do it much more effectively.

 

 

 

Finally the worse mmorpg is-

3.Sword of Solstice-

Looking for Ragnorak Online? Well this isn't but they made sure to steal its graphics.

The features of Uselessness-

1.Ragnorak Rip-Off-Judging by the graphics, this game has taken some of source for Ragnorak Online, and released it 4 years later without improving a thing.

2.Lets Quest-Wow, questing is like freaking chores, and seems to never end, seriously when am I gonna be able to beat up a dragon or something?

3.The Level Up Booth- How wonderful, leveling doesn't come just from beating stuff up, instead your get exp from the those retarded quests *cough chores*, and go to level up booth, how fun!

4. Attack of the clones- Prepare to see lots you running around since theirs almost no character customization.

5. Even if this game was good...- it takes too long to get through all stupidity that drains all hope for the game.

 

There you are my top 3 worst mmorpgs, feel free to use this topic to submit your own.

 

 

You judge a game that you played for 20 mins? Dofus is a great Tactical game.

1. Tactical does not mean you get to control an army instead in dofus you have to work with other players and use tactics, this is not a single player game you can team up with other players you know...

2. The graphics are based on taste some people will like them some will not, they are not crap they are just diffrent.

3. How else will a game make money? premium area better then cash shop.

4. 5?? where the hell did you get that number Dofus has 12 classes

1. Fiesta ~ This is a game with swords and magic that doesn't feel like a fantasy game. Instead it's an online themepark for twelve year olds.

2. World of Kung Fu ~ The graphics are a bit old and dated and the grind gets hideous at about level 25 which is way too soon for a game that has over 80 levels.

3. Just about any of the asian free to play online games that didn't hold my interest for more than an hour or two.

I'm currently playing Perfect World and I'm having a fun time with my guild.

1.Warhammer Online-very disappointed

2.AOC- Points and laughs

3.Vanguard-some players still in rehab

1/. SWG-NGE - The New Game Enhancement, implemented without consulting the player base, was an act of contemptuous arrogance and ruined the best and perhaps only workable sandbox game in the MMO industry. What idiots!

2/. Dark & Light - this game was a triumph of wishful thinking by the fanbois. They hyped up this game beyond all expectations. It didn't help tjhat the software house producing it on a tropical island was amateurish, arrogant and incompetent. The game on launch was  rudimentary, half-finished, mostly stolen, empty and bare - and destined for an almighty crash that came quickly.

3/. The Sims Online. Mindless, repetitive and finally abandoned by its own parent. Boo-hoo.

Note - may I say one thing about a game which has appeared on many poster's Top 3 Worst Games? That's Vanguard.

It had one of the worst launches of any game. But since then, incredibly and against all odds, it has improved a great deal. I am playing it now and finding it complex and involving. If you get a chance, check out a free trial. Oh, and I'm not a shill or a fanboi or some viral marketer. I just think VG is slowly coming into its own. i now enjoy it more than I enjoyed LoTRO or WoW, two games which are highly polished.

1. World of Warcraft

2. EverQuest 2

3. Age of Conan

1,SWG

2.WAR

3.LOTRO

1. Phantasy star universe- 7 year wait for a weeaboo infested POS that doesnt even dimly resemble the original.

2. WISH- wish it had made it past beta.

3. Tabula Rasa- i dont think any 1 person has let me down so hard as british. what a piece of overhyped shit. oh wait...Peter Molyneux with Fable talking about how it was going to revolutionize gaming bla bla...and the game was on rails, on easy mode, and just jam packed with lies.

and yea i dont see wtf you could possibly expect from a free game that you could EVER be let down by. "think ill check out this POS free game...oMg what a POS!" -i mean duh.

1. War

2. AoC

3. RF online

SWG after the NGE

AOC

Eve

 1: WAR

2: Tabula Rasa (massive potential, completely wasted)

3: Vanguard

Can't put AoC on here because I knew that was going to be a disaster from the start. On the up side, I now get the look down smugly on the fanboys who flamed me for not bowing down and praising it prior to release. 

1) Dungeons and Dragons: Online - I still remember posting in the DDO official forums before the game was launched, arguing the fact that if the game did not have a free roaming world or some sort of PVP then it would be a massive flop. I also questioned why they decided to set it in Ebberon but that was not as big a concern to me as the first two. Only too many fanboys yelled and cursed back at how DDO didn't need PVP or a free roaming world. Their arguments were "Was there PVP in the pen and paper version?"
Well, sometimes in our campaigns yeah, but usually no, because our world consisted of 5 players, not 500,000.
I cry over this game. Fanboys need to learn to see the clear picture, if something is crap, call it crap, don't simply be a fan and fill in the gaping flaws with the spewtum that spills from your incessant mouths. I am a fan of DnD and that's just what I did.
PS: Hobbits were the ugliest lookin' things I'd ever seen in a MMORPG, and I've played Runescape.
PLAYED: 3 weeks.

Phew.

2) Lord of the Rings: Online - Oh my Lord, someone stick this game up my Ring today, this game is BOREDOM PERSONIFIED. The graphics are nice and all, but who wants to sit there and bake stupid pies all day long, or hit a wolf in the head with a stick over and over. There was no PVP action at all besides some monster play, and that was handled like an afterthought at best. This game could have been so much, instead, it was so little. Most of the classes inspired massive yawns so loud that even Sauron himself heard me. Oh, and Lore Masters, lol what a joke they were. Gandlaf wannabes but not even close. More like the count from sesame street without the cool accent or slick clothes. Again, i was a fan Lord of the Rings movies and books, yet was disappointed.
PLAYED: 1 month.

3) Shadowrun - Ok ok, so this is a FPS not an MMORPG, but I was so surprised (Read: Pissed off)that they did not make a cool Sci-Fi world with this title. It was criminal. I am still waiting for a GOOD sci-fi MMORPG to sink my teeth into. I've just about had it with frigging fantasy settings, enough already, give us something different AND good/fun to play.
PLAYED: in my mind for 3 seconds while recovering from violent poop syndrome which I caught after hearing about this license and what they did with it.

Since I avoided AoC and PotBS, for me:

3.  WAR.  I still play, but it is a disappointment.  If we took all the people in WAR and moved them to DAOC, we'd probably be better off and people would have more fun.

2.  EQ2.  I really wanted to love this game, in the end I didn't.

1.  Tabula Rasa.  I'd hoped this was going to be the game for me, sadly it wasn't.

1. AoC

2. WAR

3. Matrix

edit: this would have been a fabulous opportunity for a poll

1. WOW
2. Horizons
3. Hellgate London (If you don’t think that this is a MMO, then Shadowbane)
 

All released MMOs are less or more what I have expected from them, the only disapointment for me is:

1. WoW

Just WoW become the biggest commercial crap than the greatest MMO I have expected for so many years.