I don't have a black list, though I do have game companies that have disappointed me in the past. Most publishers.

In order from most disappointing to least:

gPotato

gPotato

gPotato

EA

FunCom

SOE

SoE is actually at the top of developers for me.

Yes, SWG was a debacle.  Compelete and total disaster, but it was not SoE alone.  It took two companies to screw one game up so badly, and the bigger issue with SWG, the one that caused the CU and NGE, was its horrible launch state.  If it was given another 6 months development time it would have had a much more successful run and the whole player drop that caused the panic never would have happened.  If it had been a 500k sub game like EQ it never would have been touched.  Its tough to know who to blame for what, but given SoE's track records for games that are 100% theirs I find it hard to believe it was all their idea.

Wait, what?  But SoE ruins all their games you say?  Um, no.  But but but Everquest...they ruined Everquest!!  Did they?  The changes they gradually made to Everquest were due to customer requests.  People wanted faster travel.  people wanted a central place to gather.  PoK, which is so much maligned, was what the community asked for.  Yes, now you log in and you see people with their mercs and such, but times change, and when a game is as old as EQ is it cant just stay the same forever.  Yet SoE, with an occasional miscalculated expansion (Gates of Discord) stuck to what EQ does better than any game on the market before and since:  gives max level characters a reason to play.  They realized early on gear based advancement only wasnt going to work, so they added AAs.  Spell acquisition became a major driving force.  AUgments (yes, gear, but still a different system of gear).  And did i mention AAs?  And EQ expansions release with not just a couple raid bosses, but lots and lots of raid content.  And guess what?  That prior expansion raid content?  Its not obsolete.  For the hardcore, yes.  But for the casual?  You put the effort in and take what challenge you can come and the gear will probably still be rewarding.  SoE has kept up a very strong max level game for over 10 years now and THAT is a truly impressive feat and why over 100k players still play this game.

Everquest 2.  Yes, they dumbed down the crafting system.  Yes, they 'WoWified' it in a sense.  That whole listening to the customers that people blasted SoE for not doing?  Well thats what they did.  And no game in the WoW era has as much content as EQ2 does.  The HQs are awesome, the signature quests...the insane amount of fluff and housing stuff...some very fun and interesting instances, and still  some fun open world dungeons.  Lots of raid choices.  

But But But...the cash shop!!  So?  Its the cash shop era.  Its time to get used to it.  Every game has one of some kind.  WoW does.  Rift does.  Smedley is kind of right, it is the future.  As games cost more and more to develop and support and reality is sinking in that WoW numbers are an anomoly, if people want to buy pets and mounts and chairs or even experience % boosts to support the game, then Im all for it.  rather them buy the fluff then me pay 17.99 per month.  These companies, outside of Blizzard, arent making insane amounts of money.  They spend time paying catchup to the original development, have to pay for hosting, and have to pay for continued devleopment (and SoE provides continued development as much as anyone)

But but but Vanguard....SoE busted their asses to fix Sigils horrid coding.  They dumped 'a lot' of effort into it, just look at re-reviews.  However no one came back to play while they were still releasing content.  SO they put it on the back burner.  But at least they kept it running.  It seems they are actually giving it a little attention now, for what thats worth.

But but But the hacking....Obviously someone in the sony parent company didnt give a rat's arse about security.  I still think that even if the security was better they would still have been hacked.  Maybe not as severe, but I dont doubt these hacker's skill.  And its probably a good bet that SoE has one of the safer securities in the business right now, but they do still have that bullseye on their head so yeah, your information isnt 100% safe.  But it isnt with blizzard or Trion or anyone else.

Yes, the company has its drawbacksfor sure.  Their games dont run as well as they should performance wise.  They were had to get rid of a little too much overall staff and the quality of expansions has suffered recently for it.  They seem greedy. (but they also do a lot for a small player base for their flagship games (and did an awful lot for a miniscule VG player base for a good 18 months)).   They were at the very least partially responsible for NGE.

But pretty much all the MMO companies suck.  I think SoE has done more good than the rest of them.  Trion, the company people will dash too, is too young to go too crazy about and they put out a very shallow game and have already started with their greed run.  Oh and Im very much happy with Arenanet (affiliation with NCSoft aside).  Have to give them credit, and I will with a GW2 purchase for sure.

And lastly, Square Enix.  FFXIV should never have been released.  The game blows, but its also been free for over a year now while they dump money into it to try and fix it.  At least they are atoning for their massive failure. Although as a general gaming company, both parts were better off on their own.

Originally posted by Zadawn

Originally posted by bumuscheekus

All of them recently for not advancing well-used templates to try and do something new that we haven't seen before a million times. I would dearly love to be wrong with the new wave of releases but I doubt I will be. Can't say I entirely blame them though, game development is an expensive business and failure in subscription numbers is not an option if you want to survive in a recession. So generic mush will be the order of the day until money is plentiful enough to play around with formats again.

I can't help but laugh at your statement  .These companies are certainly poor, i pity their billions.

 I have to kinda agree with him in the eyes of a company that puts so much money, resources, as well as effort into a game or concept it would be foolish to think they would not want to go with the tried and true method over a gamble. ALso he was stating that till people not the companies have money to waste.use on games that may or may not catch on, the companies will copy the most popular out there ie wow. I honestly cann't help but laugh at you for not understanding a company even with millions or billions in it's accounts would still pllay safe with it. Saddly if we want things to go forwards and get to new inovative thigns it will be us the player that has to show that the companies who desire to get our money must force them to see they are not getting it till they bring in better and newer concepts. Also building and creating new concepts as well as ways of doing things takes additional resorces as well as money.  One of the worst thigns is that we know literally nothign abotu what a company is doing for thier mmo till it is nearly in alpha largely, which would make reconcepting it and building it extremely costly.

There are vary few companies that have let me down, but never has one made a game where i was not able to enjoy my time spent in that game to have me basically black list it. I pay t play and enjoy myself in a game, as long as i get that atleast i am happy. Like i have told so many that do not understand how i can stand the new transformer movies and yet be a fan of the old g1 transformer, i bought a ticket to see transformers not g1 transformer but a transformer movie which is what i got. I base everythign on the marrets of the game/movie alone nothing prior at all even in sequels since some i found better then the origanals.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by sanshi44

Blizzard - cause they killed the MMO market for me, They lead to the trend of easier and smaller world MMOs. For me larger harsher world is what makes an MMO for me and since WoW there has been none of them.

 

You want larger and harsher? Have you tried Darkfall or Mortal Online? Both are FFA full loot gank fests. Thats about as harsh as it gets. 

Not what he meant at all.  PvE used to be a lot more challenging in the open world/levelling.  Now levelling is treated as an inconvenience by some developers.  Trion, Im looking right at you.  

Originally posted by teakbois

SoE is actually at the top of developers for me.

Wait, what?  But SoE ruins all their games you say?  Um, no.  But but but Everquest...they ruined Everquest!!  Did they?  The changes they gradually made to Everquest were due to customer requests.  People wanted faster travel.  people wanted a central place to gather.  PoK, which is so much maligned, was what the community asked for.  Yes, now you log in and you see people with their mercs and such, but times change, and when a game is as old as EQ is it cant just stay the same forever.  Yet SoE, with an occasional miscalculated expansion (Gates of Discord) stuck to what EQ does better than any game on the market before and since:  gives max level characters a reason to play.  They realized early on gear based advancement only wasnt going to work, so they added AAs.  Spell acquisition became a major driving force.  AUgments (yes, gear, but still a different system of gear).  And did i mention AAs?  And EQ expansions release with not just a couple raid bosses, but lots and lots of raid content.  And guess what?  That prior expansion raid content?  Its not obsolete.  For the hardcore, yes.  But for the casual?  You put the effort in and take what challenge you can come and the gear will probably still be rewarding.  SoE has kept up a very strong max level game for over 10 years now and THAT is a truly impressive feat and why over 100k players still play this game.

I personaly didnt like PoK expansion it killed alot of the exploration for me, luclin expansion with the nexus was fine for traveling (atleast for me) and it also acted as gathering hub. Still played the game after PoK though but i still prefered the game before PoK came out, i think to me thats the start of SoE making the game easier.

Still my fav game hoping they can make EQ next (3) a great game aswell and leaving out the realy fast travel system of PoK and having something like the Nexus again.

Originally posted by sanshi44

I personaly didnt like PoK expansion it killed alot of the exploration for me, luclin expansion with the nexus was fine for traveling (atleast for me) and it also acted as gathering hub. Still played the game after PoK though but i still prefered the game before PoK came out, i think to me thats the start of SoE making the game easier.

Still my fav game hoping they can make EQ next (3) a great game aswell and leaving out the realy fast travel system of PoK and having something like the Nexus again.

Honestly the peak of EQ's difficulty was Plane of Fear.  That was the most brutal experience in all of EQ history.

The actual gameplay of PoP though was still very difficult.  The group content was quite tough for the average people, and for the raiders, well it took them forever to get through that progression.

Im in the camp that preferred PoK travel, but I think they should have made you unlock each stone by visiting first.  Every expansion post PoP only had one entry point to it via PoK so travel still was very much a part of EQ IMO.

I did not like the corpse summoners at all. that they added eyars later.  But again, very big community request for that.

But the challenge remained, the real challenge.  Where getting a second mob in camp without an enchanter would often mean a wipe.  Where pulling was an art form.  They did a better job of keeping the actual *content* challenging than they are given credit for.

No one that started in the WoW era will evr know that rush of traveling through dangerous territory unsure if your invisibility would hold.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by sanshi44

Blizzard - cause they killed the MMO market for me, They lead to the trend of easier and smaller world MMOs. For me larger harsher world is what makes an MMO for me and since WoW there has been none of them.

 

You want larger and harsher? Have you tried Darkfall or Mortal Online? Both are FFA full loot gank fests. Thats about as harsh as it gets. 

Yeah i played Darkfall for quite awhile from release till about 6 months ago where i stopped, basicly they made there game the one with lowest ping wins (instant ray spam). I live in australia and had 250 ping it was quite a bit harder to play effectively weapon swins had shorter range, had to predice the enemy movement more since you had to hit there hit box which was infront of the character model on your screen. Darkfall was prob my 2nd fav game however just got frustrating when people win for having less ping.

I also played MO during beta and it was kinda in the same boat as darkfall so didnt play the game after it came out.

Right now im basicly looking for a game where it has a large world (Like Norrath in EQ 1), Where everything isnt given to you, where you dont hit max lvl in 2 weeks, pref to have it pvp based or atleast some good pvp elements, Group based game however solo is posible, and so on. I would be happy for a similar game to EQ 1 back before PoK expansion pref pvp orientated and updated graphics and smother movement.

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by sanshi44

I personaly didnt like PoK expansion it killed alot of the exploration for me, luclin expansion with the nexus was fine for traveling (atleast for me) and it also acted as gathering hub. Still played the game after PoK though but i still prefered the game before PoK came out, i think to me thats the start of SoE making the game easier.

Still my fav game hoping they can make EQ next (3) a great game aswell and leaving out the realy fast travel system of PoK and having something like the Nexus again.

Honestly the peak of EQ's difficulty was Plane of Fear.  That was the most brutal experience in all of EQ history.

 

The actual gameplay of PoP though was still very difficult.  The group content was quite tough for the average people, and for the raiders, well it took them forever to get through that progression.

 

 

Im in the camp that preferred PoK travel, but I think they should have made you unlock each stone by visiting first.  Every expansion post PoP only had one entry point to it via PoK so travel still was very much a part of EQ IMO.

 

I did not like the corpse summoners at all. that they added eyars later.  But again, very big community request for that.

 

But the challenge remained, the real challenge.  Where getting a second mob in camp without an enchanter would often mean a wipe.  Where pulling was an art form.  They did a better job of keeping the actual *content* challenging than they are given credit for.

 

 

No one that started in the WoW era will evr know that rush of traveling through dangerous territory unsure if your invisibility would hold.

Yes the challenged from the other zones that came out with PoK was great i still wish they didnt have PoK i think it would of been better to add maybe 2 more Nexus spires  so they might of been a little close to remote zones, i would of had a extra spire in velious and kurnark cause they had a bunch of remote zones, didnt like a PoK book being outside every city in the game.

I also realy hated the corpse summon they added in PoK just removed the need for Necro corpse summons, alot of the necros would of been happy to help you out in getting your body back if they payed for the coffin a tip usualy helps aswell if the travel time a little on the longer side.

PoK made travel easier 2 or so expasion later made lvling easier think it was the expansion that came out after WoW, cause i went to play WoW for a bit to see what it was like and when i came back to EQ it was alot easier to lvl kinda made me cry a bit, then they added a achemy potion for every single buff thorn potions and so on that were realy cheap to make so everyone used them instead. I remember having a thron pot at lvl 10 and pulling 30 or so mobs and kill them all in 30 seconds or so just hit each one once then switch target and let the thorn finish them off.

Mojang Ive been waiting for a patch to fix the pure blockiness of the game... Seriously why do people hate EA so much? I can understand the hate for Activision.

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT

    Anyone else I will at least give a good look at but, SOE I won't do more than glance at to see what game they are ruining next.  Besides that, I just don't feel they deserve to be trusted with my personal information anymore.

Originally posted by GMan3

SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT

 

    Anyone else I will at least give a good look at but, SOE I won't do more than glance at to see what game they are ruining next.  Besides that, I just don't feel they deserve to be trusted with my personal information anymore.

Trion and blizzard has also had personaly info leaked aswell btw only email address that i know been leaked so far, but if somone can get that what else can they get is the real question.

Black: Cryptic, SOE, Asian F2Ps.

Gray headings toward black:  EA-Mythic, Activision Blizzard, CCP, Funcom, Turbine

Solid comps:  Bioware (until they fail me), pre-EA Mythic, Trion (didn't care for Rift but the company itself was awesome), NCSoft

Originally posted by sanshi44

PoK made travel easier 2 or so expasion later made lvling easier think it was the expansion that came out after WoW, cause i went to play WoW for a bit to see what it was like and when i came back to EQ it was alot easier to lvl kinda made me cry a bit, then they added a achemy potion for every single buff thorn potions and so on that were realy cheap to make so everyone used them instead. I remember having a thron pot at lvl 10 and pulling 30 or so mobs and kill them all in 30 seconds or so just hit each one once then switch target and let the thorn finish them off.

See this they had zero choice and they would have eben stupid not to do this.  EQ's influx of new people stopped at the the time WoW came out.  So 7 year old game with very little true newbies?  Where to be caught up not only did you need 70+ levels but also 1000+ AA?  So they made hotzones.  Also those potions really only cut into people selling PLs, because now you didnt need a druid to help you (although a person PLing was still more efficient due to heals).

Then about 2-3 years ago they added mercs, which, again, was a needed change.  SoE has done with EQ1 a good job of adapting to the game's edge.

We agree 100% on the corpse summoning thing (which wasnt PoK but 2-3 years after).  That was one time they should NOT have listened to their customers.

Originally posted by senadin

 

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Originally posted by Teala
SOE
CCP
Funcom

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Yet your sig shows EVE and Templar icon from TSW..... I would make a comment here but really is pointless.

 

I haven't updated my sig...so sue me.