The Top Five MMOs That Never Were
Everyone that follows MMORPGs can probably list a handful of games that have died an ignoble post-launch death, but what about the games that just didn’t make it? We followed these games that, for whatever reason, never made it to release. Some had their licenses moved on to other companies, some are pipe dreams of franchise fans and some just faded into obscurity, never to be heard from again.
Today, trapped in a sadistic bout of nostalgia, we take a look at what we consider to be the Top 5 of these games. Highly anticipated by their fans and yet left squarely on the design room floors:
#5 - Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online
This would-have-been game in development takes the fifth spot on our top five list, not because it wasn't highly anticipated, or because it flew low on the radars of MMO fans, but because the property itself was picked up after the game's cancellation. Regardless of Perpetual's decision, Star Trek Online is likely to see store shelves... it just won't be the game that its original designers at Perpetual Entertainment envisioned.
The news hit back in September of 2004 that the San Francisco-based development studio had landed the license to what is without a doubt one of the two biggest and best known science fiction franchises of all time.
As development on the game moved on, troubles with the development company behind the game began to mount and speculation began to grow about the future of the Trek MMO, or lack thereof.
;)
The first sign were the numerous reports of layoffs at the company. Second came the cancellation of the company's other MMO, an original IP game called Gods & Heroes, reportedly to focus on the Trek game was announced on October 9th of 2007. Next, we had the rather quiet transfer of ownership from Perpetual Entertainment to a company called P2. Throw in a lawsuit filed against the company by its own PR company, and we're given a glimpse behind the reasons that on January 14th of 2008, the announcement came down that development had ceased on the project. This news was followed closely by reports that another Bay Area developer (later revealed to be Cryptic Studios) had acquired the license.
Final Thoughts
People didn't stop heavily criticizing Perpetual's game after Executive Producer Daron Stinnett told MMORPG.com that he wasn't making a game for Trekkers, but making a great MMO. Taken out of context, this sounded like the company was planning to just throw a think Star Trek skin on a WoW clone. Personally, I think he just meant they were trying to make a good MMO, but what do I know? In the end, STo is probably better of where it is than where it was.
#4 WISH
WISH, a game in development from the now defunct Mutable Realms, promised big things to the MMO community and was suddenly cancelled in January of 2005.
It billed itself as the first UMMORPG (Ultra Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), meaning that it was supposed to be a single server, single zone, fantasy-based MMORPG.
Game mechanics-wise, WISH had a lot of concepts moving in its favor:
Open world, single server, single shard: WISH was supposed to be the fantasy game that did away with multiple servers and zones in a game. The world was supposed to be seamless and for everyone.
;)
Skill-based advancement system: No levels and rigid class structure here. Instead, the game's advancement was base don doing. You want to improve your sword skill? Go swing the sucker around for a bit. Want to learn to cast magic? Practice makes perfect.
A great pathing system: many people who actually had a chance to play WISH applauded its impressive pathing system.
Live Content: The idea behind this feature was to have developers act as GMs, providing unique and interactive experiences for the game's players on a regular basis. While this didn't replace your standard array of quests, it was meant to supplement them and give the story the feeling of being alive, interactive and changeable through player actions.
It wasn't all roses and sunshine though, the main complaint that people had with this game was that it was based on a point and click navigation system. Despite numerous and repeated complaints from fans the developers insisted that the point and click system was crucial to the game's single shard, single world technology.
Then, without warning or a great deal of explanation, the game's official website announced that the project, and all of its lofty goals, would be shut down permanently.
Final Thoughts
Live Content... What a great concept; have a bunch of developers live, in the world, giving players individual attention and providing interactive stories 24 / 7. Great in concept, difficult to actually implement. In fact, a lot of this game's core concepts would have played well with today's MMO audience that wants sandbox skill based games.
#3 Gods & Heroes
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your subscriptions! Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising was the original IP MMO that the folks at the ill-fated Perpetual Entertainment were working on. Announced on March 9th, 2005, the game was supposed to have been the company's flagship, followed then by the massive IP MMO Star Trek Online. Unfortunately, like the empire that the game was built to replicate, it crumbled.
The premise was certainly both interesting and unique. While the game was set in Ancient Rome, theirs was a Rome where mythology was fact.Your character? The long lost son or daughter of the gods, set about to claim your destiny and your birthright.
;)
The game's classes were pulled straight from the history books: Soldier, Gladiator, Mystic, Priest, Scout and Nomad. The game's real selling point though was its minion system.
Minions, we were told, would give your character more versatility. They were supposed to be an entourage of NPCs that could travel with your character. Playing a Soldier and need some healing support? Get a Priest minion. Players would have had some control of the minions in much the same way that pet classes control their pets in most MMOs.
Unfortunately Gods & Heroes, already in its beta testing phase, was the first casualty of Perpetual Entertainment's descent. On October 9th 2007, the company announced that it was putting the game on "indefinite hold" in favour of spending its resources on Star Trek Online.
Final Thoughts
The cancellation of any game isn't fun for the fans or the developers, but the cancellation of a game in beta can be downright devastating. Gods & Heroes was a near-complete game (obviously with its share of problems). I will, however, remember the time that I played a hands-on with the game and watched as a titan-like giant picked my character up, threw him to the ground and stomped him like a cigarette.
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A great list. A disenchanting list. :(
"Live Content... What a great concept; have a bunch of developers live, in the world, giving players individual attention and providing interactive stories 24 / 7. Great in concept, difficult to actually implement. In fact, a lot of this game's core concepts would have played well with today's MMO audience that wants sandbox skill based games."
Some posters have a current discussion going on regarding a similar thing:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/232219/So-youre-tired-of-kill-quests.html
Ultima X... I liked the direction they were headed. I liked the art style. I liked... everything I saw and heard about it. Of the various "Ultima 2" attempts I think this one got the furthest before getting the axe. It's almost as if some EA exec said "Hmmm... it's been a while since we completely oblitereated all traces of an MMO or game studio, hasn't it? You and you, get on that. I want something dismantled by close of business Friday!"
Maybe not a game as far in development as this group, but I remember Mythica with a fond heart. You do not play the son of a god, you play a God. Sounded really fun, the demo videos were amazing, then when Mythic came with their lawyers and told them to change the name or be sued for trying to take advantage of "Mythics sterling reputation" they deciced to cancel the game. Or something like that, I remember the dev posts but not the whole story.
Mythics sterling reputation.... Something tells me, it would be ok to make a game called Mythica today.
/cry Gods and Heroes
I was really watching that one and the screen and vids were absolutely gorgeous. The fatalities were something like AoC's in that you have awesome finishing moves that gave you a nice ending.
The minion system was something like Atlantic Online (those of you playing that know how that can be) and the lore was already set. Watching the boss mobs do fatalities on the toons was really impressive.
This is definitely one game I missed not making it out of the birth canal because it was SOOOOO close.
and LOL at "Romans in Space". snore.
It's beyond belief that UO2 was never created. A sandbox, skill based mmorpg with the UO lore would attract a very large crowd and will undoubtedly recoup any and all investments. It won't be a WoW killer but it will be leaps and bounds ahead of WAR or AoC. When making a sequel you never want to alienate your existing base like EQ1/AC but after 12+ years I am sure they would be understanding!
There was a lot that I liked in that game. I was in the beta (briefly) and I have to say that there were some neat things. Unfortuanatley, when I journeyed a bit further into the starting area and saw a small field with medusa like (if memory serves) mobs just standing around waiting to be slaughtered I gave a sigh if dissapointment.
In some ways very much like Turbine's LOTRO with mobs standing around waiting to be slaughtered. So essentially, "powerups".
Two words for you.
Dragon Empires.
It was a Codemasters game canceled in beta due to server/network issues when hitting X number of players online. Oh, what could have been had it been completed? It had a huge following through forums and roleplaying in the forums was beyond anything I've seen pre-release as clans formed. It definately had a hype like I havn't seen before or since with the fanbase, including myself.
GreenDragon, Order of the Bone Dragon
funny thing about Wish was, everyone i knew never heard of it when it was cancelled.
Sorry but I think True Fantasy Live online should have been on that list, or at least do a second part and put that game on there.
Also the original design of Tabula Rasa deserves to be up there in my opinion.
-Jive
Quite frankly, Perpetual's Star Trek Online looked like crap on a stick... With extra crap sprinkles and crap sauce. I'm so glad that company folded and Cryptic got the STO licence.
I thought Imperator looked really awesome, I don't think you can go wrong with space Romans. I was disappointed when that game was put on indefinite hold.
^ This
I really do wish that they had made a 3d spiritual successor to the UO Throne, Garrot needs to make something thats Fantasy and stop messing with Sci-Fi.
Perhaps someone else will create the next step in UO and make a 3dish version. Clearly Darkfall is not it.
I personally beta tested Gods and Heroes for almost 2 months. I was shocked and horrified that they would just give up on a game that was a couple weeks away from going live for Star Trek. Largely uncoded and barely started when the announcement was made....
Having your own little army of minons was great. They didn't interact like pets do in your typical MMO, they followed you around like an army and attacked as such...I still haven't seen anything remotely similar
.....I was pretty sure I read somewhere that the rights to Gods and Heroes were sold off, along with Start Trek Online when Perpeptual went under
Now I can only hope that who ever bought the rights brings back this game. It was great and would still fit nicely into today's market....
I really wished they made a sequel to UO but knowing that's EA was still behind it, it came no suprirse when they announce they were cancelling it. No ones beats EA at cancelling, shutting games, especially mmo's.
Unless the descriptions given simply don't do the games justice, if those are the best, most promising games that have been cancelled, we're not missing much. If asked what the point of a game is and a company has to talk at length about the setting, that's a concession that there isn't a point to the game. Most of the rest of the stuff ranged from routine to inconsequential. Perhaps the minions from Gods and Heroes could have been a nice innovation, but I don't see anything else in the article worth anything more than a "Meh, so what?"
UO2 - It does need to happen at some point... before all of us that played the pre-trammel version die of old age and the young'uns out there won't buy it because they don't realise just how good it was (could be).
Dragon Empires - good grief that was shaping up well.
And then we get things like Darkfall, from a small company, making it all the way to release...
Having played in the Alpha and Beta phases of Gods & Heroes we can all be happy this Roman-skinned WoW rip-off never saw the light of day.
With regards to the other Roman-inspired game on the list it is a shame Imperator was cancelled. I was far more excited about that game than WAR. And after having tried out WAR for 2 months I think it safe to say Mythic would have been much better off going with Imperator.
nice
One game that should have made that list i think? Hero's Journey.....
Yeah, was waiting for that too. Hope someone goes back to it someday!
Also, Gods and Heroes didn't seem all that bad in the little days of beta I was in. And it was silly of them to stop a game that was so much closer to finish and try do the one that was just on start. Sure it wouldn't get big numbers but it could still be pretty decent especially if the minion system worked out.
WISH would've been awesome. A big shame. I was also excited about Ultima X.
I can't remember the exact name, but I think it was from MS. Titled Mythica, or something like that. This was long before WoW. It sounded very awesome. I can't say I was too geeked about Imperator, but I do know some who were.
I was actually in the beta for Gods and Heroes, for like 2 nights. It was unplayable! lol
Great list/article!
Beau
I am not sure this game is counted as dead but I may be wrong. I still see some talk about it and the company is touting the engine it is developed in.
Wish- Sounds too ambitous. Even a large company with deep pockets would have a hard time pulling of the R&D on the single server piece without major lag issues.
Gods and Heroes- Sigh, this was not a WOW rip off though it did follow some of the MMORPG traditions. My take on it is that it would have launched, gone through a half a year of bug fixes, then had a resurrgence and stable base. It was a decent game in my opinion but then again I like AOC too, which I know is against the grain of many here. The minion system was good and I liked the mythology and story line. it may have ended up in a niche space but probably would not have failed. We will never know now though.
Funny, I never heard of Wish until your article today, seems none of my friends had either. Yet Dragon Empires was far more visible to my friends and I.
As to Gods and Heroes, it would have been the first MMO without any crafting. After I found out it had no crafting I had no interest in it whatsoever. Even if it had been published it would never have had much of a following.
Never understood why EA canceled UO II. Seemed like a braindead move on their part, of course, EA was never known for doing anything smart in this industry.
I was actually fortunate enough to attend an event in San Francisco for Ultima X way back in the days when this website was just a small startup. I got the opportunity to play the game with press members from GameSpot, IGN, PC Gamer and many more. We played for hours on huge projection screens and I thought the game was amazingly fun.
It really shocked me when just months later they cancelled the title - it seemed so polished and far ahead of its time (this was like 2003 if my memory is working today).
Not cancelled. Got official comment on it at GDC.
The event was August 2003 if I recall. It was early 2004 when Origin was shut down and summer 2004 when the game was canceled. The studio closing was a bit of a surprise to us as well. :)
It's nice to see people still remember UXO. Now you've got me all nostalgic too!
(also, I noticed in my profile that my title still says UXO dev - since that's not the case, could I get it changed to just "Developer" for now, thanks!)
Ultima Onlime X trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWumht6AuZo
I was so disappointed when it was canceled. :(
Turbine's AC2 the way it was originally intended to be, before MS killed it with little support directly after launch and forcing Turbine to create its own chat server while it effectively killed the game, as did a couple of HUGE bugs that allowed insta level maxing with no high end content. Darn I still miss it.....
Not cancelled. Got official comment on it at GDC.
Ah, I did not think so either and would be dissapointed. I hate it when these games get cancelled.
You say that as though it is somehow worse than having a token crafting system that has no depth whatsoever and is a nuisance to deal with, which seems to be the more common model.
The Ultima series had how many games? 10? 9? something like that......You'd think they would have made a 2nd UO but maybe they thought the expansions were enough.......
The Ultima series had how many games? 10? 9? something like that......You'd think they would have made a 2nd UO but maybe they thought the expansions were enough.......
Not quite sure on this, but I believe you are thinking of the single-player Ultima series, I have a few of the games, and I have not heard anything about UO having any more than just it.
I so would have done:
You obviously didn't read the whole post. Star Trek Online is on that list
Go Prepeptual Entertainment! 2 out of 5....major fail lol
or maybe, I dunno, he was listing the 5 MMOs he liked that never were.
fail for you.
The event was August 2003 if I recall. It was early 2004 when Origin was shut down and summer 2004 when the game was canceled. The studio closing was a bit of a surprise to us as well. :)
It's nice to see people still remember UXO. Now you've got me all nostalgic too!
(also, I noticed in my profile that my title still says UXO dev - since that's not the case, could I get it changed to just "Developer" for now, thanks!)
We'll make the swap (edit: someone already has it seems!)
Funny that little event is so well remembered. That was my first assignment back in the day too, I was with IGN. The first time anyone let me go travel for games, hehe. Tiny word, but the game did look like a lot of fun.
Gods and Heroes... /le sigh
I was fortunate enough to be in the beta for that game and was very very disappointed when it closed. I still have hopes that some development team will buy the rights and let that game see the light of day. I think it would have been a really nice MMO that would have been a lot of fun.
My personal favorite cancelled project was EA's Battletech MMO. I still think the concept would work if developed by professionals.
I admit to a bit of fanboyism though, as Battletech and Warhammer 40K are the two settings I want to see a game in, and done well. Warhammer Fantasy has failed the "done well" test, so I don't have much hope of seeing the others for years, if ever.
I was so bummed when Ultima X was cancelled. And then double bummed when Ultima Online 2 was canned. I hope Blizzard has the forethought to make WoW 2 before WoW fades to nothing like the original trio of MMOs. I'll settle for Diablo 3 though ;)
/mourn UXO and Wish
We were so psyched for UXO. I was following it very closely with a pal of mine who had enjoyed the original UO. Personally I never got to see the game, so I was very much looking forward to UXO.
Wish was a mixed bag, but ultimately promising. I enjoyed being in the beta. The UI definitely needed a lot of love, but getting beyond that showed a MMO with huge promise; promise that it likely could have met.
I played wish and it was fine. It is surprising Dragon Empires didn't make that list.
I can tell you with authority as I had an inside sources in Mutable Realms - Wish was canceled due to lack of interest from the potential subscribers. Not enough people signed up for the beta. Those people who were invited into the beta didn't stick around long, - some only played a couple of days. I think the writing was on the wall. If people wouldn't play for free, they wouldn't pay to play. While promising, it didn't have the word of mouth buzz and hype needed to get a large number of people to come and try it. It was determined the game would likely not be profitable, and the plug was pulled.
"Also, come on, it was Romans... it was Space... it was Sci-Fi. Romans with big freaking space guns."
I remember reading about Imperator, had played DAoC so was very interested in seeing the next Mythic MMO at the time. Still, I couldn't help but think "Didn't Warhammer 40k already do that?". Even the screenshots of this game could be mistaken for a 40k game, those centurions are wearing power-armor!!
To be fair, only space marines can be considered interstellar romans. Imperial guard models seem to either be inspired by U.S. army forces circa Vietnam or Soviets.
kept this for some reason -
There once was a thief of great cunning,
Whose exploits were beyond merely stunning,
He amassed his great wealth,
By the application of stealth,
Backed up by no small skill in running!
-credit: 10/02 Dragon Empires limerick winner Justin Elliot
Must be nice to have sources on the inside... Turns out, I was actually on the dev team for that one when it was cancelled and I don't recall getting a reason.
I don't remember exactly how many people signed up for beta, but I DO know that it was quite a large number for an indie company at the time, and I remember that people were pretty pleased with it
Guess your sources must have been better than mine. In the office I worked in. I'm not saying that wasn't the reason, I'm just saying.
Must be nice to have sources on the inside... Turns out, I was actually on the dev team for that one when it was cancelled and I don't recall getting a reason.
I don't remember exactly how many people signed up for beta, but I DO know that it was quite a large number for an indie company at the time, and I remember that people were pretty pleased with it
Guess your sources must have been better than mine. In the office I worked in. I'm not saying that wasn't the reason, I'm just saying.
I don't believe him either. There seemed to be many players when I was on. Maybe that was some kind of ultra realistic AI mobs?!
was richard garriot involved with UO2 before it was canned?
Good read, thank you.
The list needs Middle Earth Online. It technically is the same game as LotRO with a name change, but LotRO is basically the NGE version of the awesome game that MEO could have been. LotRO sucks in comparison.
I have to agree that the "sandbox" version of Middle Earth and Imperator would top my list as well...
I'd also be curious to see a "worst post-launch decisions/direction change" run down...my personal pick would be the SWG->NGE thing of course, followed closely by DAoC->Trials of Atlantis...but I am sure there are others.
ToA would have to fight a battle against /level 20. Arguably, /level was far more desctructive to the game than ToA.
Tbh, Imperator looks like a straight-up Warhammer 40K rip off.
And considering how Mythic bastardized the Warhammer Fantasy IP, thank God they didn't get a chance to pinch this one off.
Strangely enough through MMORPG.com i was able to get access to some beta play from Perpetual entertainments titles, well specifically G&H. I have to say, Im glad that game never saw the light of day...horribly designed is one way to put it. It was clearly a boring rehash of everything thats been done before. I cant really comment on any of the other titles, but i would have liked to see another UO, and WISH seemed to have some promise in regards to innovation.
Must be nice to have sources on the inside... Turns out, I was actually on the dev team for that one when it was cancelled and I don't recall getting a reason.
I don't remember exactly how many people signed up for beta, but I DO know that it was quite a large number for an indie company at the time, and I remember that people were pretty pleased with it
Guess your sources must have been better than mine. In the office I worked in. I'm not saying that wasn't the reason, I'm just saying.
Well, get to work Jon!!
I was one of the ones looking forward to WISH. Would be cool if it could be revived.
Well, get to work Jon!!
I was one of the ones looking forward to WISH. Would be cool if it could be revived.
It seems just about every major feature of WISH is alive and well in Darkfall.
Gods and Heroes a "near-complete game"? Far from it...
I was in the beta the last 2 months or so. Lots, and I mean LOTS, was unfinished. The game had more bugs than anyone could count. It often crashed. There was hardly any polish at all. Itemisation was a joke. Etc.
I often had the feeling that they weren't developing or fixing the game at all. For example, there was a bugged mob, a Stygian Creeper in Alba Longa (lvl ~10 area), that could be any extremely high lvl, and it was not just a "number error", it always one-shot ppl. According to others it was bugged long before I joined the beta, it still was when the game was closed. I have a screenie of it where it appeared as a lvl 146... There were many such small issues that they never fixed, this was just an example.
There really wasn't anything "new" in this game. Well, the minions was something new, but they really just replaced some buffs and spells compared to other games. You didn't control them like other toons or pets, they acted automatically, possibly after you made some choices. I think I remember something about formations, and maybe some choice to set them active/passive/whatever. You chose what type you wanted (up to 4 minions depending on your lvl). Iirc, the choices were healer, melee and ranged, and it was up to you what each minion would be. If you for whatever reason wanted 4 healers, then you could have it. Grouping when everyone had a couple of minions, was a nightmare. Worst lagfest I've ever experienced, and the whole screen filled with minions, become annoying in the long run.
The game was in many ways a WoW copy in a different setting. And it even felt "simpler", especially the first 10 lvls or so, mostly because you didn't have many skills to use. The game was also extremely linear. The only "big" variation if you chose to lvl a new toon, was the option at some early point to go to a different zone and proceed from there instead. But both paths merged later.
Some of the features were very well done. For example combat animations, at least some of them. Like when my gladiator used a "jump and spin once around, then slash" attack.
Even with all it's flaws, I really loved this game. Too bad it ended that way.
Let me add some of my Favorites :
Dune : Origins ( i tryed to buy the Sources of this already Gold MMO, but they got lost due the Crash of Cryo well ages back )
Mankind 2
Mythica
Sigonyth
Seed ... well went Live for a very short Time
Atriarch ( i know its in Development, longer then Duke Nukem Forever now )
and many more
Well, get to work Jon!!
I was one of the ones looking forward to WISH. Would be cool if it could be revived.
I did try to revive Wish, for 4 years, until a couple months ago, that is. I got interested in other things, and so did my other devs. It's hard to do that thing as a hobby, although I think I worked on our version almost as much as MR did on theirs (no disrespect intended Dana/Jon, I know you guys worked hard too). We have since done some different things with the site, but you can still follow our history:
http://www.projectwish.com
I recently announced our haulting and releasing of all our code. If someone wants to start it up again, let me know. I'd be happy to pass the torch.
-Jerky
I really enjoyed the article.
I had the pleasure of being in the beta tests for both WISH and Gods and Heros.
Gods and Heros was interesting with it's squad play and walking around Rome was a thrill.
WISH though, is the game that I to this day miss more than any other mmorpg Ive ever encountered and it never even went live.
Excellent article, all too often we look at games that fail just post launch as you stated but rarely those that are cancelled. Would be nice to have a separate tab game list that lists those that have been cancelled, or shutdown after launch (just a listing, not really forums, and if they are already on here I cant seem to find them)
Some of those games looked like great ideas. hopefully we dont get alot more of cancellations down the road.
" at least it can be said that when EA announced that they were throwing their full support behind Ultima Online, they must have meant it."
Thanks for that last sentence, I needed a good laugh
UO:X was cancelled because EA did one of their regular office consolidations and majority of their most experienced UO/MMO dev's who were working on the project choose to quit instead of lifting up sticks and moving across the country.
This set the whole project so far behind they dropped the whole thing and spun their tale about dedicating their efforts to UO instead, when in reality they continued to treat UO as little more than ailing cash cow more than ever
EA have never and will never "get" online MMO's (even they admitted it years ago), their corporate / conglomerate culture is just not compatible to the live and ongoing nature of the genre
No
They got canceled cause they were crap.
I played Gods and Heroes beta and it was pure crap.
I think this is very unfair, if you'd have just waited a couple of months SGW would've taken the top spot easily. I hope they do the MMOWTF awards this year (unlike 2008), then maybe SGW can get the recognition it deserves?
Citizen Zero anyone?
People dont seem to learn, when u take a movie or TV series and attempt to make a game from it (be it mmo or single player) it generally fails, with few exceptions.
To prove my point a few failed mmos: Matrix, Star Wars Galaxys... and most probably Star Trek...
But dont get me wrong, i'm looking forward to the new Star wars MMO, Old republic... hopefully it will be an exception to the rule ^^
It seems just about every major feature of WISH is alive and well in Darkfall.
I'd rather skin myself with dull tweezers.
Another interesting MMO would've been Trials of Ascension. Full sandbox pvp MMO with permadeath and an "inheritence" system to pass a few things onto your next character, plus the ability to play as real dragons as well as other races, of course.
Not the flying puppy dog "dragons" you see in Horizons.
I actually got to play Gods and Heroes in Alpha Phase. When we, the original 50 alpha testers went into the game it was very polished. It wasn't until a few updates and a shift over to their permanent servers that it suddenly becaame extremely buggy. The game had a lot of potential. We ran several dungeon crawls with a full group and all our minions and it was fun. I hope someone else picks it up and fixes it. The potential to add Egypt and the Egyptian gods and other the Norse and so on was an original concept.
I didn't think it was a Wow clone. I swear thats everyones broken arguement for every game. It had a lot of original ideas aside from its progression charts. Anyway just my two cents.
Excellent article! Thanks!
Having played UO since beta (still do) I would have loved to see the next version of UO.
As it stands UO will release it's new client sometime this year, still supporting 2 clients, the original 2d view and the newer KR/SA client
I als oenjoyed Wish. It was a bit too buggy and didnt enjoy th epoint + click system that much, but was pretty promising.
Also what was that game's name that collected money for beta? I think it was canned 2 or 3 times.
Of course UO2 UOX cancellation was a big let down, cause it was so promising.
Ahhhh Wish, the live events were so much fun. It had some performance issues but the game was so much fun.
Great article, but i think you missed one off.
There was this one game announced in September 2001 - World of Witchcraft or something, (my memories not what it used to be).
As i recall, it took place in a land called Astroth (named after that guy from Soul calibur, i think).
You could be on one of two sides: Whores or A Giant (sounds weird i know).
Ah memories. I wonder what ever became of it?
Oh well, guess i'd better get back to playing Hello Kitty: Island Adventure.
In 1997, Monoilth announced they were picking up development of a MMO remake of the 1980's RPG series Alternate Reality. ARO, as it was known, was to be helmed by the producers of the original series, Philip Price and Gary Gilbertson, and would be a fully 3D world in a time when Ultima Online was still doing the isometric view and EQ was still two years away.
According to their press release: "With characters they create themselves, players may explore cities and dungeons, battle computer-controlled monsters and other players, or even hold a day job at a local tavern. "We don’t want to limit players," Gilbertson says. "Not everybody is interested in fighting. Lots of people just want a place to meet and hang out. In that respect, Alternate Reality Online will accommodate everybody.
Unfortunately the money dried up and the game was cancelled. I really wish this one had gotten a chance to see daylight -- the concept art on the original ARO.com website was very exciting for it's time, and I still haven't found an MMO that combines the combat, exploration, and social elements quite like these guys envisioned.
Star Wars Galaxies was the exception. The ONLY reason it failed was the NGE. If it were not for that, the game would still probably be blistering and bustling with activity.
Not sure if its been posted but in the WISH sectio, i found a typo in the "advancement was base don doing" sentence!
woot..
So YOU'RE the other person who remembers this MMO! :-)
CZ had an interesting setting - a prison planet - and seemed to be doing something a bit different, but then Microsoft bought the rights to the BigWorld tech off Microprose and the title died a slow death. Meanwhile, BigWorld has given the MMO world nothing worth noting.
Others have come in to comment about Gods and Heroes - I was in the beta for several months. The Gods system was interesting - you pick a patron god and he gives you extra powers. The pets system was interesting in theory - you could get a team of pets around you to help, although healer AI was broken so it didn't heal you. Also, everyone got access to a special 'personal camp' instance that let you upgrade your pets (in theory). Combat animations - including grapple animations - were very good for the most part.
However, the game was going to launch with no crafting or PvP and you need these things to compete, even if you do a half-ass job on them. The original character advancement system was scrapped in favour of a skill tree system because players were finding the original system too hard. There were a lot of bugs still to fix and the world was comparatively small to walk around in (zone maps weren't that big and sometimes you were forced to walk around a landmark that blocked the 'short' path).
G&H was cancelled at the point that it was considered (or was very near) feature and content complete for launch. It needed a lot of bug fixing, but it was ramping up for launch before the pin was pulled. If it had launched it wouldn't have competed that well, but might have got a crowd that would have kept development on it (and perhaps STO) going.
That said, all in all its cancellation wasn't a big loss to the MMO market.
SWG's failure was launching without jedi, stars or wars. NGE was a symptom of the original failure, not the point where it actually failed.
Star Wars Galaxies was the exception. The ONLY reason it failed was the NGE. If it were not for that, the game would still probably be blistering and bustling with activity.
SWG was barely clinging to life for a long time. It had one of the worst launches in MMO history, introduced the worst game mechanic in MMO history (unlocking Jedi), and was so poorly optimized no one could go in a city without nearly crashing. The only thing that kept that MMO out of the garbage bin was the Star Wars License.
The new SW "MMO" looks even worse. Basically just a glorified single player game.
Yes, back in the day, I was really hyped on Gods and Heroes. Too bad about Perpetual.
Out of this list, I felt that Wish has the greatest chance to really change the 'status quo' of the (at the time) stagnation of MMO design.
When reading through the featured games listed, I wonder how many of them had their futures altered by the emergence of WoW, and how many that never made the list.
My top 3 would be
UO2
Multiplayer Battletech 3025
and the original Horizons
dragon empires was the one i missed most
UO2 shuld never have been scrapped and EA inexperience in mmorpg showed there.to let the ultima franchise die is such a big shame.
it should have been there with the everquest name if not higher
BUMP
QQ
an older article worth reading
Famous (and infamous) tales of PC game delays and cancellations.
www.1up.com/do/feature
I really wanted to play G&H. Im still not sure I understand what happened.
WISH! I loved that game :( Played beta and couldn't wait for its release...then it was randomly cancelled :(
The one thing I liked about Perpetual's Trek Online was that you weren't automatically a captain, you went in to the different job types they had (medical, engineering, sciences, etc.) TBH, I didn't want to be Kirk, I wanted to be Scotty! Now it's just going to be you and a bunch of npc's running the ship rather than having active players doing stuff like that. A captaincy is something to be earned, not given.
To quote from TNG's ep "Relics".. "Captain I may be in rank, but I never wanted to be anything but an engineer." - Scotty
I remember BETA testing WISH when the announcement came to shut it down. I thought to myself, "Yep, that's about right."
From my complete outsider's point of view, it looked like Perpetual evaluated the likelihood of G&H being a success and generating enough profit to justify its launch vs. the expected profit off of Star Trek Online. So rather than having their resources split between two titles, the more profitable one - STO - was selected and G&H was mothballed.
Given that Perpetual didn't take long to announce their own bankrupcy, restart as P2 and buy all the assets of Perpetual at discounted prices in order to try and keep STO going it is apparent that there were some major internal issues relating to expenditure that they could never get sorted. (Of course, then STO went to Cryptic and P2 announced it was getting out of the MMO business before finally closing, thus ending the ironically named Perpetual Studios.)
Dragon Empires (Codemasters) belonged on there more than STO or G&H.
Trials of Ascaron - a game with several never before seen races and permadeath.
Shadowrun - would have been a great cyberpunk MMO. Technology meets magic. Microsoft got the rights to the name made a real dumb FPS out of it and shitcanned the making of the mmo because the fps failed. Never , should have been an fps.
The guys who were working on the Shadowrun MMORPG with MS permission got the rug pulled out from under them shortly before the FPS came into the spotlight. The group is now known as Sixth World Games and since have been working on a new "Cyberpunk" inspired private project.
You also now have a new Shadowrun MMORPG being created through SourceForge called "Shadowrun: Awakened". It's been in development for a couple years now and is shaping up quite nicely.
So YOU'RE the other person who remembers this MMO! :-)
That's me! :) Actually I used to know someone who worked on this project. Apparently they had the rug pulled out from under them by Microsoft about the same time as Mythica. There was a massive shake up there just prior to the 360 launch and numerous titles deemed uncertain of returning a solid profit were canned at this time.
Once I was invited to their office on a visit to Sydney to see the game and it looked extremely playable at the time with twitch-based, real-time combat. It was stable and responsive and they had some really good ideas particularly relating to cooperative gameplay and problem solving. Apparently for a time it was also Identity Zero.
I've had this video laying on my hard-drive for some time. Given it's six years old I'm sure there's no harm in uploading to Youtube now for general consideration and musings on 'what might have been'...
www.youtube.com/watch
Enjoy.
Nice list, but : I miss Dawn and MEO on it.
Back when we were playing UO (pre-Trammel) and we longed for a game with as much freedom as UO, but with a less exploitable noto-system (blue PKs, thanks for helping ruin UO), those 2 games used to be our carrot-on-a-stick. People who wanted more linear, competitive level-like gameplay migrated to EQ, the rest of us never ever got lucky.
They finally gave us SWG, only to ruin it with ridiculous JeDi-systems (both holocron- and questbased systems were gamebreakers) and the legendary craptastic CU and NGE.
So, for me, the dreams that never meant to be: Middle Earth Online by Sierra, and DAWN by Glitchless.
Was in GnH beta too. Not bad, nice graphics, maybe the best graphics with AOC but a diablo like for me. With a lot of bugs.
Lets see here:
1: Crap.
2: Crap.
3: Crap.
4: Crap.
5: Awesomeness.
I was really looking forward to UXO and Mythica at one point. Now I don't look forward to anything until 6 months after it is released. It saves me some disappointment.
Gods and Heros was the big one for me too.
Why on earth did these poor people give up on this treasure. I believe this game honestly had some great qualities.
I was in the beta and enjoyed it so very much. I remember every time the server went down I'd be aching keenly for them
to bring it back again.
They had enjoyable classes that in my experience all seemed to be well thought, playable and equal.
I do hope that someone picks this game up and lets it loose. It was so close to gold. I am sure there is a very easy way to make it free to play. Guild Wars did it and if not then there's always micro purchases.
Whoever owns it now hear my plea LET IT FREE!
Must be nice to have sources on the inside... Turns out, I was actually on the dev team for that one when it was cancelled and I don't recall getting a reason.
I don't remember exactly how many people signed up for beta, but I DO know that it was quite a large number for an indie company at the time, and I remember that people were pretty pleased with it
Guess your sources must have been better than mine. In the office I worked in. I'm not saying that wasn't the reason, I'm just saying.
My source was in upper management. I spoke with him the day the game was canceled and he relayed the explanation above. I was in no way involved in the project mind you, just knew the guy personally, and was in the beta. Once I heard the news, I contacted him. He wasn't in the Halifax office, however, but I am sure you knew who he was.
What no mention of Mythica? Man I was so looking forward to Mythica. That game was going to be so damn awesome.. I believe it was cancelled because Mythic sued them over the name and won...
http://web.archive.org/web/20040820185833/mythica.com/gallery/screenshots/default.htm?c00=0
Good read, funny one too, because I have been playing MMOs since 2003 and I only recognised one of the games on that list.
If one were to have played in the early stages of the Vanguard beta, I'd put that on the list of greatest MMOs that never were.
In it's origional design it was fantastic. The fun I had in the beta, over one year before it's launch, was far greater than that of the release day version. It was sadly killed by exactly what everyone fear. Populist game design instead of the targeted "hard-core" audience approach that Brad McQuaid preached up until the final 6 months of development when he suddenly went silent.
Microsoft must have felt it would lose on the title, when they dropped out and SOE was brought on board... the losing began. I'm not your typical SOE hater, but they did wrong with Vanguard.
#1 MMO that never was... Vanguard, Circa 1 year BV
Ultimately, niche games tank at the box-office. Companies are in the business of making money. That's always been the bottom-line, and it always will be.
Right then, prepare for a rant.
You know how I found this article/thread? I google'd "Live Content MMORPG" to see if one existed. Thanks to reading through the comments I realise that there still isn't anything that matches the grand scale that Wish could and would have achieved had it made it to retail. That's right folks, I'm a former Wish Beta tester. I was there for 1.0, I was there for 1.5 and I was there right at the bitter end.
Sure it was a beta, but what other game can you say "I was there..." for a moment that changed the story with hundreds of other players? Hell, I can reel off some from this game right now. I was there when Harborview was attacked by wave after wave of creatures as the players who called it home defeanded it at the gates. I was there when the 4 Town War roared. I was there when Lord Essex betrayed Harborview and left us to be the only player run town. I was there when we finally hunted Essex down. I was there when the GM's created Garry-zilla. And that was just Beta 1.0 (and just from one viewpoint from one town, I'm sure the other 3 had their own unique stories to tell.) In 1.5 I even got a mention in the in-game newspaper for defending a town and saving a story NPC from assassination.
There are plenty more moments I could list, but I think I've shown my point; in a time when MMO's are about following the breadcrumbs the devs leave for you and getting the best loot by repeating the same thing over and over, Wish gave the opportunity to be a part of and change the world around you with its Live Content. It was an actual RPG.
Now don't get me wrong, Wish was far from perfect at times. Its learning curve was higher than a lot of games at the time and finding your own path in Ganadaen was pretty harsh if you didn't know what was going on. The Live Content was also more heavily favoured towards the US than the rest of the world (which made it challenging for me, being in the UK, to take part in all of it) and the hardware specs made anything other than the latest PC's cry when the huge battles took place. And, you know, the bugs that riddled the game (although hey, it WAS a beta after all!
While the economy was broken during testing (as evident by the fact you could get buy items in one town, go to another and then sell them for twice the price, rinse/repeat) had it been fixed it could have been something similar to EvE Online's, which if you think about it is a very similar game in nature. Small Community (well, in comparrison to other MMO goliaths) that has grown over time with support and care, no real classes, a chance to make your character exactly what you want it to be, a single shard, and a rich backstory that the players have the chance to be a part of. EVE's existance is proof that given time, Wish could have been sustainable. All it needed was a little faith. Unfortunately that's not good business sense and, like it was already stated in the thread, it's all about the money
Will something like Wish with Live Content ever emerge? I really hope so. MMO's have left out the true RPG element for a long time. That's not to say MMO's are all bad. I still subscribe to WoW because it's fun to play with my friends, but if I was given the choice of playing WoW or Wish, you can bet I'd be subscribing to Wish in a heartbeat
And that folks is my rant over. I blame the Wish OST coming on iTunes yesterday when I was in a shuffle mood.
It's a decent list.
I think the original Tabua Rasa should have made the cut along with Mythica and Dragon Empires.
I guess I wouldn't put Imperator on it since it was only in the air for a while and never really made headway.
Microsoft was bailing out of the MMO business after Asheron's Call 2.
i would alter the list as follows:
Ultima Online 2
Ultima Online Odyssey aka UO X
Whish
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I do not know why you did not mention Hellgate: London.
Hellgate: London had so many people playing it you would not believe. AND so many people who loved the game and were upset when it was announced it was closed.
There seems to be a downfall or downturn at FPS MMOs. HL was a damn good game and don't be surprised that you do not see some private organizaiton someday pick it up again.
My number vote is Hellgate: London.
I am dumb founded on what to say. Are you serious??? I was in beta for HGL and the game was a fucking disaster. Release was worse and I am honestly unsure what the hell you were actually playing because it could not have been the same HGL everyone else played...
It's the game I can rarely recall the name of and yet I was really looking forward to it. It had potential but alas it never made it.
I was in the beta for wish and was sad when it was cancelled.
Not sure if anyone mentioned it but what about the first Warhammer Online by Climax. I recall really following that game and was so disapointed when it got axed. It was being done different than what we got out from Mythic. It was supposed to be more dark and gruesome etc... Oh well here is some nostalga.. check out their last E3 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQvPQJ1_Dk
dont be so modest MMORPG.com TEAM.. WISH should be #1 !!!!
I see that a lot of ppl who work here were in the team...I hope that you guys have one day
another chance to work on a project like this.
The game is still around the web and a lot of ppl were sad about the cancelation...me too.
I am sorry about Wish, but happy about this awesome website!!!!
Great article!
Chalk me down as another pre-Trammel UO player that was extremely disappointed UO2/UXO never saw the light of day. Someone really needs to kick those responsible square in the bits over that. Someday maybe....
Wish looked great and sounded great but I was not able to get into beta(QQ). I still wondered if what they proposed to could be pulled off. It seemed very ambitious and I was skeptical but hella interested. Hopefully it sees the light of day one day.
my list would be:
1. Mythica
2. MEO
3. UXO/UO2
4. Dragon Empire
5. <insert whatever you like>
What! No mention of the Climax Warhammer Online or Mechwarrior 3050 (or whatever-it-was-called)?