I think you would have to include Anarchy Online if you were judging based on the anger of players Gaute Gadager who finally paid the price here with AOC was at the heart of AO as well. You could add Richard Gariott of Tablua Rasa and Mcquaid for Vanguard in the mix.
Anarchy Online 100%. I used to play all these games at an Internet cafe my friend owned. You never heard as much swearing in the room as the day when we were all playing Anarchy at launch.
As for Garriot added to your list I fully disagree. If you read the entire fiasco surrounding Tab its really an informative story and should be used as an example of what can go wrong.
McQuaid is an Oxy-conton addict. Shame since Vanguard had promise, even after the total dropping of features.
Originally posted by Drmccoy I think you would have to include Anarchy Online if you were judging based on the anger of players. This was a game that promised to much new and innovative ideas at launch but technical difficulties or partially implemented things had players quitting in droves in the first free month. I recall at the time EQ was #1 at ~400k subs and AO sold 100k boxes on day 1 and was thought it was going to shatter this number soon after but so many things were broken that people left in droves and almost put Funcom out. Couple of things i remember most and happened to me directly was not being able to zone at times and being stuck in a noobie zone or city for days. Other things like server outages for 24 hours while they tried to fix things or worst of all random server crashes that caused character rollbacks that sometimes lost days of xp/items etc were untollerable. This was really the first example of how players were not going to tollerate bad launches or promises that did not deliver and made a dev team pay (literally). Playing on this theme your next article should be most hated or infamous lead devs. Gaute Gadager who finally paid the price here with AOC was at the heart of AO as well. You could add Richard Gariott of Tablua Rasa and Mcquaid for Vanguard in the mix. This would be an interesting article as well.
AO -WAS- the epic worst launch. Thing was completely unplayable for many people (I don't mean it ran badly, it just wouldn't run at all), and they completely knew. The testers (who they barely acknowledged) had been loudly telling them for some time (I was one of them, I know). After canceling your subscription they would keep billing you month after month, all the while saying no, they weren't they had no record of any such account.
Have to agree with wondering why Anarchy Online didn't make the list but two games that I have never heard of, or even heard people complain about, did. (RYL and Chronicle - even Mourning and D&L really, its been a while since I even saw either one mentioned whereas SWG and AO come up weekly)
Pretty good list, can't really dispute it, I think you did a good job of ranking them too. Of course if you were to count the number of players with angst against a game it would have to be SWG, they easily alienated at least 250k players with the NGE. The sad thing is the Smed still thinks he did the right thing.
If I had to add one to the list it would be Dark Age of Camelot with their Atlantis expansion. They dropped a huge load of players in the 6 months after the expansions release. When you make a small subset of the playerbase godly in a pvp game it tends to irritate most of the rest.
2 others worth a mention are AC2 and Auto Assault. Microsoft really blew it with AC2 before it was turned back over to Turbine but by then it was pretty much over, sad days.
Originally posted by Korgana 2 others worth a mention are AC2 and Auto Assault. Microsoft really blew it with AC2 before it was turned back over to Turbine but by then it was pretty much over, sad days.
I agree AC2 should definitely make this list for releasing an expansion just before closing up shop.
Good list, highlighting a lot of what I think is wrong in the MMO industry. Fortunately there are some success stories to offset these disasters.
With the SWG thing, I think the real burn about the expansion was that it advertised features that the NGE would then delete; and the NGE was announced the day after the expansion went live and all Visa pre-orders were considered "final" (if memory serves). That brought about accusations of bait and switch, misleading adverstising, fraud etc. You see they had just had two stratics chats all about the new expansion, and never once mentioned the upcoming entire game revamp. Many of the features in the expansion were designed for professions that the NGE very simply deleted from the game entirely. People started talking to state attorney general's and discussing legal action on the main forums. This was promptly followed by the massive refund campaign for anyone who bought the expansion.
SOE and LA have denied intentionally misleading people. They say they simply had "bad communication." I think a lot of people feel that despite the mass exodus, SOE and LA should have been held even more accountable for what appeared to be false advertising. They may have refunded money for the expansion, but many people also paid for more subscription time to use the expansion. Some report getting refunds for this; others say they tried and were turned down. There was no official subcription refund campaign like there was for the cost of the expansion. Also, in the stratics chats preceding the NGE, SOE and LA promised revamps to specific professions that the NGE then deleted. Again, people paid for more subscription time in light of these promises.
I think if SOE and LA would have given subscription refunds as well, (for all time extending beyond NGE day) a lot of the ire would have died down ages ago. Unfortunately, it seems they wanted to hang onto all the subscription cash that people paid for things promised and not delivered. It also didn't help that LA and SOE reps told players that the NGE was being "well received" when everyone could see this was absolutely not the case.
Furthermore, Smed asked the community for feedback about the NGE. When we answered, even if we did so honestly and respectfully (many of us were respectful even though we were angry), we got moderated to death. Posts were moved, edited, deleted, and people were banned.
2 others worth a mention are AC2 and Auto Assault. Microsoft really blew it with AC2 before it was turned back over to Turbine but by then it was pretty much over, sad days.
I agree AC2 should definitely make this list for releasing an expansion just before closing up shop.
Dang, you had to remind me I bought the expansion and 2 days later the closing notice was sent.
Don't get me going on what I think about what SOE and LA did to SWG. I loved the game at start till they did the CU then the NGE. I am still mad enough that I do not let an Sony or LA product in the house.
I think on HM should go to a little known game named Masters of Orion 3 that tried to be a MOO but was so bad that the game maker Quicksilver stopped supporting it and took down thier web site within 30 days of release. Way to go Quicksilver, up to that time MoO 1 and 2 were great games and many people bought 3 expecting IP named game to be enjoyable too.
Wow I thought I followed MMO's but I can honestly say I've only ever heard of ONE of these "epic fail" games. Seriously only SWG (which I was a beta and early subscriber of) I know a thing about.
Just goes to show how much crap is really out there.
Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby) Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six. Tried: Too many to list
One of the better editorials I've read, and is definately a fun topic. As for SWG, I left when WoW was released and all I really need to say about it is if they would have continued to develop the sandbox content rather than make wow in space, I'd probably be resubscribed. SWG is what I most closely relate to the saying "you don't know what you got until it's gone". Most people today can't experience a good sandbox when they get sick of wow, so they don't even have any comprehension of the sandbox concept.
I remember DnL, and particularly remember how Settlers of Genaroth was sold out (10k keys) in about 30 seconds. So many people wanted to try that game, and it was such a train wreck lol. In hindsight, I'm very glad I didn't get in sog. As for the rest, all I can say is thank goodness I didn't try them out. However, RYL made me lol. I can only imagine the hackfest their game turned into after offering a million (!!!) dollar prize.
this just goes to show you should do your homework and look into the company making the game. if it's some no-name company then don't trust much of what they say. look around you... if Guild Wars is doing tournaments for only 100 grand, how the heck do you think some no-name company is going to do them for a million? get real... people in general are way to gullible.
and it's just real sad of what SOE done with SWG. that is the first instance in history that a major company pulled the wool over everyone's eyes time and time again to simply try and make something that makes money because they can careless about their players... they have shown their true colors and not many care anymore. They wanted to ride the WoW band wagon, but it had already rolled through. But that's all good, i'll never play anything from SOE ever again.
What's odd is RYL showed up in the "in development" hype listing on the front page with an 8.60 rating. lol the thing is that game isn't in development, and is not even listed here as far as I know.
Once AC2 turned out to be nothing like my favorite game, AC, I actually followed a link that was posted on the official AC2 forum for this new game called Realms of Torment.
I followed the game faithfully for 2 years. I was one of the first people on the forums, part of the old guard, as it were, and was one of the more active members on the forum.
The liaison to the players was this guy who went by Tiamat/Adonis... his real name was Dan Antonescu. After there was some sort of legal kerfluffle over the name Realms of Torment, they changed the game's title... to Mourning.
Yep... the game I so faithfully followed for two years turned out to be Mourning. The #1 most infuriating MMO of all time, according to the list.
What a suckfest.
--------
"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
What's odd is RYL showed up in the "in development" hype listing on the front page with an 8.60 rating. lol the thing is that game isn't in development, and is not even listed here as far as I know.
That was my bad. In my research, I accidentally re-activated the old listing.
What's odd is RYL showed up in the "in development" hype listing on the front page with an 8.60 rating. lol the thing is that game isn't in development, and is not even listed here as far as I know.
That was my bad. In my research, I accidentally re-activated the old listing.
The Chronicle - Great call on TC. I hope the decision making baboons over at Rapid Reality are living in a cardboard box somewhere in Atlanta...though I doubt it, since the owner of the company built its foundation with Daddy's money.
Dark and Light - Though I never wanted to play D&L, I still totally agree with its ranking. Save for the NGE, never before in all my years of following pretty much every MMO game in development had I seen such a shitstorm as the one created by these clowns. I'm still picking the kernels out of my teeth from all the popcorn I ate while reading the forums during that fiasco.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Now you could make it for games that didn't 100% fail, games that still thrive to exist but with infuriating features. You had a lot of examples in this very forum.
Personnal example: Warhammer Online and the complete lack of balance (where the game is supposed to be a RvR type of PvP game), end-game is mostly PvE (when the game is advertised as the best PvP games evar), end-game PvP is an AoE and CC feast that is unplayable and/or completly unfun and the real end-game is actually starting alts over and over again until you don't have character slots left and you start the other faction on another server just to go on and do the same thing.
I love the game, I really want to play it, I'm still paying for it! but I just can't put myself to log in 'cause I know I'll be swearing in the 10 minutes max heh. (unless I start a new alt... yeah!)
Those are decent choices... but I can think of a few more for that list... WWII Online being one of them.
It had probly one of the most laughable launches in gaming history.... the game was in "beta" for almost a year. Then when it was finally pay to play, the product was still far from what was promised on the box, or even in the manual for the game. And 8 years after the launch it still doesnt have many of those features. Its sad that that game had so much potential that was held back by the arrogance of a few of its development team.
I've played several MMOs over the years. Fortunately, I managed to avoid all of the epic fails on the list. My biggest disappoints, as I've seen mentioned by a few other posters, were Earth and Beyond and Vanguard. EnB was such a fun game, with a great community, until EA destroyed it. Vanguard just had tons of potential, but fell far short and was an utter disappointment.
SWG to me should be number 1. I will never forget what SOE and Lucas Arts did to a game that was intense. Devs were working on the NGE in secret and devs quit after the NGE. Then they blew the entire community off and fixed the NGE 2 years later after the release of the NGE. Just because they thought they could get WoW numbers....no one can get wow numbers. All these companies are smoking the wacky green dollars. SOE will always be my number one "Pricks R US" award billboard for all to read...forever! LOL
I've played some Faild games in my time, lucky to say i havent played any of these. It's amazing to see just how bad bad can get on the way of faild MMO's.
Comments
Anarchy Online 100%. I used to play all these games at an Internet cafe my friend owned. You never heard as much swearing in the room as the day when we were all playing Anarchy at launch.
As for Garriot added to your list I fully disagree. If you read the entire fiasco surrounding Tab its really an informative story and should be used as an example of what can go wrong.
McQuaid is an Oxy-conton addict. Shame since Vanguard had promise, even after the total dropping of features.
www.TXcomics.com "Your daily webcomics broadcast"
Great list! This could have easily gone top-10 rather than 5.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
AO -WAS- the epic worst launch. Thing was completely unplayable for many people (I don't mean it ran badly, it just wouldn't run at all), and they completely knew. The testers (who they barely acknowledged) had been loudly telling them for some time (I was one of them, I know). After canceling your subscription they would keep billing you month after month, all the while saying no, they weren't they had no record of any such account.
Have to agree with wondering why Anarchy Online didn't make the list but two games that I have never heard of, or even heard people complain about, did. (RYL and Chronicle - even Mourning and D&L really, its been a while since I even saw either one mentioned whereas SWG and AO come up weekly)
Pretty good list, can't really dispute it, I think you did a good job of ranking them too. Of course if you were to count the number of players with angst against a game it would have to be SWG, they easily alienated at least 250k players with the NGE. The sad thing is the Smed still thinks he did the right thing.
If I had to add one to the list it would be Dark Age of Camelot with their Atlantis expansion. They dropped a huge load of players in the 6 months after the expansions release. When you make a small subset of the playerbase godly in a pvp game it tends to irritate most of the rest.
Easily, this genre of gaming is full to overflowing with scum and villainy. (notice the little jab there people)
2 others worth a mention are AC2 and Auto Assault. Microsoft really blew it with AC2 before it was turned back over to Turbine but by then it was pretty much over, sad days.
I agree AC2 should definitely make this list for releasing an expansion just before closing up shop.
Good list, highlighting a lot of what I think is wrong in the MMO industry. Fortunately there are some success stories to offset these disasters.
With the SWG thing, I think the real burn about the expansion was that it advertised features that the NGE would then delete; and the NGE was announced the day after the expansion went live and all Visa pre-orders were considered "final" (if memory serves). That brought about accusations of bait and switch, misleading adverstising, fraud etc. You see they had just had two stratics chats all about the new expansion, and never once mentioned the upcoming entire game revamp. Many of the features in the expansion were designed for professions that the NGE very simply deleted from the game entirely. People started talking to state attorney general's and discussing legal action on the main forums. This was promptly followed by the massive refund campaign for anyone who bought the expansion.
SOE and LA have denied intentionally misleading people. They say they simply had "bad communication." I think a lot of people feel that despite the mass exodus, SOE and LA should have been held even more accountable for what appeared to be false advertising. They may have refunded money for the expansion, but many people also paid for more subscription time to use the expansion. Some report getting refunds for this; others say they tried and were turned down. There was no official subcription refund campaign like there was for the cost of the expansion. Also, in the stratics chats preceding the NGE, SOE and LA promised revamps to specific professions that the NGE then deleted. Again, people paid for more subscription time in light of these promises.
I think if SOE and LA would have given subscription refunds as well, (for all time extending beyond NGE day) a lot of the ire would have died down ages ago. Unfortunately, it seems they wanted to hang onto all the subscription cash that people paid for things promised and not delivered. It also didn't help that LA and SOE reps told players that the NGE was being "well received" when everyone could see this was absolutely not the case.
Furthermore, Smed asked the community for feedback about the NGE. When we answered, even if we did so honestly and respectfully (many of us were respectful even though we were angry), we got moderated to death. Posts were moved, edited, deleted, and people were banned.
I agree AC2 should definitely make this list for releasing an expansion just before closing up shop.
Dang, you had to remind me
I bought the expansion and 2 days later the closing notice was sent.
Don't get me going on what I think about what SOE and LA did to SWG. I loved the game at start till they did the CU then the NGE. I am still mad enough that I do not let an Sony or LA product in the house.
I think on HM should go to a little known game named Masters of Orion 3 that tried to be a MOO but was so bad that the game maker Quicksilver stopped supporting it and took down thier web site within 30 days of release. Way to go Quicksilver, up to that time MoO 1 and 2 were great games and many people bought 3 expecting IP named game to be enjoyable too.
Wow I thought I followed MMO's but I can honestly say I've only ever heard of ONE of these "epic fail" games. Seriously only SWG (which I was a beta and early subscriber of) I know a thing about.
Just goes to show how much crap is really out there.
Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby)
Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks
Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six.
Tried: Too many to list
One of the better editorials I've read, and is definately a fun topic. As for SWG, I left when WoW was released and all I really need to say about it is if they would have continued to develop the sandbox content rather than make wow in space, I'd probably be resubscribed. SWG is what I most closely relate to the saying "you don't know what you got until it's gone". Most people today can't experience a good sandbox when they get sick of wow, so they don't even have any comprehension of the sandbox concept.
I remember DnL, and particularly remember how Settlers of Genaroth was sold out (10k keys) in about 30 seconds. So many people wanted to try that game, and it was such a train wreck lol. In hindsight, I'm very glad I didn't get in sog. As for the rest, all I can say is thank goodness I didn't try them out. However, RYL made me lol. I can only imagine the hackfest their game turned into after offering a million (!!!) dollar prize.
this just goes to show you should do your homework and look into the company making the game. if it's some no-name company then don't trust much of what they say. look around you... if Guild Wars is doing tournaments for only 100 grand, how the heck do you think some no-name company is going to do them for a million? get real... people in general are way to gullible.
and it's just real sad of what SOE done with SWG. that is the first instance in history that a major company pulled the wool over everyone's eyes time and time again to simply try and make something that makes money because they can careless about their players... they have shown their true colors and not many care anymore. They wanted to ride the WoW band wagon, but it had already rolled through. But that's all good, i'll never play anything from SOE ever again.
What's odd is RYL showed up in the "in development" hype listing on the front page with an 8.60 rating. lol the thing is that game isn't in development, and is not even listed here as far as I know.
Once AC2 turned out to be nothing like my favorite game, AC, I actually followed a link that was posted on the official AC2 forum for this new game called Realms of Torment.
I followed the game faithfully for 2 years. I was one of the first people on the forums, part of the old guard, as it were, and was one of the more active members on the forum.
The liaison to the players was this guy who went by Tiamat/Adonis... his real name was Dan Antonescu. After there was some sort of legal kerfluffle over the name Realms of Torment, they changed the game's title... to Mourning.
Yep... the game I so faithfully followed for two years turned out to be Mourning. The #1 most infuriating MMO of all time, according to the list.
What a suckfest.
--------
"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
That was my bad. In my research, I accidentally re-activated the old listing.
Jon
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
That was my bad. In my research, I accidentally re-activated the old listing.
Jon
Ah, that makes sense.
Good to see some good stories I haven't heard and of course a good ol' SOE classic
Good list, should make it a top 10...or maybe even expand it to a list of infuriating game features(?)
The Chronicle - Great call on TC. I hope the decision making baboons over at Rapid Reality are living in a cardboard box somewhere in Atlanta...though I doubt it, since the owner of the company built its foundation with Daddy's money.
Dark and Light - Though I never wanted to play D&L, I still totally agree with its ranking. Save for the NGE, never before in all my years of following pretty much every MMO game in development had I seen such a shitstorm as the one created by these clowns. I'm still picking the kernels out of my teeth from all the popcorn I ate while reading the forums during that fiasco.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
It was a good read, thank you
Now you could make it for games that didn't 100% fail, games that still thrive to exist but with infuriating features. You had a lot of examples in this very forum.
Personnal example: Warhammer Online and the complete lack of balance (where the game is supposed to be a RvR type of PvP game), end-game is mostly PvE (when the game is advertised as the best PvP games evar), end-game PvP is an AoE and CC feast that is unplayable and/or completly unfun and the real end-game is actually starting alts over and over again until you don't have character slots left and you start the other faction on another server just to go on and do the same thing.
I love the game, I really want to play it, I'm still paying for it! but I just can't put myself to log in 'cause I know I'll be swearing in the 10 minutes max heh. (unless I start a new alt... yeah!)
Those are decent choices... but I can think of a few more for that list... WWII Online being one of them.
It had probly one of the most laughable launches in gaming history.... the game was in "beta" for almost a year. Then when it was finally pay to play, the product was still far from what was promised on the box, or even in the manual for the game. And 8 years after the launch it still doesnt have many of those features. Its sad that that game had so much potential that was held back by the arrogance of a few of its development team.
So much crap, so little quality.
I've played several MMOs over the years. Fortunately, I managed to avoid all of the epic fails on the list. My biggest disappoints, as I've seen mentioned by a few other posters, were Earth and Beyond and Vanguard. EnB was such a fun game, with a great community, until EA destroyed it. Vanguard just had tons of potential, but fell far short and was an utter disappointment.
SWG to me should be number 1. I will never forget what SOE and Lucas Arts did to a game that was intense. Devs were working on the NGE in secret and devs quit after the NGE. Then they blew the entire community off and fixed the NGE 2 years later after the release of the NGE. Just because they thought they could get WoW numbers....no one can get wow numbers. All these companies are smoking the wacky green dollars. SOE will always be my number one "Pricks R US" award billboard for all to read...forever! LOL
I've played some Faild games in my time, lucky to say i havent played any of these. It's amazing to see just how bad bad can get on the way of faild MMO's.