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Biggest Failure or most dissapointing MMORPG's
Zippy
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,412
This list is not based on which games were the worst game but which games wasted their potential the most.
1. SWG This game could have a smaller version of what WoW is today. SoE refused to listen to beta testers and make a fun and enjoyable game. Rather they focused their energies on hype and marketing with little if any desire to make a fun game. SWG had the potential to expand and broaden the MMORPG base like no other game until the release of WoW. Instead all they ended up releasing was a glorified chatroom for Star Wars Geeks. It did not become a game until much later. Unfortuntaly it appears they killed that game later on.
2. DnL See below
3. Shadowbane A huge fan base and a good initial start. Shadowbane was the fastest game ever to reach the 100k subscriber mark until SWG. The first 4 weeks of release was much better than anticipated. But thats when the technical problems set in. The lag and crashes made this game unplayable. Lag, crashes, easy leveling curve, and lack of challenging pve combat killed this game off quite fast. The game had a great class advancement system. Class abilities were well thought out. People wanted to play this game. It could have truly been a huge hit with better design and better stability.
4. Horizons A big, devoted and understanding fanbase along with a phenomally well done crafting system. This game could have been a very big game. Many boxes were sold the first few weeks but within months almost everyone left this game including the devs which had massive layoffs followed eventually by bankruptcy. Combat was bad, laggy and just not fun.
5. EQ2 It could have been a huge game if they waited another 6 months to release this game. They seemed more concerned with gettting the game released before WoW than making a fun game. Like all SoE games they didn't listen to their beta testers and focused on marketing first and everything else second. Its playerbase seems to be barely hanging on. Many will be moving to Vanguard if turns out to be good or the next decent game thast comes along.
5. AC2 I barely beta tested AC2 and while it played smoothly for me it just wasn't any fun to play. I have played worse games than AC2 but given it was a sequel it should have been a lot better. I never gave AC2 a shot in beta or know enough about it to comment on its failures but there is no denying it could have been a huge game.
Where does DnL rank on this list. I would move them to second. Quality wise they are by far the worst game on this list. Most experienced gamers expected very little from DnL but no one expected the game to be this bad or incomplete. But what should move to DnL to 2nd was the potential of their fanbase and of their world. People have been waiting for a good pvp game they can call home. Besides DAOC there is nothing out there. If they made even a mediocre game it would have been a huge success. The world is also beaultiful and of immense potential for harvesting, pvp and pve. All wasted. DnL appears to be dead. It has the worst combat of any game I have played and in its present state it is more incomplete and lacking than any game in any stage of development I have seen. Its fanbase once its strength has deserted the game and moved on. The community once mature and welcoming has become the worst of any games fanbase. At best if it releases it might compete with Irth Online for meager scraps but it will never come close to reaching its potential.
Its just a shame this game is so bad. All they had to do was make a mediorce game to succeed. Many people would have been happy to wait if they thought the game could be fixed in time. But what we saw in SoG was about as the worst we have ever seen from any game ever developed. Just very sad.
I wonder which game will next be added to this list. LOTR has great potential to make this list. STO is years away but certainly is a contender on name alone.
Comments
Another good post. I just need to make an observation though.
SoG must have really hit a raw nerve with you. It's sad that Farlan have been so rubbish regarding communication with the community.
It occurs to me that if Farlan had said,
"Sorry for the time taken to get to this stage people, but we're so small that this is as far as we've got. We will implement all what we say and some. A Lot has already been hardcoded and the code needs to be added but for now we just need to look at basic content and we'll add stuff as we go along. Just be patient and you can help us by playing this game. Think of it as a prelude to a beta/stress test. Thank you
"
A lot of griefing would have been saved. Now I'm not saying this is the case, I don't know what's going on, who does apart from Farlan themselves, but it's a shame that people like you and others I've been following have been so affected.
Oh well, I'm still part of that community, I'm in my late forties and I'll take being called a boi as a compliment. I like SoG still, been killing fairies this morning till the servers went down.
I'm following STO. Hopefully it wont join your list but here's to ya bro
Good post. Very close to my opinion on the mentioned games.
“Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”
― William S. Burroughs
Decent post on most aspects but you cannot possibly put DnL that high before its even launched... Wait until its released and has been going for a few months and then you can write something objective...
Yes SOG is a bit disappointing, but at the end of the day its not the finished game...To be fair the devs do seem to be making a concerted effort to resolve bugs etc tho. I think really they should never have bothered with SOG even though i'm quite enjoying the look at the game environment
Correct me If I'm wrong please but I've heard SoG is not DnL..Supposedly its a watered down version of DnL.. Is this true?
Personally after reading up on how highly anticipated DnL became,SoG ruined most of the communities faith on DnL because they heard rumors SoG is in fact DnL and not a watered down version of the game..
I see a rating as to how bad DnL is.. But If SoG is in fact not the complete version of DnL,how can anyone make that assessment on how bad DnL truly is if no one really knows for sure?
I'd still like to try out SoG if anyone wants to forward me the beta info
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
SoG is DnL
Except 4/5 the land is inaccesible, yet they haven't managed to populate 1/5 of it well yet.
That's what all the griefers are saying. Some point to version numbers and some say they've played the closed beta but can't say anything because of the NDA.
The thing is that the only people that can know with certainty are not saying or they have said and then the griefers call them liars. So all this is purely speculation. SoG is SoG and we'll see what DnL is when it's officially released
It is asking quite a lot for anyone to believe that Farlan would be dumb enough to release SoG to the community if they actually had something better to play. Essentially they would be driving away their playerbase and destroying all the hype associated with this game for no reason. The logical reason is they released SoG because its the best they have and they did not want to call it DnL as people then would lose all hope.
Originally posted by oakthornn
Correct me If I'm wrong please but I've heard SoG is not DnL..Supposedly its a watered down version of DnL.. Is this true?
Personally after reading up on how highly anticipated DnL became,SoG ruined most of the communities faith on DnL because they heard rumors SoG is in fact DnL and not a watered down version of the game..
I see a rating as to how bad DnL is.. But If SoG is in fact not the complete version of DnL,how can anyone make that assessment on how bad DnL truly is if no one really knows for sure?
I'd still like to try out SoG if anyone wants to forward me the beta info
Valid point about rating the game before it is released. I can't argue with you much on this but I can give you my point of view. My view is that DnL will not be released for a long time if it is ever released. If they do release a slightly modified version of what they have now in April or whenever it won't matter as the damage has already been done. The hype of this game peaked in December and thats when it mades its big fall. A release whenever it is will only be anti-climatic as the fanbase has already left. Maybe thats not fair to judge a game before its release but MMORPG fans are a fickle lot who generally won't give a game a second chance. My argument is then that the games reputation is not fixable. People have moved on and the potential has already been lost.
That's what all the griefers are saying. Some point to version numbers and some say they've played the closed beta but can't say anything because of the NDA.
The thing is that the only people that can know with certainty are not saying or they have said and then the griefers call them liars. So all this is purely speculation. SoG is SoG and we'll see what DnL is when it's officially released
not to continue the flames here, but the devs did post long before release of SoG that SoG IS a water down version of DnL, you can say water down means old code, but as a dev, I can tell you what it means. Not finished. So to a point , you can say "well then lets see what happens" true enough, u can wait, but for those of us that have seen, it's the point of "there is no way on earth they will even get this close to running in a decent amount of development time" how can we say this? look at what the devs say all the time... "we have a small team" "we are working franticly to get thing implimented" etc etc, this games engine is just like 3 others and I don't even need to name them, because those of us suckered into those titles can see the exact engine in this title along with those. Killer is, the rights to this engine should have been kept were it was initially sold. In the college it was given too and those guys from that college should never develop a game on their own with no experiance.
But eh, one to their own, they want to do so, let them, I for one along with others have learned our lesson on these fly by night companies. Seeing is beleiving at this point and no words can change it.
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
I think even the fanbois of this game realise that chances are, it's not coming out in April. If you've been following this game for any length of time then you'll know that Farlan has never stuck to a deadline in the history of this game. Why should April be any different. But you know what? What's left of us are willing to wait just to see what DnL will turn out like. That's if it's released at all
I respect your opinion. But that's all it is. I hope you find a game that satisfies you.
Good hunting
Not to be a stickler here but this is not you're argument or hasn't been. I'm trying to see where you're coming from on this point considering you're previous posts. The main thrust of your arguments have been this is a crap game how could anyone like it? Or am I wrong?
While it's true that SoG is a "watered down" verison of DnL, I still think that SoG was a huge mistake.
Let's face it, most of the people who sign up for an open beta are there just to see how good the game is and if they should buy it or not. That's probably what most people expected when going into SoG. SoG is pretty much an open beta, so people expected a near-complete game.
It might be hard for DnL to make a come back and have a decent release with the reputation they are getting at the moment.
These are not facts. They are opinions and it may be asking a lot but some will still hope.
What if you found out that Farlan was in fact a bunch of schoolboy gamers that have a dream that they want to see through to the end and that all that's gone before is pure inexperience. Yeah I know that's asking way much but still, it may be due to lack of experience.
I can only guess as can anyone else
Not to be a stickler here but this is not you're argument or hasn't been. I'm trying to see where you're coming from on this point considering you're previous posts. The main thrust of your arguments have been this is a crap game how could anyone like it? Or am I wrong?
I am not sure what you mean. The poster I replied to made a good point about my list including DnL prior to its release. I expalined why I included it on the list as I felt irreversable damage already has been done to the fanbase. There are no arguments there that I have not included in other posts. But it explains why I included DnL on the list. Its quite debateable and subjective as to whther DnL should be on that list. It really comes down to whether or not you believe the damage that has been done to the game is reversable.
The whole list is highly subjective and in retropsect probably a pretty worthless post. As I am not sure there is much to debate as its really just one persons list. So many different games could have been included. For example, I thought about putting Wish on the list but I never thought it had the potential that DnL had to reach such a large audience. I am sure everyones list would be entirely different. Rather than creating discussion the post probably served more to create confusion.
Originally posted by pcnut
These are not facts. They are opinions and it may be asking a lot but some will still hope.
No they are not facts but it is probably the most logical theory and conclucion we have to explain what we are seeing in SoG and what we have seen from Farlan prior to SoG. It explains why Farlan has been so secreteive andreleased such little information about the game as there was none to release. It is consistent with all we have heard from beta tester leaks. It explains the pay now play later pre-order. It explains the unprofessional business pratices of NP3. It is consistent that NP3's previous lies. It is supported by the beta version number matching up with the sog client number. It is the best conclusion we can make. Can you explain things any better? Is there a reason besides blind faith and hope we should think that SoG and DnL are different? Is there any reason to believe the existence of a hidden miracle build is any different than the other miracle builds we were promised in other failing games betas that never materialized?
In reality, you dont need to always wait for the results to come out. Mostly, you judge a situation from facts, past results and tracked records. And you *know* what *chances* are.
Well, you may actually put it in an alternative way, that is, what facts, what past results and what track records make you so optimistic about this game. Weighing all these in 2 possible alternatives may help better in evaluating the situation.
If you cant say you are optimistic about this game, what's your stance then? More importantly, what's your point in questioning others estimation which is based as honestly as possible on reachable facts, outcomes by far and tracked records.
But if you always need to wait for an outcome to be sure, that's your choice.
The argument "SoG is not DnL" plays the trick of "before you know for sure that SoG is DnL, SoG shall not be used to judge DnL". This is very misleading, SoG atleast is a claimed to be completed product produced and definitely is a *tracked record* or *past result* of the company and it definitely can be used for the evaluation of the company's capability in crafting DnL, and more, SoG is definitely literally and technically related to DnL, as the so-called *prelude* of DnL. To me, it's quite accurate to assume that both SoG and DnL sharing the same server architecture and game core, thus it's readyness definitely reflects the readiness of DnL. To say "SoG is not DnL" is thus an attempt to invalidate this reflection.
The only hope is, even the best estimation may not necessarily be the outcome. The company may still manage to produce a good DnL and on time, it's one of the bets, not the best bet thou (the best wish that is).