You know how it goes. You hear about a great idea for an MMO -- perhaps based on a book, movie, or game you loved. You devote time and effort to following forums, reading up on developer notes, and trying to get into the beta. But somehow, the idea translates poorly. Even if it's a good solid MMO, it just doesn't click with you for some reason. Or maybe they looked at the source story/information and then ran screaming in the totally wrong direction with the game's storyline.
Personally, such was the case for me with The Matrix Online. I remember chasing every scrap of information I could get about it, watching videos and all of that. I did manage to make it into the beta, and what I saw there both exhilarated me and saddened me. The game was so very cool looking. The ability to decompile items into code and recompile the code bits into other items struck me as being perfect for someone truly aware that they are living in the world of MxO. But despite all the things I loved about it, I just couldn't handle the combat system; I'd describe it as rock-paper-scissors with Bullet Time. I understand they've since reworked it, and I'll probably give it a try again before long knowing how much I love MMOs. Of course, I'd counter with the fact that had they just used a more traditional MMO combat system from the word go, I'd probably never have left in the first place.
How about you? Were there any games that you were excited about but just didn't work out for you? What things about them made you step back? What would you change if you could?
Reader Comments (10)
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 9:29AM (Unverified) said
I actually really loved MxO. I was in the beta, preordered it, played for like the first month. I actually enjoyed the combat system, it was a little simple but the animations I thought were really cool. The events were fun two, getting to see Morpheus in game and have him being controlled by another person was fun. The problem I had with the game was that there just wasn't a lot to do. You have intrigued me though and I am tempted to see if they have a free trial
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 9:39AM PlasticSpork said
Anarchy Online and Shadowbane were two that didn't work well for me. The former because it had the worst launch of an MMO ever (first impressions are important) and the latter because it was just a poor game: movement was done solely with a mouse, the graphics were poor despite it being a resource hog.
I retried AO when it became free, but it seemed to look even worse than I remember.
I retried AO when it became free, but it seemed to look even worse than I remember.
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 9:52AM (Unverified) said
City of Heroes rollout of Enhancement Diversification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Heroes#Criticism) ruined the game for me. ED completely changed the way CoH was played, it was as if the whole game was completely rewritten overnight. I used to say that it wasn't really diversification, but homogenization. Everyone had to enhance their powers in exactly the same way due to the diminishing returns of the ED system. How was it diversification if everyone ended up being the same?
I had been playing for over a year, and I was on the verge of paying for an annual subscription instead of paying month-to-month. I stuck around for a little while, but I cancelled my acount in disgust. I don't even login during CoH free playtime events.
After the ED debacle, I distrust MMO publishers so much that I will never pay for more than 1 month of game time for any game, ever.
I had been playing for over a year, and I was on the verge of paying for an annual subscription instead of paying month-to-month. I stuck around for a little while, but I cancelled my acount in disgust. I don't even login during CoH free playtime events.
After the ED debacle, I distrust MMO publishers so much that I will never pay for more than 1 month of game time for any game, ever.
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 11:34AM (Unverified) said
For this answer I have to go old school to the EQ expansion, Shadows of luclin. Everyone that played EQ was looking forward to it and I remember when it came out you had to immediately get a CPU upgrade and it pretty much crashed everyones computer for the first couple of weeks. I quickly began to say to hell with this and parted ways until lost dungeons of norrath came out.
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 2:37PM (Unverified) said
I've had a few MMO's not click for me, but I think the one that surprised me the most was City of Heroes. As a big comic book fan and a long-time player of Champions (pen-n-paper RPG), everything about CoH appealed to me. I bought the game, played with different characters, and was happily hooked.
The honeymoon lasted about 2 months, after which the game became incredibly repetative and (for me at least) generally boring. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed.
The honeymoon lasted about 2 months, after which the game became incredibly repetative and (for me at least) generally boring. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed.
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 3:08PM (Unverified) said
SHADOWBANE!
Posted: Nov 18th 2007 5:27PM (Unverified) said
I agree completely about MxO. I was following it intensely because I thought that it had to be the best MMO due to the possibilities and the unique style compared to generic fantasy MMOs. Sadly, I never ended up even paying for 1 month, I canceled after my initial free month.
Another that would fall into line with that for me would be Vanguard. I am a EQ veteran from 1999, so needless to say I thought with all of the ideas they planned for Vanguard that it would have to be amazing. It would have been so, if half of what they planned would have been implemented at all, and if the other half that they managed to implement actually worked. The EXP loss in that game is drastic when you take a death. Sure, I was used to the same thing in EQ but Vanguard was so unfinished and buggy, that I could only handle so many AI glitch deaths that would set me back hours of grinding exp. The loot system was boring and dull as well.
After Vanguard I have kind of been disenchanted from getting sold on MMOs too early. I plan on checking out Age of Conan as well as Warhammer, but Im going to let the chips fall this time instead of banking on the success of incomplete products.
Another that would fall into line with that for me would be Vanguard. I am a EQ veteran from 1999, so needless to say I thought with all of the ideas they planned for Vanguard that it would have to be amazing. It would have been so, if half of what they planned would have been implemented at all, and if the other half that they managed to implement actually worked. The EXP loss in that game is drastic when you take a death. Sure, I was used to the same thing in EQ but Vanguard was so unfinished and buggy, that I could only handle so many AI glitch deaths that would set me back hours of grinding exp. The loot system was boring and dull as well.
After Vanguard I have kind of been disenchanted from getting sold on MMOs too early. I plan on checking out Age of Conan as well as Warhammer, but Im going to let the chips fall this time instead of banking on the success of incomplete products.
Posted: Nov 19th 2007 3:01AM (Unverified) said
World of Warcraft. Not to say I didn't enjoy it when I first played it, I did very much so. However, when Blizzard first announced it, I had hoped it would be some some crazy sort of Mmorts.
As for true disgust that would go to Vanguard. Brad McQuaid hyped the game to impossible expectations and bailed on the development team towards the end -- lame. When I first played Vanguard I felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. That's the last time I follow the game through the "official" forum community two years prior to launch.
As for true disgust that would go to Vanguard. Brad McQuaid hyped the game to impossible expectations and bailed on the development team towards the end -- lame. When I first played Vanguard I felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. That's the last time I follow the game through the "official" forum community two years prior to launch.
Posted: Nov 20th 2007 2:52PM (Unverified) said
Star Wars Galaxies.... I really hope all this Bioware MMO stuff pans out. I would love to see a good Star Wars MMO.
Posted: Nov 21st 2007 6:11AM (Unverified) said
I felt the same - once I tried the beta I got over it very quickly. Before that I dug up every bit of information I could about anything Matrix. I guess I had never used an MMO game previously but I thought the matrix might be different..







