What if...? Ten canceled MMOs that could've changed history

by Justin Olivetti on Jun 10th 2010 10:00AM

Fantasy, Sci-fi, Super-hero, MMO industry, Browser, MMOFPS

What if...? Some of the most intriguing questions known to mankind start with those two words, as well as the most maddening. What if...? An entire genre known as "alternate history" is derived from these questions, with scholars and average blokes alike speculating on what might have happened if things went just a little differently. What if Hitler got the bomb first? What if Microsoft developed the iPod instead of Apple? What if Abraham Lincoln decided to see a different play that night?

When it comes to MMORPGs, what if's can drive one up the wall. In this volatile genre, more projects have started, canceled, launched, struggled, faded and morphed into new creations than most of us know. Today, we want to look at 10 MMOs that were axed before their launch, 10 MMOs that could've changed gaming history as we know it... if only they got the chance to prove themselves.

Let's take a journey, you and I, through history itself, and ponder the greatest of questions: How would the MMO industry be different if these titles had made it to release? Click the first picture on the gallery below to start.

What if...? Ten canceled MMOs that could've changed history

Reader Comments (24)

I was excited for Middle Earth Online and Warhammer Online, they both got scraped and changed to be more like WoW and both are shit now because of it. I really loved the skill based ideas they have before and Warhammer Online felt dark like it is supposed to, rather than cartoony and WoW like. Again I really wanted to explore Middle Earth and be a normal person in it, I did want a movie tie in which ended up being a poor WoW clone.

I've played Gods and Heroes, but it got canned cause it was just crap. Noone really stuck around in the beta for long and it was zoning everywhere, not seamless like I love in a game world.

Tell you the truth though, none of them would have launched and been good, really worked out for the better that they got scraped... well apart from Lotro and WAR which launched and were still crap.

So games that you don't like are crap. Not just in your opinion, but as the universal truth. Got it.

Every game ever made will be a wow clone in some form. It's not like there is alot of innovation to be had in the genre.

They are ALL UO/EQ clones afterall.

Find an innovative reason to dislike games.

So I take it you never actually played LotRO as it's neither movie-in and nor a poor WoW clone.

While it takes some ideas from WoW, just as WoW took from many other games, it definitely has it's own feel. There is lot that differs LotRO from other MMOs, and while it may not be for you, does not necessarily mean it sucks.

People still fail to see the difference from generic concepts and ideas that all games take from each other, and what happened when WoW came out. In other words:

-WoW took the generic concept of a quest from single player RPGs to construct ITS OWN gameplay mechanic.

-Warhammer and LOTRO(among the others: AoC, Fallen Earth, STO, champions etc. etc.)took WoW's concept of quests and questing and used it in their games EXACTLY AS IT WAS.

didn't*

The turbine middle earth online (before lotro) would of been the best game ever.

You where spose to live a real life in the game, very sandbox.. not a themepark gear grind.
You could own land and be a farmer or open a shop and be a blacksmith.
It was spose to be a real sandbox world.. Everyone wasnt the hero everyone just lived in middle earth.

THen turbine failed and decided to make lotro like WoW...

Define failure for me please... LOTRO seems to be doing quite well in most respects (except maybe your expectations.)

Hmm, that MUO picture - is that actually from Cryptic's version or somewhere else?

Besides, do you know what would have been a more interesting "What if...?" - if Vivendi had gotten their Marvel Universe Online project out. Vivendi has the first exclusive 10 year Marvel deal back in 2002 and apparently tapped Wolfpack (of Shadowbane fame) to develop it. There was an early working build, but it seems that Blizzard was costing too much in the development of WoW and the MUO project stalled (Vivendi's financial problems and Shadowbane's own issues probably didn't help).

If it had all worked out, Vivendi may have ended up with both MUO and WoW.

Anyway, Marvel canned the deal and took it to Microsoft who in turn chose... Sigil, the MMO experts who were developing Vanguard. Seriously, Gargantuan is the fourth MMO developer to have the IP.

I remember being *REALLY* excited about TFLO, I was all lined up to get an Xbox Live account the day it was released....

...to this day, I don't have an Xbox Live account and have yet to find a reason to get one.

I was interested in and following the development of UO2, the (steampunk angle was interesting) Mythica and the earlier Warhammer. Very much liked the ideas behind Mythica, and the dark world of Warhammer (agree with Venekor above about the current version being too WoW-like and cartoony).

Microsoft has seriously dropped the ball - repeatedly...

I didn't see Gods and Heroes in there. Sure there is another company working on possibly making it again but the whole companion system Swotor is working on using is what they were doing first, with a whole camp you could grow, as well as town and cities and it was going to be HUGE in scale

Great feature, keep it up.

Whenever I see lists like that I want to scream "About about Hellgate!?"

I'm pretty sure it was designed to be a game that would appeal to everyone. Sci-fi, fantasy. Swords, guns. F2P, subscription. Single-player, MMO. RPG, FPS.

It had everything, except a competent person running it and endless amounts of money.

That said it is supposedly coming back with a competent dev team behind it so maybe it still can change history.

I played Gods and Heroes in it's closed beta. It got shut down for VERY good reasons. It wasn't executed very well.

That being said, Imperator is the one I read about and was like WHOA, that's a game that needs to be made. It's bold in its direction and it sounds awesome. Too bad Mythic scrapped it for Warhammer, which isn't a horrible game, but isn't really the best the genre can offer either. It seems Mythic was more interested in having a piece of the cash cow WoW had become, to the detriment of the game.

Not an Ultima Online fan, mostly due to not playing MMOs at that time, I am still very interested in seeing a 3D version of Ultima come out, perhaps by a completely different developer.

And, boy, did Microsoft really screw themselves, rofl. Typical really.

One MMO I was looking forward to that could have also "changed history" was Twin Skies by Meteor Games, headed by the former Neopets creators.

The part I was really looking forward was the seamless connectivity between the 2D browser world/games and the full 3D MMO, where they would both instantly influence each other. That technology looked real cool from the demos they showed.

Unfortunately, all mention of the project seems to be gone now. Last we heard from them, they said they were going to just focus on the 2D portion of the game, but then nothing from that ever really came and all we saw from them were just Facebook game knock-offs. Sad...

I wished DDO and LOTRO namely MEO were done by another company,I agree with the others that Turbine went the WoW way with LOTRO.

Vanguard is another game that doesn't deserved where it is right now but unfortunately it is.This game is the best PvE world in an MMO.But Sony don`t want competition to EQ2 so no real support from them.

What, no Privateer Online? :)

You mentioned Ultima Worlds Online Origin - but there was one I was looking forward to a lot that you didn't mention - Ultima X Odyssey.

I look and read about it and wish that would have came out. Maybe it obtained mythic status by not being released and letting people down, but it really seemed as if it was going to be an awesome game and had a lot of work done already towards completion.

Gods and Heroes was a very interesting concept, and I loved the mythology/ancient world MMO theme. I ma glad it is being brought back to life.

I am hoping that it will do what Guild Wars did so well and STO did so badly, allow players to control, configure, and customize a small team of NPCs.

The perfect MMO, in my opinion, is one that allows players to tackle the same content in a variety of ways: solo, in player teams, or solo + AI. G&H came close to that general design philosophy.

Among your canceled MMOs, I wish you had put in a good word for the canceled MMO Tabula Rasa -- a decent game that was badly mismanaged, poorly marketed, and never really given the chance it deserved. Why oh why didn't they give this game a F2P/microtransaction option?

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What if...? Ten canceled MMOs that could've changed history

What if...? Ten canceled MMOs that could've changed history

Reader Comments (24)

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 10:13AM Miffy said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 10:25AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Jun 10th 2010 3:09PM Loki1 said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 10:14AM Miffy said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 10:57AM bartillo said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:08AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:19AM UnSub said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:25AM Arkanaloth said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:31AM Saker said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:51AM Boruk said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 11:53AM Kinau said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 12:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 12:26PM elocke said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 1:24PM Nymo said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 2:58PM Valdur said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 3:27PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 4:54PM MewmewGrrl said

Posted: Jun 10th 2010 5:40PM Tom in VA said

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