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The Daily Grind: What's your briefest MMO dalliance?

by Eliot Lefebvre on Jun 24th 2010 8:00AM

There are some games that we play for months on end and never even bat an eye at the timing. And then there are games that we are given for free and never pick up after two days of play, even if we have no particular reason for leaving them behind. Usually we talk about the games that suck us in and transport us to a new realm, but it's wrong to ignore the games that don't make it very far out of the shrink-wrapped bundle.

Maybe you always wanted to like City of Heroes, but after four trials that didn't grab you it just wasn't worth the effort. Maybe you had pre-ordered Star Trek Online and decided after the pre-order early launch that you didn't actually want to play it any longer. Or perhaps you'd played on World of Warcraft for one night, then heard about the endgame and walked right back out without looking back. What game has had the shortest lifespan for you as an active player? If it was a game that you did pay for, did you do anything to try and recoup the loss?

Tags: abandoned-games, city-of-heroes, coh, cost, opinion, personal-history, play, playtime, short, short-playtime, star-trek-online, sto, tdg, the-daily-grind, world-of-warcraft, wow

Reader Comments (82)

I got into the beta for Star Trek Online. After about 30 minutes, I hated it and uninstalled. Also, countless free MMO's have only last a short while on my hard drive.

Always trust your instincts.

Seconded.

Darkfall - 0 days. I REALLY REALLY tried to buy it but Aventurines most r*t***ed online shop just didn't want me to purchase it. I gave up after a few weeks.
EQ - 1 day. the thing just didn't want to run on my PC.
AC - 1 1/2 days. couldn't get used to the gfx.
Fallen Earth - 1 week. LotRO kept me busy. I might still come back one day...
DAoC - 4 weeks in US beta. Was just too level/grind based to pry me away from UO.
STO - 4 weeks. blame LotRO again...

Mortal Online, but that could be more to technical problems than actual dislike for game-play. I may try it with a better rig, but who knows.

WoW. Played for about an hour with my brother and cousin, then realized I hated it already.

When a new MMO comes out, I usually pick it up and try it to see if I like it. So I bought DDO, STO, LotRO, and FE when they came out, but they couldn't grab me past the initial first month, and I couldn't see paying two subs as I was still addicted to WoW.

Today is a different story. I've put WoW, gone through my withdrawal and survived, and am currently back to playing LotRO waiting for the day it goes Flex pay and waiting for the new round of MMOs to give them a try.

Sword of the New World.

Worst. MMO. Ever. (That I've tried anyway.)

Played about an hour hoping against hope things'd get better. They didn't. :(

Runes of Magic. After installing it, I played that for like 5 minutes, no joke. I was looking for a good free-to-play alternative to WoW, and RoM was not it. I closed the game and un-installed it.

Same with me. Played RoM long enough to get an elf to level 10; realized I just spent a few hours running around talking to NPC's, picking up driftwood and mushrooms; quit the game.

Fallen Earth. I desperately wanted to like it, as I loved the setting. But you can't have a shooter, or even a kind of shooter, with such horribly unpolished controls. The bizarre animations didn't help any.

Dungeons & Dragons Online. I wanted to like it and gave it a couple of tries (before it became ftp) but that hokey voiceover, the sardine can feeling to the world, the terrible character models.

I only made it out of the starter area once and was in a group with a giggly high school teacher complaining about her students and flirting with the two guys in the group who sounded not far from that age. Poke my eyes out and get me outta there...agh.

I would just describe the game as cheesy. Bleh.

Not that this is anything that should change an opinion, just information... the voiceover in the early part of DDO is Gary Gygax himself.

@Salaryn--

I, too, wanted to like DDO, but, like you, I could NOT get past the ugly character models, the dismal henchman AI, and the (imo) clunky combat.

If this game had had purchasable (yes, in the cash shop) AI companions of the caliber of the Heroes in Guild Wars, i.e., henchies who were customizable and with better controls, and if they spruced up the look of the character models, I might be tempted to give the game another go.

As it is, however, DDO was a big disappointment. As an F2P, they came sooo close to the mark, too. :(

Vanguard - Just horrendous animations so... Bye bye right away.

I pre-ordered STO which gave me access to the open beta and the headstart program. I played for about 7-10 days total and quit before I had to enter my retail key and returned the pre-order copy to Best Buy before opening it. The game thoroughly bored me.

STO. I pre-ordered it through play.com. After jumping into the early access I cancelled the pre-order an havnt looked back.

Champions online was another. I really enjoyed the early access. The full game however didn't arrive ontome for launch and as I had to wait I lost interest so never played it.

Eve Online. Learning curve was/is too much for me, or maybe i'm just not good with 3d flight battle...

there's also a bunch of free mmo that didnt last long on my computer, but i wouldnt really call those mmo anyway.

Alot of MMO's have been uninstalled within an hour after trying for me.

Fallen Earth is one I keep installing to try. On paper it's exactly what I'm looking for, but when it comes down to game play I just can't seem to stick with it. I think it a combination of poor graphic design, animations, disconnected combat, and the over abundance of gathering for crafting.

Luna- I installed the game and deleted it during character customization

Lineage II, less than 10 minutes. Created a character, logged in, stepped out of town, got ganked by a level *ridiculously high*, said "f' this crap", deleted the game and has hated PVP ever since.

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The Daily Grind: What's your briefest MMO dalliance?

Reader Comments (82)

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:05AM Bartlebe said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:27PM Graill440 said

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Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:09AM Gishboy said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:15AM Darkdust said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:17AM Ocho said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:33AM Tom in VA said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:34AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:45AM Wisdomandlore said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:51AM Salaryn said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 2:20PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 2:53PM Tom in VA said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:56AM Deadalon said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 9:04AM ysrossko said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:58AM Exalier said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 8:59AM Enkiel said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 9:01AM Bueno said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 9:08AM Williwaw87 said

Posted: Jun 24th 2010 9:12AM Arkanaloth said

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