The Daily Grind: Which MMO doesn't get the respect it deserves?

City of Heroes. Back when GW2 first started talking about how it was doing away with the trinity, people were flipping out talking about how this was so unprecedented and arguing over it was even possible. City of Heroes has been doing fine for ages with groups that disobey the trinity. Plus you can actually play a "support" character in CoH, not just a heal spammer. You can do whatever content you want and be challenged, not be forced into doing "endgame" content only if you want to be rewarded. So many things people complain about are things that CoH has taken care of, and it's a shame that it doesn't have more players than it does.


Honorable mention would be DCUO. I see people going on all the time about how TERA is so innovative for being the first "true action MMO." Admittedly I haven't played TERA at all so maybe I'm missing something huge, but DCUO absolutely is an "action MMO," and a fun one at that. I'd say the biggest problem with it is that the UI is terrible to work with on a keyboard and mouse. The game really shines if you use a 360 controller or something.

I agree with a ton of others. Vanguard really never got the respect it deserved. For how disappointingly buggy it was (it was an absolute wreck at launch, which is a damn shame), the game did a TON of awesome stuff. Prior to, say, Guild Wars 2, its easily one of the most revolutionary/evolutionary big title MMO's to come out since WoW. There are SO many amazing features in the game that I wish had trickled out to other games. But sadly, the insanely botched launch doomed the game to remain in the shadows in maintenance mode.

Hopefully the F2P relaunch (super stoked about it) can turn things around and get the game the respect it deserves.

After that vote massively just had I'd have to say definetly AC, and not by the devs but by the MMO genre.

AC was never highly advertised, it was a "Ohh I saw the box and tried it out" or "A friend told me about it". Because of that it never became as known as EQ and UO. That has always kept it under the radar despite the fact that it has had over 12 years of monthly content and continues to expand and improve.

Star Wars Galaxies, pre-CU. 'nuff said

I'm probably not going to get much agreement on this, but I'm going to go with Star Trek Online.

Yes, it has it's issues. What game doesn't? A rocky and bare-bones start, varying levels of quality on missions, uninspired PVP, the Great Content Draught of 2011, a controversial move to an almost Asian-style F2P model... but I enjoy it still.

First, when the game gets it right, it gets it *right*. There are several missions - many from the Foundry UGC toolset, but a couple from the devs themselves as well - that feel like they escaped from the hard drive of a Star Trek writer. Ship-to-ship combat is a hell of a lot of fun. And the staff, I think, get bashed a lot for what the game doesn't have, and nowhere near the credit they deserve for making the game what it is with, as of the beginning of the year, just a 25-man team. That is MINISCULE in the MMO world, but it seems that Cryptic's hiring team manages to find multiple real-world versions of Montgomery Scott himself.

Again, it's not a perfect game. No MMO is, and the dev team that isn't working to improve something or create something new is the one that's getting laid off. But I think Star Trek Online doesn't get near the credit it's due, especially given how many people I've seen in the game that have said that they never played an MMO before - they play because it's Star Trek.

Warhammer, to this day its still the best mmo for pvp.

Every mmo out there but WoW probably.

For me RIFT and Vanguard would probably be the underated games. Vanguard for all the reasons others have stated and RIFT for how far it has come since launch. It has a decent population, and has grown a bit recently but I think I deserves more for the small inovations it has brought to MMO's. I have never felt a company as justified to charge me $15 a month (less cause I have multi-month sub) as TRION.

WOW/SWTOR etc have no excuse in this day and age if they can't keep up content development like TRION can in my opinion. Both Bioware and Blizzard are bigger then TRION so you would expect them to atleast have a similar work output if not more.

Warhammer Online, that game was phenomenal and it just died a very slow painful death, probably one of the most painful I have seen a AAA MMO die.

Hello Kitty Online!!!!!





;p

Face of Mankind
Sure it has its problems, the dev and community management teams don't contain any super stars and it has a notorious community but there is really no other game out there like it. It combines MMO, FPS and political elements in a way nobody else has been able to. Its the only truly sandbox mmo out there and while this incredible level of player freedom can cause community issues it can also be one of the most interesting gaming experiences possible if you have the sack to stick it out.

You can play free or pay premium for extra features, it also features an item shop (mostly full of dumb crap). Check it out if you want a true MMOFPS, the community could use some fresh faces.

FFXIV. The game has made massive strides forward, has an update frequency that surpasses Rift, and has a bright future ahead of it. Too many people seem to overlook that, plus the ways in which it proves itself different from the standard modern MMO, and yet continue to lament the lack of games breaking away from the mold.

Hopefully there will be some real willingness in the community to give the game a second chance with 2.0.

I have never heard anyone refer to Vanguard as a themepark designed MMO.
I suspect the author doesn't know what they are talking about.