List Five Cancelled MMO's you would play if they released them Today!

sludgebeard

*Cancelled meaning: In-Development or Post Launch Cancellation*

- The Following List was put Forth in an entirely arbitrary manner -

 

5. Tabula Rasa - Probably what I would consider the Sleeper hit of the List, Most MMO's I went into fully knowing what I was getting into, with TR that was defiently not the case. The game had some of the most impressive lore ive seen in an MMO to date, and although launching a buggy mess, it still provided hours of replability with unique enemy dropships landing across the maps, and enough room within the lore to Roleplay like hel and keep a sci-fi fantasy nerd like myself happy. What I thought would last me two weeks ended up lasting me over a year of on and off gameplay, and although it wasnt the biggest best MMO, it was a perfect mid-card game to keep you busy on a boring weekend.

 

4. Star Wars Galaxies - Although SWG was technically my first MMO, an undoubtly to this day still my favorite, I never stopped bitching about this game when it was out. Even before the NGE and the CU I complained about the laggy, buggy nature of the game, and the constant changes to secondary profession types like Chef, and Droid Engineer, that my early MMO youth was plagued with simply teling my friends what was wrong with the game. But as we mature so does our persepctive on things, and today I have nothing but found memories of SWG and a daunting sense of nostalgia anytime I see a screenshot or youtube vid from the original Star Wars Sandbox game. 

SWG gave me some of the happiest and I would say most elaborate memories of playing an MMO. Even the first few days I was in game were filled with intricate character developing stories made simply by me - the player and the community. From talking to a wanna-be dark jedi in the darkness of the cantina, to blowing up my former guild leaders swoop bike before being shot to the ground in front of my own house on tatooine, and even to just dancing in the forests of endor for some well-to-do patrons, SWG really did have something for everyone and is still a game I would pick up in a second if it was brought back to its former sandbox glory.

 

3. True Fantasy Live Online - This is probably the one on the list you havent ever heard of before. It was the first planned MMO for the Original Xbox, and it featured a awesome cel-shaded esque art style, mixed with some interesting kingdom features, and voice-char features which at the time sounded almost too good to be true. I remember having a Japenese friend who lived down the street from me whose brother was in the Japenese Beta (The US Beta would never see the light of day), I would sit with my friend for hours listening to all the crazy adventures his brother got into, reiterated from phone conversations they had and emails and before I had plaeyd everquest or any other fantasy MMO's I thought this one might be the one. I remember specifically enjoying the small details the game had: Like how the more food you ate, the more weight you gained which not only physically showed in game, but affected your stats as well making you more agile if you were thinner and more powerful if you were fat. Unfortunately, Microsoft couldnt come to an agreement on publishing rigts or some other lame excuse and the game was finally cancelled and never shown to the world of what it could have been.

 

2. City of Heroes - Ahh City of Heroes, my original "Fallback MMO" and coincidently one of my all time favorites. During one of my lull's from SWG I picked up City of Heroes and loved it simply for the fact that, and what is still true to this game, I never once had anything to complain about with COH. It released in what I would consider a excellently polished state, if you subscribed you got a monthly comic book alongside each update, relating to the content, and most importantly it was an MMO that was released Pre-WoW that wasnt fantasy. Not only did COH have awesome Co-operative play but it also had a mid-game built around grouping that has since been lost to the WoW clone Solo all content fad. In COH you needed a group past level 10, it wasnt impossible but it was strongly reccomended if you were going to get through the content and in a game that was all about what crazy suprhero combo and story someone could come up with next, I never once had a problem grouping up with a bunch of random caped heroes, ranging from "80's Hair Metal Guy" to "Sean Connery" to "The Atomic Wrestler". In COH everyone was involved in a strong community based aroun creation and fun and it payed off for them up until the game no longer was supported and was finally taken down.

 

1. Middle Earth Online/Star Trek Online (Perpetual Version) - I know this is kind of an odd mash up for my final cancelled MMO, two big IP - Based MMO's that original incarnations barely made it past the Alpha-Phase, but I do have a point. Both MEO and the original STO were what I call "Forum-Bound MMO's" as in, MMO's that never made it passed the stage of Glorified Idea. Lets look at each to see why I would give any value to either game,

MEO: Was originally intended as a more Somber-toned Lord of the Rings MMO, that had Evil and Good Alignments that determined classes, a heavy dungeon crawling element with destructible terrain, and strong sandbox elements like Player Housing, Open PVP, and a deep character creator that let you choose different backgrounds for each character to further their advancement past a simple class.

STO (Perpetual Version): Was shaping up to be the Star Trek Bridge Simulator game that everyones always wanted. In the few released screens we got an idea of what could be with a ship being run with an engineering officer doing mini-games to fix shields and divert power, and the idea of participating in a community aboard a live Star-Ship in a virtual space is an idea that still gives me tingles just thinking about it. 

 

So whats the final point here? No matter what spin Cryptic, or Turbine put on their games, I cant lead myself to believe their current versions of each game with their linear attitudes, and watered down versions of each IP would have been better than the more open and eleborate previous two versions that could have been. No one can say whether or not these games were cancelled or failed for a reason, but above all else the scary truth among all this is that being different DOESNT pay for an MMO. All of these MMO's I listed are as far from WoW as you can get without being Darkfall (No offense meant, just saying Darkfall is probably one of the lowest running unique sub based MMO's and its lucky it can still support itself). 

 

Still if any of these games were hear to day, I would install them in a second, because above all else, im an MMO Hobbyist and simply having a better array of options beyond the WoW-Clones and Themepark Knock offs would be a welcome return for me.

 

Feel free to post your own top five, and be as elaborate or as short as you want!

JeffSpicoli

Star Wars Galaxies

Motor City Online

The Matrix Online

Yeah thats about it, This is of course if they all had updated graphics and fixed various issues that eventually led to their demise.

AIMonster

None.  There are usually pretty good reasons they were cancelled.  Although I wouldn't play it, the only one I could think of that maybe deserves another chance is City of Heroes.

alakram

SWG.

spookydom

1 - SWG

2 - SWG

3 - SWG

4 - Dungeon Runners

5 - The Matrix Online

Nadia

1. Dungeon Runners  (mmo lite)

2. Tabula Rasa

3. City of Heroes

4. Earth and Beyond

5. SWG

Betaguy

Number 4 and 5 are the two I would play in a heartbeat.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by DMKano

I played them all. don't think I'd play any of them again for more than a couple of weeks.

As poster above said, these gamea shut down for a good reason.

Sure the novelty of having Tabula Rasa or SWG would be cool for a few days, but then the realization that all the broken design elements are still broken... yeah.

This is one of those things that sounds cool in theory, but does not translate to reality.

 

Same for me actually.  Even CoH.  I like that game but would only play a month or so at a time.

gotha

Star Wars Galaxy

Wish

Dark and Light *if launched right.

Ultima Online 2

Spellborn

Ice-Queen

None.

Vahrane

 Ultima Online 2. Mainly just for the motion capture combat.

describable

True Fantasy Live Online (TFLO), like Level-5 i still haven't forgiven Microsoft on this... one of the reasons i jumped ship from the original xbox to Sony.... that and the joke of bringing the 360 out without a HDD as standard, it was like going a step backwards... the power for the controller (seriously) and the amount of red lights didn't help their cause.

wouldn't touch a microsoft console again,  they just don't have a clue ....

 

this was back in 2002...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kInzteQhbf8

 

you can see where level-5 went with it afterwards using the upgraded engine based on this to create the white knight chronicles (shame they should have stuck to the MMO idea... the white knight chronicles like FF12 felt like an offline mmo)

 

 

I do miss a lot of games though - tabula rasa, auto assault (needed a relaunch and another faction) and others... 

mrrshann618

Only Two really

Tabula Rasa, - I'm sick of Fantasy games and it had some of the most interesting gameplay imho. You want to turn in quests, well make sure the bane didn't take out your outpost. Heck the only place really safe from bane attack was the primary zone. Outpost defense was simply awesome, especially if you logged out there only to log in to a bane controlled base

 

Earth and Beyond - Not sure what it is about this game, I think it was mostly due to the fact that  you did not need combat to level, you could simply mine, give tours, explore, or whatever to gain exp and levels.  Yeah I tried Eve (When it first came out), but for some reason it never clicked and I just simply didn't like it

Tibernicuspa

Originally posted by sludgebeard

1. Middle Earth Online/Star Trek Online (Perpetual Version) - I know this is kind of an odd mash up for my final cancelled MMO, two big IP - Based MMO's that original incarnations barely made it past the Alpha-Phase, but I do have a point. Both MEO and the original STO were what I call "Forum-Bound MMO's" as in, MMO's that never made it passed the stage of Glorified Idea. Not exactly accurate. MEO was developed for about 4 years, had a playable alpha, and trailers. Lets look at each to see why I would give any value to either game,

MEO: Was originally intended as a more Somber-toned Lord of the Rings MMO, that had Evil and Good Alignments that determined classes, a heavy dungeon crawling element with destructible terrain, and strong sandbox elements like Player Housing, Open PVP MEO was not open PvP, and a deep character creator that let you choose different backgrounds for each character to further their advancement past a simple class.

 

So whats the final point here? No matter what spin Cryptic, or Turbine put on their games, I cant lead myself to believe their current versions of each game with their linear attitudes, and watered down versions of each IP would have been better than the more open and eleborate previous two versions that could have been. No one can say whether or not these games were cancelled or failed for a reason, but above all else the scary truth among all this is that being different DOESNT pay for an MMO. Well I find it odd that you say that, given that SWG closed down as a direct result of trying to be LESS different. DAoC lost about 200k subs for the same reason. Most golden age MMOs lost huge chunks of their playerbase when the devs tried to be more like WoW.

Middle Earth Online would be at the top of my list. I got to play it briefly and it was, in its rough alpha state, far and away a better, more interesting game than LotRO. Many of LotRO's only good features (the music system, the morale system, the fellowship manuever system) are holdovers from MEO. And MEO's community was, bar none, the best online community I have ever been a part of. Turbine squandered that.

 

As for other games, I would have loved

Pre Trammel Ultima Online

Star Wars Galaxies (played it 3 times back when it was around, only thing keeping me away was the stupid Jedi system)

City of Heroes

aaaand Imperator. The PvE alternate history MMO that Mythic was developing.

GeezerGamer

I was looking forward to Dominus

Kaneth

Tabula Rasa is really the only one on the list I'd play.

It was a pretty neat game that didn't really get the support it needed. I think NCSoft gave up way too early on this one. Someone needs to take the idea and run with it.

Oziius

SWG

Shadowbane

 

That's all.

Kyleran

1) SWG - I think I should have made time to play this one.

2)  Earth and Beyond - Because I enjoyed EVE so much

3) UO 2 - because i missed the first one

4) Tabula Rasa - I really should have given this one a try.

 

Roxtarr

1. Glitch

RemyVorender

The Matrix Online

 

I know I know.............I just don't care I loved that game.

akiira69

Star Trek Online(Perpetual Entertainment Version)

Stargate Worlds

Marvel Universe Online

Mythica

dreamscaper

I can't name five, only two.

 

2. Middle Earth Online : Could have been great...instead of the okay LotRO we were given.

1. City of Heroes : Should have never been shut down to begin with.

Po_gg

In random order: CoH, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault.

NCsoft, FU.

Sovrath

none.

Middle Earth Online "sounds" intriguing but in all honesty I have yet to see one released mmo that didn't have its detractors.

And that wasn't even released!  I'm sure there would be people  bitching about one thing or another same as LOTRO.. They would just be bitching about different things.

I'm a firm believer that a game should be judged "on release". If a game doesn't release then there is very little to evaluate.

 

aleos

SWG

Jumpgate Evolution

Tabula Rasa

4.?

5.?