The Matrix Online- Only gross incompetence screwed this up, if there was anything that was made for a MMO it was these movies. Unfortunately for them the free hype train has long passed and it'll never happen.
Vanguard- Performance was abysmal at launch with a potentially great MMO hiding beneath it, still some of the best character classes around though. The launch just murdered this game and with WoW still being in the Vanilla stage(glory years) it didn't have a chance to recover with the impatience of today's gamer & slow developer reaction.
WAR definitely im a big warhammer fan and the game killed me a lil
AoC would be the next one as it had a million subs at its peak and seemed to be the first of those MMO's that were overhyped and tried to take a piece of WoW's pie. Though the following it has now is still pretty damn loyal
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
In sheer waste of money terms in dev costs - SWTOR wins running away - that much spent on an mmorpg should be a huge open world , content packed , tuned engine , all at launch.
In gameplay terms - Vanguard - the brad mcquaid opiate addiction firing of the staff while I hide and cry helped ruin what could have been.
For me it would be The Chronicles of Spellborn, the art style, the lore just caught my interest so much. The game was ahead of its time imo, and could have been the first twitch based combat in an mmo if it was pulled off, the game unfortunately was just a mess of lag and nearly unplayable and acclaim did not make it easier on those indie devs as far as I can tell.
For me Fallen Earth will always be the very definition of wasted potential. Very different from anything out at the time -- or since, really. Huge, absolutely gargantuan world. Complicated and interesting crafting system that allowed you to make pretty much (at first, anyway) anything in the game. Interesting storyline. All plagued by bugs galore, a roadmap based more on hope than anything else, an engine and servers not quite up to the task, and a MMO playerbase that talks about not wanting WoW clones but in reality really does.
TSW would be number two.
I'm honestly a bit confused by so many people saying WAR. Honestly, while it was buggy as crap even a year after launch, the fundamentals were fairly sound. Dealing with the ludicrous imbalance would have helped things, having all six capitals might have as well, but ultimately all they could really do is lengthen things some. Simply put PvP isn't the 'endless content' source that people bizarrely seem to think it is -- quite the opposite. No matter what they did, there were only going to be so many times you could take a keep, flip a zone, or go to a capital without it wearing thin. I don't know about anyone else, but I got a year of good gaming memories out of it, so for all it's problems I still consider it to have been a good game for what it was.
I think they all had potential to be something great.
Though I think Tabula Rasa could of been an amazing game had it been released a few years later. AoC could of been an amazing game had they waited a bit longer and fleshed out the rest of the game. TERA is a good game, but it could of been great with the proper attention to World Design/Desync issues and class balance.
Really all the games that have failed or had to go F2P in the past few years all could of been great games. I think the main factor in these games is that they should of focused on creating an MMO instead of a instance lobby.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Originally posted by RefMinor WoW, it could have been great but went for the mass market.
Maybe it is is great, but not to the lunatic fringe?
Yes. And "great" is probably an understatement, given the degree to which it blew away competitors.
Originally posted by WhiteLantern WAR
Yeah, this is my vote too. Fantastic IP. They could've taken it in a couple major directions and it'd have been awesome. Instead, it was mediocre.
The two possibilities:
PVP-only. Take Planetside 1 with its epic massive battles over many large continents. Use the Warhammer IP with its Keeps, Castles, ridiculously awesome characters/classes, and WAAGH. Split the races into 3 core factions. Use MMORPG style combat, with lateral progression so everyone starts the game competitive. Oh, and fix the worst-in-genre CC design strategy.
Quality PVE game. The #1 problem here was mobs had no unique abilities (well that's a lie, one mob type had an ability: a stun. And that's pretty much the single least interesting ability you can give a mob in a game, haha.) Which meant there was essentially no PVE gameplay. So a good-PVE version of WAR would give every mob at least one distinct ability for players to adapt against, and probably also polish up the ability rotations (which tended to be flat and involve a lot of duplicate skills.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I don't know about a game with the most potential, but Allods is the game that had the best execution, but the payment model was so bad it nearly killed the game.
Maybe Fallout Online had the most potential to be a game I would play for a very long time, but the worst execution because (a) Masthead was developing it and (b) they never actually executed anything. Big disappointment.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Star Wars Galaxies had all the potential in the galaxy, but (in my opinion) was released way too soon, was too far ahead of it's time anyway for the MMO genre, and was mismanaged from the get go. They did try to fix their early mistakes... but just created an even bigger mistake. To the developers credit, they turned it into a pretty good game despite it all.
For me, no game will be remembered as fondly. I'd subscribe to it again in a heartbeat. Just for the potential alone, I'd subscribe.
Nothing is perfect. You also don't know what you've got until it's gone. I'll take it back, imperfections and all. No other MMO will ever even have the same level of potential, which makes SWG my choice for this question.
I'm gonna have to go with AoC. If they had managed to keep up with the quality of tortage starting area through to the end it probably would have won many people over. But it pooped out and was unfinished.
I think the biggest shame is that funcom obviously had the ability to make great content but they just didn't continue. Blah.
Runner up is Rift. Really could have been a major player in the themepark arena but they failed to see what their greatest offering was (soul build variety) and instead opted to nerf and pigeon hole builds and go for a more typical endgame. Had they seen what they had and really went balls to the wall crazy with build variety I think Rift could have offered the character customization so many MMO players crave.
Launch was the best, builds were untested, Trion hadn't seen all the synergies and even a handful of broken builds. And that was fun. But like so many developers, they cave to whiners who want totally equality between classes rather than allowing for uniqueness and fun to take priority.
Actually, come to think of it, that may be one of the reasons Vanilla WoW was so good. Blizzard just didn't know what they were doing in terms of class balance. So you would get 3 minute mages, Reckbomber paladins and so on.
Vanguard, by far. I understand the other mentions, but they aren't even close to the scope of what Vanguard was trying to accomplish, and nothing failed at the margin level of design scope-to-execution that Vanguard did.
Earth and Beyond & Auto Assault, I loved those games but wished so badly their design wasn't so bad or that they would be fixed.
SWG was awesome before holocrons, it self destructed from there.
If I could get good versions of those three games I would be in gamer heaven.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Asheron's call 2 biggest failor (awesome game but...)to early released and screwed by Microsoft(players also screwed this game).
Guild Wars 2 dynamic events and loot system on world bosses(champions sucked bigtime)Cashshop what a failor for me still played it for 5months(include beta weekends) but game went instance-cashshop-treadmill grind, WvWvW was nice but also ruined by devs.
Most of time players screw mmo's cheating or act like asholes(sandbox experience for me)devs dont deliver.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
I´d say Chronicles of Spellborn. I only played it shortly due to the 2-week-trial when it launched, but lost interest ... I don´t even know why, exactly. I always thought the skill system was brilliant and PVP was fun as hell (coming from a non-PVP player). On the other hand, combat looked quite unspectacular and most of the endgame was politics and stuff, controlling different parts of the world. My lucky guess is that it wasn´t the right time back then (2006, if i remember right) to introduce a sandboxy themepark that TCoS was. Such a shame, had a stunning graphical style, too (second best imho, only beaten by Shin Megami Tensei:Imagine).
Comments
The Matrix Online- Only gross incompetence screwed this up, if there was anything that was made for a MMO it was these movies. Unfortunately for them the free hype train has long passed and it'll never happen.
Vanguard- Performance was abysmal at launch with a potentially great MMO hiding beneath it, still some of the best character classes around though. The launch just murdered this game and with WoW still being in the Vanilla stage(glory years) it didn't have a chance to recover with the impatience of today's gamer & slow developer reaction.
Riho- SWG Scylla
Riho- EQ2 Guk
Rihan- WoW Dunemaul
Freeloader- WoW Cenarius
Freestyle- WoW Cenarius
I'd agree with WAR.
Question is what was the fail, the mistake? To many classes perhaps? Don't remember that well. To much routine?
It was basically one big battleground and it lacked some RP elements perhaps.
But WAR could have been something great I agree.
WAR definitely im a big warhammer fan and the game killed me a lil
AoC would be the next one as it had a million subs at its peak and seemed to be the first of those MMO's that were overhyped and tried to take a piece of WoW's pie. Though the following it has now is still pretty damn loyal
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
In gameplay terms - Vanguard - the brad mcquaid opiate addiction firing of the staff while I hide and cry helped ruin what could have been.
For me it would be The Chronicles of Spellborn, the art style, the lore just caught my interest so much. The game was ahead of its time imo, and could have been the first twitch based combat in an mmo if it was pulled off, the game unfortunately was just a mess of lag and nearly unplayable and acclaim did not make it easier on those indie devs as far as I can tell.
It was a shame.
I remember reading about this. What ever happened to it?
For me Fallen Earth will always be the very definition of wasted potential. Very different from anything out at the time -- or since, really. Huge, absolutely gargantuan world. Complicated and interesting crafting system that allowed you to make pretty much (at first, anyway) anything in the game. Interesting storyline. All plagued by bugs galore, a roadmap based more on hope than anything else, an engine and servers not quite up to the task, and a MMO playerbase that talks about not wanting WoW clones but in reality really does.
TSW would be number two.
I'm honestly a bit confused by so many people saying WAR. Honestly, while it was buggy as crap even a year after launch, the fundamentals were fairly sound. Dealing with the ludicrous imbalance would have helped things, having all six capitals might have as well, but ultimately all they could really do is lengthen things some. Simply put PvP isn't the 'endless content' source that people bizarrely seem to think it is -- quite the opposite. No matter what they did, there were only going to be so many times you could take a keep, flip a zone, or go to a capital without it wearing thin. I don't know about anyone else, but I got a year of good gaming memories out of it, so for all it's problems I still consider it to have been a good game for what it was.
I think they all had potential to be something great.
Though I think Tabula Rasa could of been an amazing game had it been released a few years later. AoC could of been an amazing game had they waited a bit longer and fleshed out the rest of the game. TERA is a good game, but it could of been great with the proper attention to World Design/Desync issues and class balance.
Really all the games that have failed or had to go F2P in the past few years all could of been great games. I think the main factor in these games is that they should of focused on creating an MMO instead of a instance lobby.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
Yes. And "great" is probably an understatement, given the degree to which it blew away competitors.
Yeah, this is my vote too. Fantastic IP. They could've taken it in a couple major directions and it'd have been awesome. Instead, it was mediocre.
The two possibilities:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think it was a failure to execute the IP in gameplay. It felt like they used the IP for art style more than game play.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I don't know about a game with the most potential, but Allods is the game that had the best execution, but the payment model was so bad it nearly killed the game.
Maybe Fallout Online had the most potential to be a game I would play for a very long time, but the worst execution because (a) Masthead was developing it and (b) they never actually executed anything. Big disappointment.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Star Wars Galaxies had all the potential in the galaxy, but (in my opinion) was released way too soon, was too far ahead of it's time anyway for the MMO genre, and was mismanaged from the get go. They did try to fix their early mistakes... but just created an even bigger mistake. To the developers credit, they turned it into a pretty good game despite it all.
For me, no game will be remembered as fondly. I'd subscribe to it again in a heartbeat. Just for the potential alone, I'd subscribe.
Nothing is perfect. You also don't know what you've got until it's gone. I'll take it back, imperfections and all. No other MMO will ever even have the same level of potential, which makes SWG my choice for this question.
I'm gonna have to go with AoC. If they had managed to keep up with the quality of tortage starting area through to the end it probably would have won many people over. But it pooped out and was unfinished.
I think the biggest shame is that funcom obviously had the ability to make great content but they just didn't continue. Blah.
Runner up is Rift. Really could have been a major player in the themepark arena but they failed to see what their greatest offering was (soul build variety) and instead opted to nerf and pigeon hole builds and go for a more typical endgame. Had they seen what they had and really went balls to the wall crazy with build variety I think Rift could have offered the character customization so many MMO players crave.
Launch was the best, builds were untested, Trion hadn't seen all the synergies and even a handful of broken builds. And that was fun. But like so many developers, they cave to whiners who want totally equality between classes rather than allowing for uniqueness and fun to take priority.
Actually, come to think of it, that may be one of the reasons Vanilla WoW was so good. Blizzard just didn't know what they were doing in terms of class balance. So you would get 3 minute mages, Reckbomber paladins and so on.
If I can only pick one this one is my choice also.
OMG what memories...
Earth and Beyond & Auto Assault, I loved those games but wished so badly their design wasn't so bad or that they would be fixed.
SWG was awesome before holocrons, it self destructed from there.
If I could get good versions of those three games I would be in gamer heaven.
Asheron's call 2 biggest failor (awesome game but...)to early released and screwed by Microsoft(players also screwed this game).
Guild Wars 2 dynamic events and loot system on world bosses(champions sucked bigtime)Cashshop what a failor for me still played it for 5months(include beta weekends) but game went instance-cashshop-treadmill grind, WvWvW was nice but also ruined by devs.
Most of time players screw mmo's cheating or act like asholes(sandbox experience for me)devs dont deliver.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Vanguard, absolutely.
And then maybe SWG and Middle Earth Online.