Ugly Moments in MMORPG History

The history of MMORPGs is awash with lag and failure. Today the term might conjure up images of your nine level 85 Mages stuck on the Bronzebeard server in World of Warcraft, but delve a bit deeper and you’ll see a world of economic disasters and terrible ideas. This is the story of the impossible task of making a successful massively multiplayer title. Welcome to Ugly Moments in MMORPG History.

Asheron’s Call 2

The year is 2002 and for a mere 12.95 USD you too could play a game that launched with almost no content beyond level 30, despite a level cap of 50. Sure, MMOs rarely launch with every zone fully developed, but Asheron’s Call 2 created a speed-bump within the levelling system the height of a Hummer, forcing its players into a tedious and slow crawl toward the Kilimanjaro that is their level cap. Mirroring this were issues tangled around trade skills which hit a similar bump due to very rare objects needed in order to level. Unfinished and painful, welcome to Asheron’s Call 2.

Cities XL

Cities XL is one of the shortest-running games you’ve never played. Lasting a scant 151 days, the game was spat out of development as quickly as possible and hurled into stores as one of the most niche MMO titles that eyes have feasted on. Cities was a delightful combination of massively multiplayers and a building site where players would work together to build structures like the Eiffel Tower. As such it catered to the interests of 3 per cent of the massively multiplayer community who were looking for a game that finally let them live their dream as an armchair construction worker.

All Points Bulletin

Oh APB. When it rains, it pours and the dark cloud hanging over All Points Bulletin was its collective of poorly thought out quests and its complete inability to keep anyone interested for more than an hour or two. APB was a refreshing alternative to the over-saturated landmass of fantasy MMOs: A title built for GTA enthusiasts and people who wanted to get out of Azeroth and into a shot-up Chevy. But the result was a repetitive driving simulator with some of the worst driving controls of any game; controls that made taking a car out for a ride more similar to trying to surf through the rapids on an upturned bathtub. Bumpy, awkward, and generally just a bad idea. After three months the servers were shut down and the game’s developer folded.

Star Wars Galaxies

It’s hard to make being a Jedi seem like it’s about as exciting as making cups for a living, but Star Wars Galaxies went one step further and brought that tedium to its most frustrating level. In order to become a Jedi in-game players had to first unlock the role by fulfilling a completely unknown series of prerequisites. While it only took four months for the first player to unlock the Jedi slot, SOE was very quickly criticised for the monotonous and substantial commitment required to become a Jedi and the maniacal penalties placed on the player if their Jedi died: after three in-game deaths there would be no resurrecting. Two and a half years after its launch SOE removed many of the original classes and dumbed down most of the gameplay. By 2009 the population had dropped significantly, along with 12 servers.

Age of Conan

Bless Funcom, with all their ideas. In a genre that colours inside the lines of its thousands of orc sketches, Conan placed itself in a head-to-head battle with Warhammer Online and made the great ambitious move to include naked lady avatars. Few games beyond the outskirts of Sexy Beach and BioWare titles will bring topless women to the forefront of gaming, but Age of Conan had the chutzpah to stop and ask the question: why all the shirts? Unfortunately its credibility wasn’t helped when the game, like Asheron’s Call 2, fell apart after the first 40 levels or so. While it was praised for its polish between level 1-to-39, there was a widely-acknowledged feeling that Conan offered a bait and switch to players once they got over that level 40 hump, and from then on the problems became clear: missing features promised at launch, class imbalances, and bugs.

Dark and Light

Remember Dark and Light? I don’t. It was the kind of game that I’m sure only existed so I could somehow confuse it with Black and White, but in reality was one of the more promising alternatives to World of Warcraft. At least until you actually played the game. Its 2006 release included a veritable smorgasbord of crashes, roll backs and bugs that caused guilds to disband, until finally the game went free-to-play in a desperate attempt to keep the community from disbanding entirely.