MMOs that came and left since WoW launched

PC Gamer wrote about 25 MMOs that “lived and died” since the launch of WoW (originally published in May, advertised again recently). I assumed I’d see several in there that I at least tried out, but I didn’t know there’d be so many I’ve never even heard of. For a person very much interested in MMOs, I guess this tells a lot about the respective MMOs. Still, I did give several a try and I also am sad to see that some aren’t around anymore. How cool would it be if MMOs that were closed could still be played on your PC, offline. Obviously, raids would be an issue if you’re just one single player. But it would still be nice as a sandbox kind of game, to walk around in and experience parts of the worlds you haven’t have the time to see yet.

So in the past 15 years and according to their list, here are the ones I at least tried out at some point:

• City of Heroes

I am pretty sure I tried out that game at some point. However, I apparently did not take any screenshots of the game. Or I am imagining things and I only tried out Champions Online. But my memory says I gave two superhero MMOs a try and I didn’t like either of them. That’s not because they are bad. It’s more that while I enjoyed watching the Superman films as a kid and I loved watching Batman on TV, I am just not a fan of superheroes in my games. I definitely prefer fantasy settings with the occasional science fiction sprinkled in.

• Tabula Rasa

If I remember correctly, I never actually bought Tabula Rasa. Bookahnerk had it and so did his cousin. I’d been tempted, but didn’t want to get a second subscription. Something about the game had caught my attention, though. I like playing games with some shooter elements from time to time if they’re in third person view. More importantly, the game had zone events, a bit like Rift does and Guild Wars 2. NPCs could attack and if there was no defense, then the zone or part of the zone was in their control. Before the game closed, it was freely accessible which is when I took the chance and visited the game again. I think it’s sad that the game got closed, but I guess it was released in a too unfinished state and that’s never a good start. Here’s something odd: I was looking through my uploaded media to check which screenshots of Tabula Rasa I’ve shown here before – and there are none. Apparently, I didn’t write much about Tabula Rasa here before. Must have been in another blog format then, possibly on Livejournal before I started WordPress.

• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Poor Vanguard. Here is the thing… There is only one reason I did not jump into the game after trying it out: It wasn’t going to receive any meaningful updates anymore. Of course, I would have had lots of things to explore and see if I had started playing it, but I did not want to find a new “home” when I didn’t know for how long it would be around. I especially liked the diplomacy card mini game.

• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Ah, one game that I’m still very upset about! Partly that it’s not around anymore and partly because of how bad the game had been handled. It had so much potential, but the players didn’t have powerful enough PCs at the time and the servers couldn’t handle it either. I know that by now, neither seems to be a big issue anymore, because thankfully, there is a private server around nowadays. If they decided to give us WAR 2.0, I would definitely jump in without hesitation… okay, a little bit of hesitation and I wouldn’t give them a 6 month subscription immediately. But I would be interested! For me, it’s been the best open world PvP experience I have ever had. Yes, I know there are lots of voices calling for 3 factions instead of 2 fighting against each other and I agree. What I mean with the best experience is that I usually stay far away from open world PvP, but in Warhammer, only parts of each zone were contested and you could be in the non-contested parts, watch the chat, figure out where in the PvP part you’d be needed and just jump in for as long as you wanted to.

• Hello Kitty Online

Now, in my defense: A former colleague loved Hello Kitty and when I saw that it has an MMO, I had to give it a try and tell her about it. So that’s also how the blog post about the game came to be. This isn’t an MMO I would have ever played seriously, but it was fun to try and write about it.

• Wildstar

Another game where I’m really upset that it doesn’t exist anymore. I loved Wildstar! For some time, I had a subscription before it went free to play. Then I continued playing it, but I left after a while. This, just as Vanguard, seemed like a game that wouldn’t get more updates which always kept me from going back to the game 100 %. I did enjoy my time and would wish it came back online again, with active development, preferrably. Also, I really loved their take on the Christmas in-game holiday.

• Everquest Next / Landmark

They listed Everquest Next and Landmark as two separate games, I think. For me, it’s both the same. We never got to step a foot into Everquest Next. Landmark was originally just meant to be a sandbox tool to create and build things in. Then at some point, they changed their mind and tried to make it a real game. But I was always confused about the direction they were going and what exactly their plans were with Landmark. As far as Everquest Next is concerned, I never liked the graphic design. It was fine for Landmark. It just didn’t feel right for the successor to Everquest I and II.

That is 8 out of 25 MMOs. Not bad. I’ve known about more than these eight, but I wasn’t interested in even trying them out (for whatever reason – see Hello Kitty).

The list is probably not listing all MMOs. For example, it’s lacking Fallen Earth which only closed down recently.

(IntPiPoMo count: 44 in total)