Six Dead but Memorable MMO Games

MMOs come and go. Some, you'd probably be surprised to hear, are still up and running (Warhammer Online or Dark Age of Camelot anyone?), but there are a handful of MMOs that were pretty decent that just couldn't last. Sure, there were reasons some of these games' servers were shut down (handfuls of bugs, lack of updates, mismanagement), but for the most part, these games were great at their initial release or had major potential they never reached. The big problem might have been if gamers wanted to shell out 40-60 bucks for a game, and then 10-15 bucks a month on top of that; they were either going to go with WoW or demand a game worthy of their cash in a saturated market. At the end of the day, we can probably say the recession in 2007 resulted in the nail in the coffin for any lingering servers with low player subscriptions still open with a pay-to-play models. Regadless, here are six dead, yet not forgotten MMOs we deemed worthy of remembering!

6. Shadowbane

Shadowbane, upon its initial release, was a big seller and had a hardcore fan base which kept the game running from its first fall from grace (soon after its overly buggy launch) up until 2009. Shadowbane was everything a hardcore MMO gamer might have been looking for at a time when they were looking to get out of Everquest, yet biding their time before the launch of World of Warcraft. Shadowbane focused heavily on PvP, but what made Shadowbane most interesting was that PvP wasn't limited to a few arenas, or clicked on and off at will. PvP was ingrained into the system, with players raising siege warfare to go up against other players' cities. The movements of the world of Shadowbane were shaped by the players alone, in an MMO that felt insanely fresh and ahead of its time. Shadowbane moght have faced some back end problems with the changing of company hands, but the cult base remains strong to this day, even if the game is no longer played.

5. The Matrix Online

The Matrix MMO more or less was doomed for entering the MMO market at the time WoW was exploding and dozens of other MMOs were leaping on board the bandwagon (and usually falling off it). Regardless of what you thought of The Matrix film sequels at the time, many of gamers (like me!) were still looking forward to seeing what a Matrix MMO could deliver. I won't say The Matrix Online was good; in fact, it was kind of so-so, but it was by no means bad. In fact, if it had been released in today's world, it might have been not only handled a bit more carefully, but it'd have been free-to-play, and there might have been some neo-retro charm (no pun intended) to the game. The Matrix MMO was developed at a bad time, released at a bad time, and it didn't have any passionate backing over its run to keep it fresh. With a few mishaps at the beginning of publishing (Ubisoft backed out of publishing the game), to a handover during the game's run, to an epic failure of a final event (in which the majority of players were booted off servers due to an overload before they could even witness said event), The Matrix Online is a good lesson in not thinking a franchise license is going to sell and keep an MMO afloat.

(Continued on the Next Page...)