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Worst MMO you've ever played?

There was a Korean MMO focused on PVP that I remember as being a really painful grind to. It was something 2 and every character ran bent over. It had a cool grief system.

That's Lineage 2, probably had one of the best PvP system of its time. So much drama, politics and backstabbing between clans. Grindy as fuck though, although it got better but still, after playing it for 5 years Aion didn't feel nearly as grindy as people made it out to be.
 
I don't play MMORPGs, but a college friend played a game called the Realm back in the early 2000s, and it looked dumb as hell.
 
Overall, Defiance. I had it on PS3 and it ran so incredibly badly that it really shouldn't have seen release. The pop-in was terrible. I was riding my ATV down the road and would just suddenly hit an invisible barricade that hadn't been drawn in yet. Then the 6 guys around it that were shooting me would pop in. No hyperbole, it was that bad. I always thought if they had done a PS4/Xbone version that it could have gone over really well though.

In terms of being an MMO, Destiny. No troll intended, I really mean that. The grinding and loot stuff, which is the core of most MMOs (or at least the hook) is badly handled. The story is badly handled. The shooting rocks though. But really, the MMO part of it is awful.

I actually loved Defiance on PS3 and would LOVE a PS4 version - but you're right, it was damn buggy.
 
That's Lineage 2, probably had one of the best PvP system of its time. So much drama, politics and backstabbing between clans. Grindy as fuck though, although it got better but still, after playing it for 5 years Aion didn't feel nearly as grindy as people made it out to be.

Lineage 2 was such a cool world. I couldn't beat the grind though and enjoy it to its fullest. So sad.
 
Wildstar.

But that's mostly because I impulse bought the deluxe edition the day before launch and played for a whopping 2 hours before I realized I was totally apathetic to every aspect of the game.

Now why did you go and do that silly? What made you make that impulse purchase?
 
Of the major ones I have played, FFXI. Unless I totally missed something, it seemed like the controls were really bad on PC and no standard way to map controls how I wanted them.
 
Probably Mu Online. I just remember being gated out of content from the beginning which was an immediate turn-off. Surprised it's still around today, honestly.
 
FFXIV:ARR
Small world, dumb quests, fate, too many quests, bad itemization, dumb main story, jobs, too easy until the very high level, crafting only for look, nexus weapons, badly animated npc during cut-scenes, etc.
 
Is Knight Online still a thing? That game was a pile of hot garbage from what I can remember.
Ohshit, nearly forgot about this one. Really basic, but hey it was free so I ended up spending a good few hours on it. While I quit pretty quickly a friend of mine became hardcore addicted to the game. Apparently leveling at lvl 40+ took forever, 1% exp after an hour of grinding tough enemies, while dying always took 5% off and could de-level you, ha. Eventually he was two levels below what his actual stats were and just gave up leveling altogether.
 
Aion.

I don't know why I tried it I never enjoy or even like the graphical style of Korean MMO's. At the time PvP was an unbalanced, campy jank fest too. No idea if it's improved these days though.
 
Onigiri

The game turned into a super grind fest if you're a solo player after a few levels and you're basically screwed unless you use a spear/bow-type weapon. They also pretty much made support types like shit.
Models are awful.
 
Guild Wars 2

I don't know, i enjoyed first one better, 2nd one looked nice but had no soul to it, the NPC's also resemble the actual players too much so it was difficult to tell at times who was actually playing and who wasn't, maybe i'm alone

Guild wars 1. Complete shit.

Was actually not bad if you got out of the starting areas, Lions arch area and then joined a guild and did PVP, i think PVP was better for Guild Wars 1 you can still watch the daily and monthly pvp tournaments in observer mode.
 
Lineage 1.

It was an amazing concept, and maybe I'd have loved it had I played it in like 1998 or something when it was new. But I think I hadn't played it until 2000, and by then Diablo 2's graphics were like Dark Souls compared to it, and we got into the Dark Age of Camelot beta in early 2001 which looked like Skyrm compared to it lol. And, I don't just mean it looked old.. I mean, I can play an old sprite game like Suikoden 2 to this day. But Lineage 1 had some of the worst sprites I'd ever seen, and in general the game was a mess. It was just poorly done.

But I still played a while because I love the game design. Loved the concept. But in terms of actually being a produced game, definitely the worst of the major MMOs that I ever played.

WAR.

That would be up there, too, but not because it was the worst overall game but because it failed the worst. There were worst server launches, smaller launches, etc. WoW's servers were far worse. LOTRO had a much smaller launch. But those games did a niche well and survived, and delivered to fans. WAR just... completely disappointed and essentially destroyed much of what DAOC great. And Mythic spent the next 2 years trying to turn WAR back into DAOC and essentially begging fans to stay (after ignoring the exact same topics in beta; I was one of the most active beta testers) before the game, and Mythic, both ended up dying.
 
FFXIV 1.0 was horrible but 6 months later Yoshida made it playable and fun, and then hooked me until the servers went down.

As for the worst mmorpg i've played, it's Wakfu.
 
Oh man, I've played a shit load of MMO's, though honestly 99% of them I really enjoyed my time in them, even if some of them I never bothered subbing past the initial month. True, they didnt have enough to keep me subbing, but at the very least, the first few weeks were pretty fun. My worst ever experience was probably an oldy, and it was Anarchy Online. If my memory serves me correctly, it was sorta being hyped due to being one of the first new MMO's that came out after the big 3 (UO, AC, EQ), and it had the whole Sci-Fi thing going for it, in a world of fantasy MMOs. I remember I was fairly hyped, and the day came and I installed and played it...and I felt so betrayed. I didnt have much disposable cash back in the day, so buying this game and then having it shit the bed was a big deal.

I remember that was back in the days when you didnt get any real news on MMOs, and had to rely on fansites and random forum posts as they slowly dripped out info. When e3 was actually huge for MMO's, as they would hype that date up so much and then have a massive info dump when it finally arrived. All those little fansites like stratics/vault/lum the mad, dr twister etc. Man, everyone took it so seriously back then. If you were a hardcore MMO fan back then, you were a fan indeed. Love how so many fanboys would go on to eventually get hired by companies as PR guys and stuff. Good times.
 
Archeage

First MMO (and hopefully last) to introduce a fucking zynga-freemium style energy bar (labor) that takes forever to refresh. Why anybody thinks this is a good idea is beyond me.

Need to open that wallet? Oh! You need to wait five minutes for your labor points to refresh!

Fuck that...
 
Shadowbane. The game was a buggy mess populated by people who prayed on killing newer players. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did.
 
Final Fantasy XI takes second place. Who thought level down was a good idea?

I did, and still do. It makes everyone pay attention and not sleep during combat. It adds tension, which most MMOs today sorely lack. Final Fantasy XI was a fantastic game. It wasn't afraid to kick the player character in the teeth. It was like the Dark Souls of MMOs.
 
I enjoyed it. Death had some bite to it.

The original release of APB still holds the record for fastest launch to cancellation, doesn't it? It was like a month.

I thought the exp debt that you would acquire in City of Heroes was worse then losing exp, just seemed like a never ending struggle to get out of the penalty if you died multiple times.

I don't think I have ever played an MMO that is generally labeled as a terrible game as I tend to stay away from them, but Final Fantasy 11 and 14 1.0 just did not click at all. I thought they were extremely slow and clunky, very counter intuitive, the action/menu lag was dreadful as was the UI especially coming from a game like Everquest where everything is right on the screen. 14 1.0 was just more of the same slow and confusing game that 11 was instead this time they just made it weirder with the job and class.
 
Warhammer Online was bland and boring. Dropped it after the free month.

SW:TOR is worse though.

Partially I get this feeling because the game did nothing but emulate WoW with voiced dialogue. The similarities were uncanny with spells, rotations, classes, quest design, loot, auction houses etc etc. What's even worse is the stuff they made badly which makes WoW look awesome in comparison:

1. Constant loading between tiny areas. Who thought that loading the inside of the ship, then the starport area and only then the planet area was a good idea?
2. Weapons' progression for half of the classes saturates at level 10 (the end of tutorial zone): you won't ever get anything visually cooler than a lightsaber.
3. Voiced-over dialogue works in some cases, but for filler quests and in dungeons you just want to skip all of it and go collect 10 damn vehicle parts. It's honestly faster to read WoW-written quest description.

Why after 8 years of failures, nobody thought that taking WoW gameplay with almost no changes and slapping Star Wars on it would work?

Why was EA so hellbent on profiting off Bioware's hard-earned goodwill for 3 years after ME2 and DA:O forcing them to release unfinished, derivative games and slapping the studio name on everything up to C&C?

Altogether, this MMO was the worst because it could've been so much more. And by so much more, I mean KOTOR3. And 4. and etc.
 
SWTOR for me, played about 6 hours in early access and never played again found it boring and bland. I was looking for a WoW replacement, i will not make that mistake again and i ended up going back to WoW and realising how good it was.
 
Worst was probably original APB. Game had the best character customization I've seen in any game, but shooting and driving was horrible. And that is kind of a big deal in a game about shooting and driving.
 
The remake of Ragnarok Online probably. It isn't a bad game per se but it falls below my expectations of what Ragnarok Online should be.

To be fair I haven't played a lot of online games.

Edit: I did play WoW and somehow I didn't like it very much probably my 2nd worst. I didn't reach end game because the game was a slog and the maps were barren and lifeless. It was probably because there's only a few people at the beginning maps. I played before MoP got released. Played for two months on and off.
 
Warhammer Online.

Warhammer universe has so much potential and it failed in every aspect.

I really, really enjoyed my time with Wildstar for a few months, but they get an honourable mention for not understanding their own audience and having to backtrack or redesign just about everything.

FFXIV Vanilla is a mention too, but they deserve credit for the comeback, that's almost unheard of in an MMO.
 
I did, and still do. It makes everyone pay attention and not sleep during combat. It adds tension, which most MMOs today sorely lack. Final Fantasy XI was a fantastic game. It wasn't afraid to kick the player character in the teeth. It was like the Dark Souls of MMOs.

Yup, there were parts of the open world that actually feel dangerous and you generally wouldn't travel to alone. Sometimes even a hassle getting around it in a group. Getting to Byakkos island for example back in RoZ era. Getting between indoor Jailers in sea. The threat made the world feel alive, it made it feel bigger and there was just something far more evocative about it. There is no single area for example, in XIV ARR's open world where I travel and think that it's dangerous.
 
Vanilla WoW as a Warrior. It was a nightmare to level a warrior the first few years of the game, luckily that's not the case anymore. By far my worst MMO experience, really didn't like EVE either. I have heard it described as a game version of an excel spreadsheet and I think that's an apt description.
 
Aion personally is worst. It was a game at war with itself from start to finish.

Archeage

First MMO (and hopefully last) to introduce a fucking zynga-freemium style energy bar (labor) that takes forever to refresh. Why anybody thinks this is a good idea is beyond me.

Need to open that wallet? Oh! You need to wait five minutes for your labor points to refresh!

Fuck that...

See some the posts above dripping with butthurt? That'll be ArcheAge in them posts before too long, judging by threads. MMO Hype always has new willing victims.

Shadowbane. The game was a buggy mess populated by people who prayed on killing newer players. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did.

Now why would I do that when veterans have way more gold on them?

Vanilla WoW as a Warrior. It was a nightmare to level a warrior the first few years of the game, luckily that's not the case anymore. By far my worst MMO experience, really didn't like EVE either. I have heard it described as a game version of an excel spreadsheet and I think that's an apt description.

Months, then the hit% was flattened out to remove miss clumps. There were still plenty of tricks to smooth that out reguardless.
 
First 20 levels werent so bad

Yeah, that was the place where they spent all the money, after that there was like 1 quest per zone. Also everything was instanced. Age of Conan sucked.

Does the game still exist or did they put it down?
 
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