Biggest Disappointment?

[Trebla]

It's interesting that there are actually quite a few people saying WoW was a big disappointment; and they offer up different reasons why it disappoints them. Some are disappointed with PvP, some with the instances, some with the depressingly small raids. And I guess I'll throw another one in.

WoW was a great game, did lots of good things, but also did lots of things that for me were bad moves for what I liked (floating question marks for quests, grinding quests to level up, goal based dungeons i.e., crawl to final boss, kill boss), what it boils down to is it turned the "world" that you got from EQ and DAoC into just stages in a game. I'm not saying that's a horrible thing to be done, but WoW's been so immensely popular for all the good things it's done, that newer MMOs simply copy the formula as closely as they can and pick up things (which I find to be) horrible in the process.

I guess I'm disappointed with WoW for being too popular, but also disappointed in everyone else that just wanted to be like the cool kid.

[Cuppycake]

Everquest II at launch.

I was so excited for EQ2. I was in a pre-release guild (yeah, lawl) and trolled the forums like crazy. I was a part of the beta and tried to convince myself the game wasn't awful. I tried to get everyone I knew to play the game with me, but everyone already had their heart set on WoW. So, I ended up having to play both. It was clear in my mind that WoW completely dominated EQ2 in most areas in Nov 2004, and I stuck with it.

Since then I've gone back to EQ2 many many times. There are some parts of it that are done so well, but a lot of the game just lacks. I can never stay playing longer than a couple months, even when I've had good friends to play with. The game has improved a ton, but it's still a disappointment when I think of the hype and excitement I had put into it 4 years ago.

[TwiNCannoN]

UO:R was probably the biggest disappointment for me. I'd assume it's similar to SWG's "NGE" (I still have no idea what that means), but a lot of MMO's have done it. Just hype something up to the fanbase and when it comes out it completely ruins the game for the oldschool die hard fans. EQ did this to me as well with Shadows of Luclin, although it wasn't so much of a "sudden shock" as much as it was a slow realization that EQ was changing and I didn't want it to change. Even something as small as knowing that someone in my group was probably rendering my barbarian with the horrid new SoL model was enough to make me get depressed and quit. The older models may have been ultra-shitty but the new zones and models just changed what I loved. There was a lot of charm in those "low res" models.

These days I really don't let myself get hyped up and it's definitely a better way of doing things. If something came out and it's disappointing - no big deal. If it came out and it's awesome, well, it's even more awesome because you weren't expecting much.

Originally Posted by Salshun

No mention of Lord of the Rings: Online, yet?

The game didn't disappoint me as much as the community. I mean the beta community for that game was so good that I basically played it on that aspect alone. Sure there were bad apples, but it was really nice overall and the developer interaction was awesome. I was hoping that it'd be a WoW clone with a more mature community, but was I ever wrong. Idiots flocked to it on retail and it was pretty much ruined, and without the good community I saw it for what it truly was, a shameless horrible WoW clone with shitty combat.

[TheYanger]

I don't think anything can live up to the NGE like you're thinking heh. Not going to claim SW:G as a disappointment cause I had 0 expectations going in, but the NGE can't be compared to Luclin or anything, it completely and utterly changed the nature of the game. Imagine if they released an EQ expansion that chopped out 10 of the classes, and changed it into a third person action game.
That's the NGE :P (New game enhancements if I recall)

[Ravensign]

Originally Posted by Trebla

I guess I'm disappointed with WoW for being too popular, but also disappointed in everyone else that just wanted to be like the cool kid.

When I say copy WoW, I mean, "make a game so solid that you can have no NDA and a huge open beta that people don't have to make excuses or apologize for"*, but what game companies hear is "make a circular minmap in the upper right corner with a subzone name, and colored punctuation to represent quest givers."

*There is a secret internal build that doesn't suck, we swear.

[kasey]

Disappointed? Lol it is fucking 2008 and only gimp mmo's out. I might go back to everquest if this continues.

[Grave]

EQ2: Poor engine, good/evil system was stupid, classes sucked. They should have just mimicked the EQ1 classes and made changes where appropriate. It was also disappointing to only have 2 starting areas at launch. Dark Elves relegated to living on the streets in Freeport? Lame. They did a lot of other things right (such as the non-instanced dungeons with instanced areas inside), but overall I look at it as a disappointment. Even now, with all the stuff they've added, it's just too flawed in important areas.

VG: Others have said all that could be said, really. I was hoping this would be the "EQ2" that the real EQ2 wasn't. It really could've been, too, but it's too late for them to pull it together now.

TBC: Shrunk the game world by making old content obsolete, made raiding even more mechanical and boring than it was previously, terrible lore, questionable changes in design. It took me months to realize it because I was in such a rush to level and keep up with friends, but I really look at this expansion now as a disappointment.

[Dumar]

the correct way to say it is thus: wow IS a big disappointment. it WAS NOT a big disappointment.

in alpha, beta and early vanilla, there was potential to make a truly groundbreaking game, both in terms of pve and pvp. some of the things they had planned (and even some they tested) were very neat stuff.

unfortunately, gone are any cool ideas, mechanics, or even fucking gameplay. the cash cow came mooing, and blizzard started milking. lots.

wow IS the biggest disappointment if you wanna consider in terms of wasted potential. and re: on the lore, it is just as bad as luclin. the majority of it either leads nowhere, makes no sense, or is just downright bad.

[Sunder]

I actually agree with Dumar on something.

TBC is evidence that the WoW dev team can lose their minds and forget what made their game so wonderful to play. The amount of quality in TBC is many orders of magnitude lower than what they put forth in vanilla. And I will state that polish is different than quality. TBC is a very polished turd, but it's still a turd.

Hopefully the dev team will remember the things that made vanilla WoW an enjoyable gaming experience and go back to that. If they make WotLK just TBC 2.0, then I forsee hard times ahead for WoW subscription numbers. As in, no longer churning upward, but starting to slide slowly downard. Granted with 9+ million subscribers world wide, they have a long way to slide, but depending on what WotLK is, that slide could begin there.

[Azzikai]

Vanguard I guess. I wanted it to be a good game, I really did, but it was obvious before beta started that the powers that be just didn't know what they wanted to do. Then came beta and the "then this isn't the game for you" attitude and I knew it was hopeless.

All I wanted was a game that didn't pen you in, put you on rails and give you a list of 100's of things you weren't allowed to do. I'm still waiting.

[Froofy-D]

The entire industry since EQ:POP, except WoW and Eve.

The only game that really disappointed me personally was VG. Was looking forward to EQ reincarnated, but with better graphics and cooler classes.

[Sharmai]

Post WoW MMO's... Not just vanguard but every mmo post WoW. Seriously every mmo that comes out is just trying to make some quick bucks and is failing over and over. WoW is milking its cash cow while we scream for more creativeness that made vanilla wow so popular. All we need is a good WoW substitute that does WoW + everything else we want right + polish.

On the horizon all we have is conan and warhammer both of which are experiencing controversy akin to vg but not as much... Sigh...

[Itzena]

MMO: DAoC. It was going to be this awesome combination of EQ PvE and UO PvP, and ended up being EQ PvP and UO PvE instead.

Other game: Master of Orion 3. I'm still fucking angry about this.

[Soygen]

I can honestly say that no MMO has disappointed me. I am so cynical, I assume they are all terrible until I play them(and then confirm that they are). I enjoy WoW and have fond memories of EQ, but I don't buy into the hype on any of these games.

[Laven]

Shadowbane & Horizons for me. WoW a close third because im not too big into instances, and I would like to see them bring in some more world bosses where guild A is fighting to get to him before guild B but then guild C leapfrogs both and gets the kill which then inflicts for some nice drama