ROOM 101 - The 10 Worst MMOs

• You released too early.
• It’s full of bugs (and not the good kind you can squish with your hammer).
• You didn’t listen to the player base.
• It’s (whatever the opposite of the dog’s bollocks is)…

These are just some of the gripes that tarnish the forums of the ten worst MMOs in circulation today. Some are unplayable, others simply have no players. I’ve decided to send them all to Room 101 because they are horribly bugged, filled with abysmal design flaws, or had outrageously lofty goals that no developer could ever hope to realise.

Oh and because they're all shit. I knew there was another reason...

10 - Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach – it's not like there's a lack of source material! Yet with over thirty years and a wealth of settings in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, developers Turbine chose the cruddy Eberron setting for their game which rolled a natural 20 on its Mediocrity Check. The game failed on almost every level with few, if any, of the features expected in a current generation MMO. The players came... and went back to their parent's basements with barely a whisper, leaving the tiny online world empty.

9 - Shadowbane — an exceptionally ambitious PvP based game that had some great features (that didn’t work at release). By the time Shadowbane was any good, the playerbase had already moved on to other games and didn’t look back. Shame, because the PvP was actually really good.

8 - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes – inferior fantasy MMO that couldn’t compete with existing games. Vanguard can still be found today at the back of seedy night clubs, drinking meths and lamenting the fact how it had twelve players at its height.

7 - Horizons: Empire of Istaria — the most horrifically bugged MMO ever to see release (I say release, meaning hastily flung together alpha code). It started badly and was a slow bleed to its inevitable doom. The game promised (before release) vast lands you could explore to find great adventure. It was true, the game did have vast lands – with absolutely nothing in them. You could walk for miles to find a single lone bush upon the ‘action packed’ landscape. Adventurers rejoice!

6 - Tabula Rasa — Richard Garriot’s lofty opus that actually turned out to be a steaming pile of shite. With a cruddy combat system and a background that changed from week to week in development, there wasn’t anything good about this game. All I have to say is: thank god for betas! It’s a shame, though, because the early design commentaries on this game were encouraging – until they realised putting in all their ideas would cost billions. So instead they settled for a shite game. Sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

5 - Second Life – it’s more like a porn generator, OK if you want to pull one off to a pixellated whore (that could easily be Dave from Barnsley) offering simulated sexual services for e-currency. Personally, I prefer my porn in 1024 x 768 (or, more preferably, HD).

4 - Star Wars Galaxies — you knew this game was going to be shite when they announced there’d be no Jedi at launch. The most anticipated game in MMO history (and the quickest to go down the toilet) - the Force wasn’t anywhere near this game. It was a poorly realised Star Wars title, lite on the action, heavy on the bugs and glitches and piled high with liberal doses of mediocrity. Even hardcore MMO / Star Wars fans stayed clear of this steaming pile of bantha dung.

3 - The Saga of Ryzom — a bizarre French game that seemed to be released, while it was still in development! I know the more cynical of you would say “well, that’s every MMO ever released” but Ryzom really did seem to be released half finished (actually, half would be a huge exaggeration – the game lacked entire lands, classes, and monsters). Ultimately, boggling, baffling and utterly pointless. Unsatisfied with life, Ryzom has since had a sex change and now goes by the name of Daphne where it runs the 118 118 interchange. It's still shit.

2 - The Matrix Online - just like the Matrix Reloaded, this game was utterly devoid of redeeming features. It makes me wonder who signs these games off, as the game was released with few working features, a truly dire graphical engine, and a dismal random quest generation system. Bless ‘em, though. At least they tried. But like the two Matrix sequels, they really shouldn’t have bothered…

1 - All the Asian MMOs - . Yes, that’s right, I’m grouping them together as they’re so utterly derivative. They may look great (although telling one from the next can be tricky), but they’re little more than a huge grind with no story and little in the way of things to do other than endless scrapping. They're like sex with a gorgeous but very stupid woman. Something you'd do once (to say you'd been there and bought the t-shirt), and while you might go back from time to time, it's not something you'd want a long-term relationship (subscription) with.

OK, OK. Here are just some of the culprits. There’s probably ten more I could add to the list in the ten minutes since I last looked… like scabies, they’re unpleasant and almost impossible to get rid of: 2Moons, 9Dragons, Aion: The Tower of Eternity, ArchLord, Dungeon Runners, Lineage / Lineage II, Ragnarok Online.