NCSoft has shut down most of its MMOs over the last few years: Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, Lineage NA and most recently City of Heroes (which was still showing a profit of 16 million dollars a year after development and hosting costs).

They're the biggest offending MMO publisher for the "KEEEEL YOU NAAAOOOOW!" philosophy, but a few other MMOs have been shut down over the years as well. Warhammer Online was just shuttered a few months ago, and Glitch died a sad death last year. There are others I just can't think of right now, too.

Actually, now that I think of it, Sony just shut down Free Realms and its Star Wars childrens' MMOs, as well as its Wizardry Online MMO (an open PvP permadeath MMO that didn't last much over a year if that). They're shutting down Vanguard soon too. And of course LucasArts refused to renew their Star Wars license for Star Wars Galaxies (after the NGE fiasco, once The Old Republic was announced), so Sony wound up closing SWG too. And the Matrix. Jeez, it's a wonder anyone plays NCSoft OR Sony MMOs anymore, lol. That's just sad.

SDZald wrote: »

Anarchy Online, a SiFi based MMO. Came out after EQ, I think it was a Finish company. It was so bad it took 15 minutes just to cross a street, it wasn't a bad game when no one else was on and you weren't lagging out.

Where are you getting your information from?

Anarchy Online is a norwiegen company and not only is it still running. Its running with quite a good base of players. I lost count what expansion their up to now, but at their time, they where gamebreaking with MMORPG with guns instead of swords and spells.

AO also came up with several features which a lot of MMO took after. Personal housing. You had your own apartment. The easier zones where PvE, but if you wanted to venture out in the harder and more rewarding areas, Pvp was on for everyone. They had 3 factions. Or 2, cause one was neutral.

AO also where the first gamebreaking with how good graphics you can have in an MMO, because at that time, internet connection and computers where not even close to the most worse system you can find today.

They also managed to mix classes, enter features like "the matrix" where only a class called Fixer or an agent changed to a fixer could enter. How far you could go was based on your skills.

AO was also FIRST with a skill based level system. Yes, you did level, but you had access to almost all skills, just like in ESO. However, the class you choose decided how much skillspoints would be needed for a specific skill.

They also came up with the nifty idea to use magic....but call it nanotechnology.

Another feature which I havnt seen that many MMOs (SWTOR had it I think) even looked at was that you could have 3 different "gears" on you. 3 set if you will, that always was one, but 3 different sides. Armor/weapons, Implants (You got implanted by a robot if you had the right skill and/or the right implant, and the last was "grafts" if I recall it correctly.

This gave the player a very good option to change/add/mod the character to what they wanted. Even if the game was class based, with the skills avaible, at different skillspoints and the implants, you choose a lot how your charater would be like.

There was melee, ranged weapons, nanotechnology (Think magic) and shielding, avaible for all.

AO also introduced the first MMO (There was plans and talks, but AO released it first) PvP bases, called oilfield or something like it. If your cooperation (guild) where able to aquire one of these bases, the whole "guild" got bonuses and buffs as long as they owned it. Anyone, at any time could attack your base and try to take it. There was NPC guards but without any player there...you pretty much lost your base.

"Guilds" had set up different time scheduals just for this, to guard their property.

And of course there is raids. But they scaled. I am not sure how, but if quite alot of highlevels with high skills where in the raidgroup. the target became more powerful and vice verca. Loot was global, so after killing things, it was up to the players to decide who gets what. And it worked.......

This was over 10 years go. Today the game gets updated but sadly, fell for the free-to-play trap. So players in AO are not very loyal like they would be in a subscription game.

http://www.anarchy-online.com/

I had to respond to this persons fantasy post. AO was one of the biggest games, fighting with Everquest over dominance. It had a lot of bugs, which got fixed.