Best MMO comeback of all time?

[Falconeer]

It sprung out in the Auto Assault topic.

Recently I am really enjoying Planetside, which I bought and loathed back in 2003 when it was released.
So I labeled it "Best MMO comeback of all time" (IMHO, of course).

Assuming you all disagree, what would you vote in such a poll?

--
the Falconeer

[Margalis]

AO, without a doubt. Given their horrific launch they could easily have gone the way of Horizons.

[schild]

Still gonna stand by EQ2. Sure it wasn't terrible at launch but it's about, oh, 900x better now.

As for AO, if I still don't want to play it, did it make a comeback? :P

[shiznitz]

I would vote for EQ2 but I have played it since launch som it isn't really a comeback story for me. Planetside it is. I really have to resist the PS urge to pick EQ2 over it right now. Man, I love flying a Liberator with bomber and gunner slots filled.

[stray]

AO, without a doubt. Given their horrific launch they could easily have gone the way of Horizons.

If they're going to be declared 'best MMO comeback', then it's probably because sins were much more easily forgiveable back then. Hell, if UO or EQ were released today, they'd probably go the way of Horizons as well.

[Trippy]

I vote for AO as well.

To me "comeback" means the game had a (relatively) decent number of subscribers, lost many/most of them (for whatever reasons) and then managed at least to regain those numbers. Without the peak/drop/repeak pattern you are just talking about "most improved" not best comeback. So to me EQ2 and PlanetSide don't even qualify for that award.

[Reg]

I'd vote for EVE myself. After a fairly disastrous launch they've just quietly improved the game and picked up new subscriptions until at this point they're almost out of "niche game" status. With over 100,000 subscribers they're probably bigger than AO or Planetside by now. Defeating that early bad word of mouth is an impressive accomplishment IMO.

[5150]

Well both AO and PS are free now so its probably not fair to attribute them with a comeback - after all would they have made the same recovery had it not gone free?

I wouldnt have said Eve's launch was horrible, its just the game was easily exploitable by those that had been in the beta due to the balance problems......

[Xilren's Twin]

Eh, i'd vote for EQ2.  AO is impressive that it still exists, but considering how open the field was when they turd in a box was released, they really can't get my vote.  EQ2 started off in completely the wrong direction, got owned by their competition, but reworked their game to a large degree.

However, soon it will be Fallen Age.  Sure, the slug infested bomb of a game never made it out of beta, but  I have it on totally believable internet authority that this is actually the secret title Lum is now working on so it will be the next robot jesus...with slugs.

Xilren

[kaid]

I would have to say Eve. When it launched it pretty much did not do anything. Their devs just buckled down and kept improving it and now a LOT of people talk about eve and are enjoying it. How that one avoided the bug zapper initially I don't know but its really found its stride and is going strong now.

kaid

[Numtini]

Either AO or Eve. I think I'd go with Eve. AO had been expected to be a big thing and by all rights should have been the hit that DAOC ended up being. They did a great job turning it around and they got back a lot of customers, but I doubt if they ever fully recovered. Eve on the other hand I get the impression was never planned to be all that mainstream, it probably has more customers now that it did at launch, and it's probably going to end up hitting the kind of numbers it expected to before launch.

EQ2 has done a lot right, but I don't think it's really recovered the subscription numbers. It might be a contender in a year or two if things go right.

[HaemishM]

From the business side, I'd have to say Eve. After all, the game got dropped by its publisher a few months after release and not only came back, it's reached 100k subscribers with very little, if any, retail presence.

For game quality, I'm going to have to go with EQ2. The game was boring as dirt at release, it's now playable and fun. I don't think it'll ever get the commercial success SOE thought it would, but it's a decent game.

Planetside shouldn't even be considered. I expect it's next on the chopping block. It's just not that good a game compared to other free offerings out there.

[Nija]

Eve. I played the first two weeks of release and snapped the CD in half and cursed it for years.

Now it's easily the best PVP mmo available.

[Venkman]

"Comeback" in terms of changed-for-the-better: EQ2, maybe AO. Eve has gotten better by a lot, but just at delivering the core experience that's always made it what it was anyway.

"Comeback" in terms of business success, where it was previously doomed to forever-dead: AO maybe.

In my opinion. Of course.

And how we can talk about this and not "Deepest Downfall"? Maybe because we all know what that is? ;)

[Rasix]

And how we can talk about this and not "Deepest Downfall"? Maybe because we all know what that is? ;)

We've got several titles and two companies fighting for that one.

[shiznitz]

Does "deepest downfall" assume the game was somewhat successful and then failed or never succeeded at all? AC2 and HZ are neck and neck for the latter. SWG wins hands down for the former.

[Falconeer]

Does "deepest downfall" assume the game was somewhat successful and then failed or never succeeded at all? AC2 and HZ are neck and neck for the latter. SWG wins hands down for the former.

I "nominated" this elsewhere for about the same award:  Earth and Beyond
And no, I wouldn't be surprised at all if you couldn't recall it   :)

--
the Falconeer

[Venkman]

Jumpgate :)

[Falconeer]

Jumpgate :)

Jumpgate?
"That" Jumpgate? I mean NetDevil's Jumpgate?
First game of Auto Assault developers?
Gotta be kidding me :)


--
the Falconeer

[Toast]

Eve Online is the winner here. Word of mouth is growing.

I disagree with the votes for Everquest 2. SOE made a lot of tweaks and threw a few bones to soloers. However, the core game is unchanged and it's as dull as ever.

[Sparky]

Another vote for EVE.  At release the game was shite - only ships were cruisers or frigates, missiles pwned all, there were no alliances or anything like that, mining was the only way to make cash and the thing crashed like a fucker.  It was limited, horribly boring and buggy.  Over that summer they lost something like 1/3 of their subscribers (judging by accounts online at peak times) leading many to voice that the game was doomed.  But since then CCP methodically fixed most of the problems and filled out the gaps, now it's still growing near three years later.

[Venkman]

I don't feel EQ2 is any more or less dull than WoW experientially. Graphically, yea, WoW is just a happier world to be in fulltime. But that it has a bajillion more players doesn't change the core mechanic. Further, you can have a thousand servers all day long when the amount of people on any given one is probably the same as any given EQ2 server.

EQ2 has not made a business comeback though, and may not. But the team has spent the last year pretty much redesigning it, and it is a much better game than it was at launch. As far as I've seen, no other game has changed for the better and changed as much as EQ2. Most other games that have gone through huge changes on this level and beyond were mostly received either with derision or outright account-cancelling hate.

Another vote for EVE.  At release the game was shite - only ships were cruisers or frigates, missiles pwned all, there were no alliances or anything like that, mining was the only way to make cash and the thing crashed like a fucker

Only reason I don't consider Eve as having a huge comeback is because most of the truly deep changes were player-directed. The game itself has had many more features added to it, but nothing that is completely dissimilar from any 3-year-old MMOG. I'm certainly no expert though, so maybe I am unduly discounting player bases, things like the Titan, and the newbie tutorial thing.

[Rhonstet]

I'd have to vote for EVE, simply because its too early to determine if Planetsie's free promotion has yielded sales.  If Planetside featured content updates and actual marketing in a scale that even vaguely resembled EVE, Planetside would be a success.

AO's free promotion worked well too, but EVE is the only MMO I have seen succeed almost entirely on word of mouth and banner ad.

I don't could EQ2, because SOE releases games a minimum of six months too early.  Initial EQ2 was just a pay-to-beta sold in a nice box, and the game itself was patched in later.

[El Gallo]

AO went from 0 to 4.  I'd rate that ahead of EQ2's move from 3 to 6.  Cuz 4 is bigger than 3.  If I put this on a chart, you'd all believe me.

[tazelbain]

See MMOG is quality like the Richter Scale or Warp Factor. The leap from 3 to 6 is lot more difficult than the 0 to 4.

[Numtini]

AO actually made it's greatest recovery before it went free to play. It won back a lot of subscribers and had a great game going. The froob campaign was really more about getting new players for a game that was badly aging in graphics than it was about fixing the original disaster.

[Azazel]

Still gonna stand by EQ2. Sure it wasn't terrible at launch but it's about, oh, 900x better now.

As for AO, if I still don't want to play it, did it make a comeback? :P

I could say the same about EQ2 ;)

Planetside being free seems interesting though.

Though caring enough to get around to play install it over just playing Far Cry/BF2 atm and Oblivion/a bit more WoW and whetever the next FPS will be might make it hard.

[Soln]

From the business side, I'd have to say Eve. After all, the game got dropped by its publisher a few months after release

thought I read it was Simon & Schuster Interactive that were their original publishers, but that arm of the book company went bust.  No matter.  EQ2 gets my vote for most improved, and EVE for best comeback. 

[Surlyboi]

EQ2 with planetside getting an honorable mention. The fodd..err, reserve program has pumped my sniper kills up to 50+ a night. And honestly, who doesn't love pimping noobs?

[Savant]

Eve and AO are both equally good candidates.  Each has had their respective comeback.

As for the opposite, I vote Fighting Legends.

[Endie]

I have to jump heedlessly onto the accelerating bandwagon which is Eve.  I heard it was like Elite ages ago, tried it, and found it was like Elite on my BBC micro in terms of repetitiveness (oh but I loved Elite all the same), but far less reliable.

Now I love it.  Although it's not without its problems.  It still isn't entirely stable, and borked elements remain.  But it's the best PvP out there, the best Sandbox in the mainstream and more...

Endie

[jpark]

Still gonna stand by EQ2. Sure it wasn't terrible at launch but it's about, oh, 900x better now.

I agree.  As an aside though they have incrementally improved the game as much as they can now - without a massive investment.  As Toast points out:

I disagree with the votes for Everquest 2. SOE made a lot of tweaks and threw a few bones to soloers. However, the core game is unchanged and it's as dull as ever.

[shiznitz]

The Planetside Rserve program seems to be working. I joined an outift after a week back in the game and we have almost a full platoon (3 squads of 10) every weeknight for a few hours and more than half are Reserves. Only nine of the 158 outfit members have Teamspeak (which makes TS pretty useless for the moment.) I have been playing PS (to the exclusion of EQ2) for three solid weeks now.

[Driakos]

The Planetside Rserve program seems to be working. I joined an outift after a week back in the game and we have almost a full platoon (3 squads of 10) every weeknight for a few hours and more than half are Reserves. Only nine of the 158 outfit members have Teamspeak (which makes TS pretty useless for the moment.) I have been playing PS (to the exclusion of EQ2) for three solid weeks now.

Doesn't Planetside have built-in voice support?  Or, is that only for the paying subscribers (not the fodder)?

[shiznitz]

The Planetside Rserve program seems to be working. I joined an outift after a week back in the game and we have almost a full platoon (3 squads of 10) every weeknight for a few hours and more than half are Reserves. Only nine of the 158 outfit members have Teamspeak (which makes TS pretty useless for the moment.) I have been playing PS (to the exclusion of EQ2) for three solid weeks now.

Doesn't Planetside have built-in voice support?  Or, is that only for the paying subscribers (not the fodder)?

That was the plan but it never worked.