4 Free-to-play MMOs We'd Like To See Rebooted

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor
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4 MMOS feat

MMOs have changed a lot over the past decade and a half. Maybe that's why, even as I ran around in the bare-bones City of Titans, I was hit with equal feelings of nostalgia and regret – nostalgia for how much fun I had in City of Heroes and regret that, if City of Titans reaches its final form, I probably won't have much interest in an MMO running on a 12 (or more)-year-old engine.

That got me thinking about other free-to-play MMOs I like, or used to like, that just seem antiquated by today's standards. There's still life in them, but time seems to have passed them by. That's not necessarily their fault; you can't completely rework a game's mechanics and its engine five-plus years after it came out. Still, if I could push a giant reset button, here are the games I'd like to see get a more modern treatment.

(None of this is to say that these games are “bad” or should be shut down or replaced – or, given the costs in making a new MMO, not to mention licensing issues, that they ever could be made. But I would tend to think that, if they possessed a magic reset button, even the developers, in most of these cases, would like to do something similar.)

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City of Heroes

Let's start with the game that inspired this trip down memory lane. City of Titans, while nice, looks to be pretty much a straight-up copy of the original. As I said, that will be nice, and City of Heroes was still popular when it was shut down, but it's unlikely to do much to hold the modern MMO player's attention for too long.

While “crashing the evil villain's lair” – i.e., instanced dungeons/raids – would still be a thing, I'd like to see more active, large-scale street-level action, something akin to modern dynamic events. Imagine a giant robot rampaging through the city that heroes have to confront, or a disease sweeping through town that tasks players with finding the cure before it's too late. That's the essence of “being the hero,” in my mind – fighting crime and helping the ordinary citizens.

CoH actually had a little bit of this, all the way back in 2004, along with the sidekicking system, which let players of different levels play together. It was “modern” in several ways, it just needs some fine-tuning and a new coat of paint.

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The Lord of the Rings Online

You knew I'd bring this one up, right? Turbine's tried to modernize its MMO, adding a form of dynamic events and even removing monster tagging, but the game is still shackled to an engine that still can look pretty at times, but often shows its age, both in its graphical clarity and performance. Toss in a mostly WoW-style questing and loot system and it's hard not to pine for something a little more adventurous in the greatest fantasy IP of all time.

Other than the obvious performance and graphical upgrades, I'd want the “new LotRO” to find a way to put the emphasis on the journey more so than the destination. Seemingly 90% of the Lord of the Rings books has the characters going from one place to another, with little actual time spent in Moria, Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith, and other notable places.

How to do that in an MMO, where people expect to repeat closed spaces over and over to gather loot? Maybe something similar to ArcheAge's trade routes could be a major part of the game. There might be some “physical” rewards, like gold and items, but perhaps the main goal would be gaining renown and fame for your glorious deeds. If there was ever an IP that could plausibly encourage something other than loot gain, The Lord of the Rings would be it. After all, in the books, the main characters start with the greatest treasure in the world and they're actively trying to get rid of it!

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Rift

Unlike CoH and LotRO, Rift is a newer game. And I'll re-emphasize what I said originally, that no, I don't think it should be shut down and instantly replaced. A lot of people love it, and it's still really popular.

I tend to think of Rift, though, the same way I think of Magic: The Gathering. Magic's creator, Richard Garfield, has said that, if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't have lands in Magic; they're uninteresting and just take up space, and many CCGs have figured out how to do resources without them.

Rift was the first MMO to really put an emphasis on dynamic events – heck, the game's even named after them – but it still couldn't resist putting in traditional World of Warcraft-style “kill 10 rats” questing. It was unquestionably a fallback move, put in there just in case this crazy rift idea didn't work.

Now, a few years later, a game based entirely around dynamic events, with limited or no traditional questing, doesn't seem like such a crazy idea. I like to think that, just as with lands and Magic, the developers would love to be able to “start over” and make the game all that it could be without archaic questing holding it back.

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Star Wars: The New Republic?

Star Wars = money. That's just the way it is. Even those “awful” prequels raked in over a billion dollars in theaters, and that's not counting all income from comic books, action figures, t-shirts, DVDs... and video games.

There was no MMO produced based on those prequels, because Star Wars: Galaxies was in development/released and we had The Old Republic to fill in as a mostly unexplored part of the Expanded Universe when SWG went away. But with the new movies coming out over the next few years, I think it's all but inevitable that we'll see a new MMO based on them... someday.

EA and BioWare's contract to produce Star Wars: The Old Republic probably runs until sometime in the early 2020s, by which time Episodes VII to IX should be wrapped up. Of course, actually making an MMO would take years beyond that, so maybe we're not even looking at getting this game until 2030(!) or so – but again, Star Wars = money. You know someone is thinking about it.

What would it look like? Honestly, given the tremendous costs in creating an MMO based on one of the most popular licenses in history, I can't imagine it taking any huge risks – in other words, it would probably follow SWTOR's lead in that case.

However, who knows how MMOs will develop over the next 10-15 years? Maybe sandboxes will be all the rage again and the new Star Wars MMO will mimic that style (and all F2P payment models will be less like SWTOR's). Then you'll finally have your second coming of Star Wars: Galaxies.

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About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Discussion (50)

BURAT 8 years ago
hmmm LEGEND OF MIR3 anyone??

Paradiseh 8 years ago
Soul of the Ultimate Nation or SUN Online, game was perfect and would love to see it revamped in the same old combat style too

View 1 reply
asdasd 8 years ago
Metal Rage, some shit publisher bought it & never even beta it...

asdasd 8 years ago
Requiem remade in the vindictus engine

davidjans 8 years ago
perfect world anyone ? no just me okay

Tiko 8 years ago
RF Online, really needs a reboot.

Whippylash 8 years ago
Fallen Earth!
We need more mmo shooters with PvE.
I can't wait until someone makes a openworld mmofps with raids.
I hope my dream comes true.

detestt 8 years ago
Requiem Bloodymare!

Of course without Gravity Inc.

voydd 8 years ago
I am surprised to see Rift here as the game feels like it's going it's own nice path and doesn't need rebooting oppositely to SWTOR which I'm glad it made to the list:)
Still expanding question to all MMO's I'd definitely see WoW getting it's version 2

Old-Style 8 years ago
The Matrix Online

There were so many great ideas that game had that could have been expanded upon. It never quite reached it's potential, and a lot of the concepts it hinted at never quite came to fruition in the fashion I am sure its creators envisioned. I think the IP is still relevant, and I think that it's still a world absolutely perfect for the MMO space. It's the one game, when I look back on the MMOs I've played, that I get truly disappointed more effort was put into it given the IP was so perfect.

heyougae 8 years ago
Cabal 2 would be the best to remake.

View 1 reply
Orange 8 years ago
Shaiya would be the best to remake.

Brochim 8 years ago
Warhammer Online, to me it was never the game it was meant to be .

I was so disappointed with this. In the end it was just another IP branded WoW clone. If only it could of held more of the tabletop games roots, something closer Shadow of the Horned Rat or early Kingdom Under Fire . Warhammer was always at its best with large battles between army's where troop tactics and roles played a huge part in how the game was played ( that and the odd lucky dice roll of course).

Still. Kingdom Under Fire 2 is in the works and looking pretty good so there's still something to keep my hopes up

Anonymous 8 years ago
I might be getting old... I can't really count... I think I counted 5 games, but the title says four??
~_~ I'm growing senile.

InsanePoet 8 years ago
Atlantica Online? Without Atlas ore =/

View 2 replies
Hantzie 8 years ago
Silkroad Online with the triangle conflict anyone?

kek 8 years ago
Dekaron!

NomnomZilla 8 years ago
Requiem bloodymare

adriano 8 years ago
Lotro and rift pictures are switched.

View 1 reply
Deyirn 8 years ago
Shadowbane has to be remade with quests and WASD movement and rereleased.

chefmadness 8 years ago
Neverwinter should be completely redone! It totally needs the 3.5 D20 system like the original instead of the CRAP cookie cutter classes! Would be nice to see Hell Gate with way better graphics but the game is still awesome by it's own right. DDO with better graphics but it's awesome any way.
Star Wars Galaxies would be totally awesome if they brought it back. Star Trek online with better graphics. & The Secret World what a bad ass game!

MerksMariya 8 years ago
I would just love to see Infinity online, Soulmaster, and Exteel come back

View 3 replies
Kantabar 8 years ago
REALLY!!! No one has mentioned Exteel online? I'm dissapointed

Curst 8 years ago
Huxley: the Dystopia anyone? It never even made it to the west in its current form. With a new Unreal engine, more open world and modernized features it could have been great I think.

Baer 8 years ago
Come on, at least mention one of the most successful MMORPGs to date: Ragnarok Online.
It clearly has lost it's magic over time and, especially in the west, has lost to newer games.
With a new engine (the controls and netcode are horrible) the game could certainly rise again. The system itself is okay, it could need some not too drastic changes (RO2 *cough*). Especially the PvP-system is clearly one of the best in every MMORPG to date. A regular "World Championship"-style PvP arena could win a lot of competitive MOBA players over as well.

Buggy 8 years ago
Fantasy Earth Zero would be nice to see come back out seeing there is no war aspect games out.

meored 8 years ago
Wizardry Online? No one?

Fantasy Earth Zero 8 years ago
Enough said....
Or at the very least something like it should come out.

Mark Ratkai 8 years ago
Lineage 2, my first and old love.....i wish i could play with that again with a bit better graphics.

View 1 reply
Ambulas 8 years ago
Bring Blawl Busters, Renaissance Heroes, Monkey Quest

Flam3crash 8 years ago
Dawngate - was a great game
Warhammer - if it was free to play , it was fairly good also , but RIP also :(

thatsdoodoobaby 8 years ago
SHAIYA!

alex 8 years ago
How about Mu online?....

View 1 reply
Cappie 8 years ago
Auto Assault.

DON'T JUDGE ME!

Vollothar 8 years ago
Just letting you know, but the article placed the screenshots incorrectly. The Rift screenshot and Lotro should be swapped. Not a huge deal but still!

yokki 8 years ago
wanna see neverwinter online done by another studio+publisher (because the current ones are incompetent and destroyed the IP they have) preferably in unreal 4 engine.

xCROOKEDx 8 years ago
Not really MMOs, but I'd like to see Dawngate (RIP - you were taken from us far too soon) and Archeblade get reboots.

TORK 8 years ago
Mounted


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