I am going to make what may be a contentious statement here: I am not particularly sad about a lot of MMORPGs that shut down. I acknowledge that it is sad for people who were big fans of, say, Elyon lost the game that they enjoyed. I’m not saying that it is a good thing the game closed because it isn’t. But the game itself was not uniquely compelling. It was a pretty average paint-by-numbers game in many ways, and that’s not to say that you can’t love a game like that, but it does mean I don’t weep that many tears.

But there are some sunsetted MMOs whose deaths do make me sad, not because any of them was a favorite games (although a couple definitely wanted to be) but because they were unique and weird in our genre. Like the Fear & Loathing line, they were high-powered mutants never intended for mass production, and while I can almost universally understand why they didn’t make it all the way, I can still be sad that they’re gone now. They were different.

For the record, for this list I am counting only MMOs that have closed and haven’t had some kind of revival. If servers are still up? You don’t count here.

1. The Wagadu Chronicles

We need more afrofantasy games. Actually, we need more fantasy settings that don’t start and stop at Europe in the middle ages, full stop. No, adding science fiction doesn’t fix it. No, moving the timeline up a bit to the early Renaissance doesn’t fix it, either, although it’s a step in the right direction (and two of the games that I can think of in that category have gone to distant locales anyway). But The Wagadu Chronicles was, right from the start, an attempt to do something very different in the MMORPG space, and I’m glad it existed. Not glad that it wasn’t actually, like, a whole lot of fun to play, but hey.

2. WildStar

A vibrant, colorful game that seemed shot through with the spirit of hardscrabble adventure and a different sort of science fiction right from the jump. It was hard not to watch the trailers for this game and not get swept up in them, and I was certainly excited from the start. I devoted a lot of my headspace to this game, which is why it was kind of a huge disappointment that the game fell so hard into chest-pounding enthusiasm and ultimately didn’t make it. I could probably write a whole P10 about where it went wrong, but I still am glad it existed. (Let me know if people would read that column, too. I’ll do anything to avoid thinking up a second column.)

3. MapleStory 2

I tried the original game here multiple times and always bounced off, but the sequel seemed like it was built on better bones and was just more fun all around. Which is why it surprised me that it never really got a chance, getting tossed out to pasture really early when it failed to connect. Pity.

4. Asheron’s Call

There are probably better words to describe Asheron’s Call than “weird,” but I say the weirdness is in and of itself more important here. This was always a strange, unique title, somehow marching to the beat of its own drum before there was even a codified and accepted drumbeat to march to. In a world that even in those early years was starting to form a clear factional conflict in terms of game design, AC always seemed to be existing off in its own little world. It’s a shame it never got the traction it deserved.

5. Glitch

I do not personally have any investment in this weird side-scrolling peaceful title because the things it was pitching from the word “go” were not things that I was interested in. But you know what? That’s fine. There should be titles that are offering things that I do not necessarily want. I am not the only audience, and this was a game with a big heart and a different idea about what it could mean to exist in a shared space with other people. That is a good thing! I want that to be a thing!

6. LEGO Universe

So I kind of hate the various third-person action-platformer games that are basically just generic action-platformers that happen to use LEGO as an aesthetic without really having any larger things to say about the line of toys that’s based on. LEGO Universe was not that game, and I understand that it died in part because of dongs, but also I feel like it at least understood the assignment. It was at least built around being a game of… well, building.

7. The Matrix Online

I wanted to get into this game because I love the films it’s based on, but at the time it came out I just didn’t have a computer that could run it, and then the moment passed. There were other things to do. Still, the idea of the game as the canonized continuing adventures of the universe was always just… wild. It was a weird idea and exactly the sort of weird idea that tracks with the other weird ideas flowing around the franchise.

8. Otherland

The idea of getting an MMORPG based on these books alone is weird, but the actual game itself was a bizarre fever dream that was a mash-up of insanely over-reaching ambition, janky systems, genuine weirdness, and just one-of-a-kind circumstances that you can’t fake.

One of the things that I’ve heard mentioned before about movies is that it’s basically impossible to intentionally make a bizarre bad film because the inauthenticity shows through. Tusk is a terrible movie because it is very intentionally trying to be a weird bad movie and you can feel it, as opposed to a movie like Starcrash, which is trying to be a good movie without any ability to get within the same solar system as one. Otherland was that, but in game form. It was a bad game, but it was trying to be an innovative and uniquely brilliant game, despite not having a fraction of the time or budget or coherence needed to accomplish that goal. And that makes it memorable.

9. Chimeraland

Speaking of bizarre games that you could not intentionally make if you tried, like… look at this thing. Read any story about it and try to picture what the pitch meeting for any idea looked like. None of that makes the game good, of course, but it at least makes the game memorable. There are dozens of generic Korean games with women in high heels and miniskirts regardless of their ostensible class who all have the same doll-like features and smiles that don’t reach their eyes that you will forget about. But you will remember this one.

10. Riders of Icarus

This is admittedly a corner case because in many ways this is exactly the sort of title I was just discussing featuring women in high heels and miniskirts with doll faces and smiles that don’t reach their eyes. But it also featured the ability for players to just look at everything in the game and decide, “Yes, that right there is my new mount,” so you gotta kinda love that.

Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”