38:08 - That OST sounded similar to a game called "San Francisco Rush 2049" with the track called "Morning" if you or anyone is curious on listening to that song. The entire game OST oozes the late 90's/early 2000's futuristic feel so if you want give those songs a try!
Lego Universe was the first MMO I played. Back in the Day it was awesome. Wish it would have gotten some more things to do and would at least last so long that it would gotten an Addon or Expansion. 35:48 It was not really because most players, like me at the time, needed their parents to buy a membership. That meant that not many did in the end pay for it. The Studio did not really think about that and expected way more money then they actually got. Also because it was a MMO aimed at kids LEGO demanded a lot of Moderation, like a PP detection on these Building sites. In the End they spent more then 20% of all revenue on moderation, which was far too high to be sustainable
Yea it had a bunch of potential! And thats very interesting to know, I never wouldve thought about the moderation cost but it makes a lot of sense. 20% of all revenue is a crazy amount though no wonder it shutdown
i feel like if they made sets for the game that included like a few weeks or a month of membership (depending on size?) they would’ve gotten a lot more money idk
I remember when I was a kid my dream was to play Lego Universe and I never got to because the family computer didn't run it. I remember leaving it downloading for 2 days and the game simply wouldn't open.😢
i got the game before the big expansion so I didnt get to experience the new sub-classes and the ninjago theme. At the time i was the biggest ninjago fan and this was a wish come true lego universe + ninjago, but as u mentioned my parents aswell only bought base game with the included 1month and i played it for a month. I giga spammed the shit out of it tho and its probably my second fav game of all time. The sound, the world, the atmosphere everything just clicked for me. The only game that would come near this exp for me was wow classic, even tho I never played it before It felt kinda familiar. Not to mention that I was such a fan of the game that I played a lot of the free trial aswell. I perma made a new char just so I can play this game.
I remember playing Lego Universe when I was a kid and it was my introduction to paying a subscription to play a game, my dad was pissed because we got a physical copy at a store and expected it to be a one time thing, and it was up until I made it to the lil rockets on top of the mountain, and because I didnt want my dad to pay any more money I just kinda wandered around all over the place just enjoying the look of the game
Same exact experience myself😂 I didn’t understand it either after buying a disc for it but felt even worse after seeing my parents reaction so I just enjoyed the scenery hahaha
There was actually a shutdown event of sorts on the last day of Lego Universe, and it was basically just the admins spawning in random stuff (like trains) at the nexus tower hub as well as gifting players items like the jetpack and some test items they didn't release.
Yup one of my core gaming memories. I remember saying goodbye to the group of kids I played with on there, having access to items I had never owned, and participating in a countdown to the end. It was so bitter sweet. I cried for probably an hour after it ended.
LEGO Universe was such a childhood game for me omg. I remember visiting the player house called Red Town all the time and trying to go out of bounds everywhere else
Can't think of abandoned MMOs without thinking of the one I put so many hours in back in the day: Cartoon Network Universal Fusion Fall. I remember checking the Update Page regularly only to be met by the same Halloween Count Dracula update from Grim Adventures as I grinded out a new account after a Respawn Glitch bricked my player for the 3rd time. My favorite part of the game was the Early game Map being completely open, and the game would became a stealth quest, walking along the boundaries to avoid detection from enemies that'd one-shot me; the fear of the respawn glitch balanced with my childlike sense of exploration and wanting to hopefully find a beloved cartoon character in the vast, quiet map. Lots of fun finding Courage the Cowardly Dog literally in the middle of Nowhere in a huge Desert. I think there's alos a community driven server community these days, but man was it a cool idea to kid me haha
You def had people who’ve successfully kept it alive, even added to it, with these versions of the game keeping it alive being Fusionfall Legacy and Retro
@@ghjjiyeqsg1052 Legacy and Retro were shut down a long time ago, OpenFusion & Retrobution are what can be played now and Legacy is "Saturday Morning Invasion" now
RIP to all the dead mmos, especially the ones that you can't play _at all_ anymore. Those 10 (11 in less than a month) years have been way harder on me than they should have...
there is so much to uncover in the realm of forgotten/now dead mmos. i miss the days of the mmo boom, there was always something new going on and people were still figuring how to get things working and profit at the same time. Now everything follows the same models also i love the animations and pixelated style you've got in these vids man, looks great
The problem of that time was that the MMOs that actually had something great like Wildstar were drowned out by 100 others. The attention was too wide-spread.
Just a random dude who has played BOTS since late 2006 and I'm really grateful for your effort in making an introduction for this game. It's true that BOTS is not a great game in story-telling and actually in many other aspects, but what I still found fun these days about it is the way PVP and Base vs Base work out, and how you can chill with your friends and others in these game modes when the room size is big enough. Anyway a well explained video about BOTS and you earned a new sub from Hong Kong👍🏻
I remember when I wanted to play lego universe, I wasn't old enough to use it so my mother made me wait until I was old enough to play it, but alas, come the time when I could play it the servers were gone.
it's established in several places (Matrix Reloaded and Resurrections eg) that things like vampires, ghost, etc. existed as programs in previous versions of the matrix before getting rebooted. the merovingian even has some of them working for him
27:44 Nah, you could actually collect individual lego pieces to make custom builds. In fact, you could take the pre-made model items and deconstruct them into individual bricks to use.
Regarding Lego Universe's early game slog - a good chunk of that was added during the game's Free-to-Play update to pad out Avant Gardens and boy does it show. The Rusty Steele thing is especially egregious, which is why we modded it on our server to be optional side content - before the F2P update he just sent you on your way.
i've been currently getting into starbreak, a level based mmo that stopped getting updated in 2018 but still has it's server up, despite having like 50 concurrent players it looks surprisingly lively. i miss those types of mmos a lot, they feel much more focused than the popular open world format, and my high point for these multiplayer games was always the raiding, so bots looks right up my alley.
Goodness, I haven't thought about LEGO Universe in a minute. I still remember how in the Ninjago world you could jump on some rocks and clip through the terrain, and for reasons I'm not sure of, there was a giant grass textured platform you'd land on after falling down for a bit, so a group of us would just go down there and hang out.
LEGO UNIVERSE MENTIONED!!! absolutely loved that game for the few short weeks I played it. honestly, one of the other MMO's I quite enjoyed that kind of died off is Spiral Knights. great artstyle, but it got killed off due to lack of maintenance and updates. sad times.
I miss Lego Universe so much man, genuinely if they were to remake it today I would gladly pay for the membership because that game was genuinely one of the only MMOs I’ve played and really got hooked on. I was actually devastated when they shut it down when I was still young
THANK YOU for being someone to finally make notice of Bots!, it's such a fun game and I was so sad when it initially shut down. It had a small loving community that stuck with it until the end.
5:58 The Blackout Club did this in a less direct way when its story was running. You were able to send voice recordings as prayers to the Voices/Daemons/gods and they (the developers) would reply to a fair few of them in the form of auditory dreams you'd receive after a mission. Old Jagex had the odd staff-run event back in RuneScape 2's heyday, too
BRO, this video is incredible. All my favorite MMOs as a kid. I got Lego Universe on Christmas and I remember playing that game so dang much. Absolute throwback. Also when I left for school always so eager to come home and smash stuff on BOTS. Great video, thanks for the nostalgia trip.
I appreciate the look into more obscure MMOs, feel like there's a few surface level ones people talk about first with these types of videos. If you ever did a part 2, would recommend looking into Myst Uru based on the puzzle game series. In the early 2000s someone thought that would be a good idea for a MMO with what seems to be interesting results. Was later rebranded as a singleplayer game after the servers closed, though some MMO aspects lingered.
What an amazing video dude. Every MMO described in this was interesting (which finding interesting topics is a skill all on its own) and you explained them in a very informative and fun (couldn't think of another word that wasn't interesting) way. The format was simple and DIDN'T drag on too long at some parts. The way you implemented your character into the games themselves was actually inspiring. Actually kinda fustrating that you're still "up and coming" because it makes me feel like pos for not being able to put this effort in myself. Good job all around.
Lego Universe was my childhood mmo for real. I remember playing it fondly and getting interested in the lore. For a Lego game, it was pretty rad and may have inspired later Lego media, even my own projects. Glad to hear someone finally talk about it
Wow! This is awesome, yesterday I was literally talking about how much I miss MMOs. I feel like this generation of kids doesn't have the same game or shared experience that brings them together like MMOs did for my generation.
Yeah the zombie virus being a thing is mentioned in passing in one of the films. There's also vampires and werewolves which are featured more prominently. They're in Reloaded and the Enter the Matrix ps2 game. Part of the 'Exiles' from previous versions of the Matrix that were wiped.
18:29 "This is hands down the coolest most unique way a game has shut down servers I've seen" Allow me to introduce you to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0's shutdown, the fall of Dalamud
Man i played lego universe and 3 month after that the game closed, i was stil playing them that happen, i'm brazilian, took me some years to learn englih and find out what happen to the game, manage to find some ways to play the game now, you bring so much nostalgic memories, sorry about my english its not the best hahaha
Cities have parks, subways, skyways, corporate megacomplexes, rundown neighborhoods, posh neighborhoods, undercities (if you're into urban exploring, look these up), redlight districts, little 'insert country' town', hidden and/or private clubs/bars, etc. There is variety to cities, but it is difficult. I think if a Matrix game got made today, this type of stuff would be implemented better thanks to modern tech.
Oh my god, you unlocked some long forgotten core memory for me by talking about Bots. I had completely forgotten about its existence until now and I'm so happy to see that there's still a community for it.
I remember playing a lot of the long dead PS3 social MMO, Playstation Home. That was pretty fun but I doubt anyone was able to archive it since it didn't have a PC release.
the only other online game I can think of where the narrative was continues through staff interacting with players in real time, in character, was FFXIV 1.0, the game's Producer-Director actually played the role of a "Wandering Minstrel" and would log in as the character as the game was hitting it's final days, before it was relaunched, hyping up what was basically a game ending apocalypse, GMs even spawned monsters like mad outside towns to simulate monsters attacking in the final day of service
just wanna say, vampires are in the matrix movies but you wouldnt know it by looking at them the movies are not very clear about that that's what theyre supposed to be but yeah, there are vamps and even werewolves and they do fight each other at some point and the movie does not specify that lol but it is in the lore
Lego Universe was a huge memory of my childhood as i used to play a lot of MMOs and i was inredibly hyped at the announcement, shame i never got the chance to actually play it, as it wasn't available in my country... 27:50 An online lego/brick-by-brick building game is very possible and has been done successfully more than once, just not with the lego brand or officially - in fact, the first significant example i can think of dates back to 2007 and its game called Blockland, which is an absolute hidden gem. Far from a unplayable or messy game, and with massive modding potential that did indeed lead to a lot of pieces and potential for builds, other than the fact it allowed for event scripting for blocks and custom items, vehicles and the like; Think gmod, but with lego bricks. While it only retains a tiny loyal playerbase , the game is still fully functional to this day (other than being re-released on steam years later) and is still one of the best games i ever played. The only reason we don't have far bigger and successful games like that today is that no one wants to make it, despite the potential. (an obligatory mention goes to Brickadia, which is an attempt at a spiritual sequel to Blockland by completely different people, but hasn't been fully released yet, although an early build is playable)
I forgot about Bots entirely! I played it as a ton as a kid during my "f2p mmo" phase. I remember it being really grinfy but u spent hundreds of hours in it
i remember playing lego universe aaaages ago!! did you know they had us donate bricks to "help contribute to sentinel tower"? i remember being so excited watching the progress go up day by day, it was a fun way to make the community engage... as far as i can recall, LOL
27:52 Technically there are things that match that description. Lego Worlds allows for the uses of an insane amount of lego bricks that can be used in game. And for the CAD side of things, we have Lego Studio Bricklink (formerly Lego Digital Designer), which can even make custom instructions!
Matrix Online shutdown reminds me of the FFXIV 1.0 shutdown, it's canon in universe that the old version's world was destroyed. Basically there was a man-made moon that contained a huge earth destroying dragon called Bahamut. An in universe song started playing, monsters invaded city states, the sky went dark and the moon glowed red before the servers shut down. What followed was the trailer for "A Realm Reborn" which lead to 2.0 and is the main version you can play still
The lego universe devs put out a tweet saying that it was shut down because it wasnt generating revenue fast enough. It was profitable if it was given time, like a lot of successful MMOs, but the lego company didnt want to give it that time.
I still have my lego universe case with the disc in it sitting on my gaming shelf! I loved this game as a kid and was so happy I could finally replay it on a public fanmade reboot project! I was always fond of the assembly league and doctor overbuild, but I also liked the venture league as well so i had two characters just so I could be on both factions since you were only limited to one faction per character the classes I mainly played were engineer and buccaneer respectively, if i had gotten more time with the game then I woulda made a third character and joined the sentinels, I thought samurai's looked so cool in game!
I used to love lego universe as a kid. Pretty much anything that was a virtual world I would try when I was younger it was for sure the golden age of mmo/virtual worlds. I remember playing the kung fu panda world game, the mcdonalds virtual world, and one of my favorites Nicktropolis. Of course the big ones like club penguin and webkinz but I can think of a lot more. Great videos i love exploring dead games like this it's bittersweet. It would be cool if you made another part of this.
I've never heard or played BOTS!! before, but it made me remember an old MMO that I used to play as a kid named GetAmped. But the one I used to play was GetAmped 2.
Supernatural beings are mentioned in the second Matrix by Monica Bellucci's character. Basically, every ghost, werewolf, vampire or big foot that someone witnessed in the matrix, was a rogue program. It was one throwaway line, but I can imagine, it's a good basis to have some enemy diversity, otherwise it would all just be agents.
You seem like the type of guy who might enjoy LEGO HERO FACTORY, or at least one of the games made to go along with the episodes of the series. Just a warning for anyone who wants to know more about LEGO HERO FACTORY it was on Netflix back when Netflix still prioritized mailing dvds instead of being an actual streaming service, I'm pretty sure it was either in the early 2010s or before and I remember when I was a child I used to love watching the series on Netflix and playing the two games that I knew about on my Nana's Laptop and those games were quite fun.
27:30 i remember this being changed during the lifetime of the game. You where able to originally just use the loose bricks and do whatever you want with them. But alot of people made some „inappropriate“ stuff what is why it was changed
22:18 and this is where I leave the video off, I never got past this point in the game when it came out before and this I will return once I figure out how to get the actual game for myself since they made it rather tricky to find it Edit: HOLD UP, IS THIS GUY THE ANTI-SPIRAL?!
I really miss Trickster Online -- you played as anthropomorphic animals as classes, had little pets follow you around, and the raccoon could dig for stuff 😂
This was a fun dive into dead mmos! This isn't really an MMO, but you should look up the Blackout Club. Game's dead now, but it had REAL TIME interactions in it. Kind of like the Matrix mmo did, but more... intense may be the word? The Voices were actually voiced and some via text. The story was being told real time as well amd you may enjoy the deep dive on that game. Sucks they had to cut it short, but the VAs they hired and the pandemic more than likely shot their budget bad.
I remember playing Lego Universe and couldn’t believe how great it was I decided to show my love by throwing myself off a cliff several times to be devoured by sharks so that I can place sharks at my base (No membership of course)
6:16 Blackout Club had this, or still does this. The devs have joined games, esp streamers, to role play as the voice of one of the eldritch beings that the kids in the game are helping
Lego Universe was one of the first few PC games I played on my own accord, I absolutely loved it and the fact it shut down still bothers me this many years later. That game was so much fun or at least it was for little me
I wish a new Matrix Online MMO or a remake could be made BC man.. To me it has the same potential as SWG. Edit: I believe the vampires and zombies are left over code from a beta version of the Matrix dubbed the Nightmare Matrix.
My brother and I were really into the Lego mmo, liked it a lot but realized we started playing the game when there were literally 2 weeks left before the game closed, really sad
I distincly remember wishing for Lego Universe for christmas and was completly confused not only by my first EULA but also by: having to pay a subscription? my parents where super confused and i only got them to buy one single month of it for me by getting really good grades on my next classes. After the month went up i only could do the "free" content. That was quite underwhelming but i do remember still having fun. I actually also have a local version of it running on my pc from time to time if i wanna check out things with an adult mind i never understood as a kid.
@@SPNKR76 I use DLU (Darkflame Universe) but i might check Nexus universe out if you say it has public accessable runable servers. Would be cool to play again outside of a very niche community
Really enjoyed this! I would love to see another one of these. There's plenty of "dead MMO" videos out there but not a lot of them delve any further than what's on Steam. If I could offer some suggestions: Asheron's Call: Known for having one of the smoothest MMO launches in history, and was a technical powerhouse; thousands of players hosted in a seamless, zone-free world. In 1999! Playable through private server emulation. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Brad McQuaid's next project after Everquest, just as rough around the edges but without the benefit of being as groundbreaking as EQ. Playable through private server emulation. Hellgate: London: This got a rerelease on steam but it's terrible and lacks multiplayer completely. Spearheaded by David Brevik (Diablo 2) and might be the original "Looter-Shooter". Playable via London 2038.
I loved the Matrix Online. If you want a list of other old Mmos that were great and kept alive by small fan communities, I know a lot. Mmorpgs were my life. I'd start with Monster & Me, Shadowbane, and Survival Project
I might be misremembering, but just to add on to the history of BOTS!! I recall the original Korean studio behind the game shutting down and the Korean server along with it. Acclaim itself was still active at the time and was still able to run the western server of the game, but could no longer update it. This also conveniently lead to it being forever stuck on a 2x experience/gigas event at all times up until the end of its own life. At least, that's how I recall it.
Yeah so N-Log (the original korean dev team) shut down in 2008 and Acclaim shut down in 2010, so there was a two year wasteland where no updates or fixes could be pushed since Acclaim didn't actually have the source - to add onto this with a bit of irony, the Korean version had a huge update (dubbed season 2 in the community) that increased the level cap and added a bunch of new stuff, but it didn't make it to Acclaim before the shutdown so the English version never got it.
Lego universe lets you build on your property with separate single pieces you get from enemy drops, not just the pre builds. Something you didn’t mention.
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38:08 - That OST sounded similar to a game called "San Francisco Rush 2049" with the track called "Morning" if you or anyone is curious on listening to that song. The entire game OST oozes the late 90's/early 2000's futuristic feel so if you want give those songs a try!
Lego Universe was the first MMO I played. Back in the Day it was awesome. Wish it would have gotten some more things to do and would at least last so long that it would gotten an Addon or Expansion.
35:48 It was not really because most players, like me at the time, needed their parents to buy a membership. That meant that not many did in the end pay for it. The Studio did not really think about that and expected way more money then they actually got. Also because it was a MMO aimed at kids LEGO demanded a lot of Moderation, like a PP detection on these Building sites. In the End they spent more then 20% of all revenue on moderation, which was far too high to be sustainable
Yea it had a bunch of potential!
And thats very interesting to know, I never wouldve thought about the moderation cost but it makes a lot of sense. 20% of all revenue is a crazy amount though no wonder it shutdown
i feel like if they made sets for the game that included like a few weeks or a month of membership (depending on size?) they would’ve gotten a lot more money idk
Same! I had loads of stuff on it but my account got lost sadly. I loved it so much.
I remember when I was a kid my dream was to play Lego Universe and I never got to because the family computer didn't run it. I remember leaving it downloading for 2 days and the game simply wouldn't open.😢
i got the game before the big expansion so I didnt get to experience the new sub-classes and the ninjago theme. At the time i was the biggest ninjago fan and this was a wish come true lego universe + ninjago, but as u mentioned my parents aswell only bought base game with the included 1month and i played it for a month. I giga spammed the shit out of it tho and its probably my second fav game of all time.
The sound, the world, the atmosphere everything just clicked for me. The only game that would come near this exp for me was wow classic, even tho I never played it before It felt kinda familiar. Not to mention that I was such a fan of the game that I played a lot of the free trial aswell. I perma made a new char just so I can play this game.
I remember playing Lego Universe when I was a kid and it was my introduction to paying a subscription to play a game, my dad was pissed because we got a physical copy at a store and expected it to be a one time thing, and it was up until I made it to the lil rockets on top of the mountain, and because I didnt want my dad to pay any more money I just kinda wandered around all over the place just enjoying the look of the game
i had the exact same experience, and i feel like this is also why the game ultimately failed
Same exact experience myself😂 I didn’t understand it either after buying a disc for it but felt even worse after seeing my parents reaction so I just enjoyed the scenery hahaha
There was actually a shutdown event of sorts on the last day of Lego Universe, and it was basically just the admins spawning in random stuff (like trains) at the nexus tower hub as well as gifting players items like the jetpack and some test items they didn't release.
Yup one of my core gaming memories. I remember saying goodbye to the group of kids I played with on there, having access to items I had never owned, and participating in a countdown to the end. It was so bitter sweet. I cried for probably an hour after it ended.
I absolutely adore the self insert edited sequences with the game cinematics, and your little character wiggling sitting down in the room. great job.
LEGO Universe was such a childhood game for me omg. I remember visiting the player house called Red Town all the time and trying to go out of bounds everywhere else
Can't think of abandoned MMOs without thinking of the one I put so many hours in back in the day: Cartoon Network Universal Fusion Fall. I remember checking the Update Page regularly only to be met by the same Halloween Count Dracula update from Grim Adventures as I grinded out a new account after a Respawn Glitch bricked my player for the 3rd time. My favorite part of the game was the Early game Map being completely open, and the game would became a stealth quest, walking along the boundaries to avoid detection from enemies that'd one-shot me; the fear of the respawn glitch balanced with my childlike sense of exploration and wanting to hopefully find a beloved cartoon character in the vast, quiet map. Lots of fun finding Courage the Cowardly Dog literally in the middle of Nowhere in a huge Desert. I think there's alos a community driven server community these days, but man was it a cool idea to kid me haha
You def had people who’ve successfully kept it alive, even added to it, with these versions of the game keeping it alive being Fusionfall Legacy and Retro
@@ghjjiyeqsg1052 Legacy and Retro were shut down a long time ago, OpenFusion & Retrobution are what can be played now and Legacy is "Saturday Morning Invasion" now
fusion fall was s tier.
RIP to all the dead mmos, especially the ones that you can't play _at all_ anymore.
Those 10 (11 in less than a month) years have been way harder on me than they should have...
i feel that
there is so much to uncover in the realm of forgotten/now dead mmos. i miss the days of the mmo boom, there was always something new going on and people were still figuring how to get things working and profit at the same time. Now everything follows the same models
also i love the animations and pixelated style you've got in these vids man, looks great
The problem of that time was that the MMOs that actually had something great like Wildstar were drowned out by 100 others. The attention was too wide-spread.
Just a random dude who has played BOTS since late 2006 and I'm really grateful for your effort in making an introduction for this game.
It's true that BOTS is not a great game in story-telling and actually in many other aspects, but what I still found fun these days about it is the way PVP and Base vs Base work out, and how you can chill with your friends and others in these game modes when the room size is big enough.
Anyway a well explained video about BOTS and you earned a new sub from Hong Kong👍🏻
I loved Lego Universe a lot as a kid, I'm still trying to figure out how to replay it.
I linked a discord in the description that has guides on how to make a private server :))
@@Daiazal there are some "public" private servers too
@@DemoriaMcPlWHERE AT 👀
I remember when I wanted to play lego universe, I wasn't old enough to use it so my mother made me wait until I was old enough to play it, but alas, come the time when I could play it the servers were gone.
it's established in several places (Matrix Reloaded and Resurrections eg) that things like vampires, ghost, etc. existed as programs in previous versions of the matrix before getting rebooted. the merovingian even has some of them working for him
I literally scrolled down looking for this comment becuz I knew someone else had to know this too
27:44 Nah, you could actually collect individual lego pieces to make custom builds. In fact, you could take the pre-made model items and deconstruct them into individual bricks to use.
Regarding Lego Universe's early game slog - a good chunk of that was added during the game's Free-to-Play update to pad out Avant Gardens and boy does it show. The Rusty Steele thing is especially egregious, which is why we modded it on our server to be optional side content - before the F2P update he just sent you on your way.
pretty well made and informative video about bots, very nice mane
Wow LEGO Universe really takes me back, thanks for reminding me! What a trip, now I’ve gotta play it again!
Cried when Lego universe shut down as just a week before I had saved my pocket money to get membership for it :(
i've been currently getting into starbreak, a level based mmo that stopped getting updated in 2018 but still has it's server up, despite having like 50 concurrent players it looks surprisingly lively.
i miss those types of mmos a lot, they feel much more focused than the popular open world format, and my high point for these multiplayer games was always the raiding, so bots looks right up my alley.
Goodness, I haven't thought about LEGO Universe in a minute. I still remember how in the Ninjago world you could jump on some rocks and clip through the terrain, and for reasons I'm not sure of, there was a giant grass textured platform you'd land on after falling down for a bit, so a group of us would just go down there and hang out.
Man I miss Lego universe so much.. my mom got it for me as a Christmas gift one year. Absolutely loved it
I'm glad Lego Universe is still being covered by youtubers, I loved that game as a kid lol, I feel like that game has so much missed potential.
LEGO UNIVERSE MENTIONED!!! absolutely loved that game for the few short weeks I played it. honestly, one of the other MMO's I quite enjoyed that kind of died off is Spiral Knights. great artstyle, but it got killed off due to lack of maintenance and updates. sad times.
I miss Lego Universe so much man, genuinely if they were to remake it today I would gladly pay for the membership because that game was genuinely one of the only MMOs I’ve played and really got hooked on. I was actually devastated when they shut it down when I was still young
THANK YOU for being someone to finally make notice of Bots!, it's such a fun game and I was so sad when it initially shut down. It had a small loving community that stuck with it until the end.
We're still here friend! Active and passionate
5:58
The Blackout Club did this in a less direct way when its story was running. You were able to send voice recordings as prayers to the Voices/Daemons/gods and they (the developers) would reply to a fair few of them in the form of auditory dreams you'd receive after a mission.
Old Jagex had the odd staff-run event back in RuneScape 2's heyday, too
BRO, this video is incredible. All my favorite MMOs as a kid. I got Lego Universe on Christmas and I remember playing that game so dang much. Absolute throwback.
Also when I left for school always so eager to come home and smash stuff on BOTS.
Great video, thanks for the nostalgia trip.
I appreciate the look into more obscure MMOs, feel like there's a few surface level ones people talk about first with these types of videos. If you ever did a part 2, would recommend looking into Myst Uru based on the puzzle game series. In the early 2000s someone thought that would be a good idea for a MMO with what seems to be interesting results. Was later rebranded as a singleplayer game after the servers closed, though some MMO aspects lingered.
Love your content man! From cool animations, to presenting style, all of it is really cool and unique! Hope you stick to it
I will! And thank you, your kind words mean a lot :D
the Matrix MMO was ahead of its time and i’m sure if it was created with todays graphics it would have done really well.
What an amazing video dude. Every MMO described in this was interesting (which finding interesting topics is a skill all on its own) and you explained them in a very informative and fun (couldn't think of another word that wasn't interesting) way. The format was simple and DIDN'T drag on too long at some parts. The way you implemented your character into the games themselves was actually inspiring. Actually kinda fustrating that you're still "up and coming" because it makes me feel like pos for not being able to put this effort in myself. Good job all around.
:O A dead MMO video suggested to me that isn't just old abandoned realism shooters? Good stuff.
Lego Universe was my childhood mmo for real. I remember playing it fondly and getting interested in the lore. For a Lego game, it was pretty rad and may have inspired later Lego media, even my own projects.
Glad to hear someone finally talk about it
Wow! This is awesome, yesterday I was literally talking about how much I miss MMOs. I feel like this generation of kids doesn't have the same game or shared experience that brings them together like MMOs did for my generation.
Dude, your presentation style is super unique! :D Great video.
Yeah the zombie virus being a thing is mentioned in passing in one of the films. There's also vampires and werewolves which are featured more prominently. They're in Reloaded and the Enter the Matrix ps2 game. Part of the 'Exiles' from previous versions of the Matrix that were wiped.
Great to see a new video! I'm so glad I found this channel, your videos are really interesting and well made :)
omg thank u rei...
18:29 "This is hands down the coolest most unique way a game has shut down servers I've seen"
Allow me to introduce you to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0's shutdown, the fall of Dalamud
Those stick figure visual aids are absolutely adorable, keep up the good work.
Man i played lego universe and 3 month after that the game closed, i was stil playing them that happen, i'm brazilian, took me some years to learn englih and find out what happen to the game, manage to find some ways to play the game now, you bring so much nostalgic memories, sorry about my english its not the best hahaha
Dope vid! Thanks for covering the Bots!! mmo. The ohka server welcomes lots of new players!!
Cities have parks, subways, skyways, corporate megacomplexes, rundown neighborhoods, posh neighborhoods, undercities (if you're into urban exploring, look these up), redlight districts, little 'insert country' town', hidden and/or private clubs/bars, etc. There is variety to cities, but it is difficult. I think if a Matrix game got made today, this type of stuff would be implemented better thanks to modern tech.
I will NEVER superate how much I miss Lego Universe :(
It would be cool for someone to revitalize the MMO genre with new ideas and a modern spin on it.
another video from the spiral to remind me of things i didnt know i missed
anytime! Glad you enjoyed :D
Oh my god, you unlocked some long forgotten core memory for me by talking about Bots. I had completely forgotten about its existence until now and I'm so happy to see that there's still a community for it.
I remember playing a lot of the long dead PS3 social MMO, Playstation Home. That was pretty fun but I doubt anyone was able to archive it since it didn't have a PC release.
27k subs is CRIMINAL. I love your character and the video was awesome!! Instant sub
the only other online game I can think of where the narrative was continues through staff interacting with players in real time, in character, was FFXIV 1.0, the game's Producer-Director actually played the role of a "Wandering Minstrel" and would log in as the character as the game was hitting it's final days, before it was relaunched, hyping up what was basically a game ending apocalypse, GMs even spawned monsters like mad outside towns to simulate monsters attacking in the final day of service
just wanna say, vampires are in the matrix movies but you wouldnt know it by looking at them
the movies are not very clear about that that's what theyre supposed to be but yeah, there are vamps and even werewolves and they do fight each other at some point and the movie does not specify that lol but it is in the lore
OMG BOTS!? i forgot that was called that! been low key after that for years! ty!
Lego Universe was a huge memory of my childhood as i used to play a lot of MMOs and i was inredibly hyped at the announcement, shame i never got the chance to actually play it, as it wasn't available in my country...
27:50 An online lego/brick-by-brick building game is very possible and has been done successfully more than once, just not with the lego brand or officially - in fact, the first significant example i can think of dates back to 2007 and its game called Blockland, which is an absolute hidden gem.
Far from a unplayable or messy game, and with massive modding potential that did indeed lead to a lot of pieces and potential for builds, other than the fact it allowed for event scripting for blocks and custom items, vehicles and the like; Think gmod, but with lego bricks.
While it only retains a tiny loyal playerbase , the game is still fully functional to this day (other than being re-released on steam years later) and is still one of the best games i ever played.
The only reason we don't have far bigger and successful games like that today is that no one wants to make it, despite the potential.
(an obligatory mention goes to Brickadia, which is an attempt at a spiritual sequel to Blockland by completely different people, but hasn't been fully released yet, although an early build is playable)
BRO BOTS WAS LIT when i was young. I miss it.
it’s still there 8)
I forgot about Bots entirely! I played it as a ton as a kid during my "f2p mmo" phase. I remember it being really grinfy but u spent hundreds of hours in it
come play >:]
@NemesisBOTS might do! Busy with adult life and all but would be nice to stick my head back in, even if just for a little bit
Never watched more than 10 minutes of an Matrix, the bad men in 2 were vampires, and an allegory fot the brothers wanting to be sisters
i remember playing lego universe aaaages ago!! did you know they had us donate bricks to "help contribute to sentinel tower"? i remember being so excited watching the progress go up day by day, it was a fun way to make the community engage... as far as i can recall, LOL
27:52 Technically there are things that match that description. Lego Worlds allows for the uses of an insane amount of lego bricks that can be used in game. And for the CAD side of things, we have Lego Studio Bricklink (formerly Lego Digital Designer), which can even make custom instructions!
Matrix Online shutdown reminds me of the FFXIV 1.0 shutdown, it's canon in universe that the old version's world was destroyed. Basically there was a man-made moon that contained a huge earth destroying dragon called Bahamut. An in universe song started playing, monsters invaded city states, the sky went dark and the moon glowed red before the servers shut down. What followed was the trailer for "A Realm Reborn" which lead to 2.0 and is the main version you can play still
Lego universe in the thumbnail literally struck my heart with a knife. It breaks my heart everytime i remember that game.
Me and a friend played SO MUCH Bots back in the day
come play :]
yooooo, a new upload from up-and-coming, rising star, 🗣Daiazal‼‼‼
The lego universe devs put out a tweet saying that it was shut down because it wasnt generating revenue fast enough. It was profitable if it was given time, like a lot of successful MMOs, but the lego company didnt want to give it that time.
I still have my lego universe case with the disc in it sitting on my gaming shelf!
I loved this game as a kid and was so happy I could finally replay it on a public fanmade reboot project!
I was always fond of the assembly league and doctor overbuild, but I also liked the venture league as well so i had two characters just so I could be on both factions since you were only limited to one faction per character
the classes I mainly played were engineer and buccaneer respectively, if i had gotten more time with the game then I woulda made a third character and joined the sentinels, I thought samurai's looked so cool in game!
I used to love lego universe as a kid. Pretty much anything that was a virtual world I would try when I was younger it was for sure the golden age of mmo/virtual worlds. I remember playing the kung fu panda world game, the mcdonalds virtual world, and one of my favorites Nicktropolis. Of course the big ones like club penguin and webkinz but I can think of a lot more. Great videos i love exploring dead games like this it's bittersweet. It would be cool if you made another part of this.
Giant bomb has an endurance run of the matrix online if you want to see what it was like right before it shut down
I've never heard or played BOTS!! before, but it made me remember an old MMO that I used to play as a kid named GetAmped. But the one I used to play was GetAmped 2.
Supernatural beings are mentioned in the second Matrix by Monica Bellucci's character. Basically, every ghost, werewolf, vampire or big foot that someone witnessed in the matrix, was a rogue program. It was one throwaway line, but I can imagine, it's a good basis to have some enemy diversity, otherwise it would all just be agents.
You seem like the type of guy who might enjoy LEGO HERO FACTORY, or at least one of the games made to go along with the episodes of the series.
Just a warning for anyone who wants to know more about LEGO HERO FACTORY it was on Netflix back when Netflix still prioritized mailing dvds instead of being an actual streaming service, I'm pretty sure it was either in the early 2010s or before and I remember when I was a child I used to love watching the series on Netflix and playing the two games that I knew about on my Nana's Laptop and those games were quite fun.
27:30 i remember this being changed during the lifetime of the game. You where able to originally just use the loose bricks and do whatever you want with them. But alot of people made some „inappropriate“ stuff what is why it was changed
22:18 and this is where I leave the video off, I never got past this point in the game when it came out before and this I will return once I figure out how to get the actual game for myself since they made it rather tricky to find it
Edit: HOLD UP, IS THIS GUY THE ANTI-SPIRAL?!
Bots was mindblowing to me as a kid in 2008-10. Still super cool aesthetically
come back brother!!
Finally, A NEW VIDEO!!!!!
I really miss Trickster Online -- you played as anthropomorphic animals as classes, had little pets follow you around, and the raccoon could dig for stuff 😂
27:56 bros never heard of Lego worlds
12:48 Monsters like vampires, werewolves, and ghosts were rogue programs in Matrix Reloaded that seemed to run the criminal underworld.
Very good video and good job on the animations
I like you bringing up the blue pill thing, but also blue pill/red pill is a matrix reference to begin with.
Don't worry I'm well aware :p
This was a fun dive into dead mmos!
This isn't really an MMO, but you should look up the Blackout Club. Game's dead now, but it had REAL TIME interactions in it. Kind of like the Matrix mmo did, but more... intense may be the word?
The Voices were actually voiced and some via text. The story was being told real time as well amd you may enjoy the deep dive on that game. Sucks they had to cut it short, but the VAs they hired and the pandemic more than likely shot their budget bad.
I remember playing Lego Universe and couldn’t believe how great it was
I decided to show my love by throwing myself off a cliff several times to be devoured by sharks so that I can place sharks at my base (No membership of course)
Man Lego universe brought back so many memories, wish it lasted longer.
6:16 Blackout Club had this, or still does this. The devs have joined games, esp streamers, to role play as the voice of one of the eldritch beings that the kids in the game are helping
If I remember correctly you could in fact build brick by brick in Lego Universe if you disassembled the sets you would get left and right.
Lego Universe was one of the first few PC games I played on my own accord, I absolutely loved it and the fact it shut down still bothers me this many years later. That game was so much fun or at least it was for little me
I wish a new Matrix Online MMO or a remake could be made BC man.. To me it has the same potential as SWG.
Edit: I believe the vampires and zombies are left over code from a beta version of the Matrix dubbed the Nightmare Matrix.
One of the best World End Events was the original Final Fantasy 14 ^^
Bots reminds me a lot about Grand Chase. They're not similar when it comes to gameplay, but the UI and game modes remind me a lot of it.
My brother and I were really into the Lego mmo, liked it a lot but realized we started playing the game when there were literally 2 weeks left before the game closed, really sad
Great content, love your animations and narrative skills. +1 sub!
I distincly remember wishing for Lego Universe for christmas and was completly confused not only by my first EULA but also by: having to pay a subscription? my parents where super confused and i only got them to buy one single month of it for me by getting really good grades on my next classes. After the month went up i only could do the "free" content. That was quite underwhelming but i do remember still having fun. I actually also have a local version of it running on my pc from time to time if i wanna check out things with an adult mind i never understood as a kid.
There are private servers like nexus universe you can play on for free
@@SPNKR76 I use DLU (Darkflame Universe) but i might check Nexus universe out if you say it has public accessable runable servers. Would be cool to play again outside of a very niche community
Man I used to play lego universe when I was little up until it closed down. It used to be so fun I sunk so much time into it
Really enjoyed this! I would love to see another one of these. There's plenty of "dead MMO" videos out there but not a lot of them delve any further than what's on Steam. If I could offer some suggestions:
Asheron's Call: Known for having one of the smoothest MMO launches in history, and was a technical powerhouse; thousands of players hosted in a seamless, zone-free world. In 1999! Playable through private server emulation.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Brad McQuaid's next project after Everquest, just as rough around the edges but without the benefit of being as groundbreaking as EQ. Playable through private server emulation.
Hellgate: London: This got a rerelease on steam but it's terrible and lacks multiplayer completely. Spearheaded by David Brevik (Diablo 2) and might be the original "Looter-Shooter". Playable via London 2038.
What? Why would a matrix game NEED to be in a city? Villages and forests exist in the matrix.
Not necessarily need, but more heavily expected, most people think of cityscapes when they think of the matrix imo :))
Your visual style is incredible
I loved the Matrix Online. If you want a list of other old Mmos that were great and kept alive by small fan communities, I know a lot. Mmorpgs were my life. I'd start with Monster & Me, Shadowbane, and Survival Project
Man, i remember being so upset that i couldn't play Lego Universe...
I might be misremembering, but just to add on to the history of BOTS!! I recall the original Korean studio behind the game shutting down and the Korean server along with it. Acclaim itself was still active at the time and was still able to run the western server of the game, but could no longer update it. This also conveniently lead to it being forever stuck on a 2x experience/gigas event at all times up until the end of its own life.
At least, that's how I recall it.
Yeah so N-Log (the original korean dev team) shut down in 2008 and Acclaim shut down in 2010, so there was a two year wasteland where no updates or fixes could be pushed since Acclaim didn't actually have the source - to add onto this with a bit of irony, the Korean version had a huge update (dubbed season 2 in the community) that increased the level cap and added a bunch of new stuff, but it didn't make it to Acclaim before the shutdown so the English version never got it.
Lego Universe has to comeback ;( i didn´t find it tedious. i really miss it.
Btw you CAN make you’re own models and edit existing ones in lego universe
This is the first time I've heard of this "MMO" you speak of. I'm intrigued to say the least.
Lego universe lets you build on your property with separate single pieces you get from enemy drops, not just the pre builds. Something you didn’t mention.