Worst MMO Ever? - Defiance 2050

This is the best 'Starship Troopers' game we have.

#####

[CursdBirth]

The game stopped receiving support after the studio was purchased by Gamigo 2 years ago, then proceeded to lay off more then 70% of the staff. The only people working on the game are there for server maintenance, and the occasional event which there's only like 6 of. The game is so much fun and there's a huge amount of content in it and that's good because there hasn't been any new content in 2 years. Gamigo has a history of buying games and keeping them alive just to milk them for microtransactions. Its a shame, the only real way were going to see more content is if another company buys the game and takes a leap of faith and invest resources into it.

[TheParasiteDk]

Just watched the review, thought "hey, that looks fun, I want to try that", then looked at the comments and see the servers closed down 2 weeks ago...

[Magmagan]

I kept thinking throughout the video, "okay, but now it's going to go all downhill" but it never did haha

It's fun to see Josh's first impressions on an MMO he expected to be bad turned good!

[Ravenford]

It's ironic how Defiance 2050 is one of the few games that Josh speaks highly of, and it's one of the ones that got shut down and we can no longer enjoy it.
Rest in peace Defiance, you weren't perfect but you were a much better game than most MMO's still out there. Hopefully one day someone will resurrect you.

[bohrtz]

Defiance used to be my favorite game, and coming here to read the comments to see that they shut down the servers fills me with such sadness. Truly a great game

[Solas]

The most exciting period for this game was honestly the first year and a half because the game and show were being produced at the same time with the express intent of crossing them over.
So that Cass character was explicitly in the show, would turn up in the game the week after, we'd go help them in a mission made to coincide with the episode release and the next week there'd be dialogue mentioning 'our friends from California' on more than one occasion. You felt part of that world as it played out and I was very sad when that ended.

[michaelcloyd-white]

“... I am going to walk.”

*Gets stuck on same branch”

[Micron]

A couple of minor points, the 2 side characters are actually the main characters from the tv show. The '15 mins' after crashing is more like a couple of hours. The npc's calling for help after being rescued were actually another set of npc's near by still needing to be rescued (dynamic events/quests can overlap). The quest broke because someone else finished it, all story quests are dynamic events you, or any other player can repeat at will but have a respawn timer, negated by a player holding the story quest for it being present. When picking up weapons you can tap E to put it in your inventory or hold E to instantly equip it. The skills you were trying to unlock need more points put into the starting skill first, the game does explain it somewhere but it probably isn't obvious where. Very solid review & i miss Defiance a lot, unfortunately after Trion went under, the heavy cash shop pushing (especially later on in the game, bordering pay to win), lack of updates and shear bad handling of the game and it's players, it has pretty much died off, though i would still recommend anyone playing it if you haven't already.

[hansyolo]

Damn it's a shame I missed this. It's even more of a shame that the publishers murdered this game and now its gone forever.

[bigieu]

I worked at Trion Worlds shortly before it all started going downhill. Many issues went into why the first version did poorly (bugs), but in my opinion, the real problem was that they created time gates that corresponded to the show as it was airing in real-time. If you finished the current content, you had to wait until the next episode aired to move forward in the plot/content. Many players bailed fast once they realized they could complete the weekly content within days and be left grinding pointlessly. Love your content!

[dedthaworld]

I actually had a lot of fun in this game when it first came out. The huge battles was fun as hell, having literally 50-70 other players help attack some big ass alien things was cool as shit at the time. Plus things changing in the game according to how the show goes was nifty. I really liked this game, I can’t even remember why i actually stopped playing

[Sorain]

Wow, it's actually a pity I missed this game while it existed.

[XCVBNMC]

Rest in peace Defiance. You were a good game even on console

[chmrcmplx]

The original release, Defiance, ran in tandem with the show, and each week, there was a special unique mission that players could do that the show would reference the following week. Josh and Irisa were the main characters of the show, and the early parts of the game technically took place before the beginning of the show. The show failed because they jumped the shark in the final season, and because SyFy is legendary in its reputation for canceling shows. The game itself didn't necessarily fail because the show failed, but rather it simply had poor marketing. I got the impression that they just assumed the transmedia narration would be enough to prop it up, and then just forgot to market the game after the show ended. Defiance 2050 was a soft reboot of the original game, and the 2050 refers to the year that the game and show were set in.

Interestingly, there was another cross-promotion that happened apart from the television show; during the Defiance's launch cycle, in RIFT, occasionally Fire Rifts would open that Hellbugs from Defiance would spawn, and I believe they remain in the free to play version of RIFT to this day. If I recall correctly, during the actual promotion itself, closing the rifts would give players a chance to earn a code which could be redeemed in Defiance for cosmetic rewards. Players in Rift could also earn a Hellbug as a mount. I still have mine.

You mentioned "the mutants of this planet" in the early part of the video. "This planet" was Earth. Specifically, San Francisco, California. The show was set in St. Lois, Missouri. The lore is revealed in bits throughout the game and show; a coalition of aliens with evil overlords arrived and began aggressively terraforming Earth, and a battle at Fort Defiance resulted in the terraforming device to explode, resulting in the weird geography and plant life seen in the game. This also set in motion the "lesser" races breaking away from the dominant alien leaders, and the show did a much better job of expressing the ensuing racial tensions.

Overall the show and game were both really good, but in my opinion, fell victim to corporate meddling. It's a shame that Trion Worlds sold to Gamigo. They were still actively developing Defiance 2050.

[NoName-ukpy]

Damn I remember playing this game and I still remember a specific moment where we had like 30+ people all shooting at a massive (and I do mean massive) bug and the fact that it was night time and you can just see the explosion flashes and bullets flying through the air made the fight so nice.

[erdrick]

It is actually pretty fun to see Josh happily surprised by a game he tries. Considering how these usually go it's quite a nice change of pace.

[remixsolo]

The MMO version of Defiance was based on the Sci-Fi channel. It was a tie in with the show that was running concurrent with the series, but based in California instead of St. Louis, Missouri.

[nullunit]

It launched as just Defiance, the 2050 appellation was added after the show ended but the game kept going. I think it was sunsetted during the pandemic. RIP Defiance, you were a cool ass game based on a show that deserved a few more seasons.

[allaion]

I used to play the hell out of this game when I was younger. I have so many good memories from it, and that "Ah, life on the new frontier" instantly punched me in the nostalgia

[charliezelenowski]

I played this with my friends and had some of the most fun times I've had in gaming.
We all expected it to be crap but some of the most unique MMO scenario's happened especially with VOIP.

I was once just farming Mobs and heard a guy speeding past in his car singing "on the road again" in the most Texan accent ever... back then, this was a complete new experience to me.