Death of a Game: Need for Speed World

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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
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[@mojoranstark709]

This game is probably what got me into gaming. Playing team escape for hours was a core memory. Especially Christmas and the snow ramps at the golf course and the beautiful music still gives me goose bumps.

[@tonywright6804]

The mazdaspeed 3❤ i had just got my 09 speed3 and was stoked to drive it in the game!

[@AdhdOfEmeralds]

@@tonywright6804you have just brought back such good memories with that Mazda

[@squadmaster114]

This game ik is bad but man when ur a 10 year old kid with a craptop and no money, it was the best thing ever

[@romeamiri]

Couldn’t have said it any better.

[@Leonard0055]

Yeah, I remember loving this game, even if I barely unlocked a second car lol

[@crazeguy26]

craptop BAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[@squadmaster114]

@@Leonard0055 I vividly remember getting the free s1 Quattro and somehow unlocking the e30 BMW

[@Arnelyz]

So true

[@cruce907]

The great thing about SBRW is that each server has their own way of progression, events, custom cars and tuning. It’s worth checking out each one as you will have different experiences with all of them

[@BevaliValiBoss]

Overdrive has the best payment however the sever is so dead, sometimes im surprised to see 1 player

[@NotSponsoredByEA]

I found WorldUnited GG to be the closest to being how the original World gameplay loop was without microtransactions

[@BevaliValiBoss]

@@NotSponsoredByEA oh fr? Well its a damn shame is not played everyone plays nightriderz a server which is in some days filled with cheaters again not all the time just in some days world united is extremely good also besides overdrive whats your username on world united? Maybe i've raced with you before

[@cruce907]

@@BevaliValiBoss WUGG and NR are similar in player base count. It depends on what time you play. The same goes for WE which also has a decent player count. I mainly play on WUGG and FRSS. I played on WUGG for that traditional MMO experience and I play FRSS for the casual play session. FRSS is very unique with their car tuning compared to the other servers

[@BevaliValiBoss]

@@cruce907 what is FRSS, like the full name? And i know this is out of context but one of this servers has the jesko and omg i fell in love with it and i just found out it was undertuned at the time ive played, and now its op as hell i remember winning it at the car pack after so many honda civics and old roadrunners :)) lol

[@Maddness101]

That bit about hacking really should be a lesson for any online racing game. If there’s only one overall objective, and unless some kind of spin is being put on things there will by definition only be one in a racing game, hackers will have a field day working out ways to achieve said objective.

[@exodore2000]

Yea I played this for a bit and yea the hackers were the problem in it, some times you would cue up for a race and they had all ready won with negative times if I remember right.

[@gabry2328]

Same thing happened to Titanfall 1

[@exodore2000]

@@gabry2328 I remember the pc version of Gta 5 was real bad with hackers once too.

[@stupidflandrs4856]

I never played World but I've always been fascinated by this era of NFS, it feels like they were throwing every idea at the wall, which usually worked! I'd say World succeeded if it got a post-shutdown fan project. Hot Pursuit 2010 still clears though. Great video

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Nothing about this message made sense and I have banned you now for speaking to people llike that.@@GozuTenno962

[@angel_mishima]

It Has a Post-shutdown Fan Project Btw.

[@resla2916]

It does have a fan project...that is very much alive. SBRW

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

@@moioyoyo848 I realize you didn't put any effort or IQ into this post, but I banned a poster responding to this post. The OP is smart enough to know that FYI.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

@@moioyoyo848 Original post...as in the one we are responding to...I banned you due to low IQ to be frank. Come to Discord to debate it.

[@Marinealver]

I still see some Let's Plays of Eternal Crusade. The problem with making an Strategy into an FPS is that in that making an interesting strategy game you need diverse units that focus on asymmetrical balance whereas in an FPS you need more equality among players. A guardsman is never going to match a space marine so you make it so you get several guardsmen per one space marine. In an FPS you cannot play several weaker "classes" simultaneously to match a more powerful class.

[@PyroTech03]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say KZbin switched videos as you were typing this...

[@otakuConn]

@@PyroTech03lol

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

@@PyroTech03 KZbin has been doing this a lot. It has the habit of loading the previous video's comments until I refresh.

[@Marinealver]

I skipped to the end to see the next cast

[@PyroTech03]

@@warmachine5835 lol I see.

[@ActuallyAdrian]

When I was a kid this was one of the best games I had ever played lol. Was sad to see it go and learn later why it did. Really good video on this, you unlocked a core memory for me.

[@rengonzalez4233]

13:59 "The Crew existed right? And still exists." *TC1 gets shut down by March 31, 2024* Man, if only you knew how bad things are.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

the series bud...

[@Valkbg]

The guy who mainly focuses on online games dying doesn't know TC1 does?

[@Ferrari255GTO]

​@@Valkbg the guy who wrote this comment couldn't bother to read the awnser?

[@wzard3156]

@@nerdSlayerstudiosswill you do Death of a Game: The Crew?

[@durandmefew]

I finally understand why you can delete games from the steam library.

[@romeamiri]

Dude you just unlocked a core memory wtf …

[@Slimehardtshawty]

Bro I remember as a kid literally trying to sign on and being unable to download the game. Never tried it 😭

[@ultramarsfinest1536]

ah yes the peak pay 2 win experience back in 2010 before it was a common trend nowadays.. where because they had a contract with porsche back in the day the GT3 RS is a god tier insta win lmao and i mean one of the producer's name is devellis, spelled devious lol

[@Normalaatsra]

he claimed that there was no such thing as 'cosmic nitrous' in a Q&A as the fans had dubbed its insane boost power. it turned out this variable was entirely editable in the revival servers. 😂

[@ssaiyyrissssuzzuyyaa]

Gt3 rs was legendary!

[@ultramarsfinest1536]

@@ssaiyyrissssuzzuyyaa nah it's an overrated and overglorified shitbox with crap livery irl and in game

[@wolfgangvan-uber6515]

Ah yes Marc DeVellis, cosmic nitrous. Haven’t heard that in many years. Good times. I was there the day when the game shut down.

[@flame_101]

I mean it was already common if you're from Asia

[@Xurican]

Love the upload right as I check my notifications. It's like you planned this

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Perfect!

[@KARADTZ]

For kids with no money this was a godsent, i got a few of my friends to play it. I miss my Lotus Europa S even if it was a piece of shit

[@itscadej]

nerd slayer i was just about to sleep but saw this but now you ruined my sleep schedule. thanks!

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

np

[@m-seb]

There's a single moment that started the domino effect for the game's downfall and that was the addition of the LP640 as a Speedboost exclusive car. It had strong (colloquially called "cosmic") nitrous and could only be bought with premium currency. It started the power creep towards more and more stupid premium vehicles that would just destroy anything f2p players would have. Cosmic nitrous was the dumbest game mechanic they could've come up with, even dumber than the powerups, because it just meant that some cars arbitrarily had stronger nitrous (and therefore faster perfect starts) compared to others, there would eventually be F2P accessible CNOS cars, but they were still behind raw performance compared to the newest most expensive toys. Also a note on customization: it all used to be accessible via in game cash. There were three tiers of upgrades, tied behind a level requirement, with the last tier providing the maximum performance and a widebody kit/spoiler combo. This would get shafted sometime in 2011, the upgrade packs were now removed in favour of an individual parts system. Most of the stuff in the visual customization department became available only with premium currency, performance parts became a grind, forcing you to do the same races over and over hoping to find some good parts. Sometime in 2012 they also monetized the "skills", which used to be tied to in game level. Skills were another dumb system, as there were flatout upgrades to the car's behaviour (top speed, acceleration, NOS power and duration etc), thus making higher level players faster by default regardless of actual skill level, with the silver lining being that in the end everyone would be on the same level. The skills rework would kill that, making skills tied to the car instead of the actual player profile and high level skill card were only obtainable by grinding or throwing money with the card packs.

[@MysteryGrayLeaf]

Meanwhile, Need for Speed Edge (Nexon-hosted/EA Spearhead-dev) lived for a bit December 2017->May 2019. Only for Need for Speed Online (Tencent-hosted) to make it a mobile game Need for Speed Online Mobile (Tencent-dev). Which was originally titled NFS: Zeal and still hasn't launched yet.

[@TyCal_]

God I absolutely loved this game as a kid! Even with the egregious micro-transactions, just being able to play what was essentially an online version of Most Wanted and Carbon was amazing to me back then. Thank god for the community run servers that have been keeping this for a couple of years now

[@MRLFMAO]

Brings me good memories playing this game with my brother, when we were kids and life was simple, we were happy....

[@kingofnamek]

This one hurts, man. I played a few when I was young, but I vividly remember and still talk about NFS Carbon on the Wii. It's one of my most embarrassing gaming moments, I somehow went through 3/4 of the game with the first muscle car they give you because I never knew you could buy cars. I punched a hole in my wall because I kept losing at Lambos. Oh to be a 12 year old raging at a game again.

[@doctoroptical952]

Dropping vids at 10pm? Bold move nerd slayer. Ill bite.

[@1LuvMLPFiM]

I remember playing this game. The hackers were dubbed as "rammers" because they literally ram you against a wall, but their own vehicles do not suffer the consequences.

[@raphaeldias5705]

What a way to end the day. Awesome to see, amazing video as always

[@shedimlordx3]

I remember, I would drive close to random players in openworld, turn on my mic and try to be friends with them, I was only 11, such a fun experience.

[@shedimlordx3]

such a gamechanger having a voicechat back in early 2011

[@vulcao111]

that's a huge nostalgia hit, one of my first games

[@-POISON-]

Oh man, I used to play this a lot! It was pretty good for some time. Free roam was nice and the global chat was engaging. You could easily find a lot of people to connect with and play together. Most of them were using microphones, so you could spend hours talking about all kinds of stuff while playing. But then, global chat was plagued by bots and just like the hackers, nothing was done to address that. EA just shut down the global chat. Around the same time, they switched the skill system to loot box galore. Everyone was setting their localization to Poland as EA decided it was good for the prices to have huge variations between countries. But it was going down the toilet. The usual "added content" were new cars that would render a lot of the old ones obsolete and in really dumb ways. It was known that EA favorited especially BMWs, so they were always OP. If you wanted the special editions with the good setup, you always had to pay with real cash. This pushed a lot of the playerbase away. The only other "new content" was the diamond race, a stupid daily login reward system to keep people coming back. All in all, it was garbage. The server lag issues increased. There was a lot more stutter during races for some reason. Even the community was getting worse. I remember the dead girl that the devs tributed with some purple heart decal that ended up being a hoax. Fun times...

[@charlescabbage2933]

its not just lag an stutter.... its just bad Netcode... keeping up a racer from behind in order to pass him until the netcode just made his car stop like your being brake checked for no reason, thats annoying

[@-POISON-]

@@charlescabbage2933 Yeah. A lot of that.

[@deadal1ce580]

Game was revived unofficially and keep getting new content and much less pay 2 win factor

[@m-seb]

Holy shit I had forgotten about the dead girl hoax

[@andreigtx1711]

wait, for real? the purple stacecake decal was actually a hoax? i never heard of that, even in the official forums...

[@charlescabbage2933]

Yeah... ive played this game a lot from 2011 to 2014..... its good to see the changes made to the game but its sad that all major development was gone right after year 2 ... we were expecting to have Canyons as an expansion but it never came... I remember jumping on Facebook and there would be car meet ups / races every week from different clans. and also the devs giving weekly contest to players on FB and twitter and who ever wins gets the car... I did won once , got my alpha romeo 8C... but whats truly memorable about this game is the community... its just fun to drive and race around with strangers you met and soon became you friends till to this day

[@armorbearer9702]

Perhaps EA thought the Mario Kart style power ups would make Need for Speed World different than the mainline series.

[@linuxtuxvolds5917]

I miss all the friends I made along the way honestly, 2011-2012 was a good year

[@michaelwane2808]

I’m happy that a modding community has brought it back basically

[@Starmarine1892]

nsfw is such an good thing. if it didnt exsist i could never have seen all those pictures and moving images as i did.

[@vict632]

A blast from the past.. I remember playing this game everyday back in 2010. It was great for a while. The thing that made me quit was when they re-structured the way your cars were assigned a rank. When the game first came out, every car had a rank from the moment your purchased it, so no matter how many parts you put on it, a D rank car would always be a D rank, and could only compete in D rank races. Investing in a low rank vehicle was the only way to win some parts as a F2P/Low spender so that update dealt a devastating blow to my enjoyement of the game. (1st, 2nd and 3rd place got good drops at the end of a race, the rest of us got trash) But when that update hit, suddenly your car's rank is measured by its initial rank + the parts you had on it. So I went from having a decent, low rank vehicle that could win most low rank races, to having a mediocre mid-rank vehicle that would get stomped everytime. Also yeah selling the powerups for real money and making them a finite, yet spammable resource was an atrocious idea from the very beginning. Not to mention the whole vicious cycle of: You lose races > You get bad drops/parts > You continue to lose races.

[@LotusHiraji]

Thankssssssss i guess you read my request, finally, been waiting for this one a couple months ^^ thanksss

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

You're welcome!

[@therat3028]

Lol, no mention of Forza Horizon at the end there. Apart from that, outstanding research AS ALWAYS!

[@TheMrFishnDucks]

Had no idea this game even existed. Nice video. Keep up the good work.

[@VeryMelonCB]

It's amazing how they milked this game running, on what must've been a 2 person skeleton crew, for over a year.

[@abyssangel76]

glad to see the channel back in action

[@royliber3824]

For me, NFS World and Drift City are the best car-based MMORPG games in this specific genre... With NFS World coming on-top of Drift City. It's makes no sense for EA to stop supporting this game as even with more than 10 years after the game was released there are still fan based dedicated servers up and running. We need a new refreshing car-based MMORPG game and I would be thrilled to have NFS World back or anything similar to it. They should however ditched the power-ups thing (at least for NOS).

[@c01onel]

Can't wait for Death of a Game: The Crew, unfortunately

[@Tougebeat]

I actually had a Developer on my friends list and he used to give me codes for Elite and a couple of unreleased cars. I remember i added him as a friend on a Spot the Dev event and he actually accepted.

[@lianghansiew3380]

I started playing NFSW back in 2011 (was 11 y/o too being a millennial hehe). It was really such a fun and competitive racing game until the “new skill mode” was introduced which introduced the “skills as upgradables”. FYI prior to this feature, skills were so precious that you only got to acquire once in a few level ups (or every lvl, can’t rmb exactly but anyone who shares the same memory pls comment haha). I mean, to me, introduction of this new skill mode was really the beginning of major deterioration of the entire game thereafter, until its collapse in 2015. Being a software engineer today and after watching your video, I guess I kinda know what went wrong in the past now haha. Thank you for bringing this story man, cheers!

[@waayneinteressierts9704]

Thanks for the video. I played Nfs world back then but completely forgot about it

[@Lyanlolz]

This game was my childhood but knowing how Online games were during the early 2010s, I am suprised it wasn't more ridiculous with roles like healer for example, that could heal other cars and more. That would've been funny 💀

[@CrazyKraut20]

This was the peak of classic NFS for me. The fact that there was P2W in this game was easily negated by the fact that 90 percent of players sucked at driving. I remember finishing 6th/350 in the NFS World cup without spending money in the Shop for the latest NOS Missiles. really sad this game is dead. the games shutdown was the last nail in the coffin regarding EA personally. Didnt buy any ea products since then and will not ever again

[@CaptainFALKEN]

Dang, the jazzy intro makes me wanna get up at 2am and meet Al Capone down the block to plan our bank robbery and then sip some sparkling water in the lounge. I miss this game. I was an OG 2010-2015 player and then I discovered Soap Box Race World and played it again. It's still running actually, just harder to install correctly without issues and error codes because of the extra files the SBRW guys put in the game. I kicked serious ass on this game. Drove the Cobra Daytona and GT3 RS 4.0 so much. You could always make good buddies through Team Escape. NFS World made my name as JUSTN872 and the 872 has been in my email since 2010. NFS World was life.

[@blastonid]

I think you missed out on Drift City, it had free roaming, racing and customization, overall a fun racing game that didn't get it's chance as much in the west

[@batycavdar]

At least both Drift City and NFS: World have fan made revivals with removed P2W, extra cars and more.

[@BioHazard7911]

I was online within the last few moments before they pulled the plug. I remember being online with my group and doing our last meetup with some of our favorite cars. It's surreal, I miss my old account, I miss my old cars, the friends I made... But at the same time, it's a good thing it is no longer online. I've lost a lot of money on it and it's where I learnt the harsh lessons of MMOs and P2W titles. SBRW (and WorldUnited (however I think that is just a server name) exists, but given where I currently am now in life I just can't dedicate the time to grind back to where I was and with differing time zones, there's next to no one playing anymore (at least in my region). It feels completely dead. Sure, its been revived, but when the playerbase isn't even close to what it was before it shut down, is it really revived?

[@WeekendGamerTX]

The Crew doesn't exist anymore 😞

[@tennolife9930]

The biggest reason it died was pay2win stuff. A single guy with a pay2win car would salty a whole lobby. Where miraculously most cars were balanced (which is very rare for a racing game), the pay2win cars were a step above and kind of ruined the fun for everyone else. Me and all the people I know quit because of the pay2win cars.

[@VatchGaming]

Could have created a lounge where avatar drivers get together in the worldmap

[@KalmerVT]

Have you considered a video on Drift City? A similar style of game, shutdown in the US/EU quite a few years ago and alive through private servers now

[@Chrims27]

SBRW's Nightriderz server is basically what this game should have been

[@Snypor]

I always have appreciation for the people that take closed MMORPGs and reboot them through private servers; paying out of their own pockets to keep their favorite games alive.

[@RobsRemixes]

For how truly awful Need For Speed is these days with cheesy animation graphics and dialogue that would rival that new saints row game in how embarrassing and cringey it was, I still long for another Need for Speed game to come out because I hold hope, a slim hope that they can capture the glory of NFS underground.

[@marcos1669]

I played it quite a bit back on the day, I think it there were two main issues 1 - The cheating was really anoying, there was a cheater in at least 20-30% of the races. 2- Lack of new content, they kept promising or teasing new things like Canyons or new cities but they never did Apart from that there were other issues like rammers and excesive pay to win, but I think it was the first two that really broke the game

[@dogewow8999]

I remember being banned a few months before the shutdown. The game barely had any free content, you couldn't even grind for most cars.

[@organicleaf]

unless you would grind the daily diamonds... well... until they deleted the open world, which i didnt even knew happened

[@dogewow8999]

@@organicleaf I had a lambo and the Koenigsegg which had some ridiculous challenge that required you to own 100 cars of the same brand or something.

[@organicleaf]

@@dogewow8999 jesus

[@MrCandySkull]

I played this game from 2012 - 2015, still to this day it remains my favorite racing game of all time. It didn't have many features and it wasn't all that exciting but to me this game was perfect. I still play the current online version; Soapbox Race World.

[@Mykchaelrz]

It's difficult to explain, but I play all the racing games from different franchises on the market, and it doesn't convey the unique essence that NFS World had, this game had a sad, melancholic, cold and dark atmosphere, but we felt so comfortable running through this world, everything was so simple and objective, the songs by "Mick Gordon" in the background touched the soul, it was so overwhelming, the hope of entering the game every day to have the car of your dreams or the desire to be the best player , anyway, this game was much more than I can explain, NFS World is the definitive game of my life, my childhood/adolescence was completely marked by it.

[@somederp8915]

Since you mention "Uncharted Teretorry" in 14:20, what about "Drift City"? It's way more Anime-like, but it kind of has the same concept: Open world racing which you can do together with friends.

[@dntm8kmeeatu]

Where did you get the information that Free play was removed? It's been ages but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen, considering when talking about the games shutdown, you show footage of the final moments of people huddled together... in free roam. They even did an official "Tour" around the map in the free roam as a sendoff to the game, and played fireworks in a certain zone for the last day. Now however, some aspects of the free roam I remember being removed. Things like police chases were able to be initiated via Police AI driving around in free play/roam but they removed it early on. But the entire concept of free play/roam itself wasn't entirely removed.

[@neromastic4512]

I remember when I did my best to visit the Internet Cafe as much as possible at a Young age back in 2010s just to play NFSW And now well the game came back after it died and I am very happy and nostalgic to see it going and me continuously play it. Especially on the Nightriderz Server's. Its a Positive Childhood I am happy that happened and came back to me.

[@pesymistik]

Two reasons why this game is dead. P2w cars and extreme grinding.

[@charlescabbage2933]

the cheating rampant was really bad from 2012-2014

[@luheartswarm4573]

It was one of my favorite games growing up! I was obsessed with most wanted, world was a no-brainer for me

[@bradjesionowski]

Man I really miss this game. I played it constantly starting with the Beta and all the way through till the very end.

[@Nikto10k]

Man I missed this game after it shutdown. I remember playing a fan made project of it in high school though. BFP4F and BFHeroes as well.

[@andreigtx1711]

Really nice video, I might add some depth to the complaints about microtransactions and cheaters ruining the game, as someone who played the game in its prime and now occasionally plays on the SoapBox servers: -The Car Classes update in summer 2012 theoretically fixed a lot of balancing issues regarding the cars, changing from a three-tiered performance system like in NFS Carbon to a car class system similar to Forza, however the same update ruined the skill leveling system (you know, the one that most resembled a MMORPG?). It went from naturally choosing your skill on leveling up to locking all skills behind a star rating system that only allowed to set up to 5 different skills PER CAR. Not to mention that the weakest skills, the 1 star ones, were the only ones available in the shop for in-game money, the better rated skills could only be obtained as rare drops from races/treasure hunts or by... spending ridiculous amounts of money on MTX to buy card packs that didn't even guarantee that you could get the skill you wanted. -The Achievements update in 2013, which is also the last major update the vanilla game ever received, added a set of achievements for doing things in the game, like winning races and building up your car collection that rewarded points to your profile, with the ultimate goal being reaching about 5k points, giving you a Bugatti Veyron for free. Unfortunately, it also completely broke the anti-cheat system: there were now cheats that let you instantly finish any race and even kick you out of race lobbies and even instafinish all achievements at once to get the Veyron. Right around the same update there was a game-breaking exploit where there were some cars that were accidentally set as infinitely redeemable gifts, basically letting you complete achievements without p2w and also make a crap ton of in-game money to boot. I remember this exploit came around the time Black Box was shut down, leaving the game without any support whatsoever for a few weeks, it was chaotic and after easy studios took over development there was a massive banwave aganist players who abused the exploit instead of cheaters, further fractioning the already dwindling playerbase.

[@Fuzon-S]

I remember hearing about NSF World but never had the chance to play it due to lack of internet access at the time, I'm glad Soapbox exists to give me another chance, well done covering it. I would suggest Ace Combat: Infinity to be looked at for a future video.

[@keysersoze9652]

Rock Paper Shogun is damn old from the colonization era since 1873

[@LunarPriestessYT]

Soap box race world is a much better experience than the original Need For Speed World. I recommend trying it out 100%

[@SoulCrusherEx]

I played the game till I hit LVL 12 but I didn't know they removed the free roaming feature later on... They had a good foundation but fumbled the ball

[@mostlyjovial]

So. I think I’d like to see you look at the game Blur. It was my favorite racing game and it did the power up thing super well. That said, it was handled really poorly by the studio, hope you’ll consider it at least.

[@4Pickledonions]

Even tho I still watch and enjoy your vids currently, I do miss your long formed videos.

[@spongebobfan78]

The closest thing we got for NFS now was Edge, which was exclusive to China and Korea and got shut down (though it was translated and revived by fans) and the upcoming NFS mobile, which is a Chinese exclusive beta for now.

[@lexievv]

Lol this game was so much fun to me when I was younger. I was so proud of the car I made with custom decals. No money for any in game purchases, but I was fine with it lol. This and Drift City. Then there was also a snowboard game I forgot the name of. Then he said "battlefield heroes" and more nostalgia was unlocked. I miss those games now lol.

[@motorpolitan8884]

I remember the Koenigsegg CC8 being added to the game to be such a controversy at the time. It was around $60 in in-game premium currency. On the bright side, the CC8 wasn't a meta car (the GT3 RS 4.0 and later Zonda Cinque would be), but it gave studio an idea of what they can get away with.

[@Deioth]

Yoooo... feels like I'm due to mention again, STILL hoping to see a "Life of a Game" spin off where you cover the history of MMOs still going 10, 15, 20 years later and more. There's a nice handful to go through, with Ultima Online and EverQuest as the two obvious big ones, among a few lesser known (*coughNexusTheKingdomOfTheWindsCough*)

[@raulcojocaru5970]

You should also take a look at drift city. It was another mmo-like racing/drifting(I know, it's in the name) game that, as far as I remember was active around the same time. I remember playing both in my childhood

[@imicca]

played Need for Speed World with my friend, it was lovely

[@lilacdragon17329]

I never played the original version of the game, but i had a good time with Soapbox, thank you to the people keeping it alive so i could try it out

[@HiatusAeternum]

I would love to see one of these made about Combat Arms or Blacklight: Retribution Both were fantastic games in their own right, that got let down by their developers, etc

[@DergehTheDragonFox]

I remember when I ran this on my old PC, it was just incredible, despite myself being a Kid/Teenager I was engaged in it because I also played a lot of NFS at the time, only found it by someone else mentioning it, but I did find a few hackers, but I also think I had fun, Its as much as a memory as it is like Whirled was to I, things of the past that I personally would go back to if it were better. Edit: Apparently there's a remade Project for this going around as - "NIGHTRIDERZ" I mean there's also one for Drift City too (Or I think there was?) Yet Its nice to see people trying to bring back old memories, and trying to make them better than before, honestly its not impressive, its incredible. Edit Note: The "NIGHTRIDERZ" Thing is apparently a fan project for NFSW, Don't know how good it is yet but as soon as I searched Need for Speed World, I found that under it, so its not exactly gone gone, but dead from mainline wise, yes, Will keep you updated on if its any good or not.

[@themarveluniverseonline]

It saddens me how many game creators forget that you are what you are at launch.

[@albertusaswin2012]

It is now SBRW (Soap Box Race World), and has some fanmade servers.

[@TheLaLeeee]

13:58 No, The Crew doesn't exist anymore sadly. I hope you'll make a video on that soon as well.

[@GTgaming98]

This is what made me and my friend stopped playing NFS World to many players using hacks to win races we did cruise around the map mostly around Palmont still gutted it got shut down I feel like the players who used hacks killed this game

[@Lakin_Logan]

When I was a kid had a neighbor who was into cars, talked to Him about this game, wonder how he’s doing now

[@K0Y0I_sis]

Team escape was the only game mode that kept the general playerbase playing after the launch of NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 which brought on the first ever premium currency exclusive end-game car in that game. The NFS online experience pretty much degraded into who had the best meta elite version builds after that.

[@andrejtb1]

12:58 RAHHHH SHIFT MENTIONEEEED 🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏎️🏁🏁🏁

[@Daramation]

Additional (main) reasons of why the game died: Lack of updates. The game was alive for 4+ years. In 4+ years the only major updates were: Team escapes - fun content Tunnels - basically roads connecting Rockport and Palmont Drag races - meh Achievements - good content that somehow helped free players catch up with customisation to paying players, but ultimately aimed at paying players 3 major updates in 4 years is the perfect recipe to losing your playerbase. The second reason was it being paytowin. The very definition of paytowin. Some premium cars (MR2, Cinque and F1) dominated the races so hard that free players had no chance of winning races with any of the top premium cars in the lobby. Even after restructuring the game into classes, each class aside from E (slowest) was dominated by premium cars, with the MR2 being so strong it dominated 3 classes by itself and being a top car for the fourth class. So why do I remember this game so fondly? It is because of the playerbase, the forumers that got along so well, creating challenges between us, meeting in game and racing fair or setting up cruises. Speaking of which, they did bring back free roam.

[@De_kaid]

The forum and the people there really made the game, not like it was playable in open lobbies anyways when you kept getting handshake errors in the final year lmao

[@andreigtx1711]

​@@De_kaid lol iirc the handshake errors were caused by cheaters crashing the lobby, by the end of the game they ran rampant since there was no real support anymore

[@welshtorrance6990]

who remembers red baron pizza codes? thats how i found out about this game from a 99 cent store frozen pizza, saw a lambo and bought it for 2.99 ohh how i loved this game

[@duck74UK]

iRacing at least has been going on since 2008. It's not open world but it does have huge sessions. I don't think arcade style racers could ever make it as a long-term MMO as they stand. These days they all seem happy anyway to just allow big freeroam lobbies in their (bi)yearly instalments.

[@avalonknight]

I loved this game in its early years. Didn't get to play Most Wanted and Carbon, so to get to play and drive in that world was a blast. The powerups for me was take it or leave it, it's alright. But the problem are the rammers, power up or not. Don't get me started when they introduced the "damage" system, that thing is a glorified stamina system that you MANUALLY recharge (basically pay for the repairs with ingame cash in context). You'd think that it would incentivize good driving, but no. After watching it, looks like I'm glad I dropped when I did. Free roam driving is what I did most of the time, sad to see it removed, if I heard right.

[@paracelsus_aba]

Had alot of fun on this game. Porsche Carrera GT was so broken. Sad that it got shutdown. 😢😢😢 RIP childhood memories.

[@eugene12310mobile]

Well you can try the fan servers again they get a consistent 120 to 200 people on weekends and sometimes almost a thousand concurrent players per server when a racing streamer goes online and streams it

[@paracelsus_aba]

@@eugene12310mobile cool, i'll look into it.

[@andreigtx1711]

just play on soapbox servers, every evening guaranteed players

[@PjTheHero]

didnt expect another DOAG so fast after rogue company!

[@Dat_Jonx]

Now imagine if the game had similar gameplay as Criterion's Hot Pursuit, with it's power-ups and ability to play as a cop and raid randomly roaming or competing racers.

[@ThangTN]

Mmo racing game 10k+ players in a freeroam world it is pretty ahead of its time, not any modern racing game could like that

[@TheVoiceOfChaos]

Calling it now the intro for this youtube series is going to be nostalgic

[@LongTimeAgoNL]

What I remember from this game: - The cop chases were amazing. Cop AI actually worked a lot better than it worked in other NFS titles. - THE GRIIIIIIIIIIIND was massive. Also... Hasnt Forza Horizon basically picked up where NFS franchise dropped the ball?

[@Brancogamer1]

When they shut down the servers, thats the moment i knew i really dont want digital games. Yeah im old(36) but when the stores gone selling games im gone buying to

[@u1richh]

Before kids stole their parent's credit cards for V-Bucks, kids stole their parents credit cards for Speedboost. This game was a core memory for me and I loved it. I still do, and extremely glad that Soapbox Race World is a thing that exists. I wonder what an official sequel would look like, aside from wildly egregious micro-transactions.

[@drunkpunk5393]

Before I watch. Wanted to say as far as I know. This is the only need for speed game I don’t know existed or knew anything about. Crazy.

[@icenovaa]

This game was amazing when I was a kid. I remember during like Christmas or so they gave out a free car and you could sell it for 500k I kept buying and selling it then bought like a 1.8m lambo something spyder. Then the next time they gave out a free car they made sure if you sold the car it gave $0 lol

[@gingerbeargames]

honestly, the hackers were the least of the problems when it came to racing. All the lobbies i was ever in were just filled with ramming and had basically no racing what so ever. The only time i ever actually had any fun was by using a ghost cheat to actually have some sort of race in the game.

[@MakoMakes]

2 death of a games within the span of 3 days?! Hell yeah!