Worst MMO Ever? - 9Dragons

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Meditation stops you from playing.
Certain chat options soft lock the game.
The cash shop actively soft locks the entire program.
9Dragons is bad.
An eastern, martial arts inspired MMO featuring way too many systems, awful combat and just really, really bad design choices.
Thanks as usual to the Patreon supporters and Twitch subs who keep the channel going.

[@esperderek5383]

This series really reminds me of those KZbinrs who explore malls that are near death. Maybe once upon a time these places held some potential, did something interesting, or were just a hopping place to be. But then none of the stores ever get updated, the mall changes owners like four times, the janitorial and maintenance needs get ignored even as they get worse, and they fail to keep up with the times. People leave, never to return, the population diminishes exacerbating all the other problems, and even the people who stay aren't actually doing anything, just coming out of force of habit than anything. It's not so much 'Worse MMO Ever', and more urban exploration of largely defunct online spaces.

[@eagletgriff]

makes me think of the backrooms

[@g.krisztiangal3950]

And yes that is the case with this MMO. It was fun, and it had a player base when Acclaim had it. When they sold it to GamersFrist, than that sold ittoGamesCampus. Both of these found a way to make it work properly. Acclaim times were better then these two but it wasn't so bad. But now Red Fox games bought it and they put so much unnececary things in it... Thisgame is in ruins for me...

[@Metalwrath2]

v a p o r w a v e

[@JoshuaJacobs83]

You’re calling out my local mall. The only good part is the arcade my friend owns. Though I go to play DND with him and not play arcade games

[@tonitapola7811]

I know of those malls. They always have same brand shops, are built on bus route out of city and are dying and new mall is built. Small businesses are dying and I feel bad because of some who try to start new life there only to fail when mall goes out of fashion. It reminds me of South Park episode with underpants gnomes

[@Zazuban]

I played 9Dragons before it switched hands dozens of times; was once a great game and always loved the different groups and how they all had unique stories to be told and learned. League of Beggars was always my favorite group. About 80% of the bad systems were added after bad developers decided to purchase and ruin the game.

[@Crazyivan777]

Here to say the exact same thing. I'm so sad seeing what this game became. And yeah, I was a League of Beggars player, too!

[@MoutHero]

I have very exciting memories about 9 Dragons. Being an applicant for the Heavenly Demon Clan and really sweating and tryharding to pass the test. Remember the occasional Blood essence drops and my adventures in the Hefei market. The general chat in higher level areas was the bomb, old-school trash talk etc. Game went to shit after Acclaim sold it.

[@williamedge5130]

I’ve not played this game but the beggars guild is one of my favourite wuxia tropes

[@def_NaN]

100% agree, i used to play this as my in between game, during the acclaim days it was a satisfying experience. though i missed the transfer after gamersfirst during a break from the game and lost too much progress to bother starting anew. looks like i made the right call seeing the current state of things.

[@heavenly2k]

Thats tragic as fuck.

[@tinkerroblox7247]

Arriving in the city and thinking "Oh dear god... no... there's other players!?" was pure comedy. The absolutely flat plane terrain in the city hurt my soul.

[@reyproduction4988]

You'll probably be the only one with a soul playing this game

[@qriist1850]

Legend has it that Josh is still meditating in the cash shop to this day.

[@kennykiller]

*NAPPING*!

[@lazydelibird]

@@kennykiller Shut up nail

[@theroadstopshere]

The "cheng" and failure to level system is actually adapted from the Wuxia (fantasy martial arts) genre of stories, where levels of "cultivation" correlate with power level, rather than martial arts belt. Since it's based off of the idea that meditation and enlightenment correlate with personal spiritual and physical power, you can fail to reach the next level of enlightenment and power if your meditation is interrupted, you lack a strong enough "foundation", or if you're just unlucky. That can damage the foundation, and you need to wait and recover before attempting the breakthrough again. Hence the death when attacked during chi breathing and forced wait before trying it again. "Ancient art of rectum fu" -- ah yes, one of the sacred skills. Known only to the most powerful of practicioners and proctologists.

[@GlitteryGecko]

The only reason I am familiar with the concept is because my husband is reading "A Mortal's Journey to Immortality" and is relaying chapter recaps to me. A pretty neat and foreign (to me at least) idea but I don't think that can translate to a game well. Maybe a roleplaying tabletop game, but that's it.

[@Youboremenow]

@@GlitteryGecko Tell him to try out 'I Shall Seal the Heavens' its by far the best of the ones i've tried. I think xianxia would work great in a mmo it just needs to be implemented correctly and not be out of the gate just be bait for whales....

[@silentseashore]

Also if you try to advance too fast, you might be forced into a Heavenly Tribulation which is literally the Powers that be trolling you for trying to 'powerlevel'.

[@Todesschleicher]

/r/noveltranslations is leaking. Thanks for explaining OP, saved me the time.

[@Feuerhamster]

@@GlitteryGecko most xianxia stuff now is sadly like isekai - a "might as well be MMO leveling" story.

[@mattryder89]

July 10th, 2021. Some Taquito Bandito copycats began showing up, but there is still no sign of the original. Will keep you informed, but you shouldn't expect good news. It truly seems like Taquito Bandito is no more. And that he is still wrong to this day.

[@MasterZombie777]

... Taquito Bandito got eaten

[@RamArt9091]

@@MasterZombie777 Now he is Poop Bandito.

[@kingsiegfried8568]

He certainly changed identity, deleted his account, moved to another country and started a life of redemption.

[@kyogrefan2648]

Sayonara, Taquito-san 🌸😔

[@barry-allenthe-flash8396]

While I do enjoy the actual review content, I gotta admit, I do really like coming down into the comments to see how these journal entries are shaping up every video now. I can't help hearing every entry read in, like, a Ken Burns Civil War Documentary voice, lol (^-^) If this is truly the end of the saga, it has been a good ride.

[@nunofyurbusiness2647]

"If you don't have money, just don't be poor" 7:48 Glad to see Josh subscribes to the same economic theory as Gwyneth Paltrow.

[@BenkaiDebussy]

The most baffling part of this is how characters start out with a massive amount of HP that makes them virtually unkillable.

[@Kevin-qh1ve]

It's quite a stark contrast with Uncharted Waters or Tales of Toast where you die incredibly quickly

[@LikAbalo]

that is not always the case. This happen when you register when some event is on (like spring event, x-mass event etc). During event you get event buff as soon as character is logged in. 99 of his hp and ve is from event buff. Without that you can easily die with red mobs attacking you.

[@termiteconsumer7145]

​@@LikAbalodo you play this game 😳

[@LikAbalo]

@@termiteconsumer7145 years ago ...

[@mmldtop6005]

​@@termiteconsumer7145one of the best game ever

[@SaberKittyZero]

The dog sound effect is true to dogs. Our neighbor's dog will bark for weeks on end without stopping.

[@ddis29]

aw man. i'm sorry. my wife spoils him. i can get him to half-way be have, but i was always sure that when i'm at work it's nothing but him barking.

[@ryougahibiki941]

My back door neighbour's dogs go crazy and bark more annoyingly than this if I ever spend any time in the back yard. This is a realistic depiction.

[@darrenbyrne293]

Wait. So Josh is an award-winning actor, painter (Warhammer 40k), MMO-Reviewer, knows martial arts and mug enthusiast. What can this man not do.

[@atrumluminarium]

He's like Johnny Sins

[@thomcrabb4237]

And he likes Lindybeige.

[@jabloko992]

What can he not do? Beat Dark Souls 1 with all enemies as Gwyn, bcus he's a casul.

[@adhominemetc]

Stand bad MMOs

[@stuglife5514]

@@thomcrabb4237 It’s hard to not like lindy. Even when he talks about of his ass he’s still got a intoxicating and charismatic personality. I still won’t ever let him forget about the “Bren was a better machine gun then the MG-42” even tho ya know, two different platforms with two differnt roles

[@DeathInHotPants]

This game was my life back in it's early days.I still remember the double-exp weekends when I'd waste hours pressing a single button just to train my buffs. But boy did i feel good to run around newbie areas and just buffing everyone. I wish we had a classic 9dragons private server :(

[@briandugas1648]

OMG I remember doing that. Buffing newbs and just running away leaving them dumfounded. Why did this dude in rags run up spin around and dry hump the air and run away?

[@daeron_milk]

there is one now though, i can't tell if you were being ironic or not because I think it is pretty recent

[@09Drdray]

I was newbie that was buffed, thank you!

[@caroqt]

And the double-exp that lasted two hours from 8 pm (in my timezone). It was so much fun and my cousin made fun of me for saying I had to get online for the double-exp!

[@akshatjain8790]

@@caroqt I know the feeling. It was 4 am my time. Which server did you play?

[@Asmodelta]

So here's the thing about the meditation: it only stops when your HP AND whatever their replacement for mana was called were full. This was usually fine, as meditating from low HP/mana to full didn't take that long. However, in typical dead game fashion, 9Dragons now has a buff for new players that massively increases their stats (which is why Josh isn't dying). BUT the Meditate skill is still the lowest level one, restoring a very tiny amount each time and thus taking longer to charge than a good mmo takes to come out. I'll always have incredible nostalgia for this game as my first ever MMORPG, but my god did it not age well.

[@filmararquita3686]

there's actually a way to stop meditating. select character or title screen

[@edd542]

I remember playing back in the day when it was owned by Acclaim. Eventually they started adding ads that popped up in the minimap. I remember logging in one day then seeing a Target logo take over the minimap for some time then fading away, it was the most terrible experience I have ever had in any MMO to date.

[@melvinbritton5822]

Yeah my bro would play this and I’d play the Bots game. Do you remember when they were taking about coming out with a racing game?

[@DinoTrackmania]

Acclaim, Bardo. Best times

[@Guhonter]

"Opening the Premium Shop soft locks the game".... EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Earth 2, Caspian: *WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE IT DOWN!!!*

[@SimonMoreal]

I remember back then when you choose the 50 gold option, you'd have to get him some wolf hides. The questlines were what stood out from other MMOs on the market back then for me. Sad to see it got butchered this way.

[@daxidol1447]

Imagine not immediately pickly Wu-Tang Clan when given the option.

[@alexreilly6121]

ironically I heard some reference to something with that particular name/title, and apparently it was something that existed way back when in china somewhere, but sadly all even my brain now[im 36] can think of is the *owcough* 'band' *splutter*

[@williamroeben]

Oh my Gosh, this is nothing like it was. It used to be good... this is a nightmare now :(

[@Squeeks1337]

Thought the same thing. I definitely remember things being much better. This was years ago of course, clearly the change in hands was not good for it.

[@Quintillious]

omg never thought i would see you here love your stuff great guy!

[@mercster]

I have a feeling it was never good, and you have just gotten some taste ;-) Messin' with ya.

[@roktinfast]

No, it was never any good, really

[@Squeeks1337]

@@roktinfast Yea, it wasn't great but this is demonstrably worse than it was.

[@FatalKitsune]

Missed joke: The escape key doesn't work because there is no escape from how bad this is.

[@RM_VFX]

No escape key / 10

[@musikalniyfanboichik]

cool pfp

[@aarons6935]

Nah, jokes far too easy and cheap.

[@Archangelm127]

Ba-dum tish

[@trillmxvsx8190]

The most sad thing is that Acclaim had big plans for this game like adding 2 extra clans that are mentioned in the game and original trailer (iron fist, noble families and vagabond class i think) I played it for few years and kept waiting for those new clans to be added but then it got handed out to money milkers who killed the game and never saw anything new other than grindfest activities added and cosmetic shit. Then new games upping the mmo game came out and 9D died

[@jvam16]

This game was an awesome and very open world when it came in the mid 2000's, a lot of players, so many that in maps like Hefei and Bloody Plain your fps would drop to probably numbers of 1 digit, lol. I had to stop still in the mid 2000's cuz i got my internet cut. Then i probably came back between 2015-2016 and the game was a desert, at least in the first maps, people might be so high up level (probably only nostalgic people that kept playing the game since it came out) that they were just to be seen in maps that if you would put your steps there you would be killed my the most weak npc's. Then i lost account because it seems that if you left to play the game for more than idk, 1 month, they would reset your account and your characters would be gone. Then i gave up but came back this year during the summer and gezz...the game is "yet-the-same but quite different", they basically put the game on stereoids for new players, i ended up going back to the game where there was an event going on that you would just had to feed a npc with a certain food and it will give you an OP weapon refined +18 and with no level requirement, lol, then it would be you in a basic level being in maps that you should just be able to battle with the npc's if you had 30 levels higher than your current one, also there's a lot of bonus exp cards that makes players get really easy to high levels, idk why they did this but maybe because the game is stuck in the 2000's in gaming design and graphics and they need to at least make it not so tedious for the new players, bakc in the day the level up was tedious and slow paced as fuck.

[@BabblingGoat]

This was my favourite mmo for YEARS. Way back when it was owned by Acclaim the game was pretty damn popular. It was filled with players (so many that you had to wait for mob spawns), shops, people doing raids, PvP and every week we got a day of 100% bonus exp. The game was thriving! However when Acclaim closed down all of their games went down in the dumps. This will forever be one of my favourite mmos and I will grind it for a week once a year until the servers are close

[@insensitive919]

I hope you donated your brain to science, we could learn a lot from you. 🤗

[@cmayhuncho3553]

9D was the first game that made it fun to grind. I remember the first character i got to Five Dragons. Thinking i was the shh and seeing someone who was Sm6 or even worse EC 10 and them telling me they get 0.001% exp per kill 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 shhh was surreal tho and the grind between levels was definitely worth it

[@NemesisBOTS]

come play ohka bots! it's a remake by bots by acclaim and it's just fixing up its beta bugs now :)

[@Sashko_Dee]

Stupid Snake: the lesser known Big Boss clone.

[@Veladus]

Hey, it was their first attempt at cloning! Just because he came out with the wrong number of chromosomes doesn't mean it wasn't impressive!

[@Kuhekin]

I laughed harder than I should

[@WhatIsThatThingDoing]

"They're no sons of mine." -Big Boss

[@MichaelSmith-py6mg]

“It’s less effective than hitting someone with a stick” -Shadiversity has entered the chat

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

NUNCHUCKS!

[@scheinerchen6471]

@@JoshStrifeHayes you mean inferior sticks!!!!

[@DuskEalain]

@@scheinerchen6471 Shad looks at Nunchucks and says "look how they massacred my boy"

[@user-et8vm9cc3t]

@@JoshStrifeHayes SWORDS!

[@MrTokyoJunkie]

I'm dead. The stick has slain me. The stick broke but at least someone can make nunchucks out of it now.

[@TheAgentPrime]

I had to watch this because 9dragons was one of the first mmo's I had ever played and I loved the idea of having to go and practice a new move or skill before being able to use it in actual combat.

[@gsts6644]

Yeah, this dude doesn't know what he's talking about. It's a great game. One of the best MMO games to ever be produced.

[@somerandomgamer8504]

@@gsts6644 This game is some of the worst garbage mankind has ever produced. What kind of crack are you smoking?

[@gsts6644]

@@somerandomgamer8504 ... It came out in 2007. If it was such a bad game, then why did games after it use its structures?

[@Violentic81]

How can u stick to games like this? I ask myself this all the time, when i watch this series. We played games in the 2ks way better then this. Even in the 90s game evolved far enough for way better gameplay. This is no offending try or any of it. I really wondering.

[@areyouwelldoyouhavebrainda2023]

@@gsts6644 Brother, he never denied that the game may have been good in the past. He is criticising the game as it is now, not as it was. He isn't playing through your memories. This game may have been good, but according to other people who liked it, after switching developers a bunch of times, it got very shit. You can't deny the multiple soft-locks, poorly explained systems, etc. Watch "Can you Judge an MMO in just 1 hour?" by Josh Strife Hayes for further thoughts on this. Also, if you think about it, this entire series of "Worst MMO Ever?" is based on the premise of being as nitpicky as possible. That's where the fun for the viewers is at. He might not even have minded many of the flaws of the game had he played it in private, but he played it as part of an entertaining video series he is producing.

[@Rzra]

"If your health goes to zero. You transition to Almost dead. Until you die. Unless your friend doesnt let you. Then you dont. But if your friend is dumb and takes too long. You transition to basically dead. Where you just die. But wont die."

[@DaijDjan]

"Do you know how to do a brain surgery?" "No?" "Just do it!" I see nothing wrong with this..

[@namkha209]

--New Vegas: [Luck 9] That was easy.--

[@NeurosisOsmosis]

4head

[@l156a21]

sounds like how Ben Carson started his career

[@talkingbutt3150]

Bra you can't just use the phrase "Just do it!" and not include the one person who started it all. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnKogqmilr-agbs

[@ZorotheGallade]

This is the quest "Et Tumor, Brute" from Fallout New Vegas in a nutshell.

[@Grixzen]

this game was a solid MMO back then in 2007 before being handed out a million times

[@tsgarage2382]

yes it was, remember even at gamers first the nirvana server was highly populated

[@TheCrazyhusky]

All those players you saw in the city, weren't there because they wanted to be, They open the ingame shop and are now stuck forever.

[@Left4Coragem]

I remember playing this a decade ago with some friends of mine. It was all there, the over preparation to learn a skill, then training your new attacks, the chi breathing. It was cool for the feeling it was trying to evoke. Now the soft locks are much more recent additions to it, yes you couldn't cancel meditation, but it lasted something like 10 or 15 seconds. So it wasn't an issue. The combat was bland as dish water like you see, but other mmos like runescape weren't that different, so we didn't saw that as a deal breaker, but it really is a game that should have being let die a while ago.

[@user-bf7sl3uo9p]

As a Korean born in the 80s, I remember the country having a boom of teenage programmers trying to start a company around the 2000s as soon as they finished high-school or in the middle of their uni. Probably why there are so many weird crappy games from that era... Although I mostly played tetris on the Netmarble chat rooms against other people and not many mmos.

[@Astolfo2001]

Did you have any consoles at the time? I heard that South Korea actually had Playstation bangs, cafes where you can stay to eat and play on the Playstation 2s there like you would do with the computers in the more popular PC bangs back in the 2000s.

[@zabi_aka]

@@Astolfo2001 don't know about back in the day, but they definitely have them now :)

[@ibatutv]

9Dragons was my entire childhood , it was one of the best. You say "crappy" cause you are probably comparing with games nowadays . Think that even the security of 9Dragons was too high , while you saw many WoW private servers , 9Dragons only got private servers when some Ex Publisher decided to leak the server files (half of them broken) and shitloads of 9D community programmers started working on them for months , there are still forums where they tried to help eachother... anyways bad thing they all failed due to the greed. Same as the developers/publishers etc . Devs pushed a high price on the license and publishers had to focus on getting their money back so they focused on pay2win as much as possible.

[@TVPInterpolation]

@@ibatutv stop trying to defend the game. most people werent interested or skilled enough to make private servers, and wow was just much popular, so it makes *sense* that wow got a bunch of pservers. it was "ok", but not "good" even back in the day. as josh mentioned in the video, it released 2007, so right in the time of things like bioshock, uncharted, and several other "good" games. i know, nostalgia hits hard, but its time to look at it from a neutral view.

[@Fuzen.]

9Dragons is the MMO of my childhood and I have to say… This game used to be much better. For instance, balance. See these bandits with the red name ? Back then, enemies with red names would skewer you. Why did they think that it was a good idea to totally break the balance like that ? Anyway. The game apparently changed hands many times and it seems that it became worse and worse each time.

[@tsgarage2382]

Remember Why SO Serious lol and many other ruthless guilds

[@drectanbns266]

The game was suppose to be better. Before it changed hands so many times where was suppose to be the option to join the four higher up clans, The Black dragons, Golden House ext, They where suppose to carry on the storyline and reintroduce the 9 Dragons(The Leaders of each faction.) They where suppose to do so many things, then as it changed hands the people taking over the game stopped giving a shit about making it better and just milking it for everything they could before throwing it away, It use to be good, well..Good is a bit much it use to be ok with a lively population, then it became nothing.

[@user-et8vm9cc3t]

11:05 "Cocky Bandit" Blimey, those NPC names...

[@univ1733]

It's ironic that I probably will remember the "Have you seen my hat?" "It's on your head" plot for years to come.

[@KirstenMarie_MS3]

"The ancient art of rectum-fu" Every 3rd year medical student's nightmare. Lol.

[@terraglade]

*see other players* WHY ARE YOU HE- gold sellers ...oldest trick in the book.

[@ZeroPlayerGame]

what are gold sellers?

[@ariezon]

@@ZeroPlayerGame in game currency seller usually

[@christianstonecipher1547]

On your talk about chengs and levels, I am essentially certain that it is not them trying to simulate martial arts belts but simply them using the advancement framework of Chinese Wuxia novels where characters advancement is done through essentially the exact same system where each major realm is split into a number of minor realms(usually 9 but not always) and advancement does have a chance for failure same as in this game. Additionally meditation through breathing techniques is also a very common way for characters to advance through the aforementioned realms.

[@alexgmello]

I played this game back in the day, when I was a teenager, and I remember having fun...and also remember easily dying. And not only that, there was a strat, that involved dying repeatedly, so you would enough wounds to reach a certain threshold (they reduced your max hp), and that way you did more damage and lvl up the skills quicker, as a nuker...or something like. And I also think that you chose your martial arts in the character creation. Looks like a lot of things changed...and for the worst.

[@Yndril]

Yeah, during the time Acclaim owned the game, you would pick a clan at character creation, but it really only decided your starting area, once you reached the level where you would actually join a clan, i think you could actually go to another zone and try out the basic skills of the different clans before actually committing to a clan. I still remember getting absolutely destroyed by the red foxes in the first area of Wutai, and i think i had to kite them to the village guards to get them to assist me in killing them. I think they created the new starter area when Acclaim sold it. Now it never was very stable, i remember it crashing every now and then for no reason, or just freezing (audio still playing), often getting booted from the server too, but that may have been because of my then poor internet connection. i don't remember it crashing as often when it changed hands, but i also didn't play it for very long because i didn't want to redo all of the things i had done before (think i missed the window of opportunity to transfer because i had already stopped playing years before then). But, i don't remember it being this much of a mess, i never had to go search on google for how to progress a quest, i don't recall you being unable to exit meditation, pretty sure the mtx window didn't softlock the game, pretty sure it wasn't even any tutorial videos with terrible voice acting like that. Sad to see how neglected the game have become. I had a lot of fun grinding a few hours a day while just talking to my grandpa who also played on the monitor beside me.

[@asterixobelix20]

Yeah I played it many many years ago and I wasn't sure if it was nostalgia talking or what, but I couldn't remember any of these issues mentioned in the video. How they managed to f... this game up this bad is a mystery to me.

[@MoonTiger88]

Got to say, I was actually wondering if: A: this game still exists B: It will show up on this list I remember having a good time with it like .... 9-10 years ago? It wasn't really good per se, but I had fun.

[@NextRated]

Play private server if u really wanna have fun with it official servers are just pay to win nowadays

[@pete-ph5xc]

If you find a private server like 9d classic, it's a lot better, a lot more fun. Some have ridiculously overamped leveling, but others have just enough to take the edge off the grind

[@HalfBloodBrony]

“If your said just be happy” and “if your poor just have money” are sadly both real bits of advice ive heard

[@TG-ge1oh]

Yeah. Have you heard "You're not allergic. You have just lost touch with nature"?

[@brentsta]

"If you can't afford gas, buy an electric car"

[@TG-ge1oh]

@@brentsta Very apt 🤣

[@imawesomererthanyou]

"if you are homeless just buy a home"

[@-.-Monster]

@@imawesomererthanyou I was living under a bridge in south Philly. Cop tells me to go home. I explain that I'm homeless. He said go get a job. I explain that businesses don't hire homeless people as we smell and look like homeless people regardless of how many wet wipes we use. He tells me to go take a shower then. I explain to him that I live under a bridge and don't have a shower. So what does he do? Writes me a ticket for loitering. Tells me to go home.

[@DekaMan]

Damn feeling nostalgic. 9 Dragons was my first mmorpg ever, then I played the real OLD school runescape before i switched to the love of my life, an mmorpg called "Dekaron/2moons"

[@marcusaurelius4777]

DUDE! 2moons was the SHIT man. Azure Knight, Bagi Warrior, Senegal, Incar Magician...dude the classes and skills were fucking lit. The pvp was jank as fuck but it was funny. Like god damn.

[@DekaMan]

@@marcusaurelius4777 Damn dude :D I remember playing only Vicious Summoner! i remember getting Dark Avatar skill a lv 97 as well as that mirror skill at lv 87. Was the coolest moments i've ever had in any game

[@bradbland9307]

Just as a little tip for everyone …if you just need the task manager instead of ctrl alt delete press ctrl alt esc and it will automatically bring up the task manager instead of having to click the task manager option from the menu

[@SeisoYabai]

It's Ctrl *Shift* Escape. I play a lot of modded games and need it often lol.

[@cenciende9401]

Strange, it's ctrl shift esc for me, I use it all the time

[@kojiro133]

"This is an opportunity to reflect upon the choices you have made." That, while possibly ironically, is an hilarious line.

[@Tenosyn]

Ever thought of doing a "mediocre mmo" series? MMOs that have a small but loyal playerbase. Maybe even get guided by their communities. Would be a good way to spotlight functional but small games.

[@WannaComment2]

Stop beating around the bush and just tell us what old game you're still playing that you want josh to review.

[@kurostyx9124]

why call it mediocre then

[@triopsate3]

@@WannaComment2 > *cough* Mabinogi *cough*

[@The-Honored-One]

@@triopsate3 That’s what I was thinking. I would love if he did Mabinogi.

[@user-name3366]

@@WannaComment2 dragon oath the best 👌

[@MrCyred7]

I'm really sad the game became unplayable. This is such a big part of my childhood and I'm still wishing someone would pick up the game and bring it to it's glory.

[@GreasePotato]

was the game better in the past? or were the game freezing features already there from the start?

[@MrCyred7]

@@GreasePotato it was never a perfect game but the concept it was going for was new and I haven't found another gane similar to this one. Back in the day there weren't 1000 differwnt mob drops and infinite craftings. It used to be sinpler but it had it's flaws. The quests pretty much didn't do anything for experience so you were forces to endlessly farm mobs. But that had it's charm since it was hard to get to a high level.

[@jj48]

I remember playing this back in college, and found the concept, lore, and world rather interesting, but yeah, the technical issues ended up getting to be too much.

[@playday663]

This game is so bad that even KZbin itself can't handle it and just stopped the stream

[@zaidanhakim1072]

i thought my app bugged

[@zacharytruong8209]

Oh god the memories. I felt in love with wuxia games because of 9D. So sad it’s nothing but trash nowadays 😔

[@blazernitrox6329]

Even more impressive is the fact that the game is clearly still responsive, just not actually closing when you press the button; this indicates that somehow when the shop menu is open it bypasses the background check that usually gets run every frame to check if the button has been pressed and kill the game. This would be even more impressive if the game were running on a 3rd party game engine, as that's usually baked into a subsystem the end developer doesn't even have access to.

[@danieldol.1930]

9Dragons was the first mmorpg I played, and I played it for 6-7 years, I had the best times in the server Bardo during Acclaim time, anyone else? I remember the xp weekends and events, and I remember that after the xp events were over, people would go PvP on Bloody Plains...some of the teasing resulted from pvp kills, made the chat entertained for hours back then. Whenever a great leader of a guild or a good pvper entered the arena everyone respected their status as a veteran/legend, that's something other mmo's lack even now, names meant something for some odd reason ahah. The game was decent, it was never the best...what kept me going back to play wasn't the game itself, but because for me it became a social hub, I made many friends during my time there, unfortunately, everytime the game changed companies, people left, and we lost contact with each other. I can still remember the names of many of them and many of the names of the Guilds...nowadays I don't even know where or how they're doing, but I feel like I will always have this nostalgia feeling on my stomach and I hope they're doing well. - narutogaara from Outcasts Guild

[@DarkPhoenix1515]

Alucard, UF

[@TheSpeep]

17:36 "this is an opportunity to reflect upon the choices you have made" Indeed you are game, indeed you are.

[@onomatopoeia7505]

You get extra points for referencing Lindy Beige.

[@antyspi4466]

Josh even has a similar way of narrating and talking as Lloyd.

[@HeroLanding]

I bet he also watches Nc.

[@rusty9705]

Out of everything I expected to hear from an MMO KZbinr it wasn’t a reference to a LARP / Ancient weapons enthusiast KZbinr

[@MasterBettyy]

I liked the vid right after that reference

[@Ghostylikes]

It makes me sad to see an MMO that I played so much in my younger days end up in a “Worst MMO ever?” video.

[@chukyuniqul]

Ya know not only bad 'uns end up here, right?

[@PrimePalYT]

mine too later end up on here. sherwood dungeons. the one with predatory cash shop without prey. and despite being 2 years older than world of warcraft, has less content 1 island in world of warcraft. the game can legally drink anywhere in the world except afganistan and saudi arabia. yet it has less content than wow had on launch. and youtube guide for best xp made 11 years ago works on it still today.

[@vinchinzo594]

I played the very first iteration of this game. It was FUN. Just plain fun. The combat was different and I enjoyed looking at it. I loved running around in the game. I was a kid and it was a blast. What a sad, sorry shell of what it used to be..

[@papasharku]

Kung fu is getting inside the enemy's butt and sticking him with a spear. Critical damage.

[@ahmataevo]

So what you are saying is, this game was Dark Souls before Dark Souls.

[@sleepysera]

I remember how many people were fully on board with the strategy to defeat Thanos in the MCU that way...like, one of the most popular theories back before Endgame was to shrink Antman and have him crawl in Thanos' butt and blow him up from the inside...

[@DarkAlan2]

@@sleepysera actually that was an idea from some g3y sjw, they are obsessed with sticking things up their @ss

[@seliamila1005]

@@sleepysera I mean that's valid strategy

[@defaulted9485]

The game softlocks so hard the KZbin video premiere softlocked 25 minutes in.

[@Grimno]

"It seems the Thief Lord had his favorite Wine Glass Stolen." So you're telling me a group of people came together and said "Let's steal a wine glass" from this guy, snuck into his place, managed to steal from a guy with "Thief Lord" as their title, and then escape? Okay but why though?

[@SirRoundPotato]

This was definitely not as bad as shown in the video back in the day. It was a great game in fact. But it seems it went the degradation many old era games go through: Make the game stupidly easy up to the point of skipping content and breaking the game, introduce a lot of item mall garbage, new useless features with bugs. This normally happens when the game is losing its player base, and publishers want to milk the shit out of it.

[@hugehappygrin]

Blizzard as an example.

[@Dracowinges]

Ooh I remember playing this one while I was little. Really liked the martial arts aspect, the different schools and how the skills evolved as you used them. But it seems to have the ever present late game problem, you move to new area, do a quest or three that isnt enough for a level and grind the rest of the way. Rinse and repeat.

[@KoloXD]

Same here, loved the evolving attack sequences and the aesthetics. Too bad it wasn't that good otherwise.

[@kirkendauhl6990]

3:55 that leveling system reminds me of Warframe’s mastery rank. Except instead of an rng based chance at failing to rank up, you have to perform an actual mastery mission to show your advancement in the game. It not only measures skill but it also measures commitment since failing a mastery rank means you need to try again the next day.

[@isnanesavant]

I've recently been watching your Worst mmo series backwards, since I love to see amazing polish and refined joke delivery get clumsier and clumsier as i see the origins of things, and holy shit that music at 22 minutes was the most jarring thing so far. That felt like Buying Goods At Palmira from Evergrace, but without the unifying flutes that make the cacophony of different sounds come together for a coherent tone. Its just a wall of sound that is attempting to make sense, like a neural network was turned on for just this zone.

[@Rybus1]

- Skratchbacks! - No, no. Skratchbacks. - That's what I've said. Skratchbacks. - No, ninja, I'm a loot called Skratchbacks.

[@chronowolf4734]

Oh, I remember playing this game way back when! Might have actually been my first mmo... I sure enjoyed it and now I'm excited to see just how bad it's gotten.

[@Dracowinges]

Same here.

[@GodOfPlague]

This was my second mmo my first was earth eternal I later played eden eternal because I got the names confused.

[@vahlok1426]

Yeah I played it a lot too. Let's see how much of a trainwreck its turned into.

[@alexreilly6121]

Gunbound was my first mmo and since its literal incarnation no longer exists I know its safe from this series ;]

[@madisonshay]

Loved this game sooo much growing up. big fond memories of my guild. Gosh it did not age well at all. Retried recently and quit right in tutorial lol

[@Aragashia]

Had a similar experience with D&D Online (DDO) where I logged in a while back and was greeted by WoW-like talent trees filled with overpowered options instead of the (admittedly rough) character building I used to love the game for (alongside it's rather unique approach to leveling and questing). I assume the developers thought that copying Blizzard's homework would fix their declining player numbers, but seeing that my realm had been merged with an overseas one and I couldn't understand a word that was written in general chat, I can only assume that they were mistaken.

[@TheOfficialXerxes]

Oh man I remember every single one of these mmo's and I know them well ,I was obsessed with such games , to escape from the craze I turned of the last built PC I had ,I unplugged and cleaned everything then broke my keyboard in half . I am happy a lot of these games are dead or almost dead ,while they were fun ..the communities aren't what they used to be and the real player from back in the day would fully agree ,leading groups of 300-400 players against the enemies ,friends playing together till midnight ,making plans and discussing ,it was so much fun ,so enjoyable and we still had so much time for other activities ,we lived our lives but I've witnessed on my own how it fell slowly and it got monetized fast .

[@lordgates9180]

Love the videos, good sir! If you ever want company while wading through the bad-MMO muck, I'd love to join. Sometimes these things can be fun with others. Keep up the great content!

[@RafalToDs]

NOOOOO T-T I played this game for years.... I remember the golden time of this game, I can't believe that it is here... I know that it has changed hands sometimes, and now it is on steam. It is sad to see that this game died, it was a good game a few years ago Edit:: Yeah, all this was in the game 10 years ago...I guess I had lower standards.....

[@br0wnies45]

yea I don't even recognize this tutorial zone, was it in the game back then? and sprint? I remember going to the bazaar buying the book to learn it for 200k from randoms lmao. 15k hp as well rofl, you used to be able to barely solo 2 mobs back then, good times.

[@alexjones50]

@@br0wnies45 there's 6 different starting ares for the 6 different clans, seems he was doing the brotherhood of thieves one.

[@MrTokyoJunkie]

@@alexjones50 That used to be the case, but everyone starts in a place called Bamboo Village now. It was added after the Acclaim days to 'help' players learn mechanics better lol

[@alexjones50]

@@MrTokyoJunkie really? that sucks.

[@bigmt1986]

The closest thing we got to being this op in the beginning was when a healer/hybrid took the time to buff you. And I remember how much of a big deal it was when they did for me.

[@corsaircarl9582]

On the dog barking part, that 'spell effect' sound is literally the sound from Anarchy Online when you're casting your Nano Programs (spells)

[@smward87]

It's just a stock sound effect.

[@Sparclen]

It's not taken from Anarchy Online, they just used the same library asset.

[@babybbunnyisaac9886]

"If you are homeless.... just buy a house..." - some tik-toker

[@davespurlock985]

I really do thank you for playing this so I won't have to. You provide a great service.

[@mr.creeper6836]

Levels of bad games: OK, p2w game Makes you feel like you wasted time doing SOMETHING Booooorriiiing Else is bad, cash shop works cash shop doesn’t work

[@PhoenixAriel]

hehe yeah

[@SongForSouls]

Still playing it till this day...on and off for around 15 years and my love for this "masterpiece" never dies.

[@hatrackgames2648]

I actually like the fact that every currency pack has no bonuses. There’s no encouragement to spend extra for the sake of “More value you’ll maybe need if you decide to buy multiple things in the future”. Cuts down a bit on the psychological separation between real cash and their monopoly money. That said, they could have also just charged you directly instead of having that monopoly money.

[@PandaAchievement]

I played 9dragons back when it was with Acclaim and I was absolutely addicted to it. League of Beggars was my jam. Granted the graphics weren't as good as some games I played back in the day but the idea of playing an online kung fu MMO made up for it. I stopped playing after a while and tried to pick it back up only to see it had changed publishers and I lost interest because I lost all the progress I made. I didn't have nearly as many issues as you had in this video, my only aggravation was the game crashing on me

[@heavenly2k]

I think we're all gonna remember "rectum-fu" for a while.

[@Tall_Order]

The low bitrate voice acting sounds like something from a 90s DOS game.

[@MohcineJabairi]

11:50 I lost it at the snakes called stupid snake 🐍🐍🐍🐍

[@NoradNoxtus]

This game was so cool. I remember one moment distinctly in 07 or 08 when the Tao starter zone foxes stopped dropping fox hair and their prices jumped up to like 100k for a week or so (originally like 20) because of some bug that messed with the loot tables. Just goes to show how bustling and robust the player base and economy was. God I miss those days.

[@copperbadge1]

Wait, your Keyboard doesn't have the "ၔ" key?

[@follyfoxy707]

I forgot he taught martial arts. Now I know that the ball in the red is the way to go

[@yomejjuan]

I remember making a character for one of the factions. Before you joined them you had to prove yourself to them, they were one of the “evil” factions. Another character wanted to join them, and you worked “alongside” (she was narratively doing all the things you were too) each other to join the faction. Before the final test she gives you an earring as gift. The final test is killing some creatures. You pass! As you talk to the npc that gave you the quest, he gives you an earring, he says some weakling attempted to pass the test but failed. He gives you the earring as a reward. It matches the one your friend gave you.

[@thewallachianbard6975]

Man this really brings me back. I remember desperately wanting to get to play the game again at one point, I now realized that was NOTHING but pure nostalgia . Now about the tutorial, this is something that happens a lot in some mmos, especially the asian pay-to-win ones that fail miserably. First, the game did have a tutorial, a whole map dedicated to it and even after that was done, there was still a whole questline teaching you about it . Then they changed publishers. Now regarding the stick damage this is something I noticed in at least one other mmo, in voyage century . Basically the whole damage system was changed, perhaps to gear towards their end-game whales . Basically they change the stats of monsters and thus the weapons to accommodate to them, probably to make it seem like the player is giving out a lot of damage, because the monkey brain thinks lots of numbers = lots of fun . These games do leave behind a lot of items from the previous version which are then obsolete . I definitely saw this in voyage century, where all the quest rewards are regular items, but you still get drops and can purchase the old weapons which despite looking like the game's setting, are obsolete .

[@DemonicAkumi]

The Live Chat softlocked when you got softlocked in the premium shop. At least for me anyway.

[@G1ng3rsHOT]

Im so hyped to see you cover this finally. My friends and I have played this game on and off throughout the years, most recently simply for nostalgia. Cant wait to see your take and hopefully I learn something my teen self really needed to hear all those years ago.

[@loneronin6813]

I'm actually working on starting my own martial arts class (I'm moving to a different state and will be setting up shop afterwards) so I think it's really awesome that you taught martial arts as well! :D If I may ask, what style(s) or method(s) of martial arts did you teach? Due to disabilities I can no longer do any striking, but grappling has always been more my thing anyway and I've developed my own methods that are easier on me than certain aspects of various styles I've trained in. My grappling experience is mostly in Judo and the grappling aspects of Combat Hapkido, but I've spent the past couple of years learning and applying various techniques from other styles such as Shuai Jiao and Collar and Elbow Wrestling for example. Basically I've combined various takedowns, joint locks, limb breaks, chokes, holds, and methods of that nature in order to create a grappling martial art that is geared towards self defense as opposed to competition. Anyway, sorry for the length of this comment. I tend to get very enthusiastic when it comes to martial arts and anything to do with it so I end up rambling a touch. Anyway, I recently ran across and subscribed to your channel. You do wonderful work that I'm really enjoying! I wish you all the best and I hope that you continue to succeed in all you do. :)

[@tylerkujansuu7252]

I used to love 9Dragons when it was published under Acclaim. I was VGM Pyrhhus of Asura PK. It takes me back to be honest; I don't remember it being nearly as buggy and I used to have to play-test and recreate reported bugs. I spent 3 hours one day lightfooting at a bridge trying to throw myself off...and I did it. VGM Warda was a good friend, and the whole team....except for VGM Brock were good people. The actual GMs, specifically Kain and Nevermore were some of my favorite people. Nevermore used to create max gear PVP Characters and go duel on his break. Always a different character every night... but he was BAD. They called me the killer of Spammers! Even had some community art done of me which was awesome.

[@bussner1501]

Ive never played mmo's, but watching your content made me play one when a friend recommended it. Now im collecting cotton as a healer in albion online watching your videos to focus on while i farm. Thanks a lot, and keep up the good work

[@Smaxx]

Oh, I totally remember trying this MMO when it came out (under Acclaim). It wasn't that bad, but also had a few of the issues you've mentioned, like with the cash shop (or very similar). I also remembering it being the first MMO I ever experienced that showed you ads during loading screens, when logging in, when reviving, etc.

[@IlIBonesIlI]

"So with no real direction (like the music we just heard) I check the map"

[@ShamblesTCG]

About the start: It's not like a "dan", but cultivation is split in different "levels". And it's believed, that if you try to reach a higher level, you get closer to gods. But at the same time, nature itself will try to stop you, cause you're not supposed to reach such a level. So when you "level up", you go trough a "trial" (like being hit by lightning), which usually leads to death, if you don't succeed. So "just not leveling up" is actually a mild punishment for failure

[@KatastrophicNoodle]

Why does the voice actress sound entirely foreign and not knowing what she's saying *but also entirely british at the same time.* The way she says *steeeeyte* is just such a specific british accent thing.

[@jimambulance5813]

Wow, that may well be the first time I have ever heard another KZbinr name drop Lindybeige, what a treat. I've been a fan of Lindy for a decade now and it's cool to know one of my other favorite KZbinrs appreciates him as well.

[@lootogobbo2731]

Man this was so difficult to watch because of how amazing this game was back when I used to play it. I remembered waking up so early before school to play this game and then play it after homework. I spent so much time killing bears as a swordsman from the wutang clan, and eventually made a monk class "nuker" so I could join the people I thought were cool just firing spells from safe spots at very high lvl tigers. There were so many people everywhere that would form parties and sometimes youd get kicked for better and stronger players as it was so heavily populated and caused competitions even in training. I remembered getting scammed for my first blood essence which I sold to someone for lile 10k gold and it was worth like 250k at the time lmao.

[@NoradNoxtus]

When that wu tang symphony dropped you instantly felt badass. I played until BE prices were pushing a mil, good times but all good things have to come to an end

[@bvkedjvke]

"The ancient art of Rectum Fu" fucking glorious

[@vitorNook]

Still waiting for the Dark Eden Online, Silkroad, Flyff, Mu Online, Risk Your Life and some others from my time lmao

[@YiotisTheGnome]

Well, we wont be getting one for FlyForFun, as the official servers were shut down back in September 2020. Unless a video was recorded prior to that.

[@jerry_bambino7686]

I would love o see Silkroad Online

[@imblackmagic1209]

i remember playing this 10 or so years back, it wasn't this bad back then, or maybe i rage quitted on the quest bug

[@Samusdude123]

This game was okay back in the days of acclaim, before the advent of xp boosters galore and overpowered event buffs, base xp rates were so much lower that to compensate now they've made a new starting zone and mostly skipped over the original starting areas that had much better pacing and properly explained things (especially heavenly demon and wutang, as unfortunately not all clans have had even close to the same level of quality). They also lost all of the original english translations and retranslated them extremely poorly, the western servers have been barely kept alive by a hyper dedicated Vietnamese and philipino community. The combat has always been dull but it does have a system where the more you use a skill the better that skill becomes, as you level you learn new combat styles and have to choose to trade off damage from a style you've worked on to level new skills up to a point where they do more damage, I'm also a big fan of the naruto run system which also functions in a similar manner which encourages you to explore the map, slowly running faster the more you do so. Most of the mobs you were attacking were high level so you were missing all of your attacks, if you didn't have an overpowered buff you would have died and realised you had to level, though this game doesn't explain anything like that to you though and unfortunately never really will. There's a big disconnect between the western publishers of the game and the korean developers and it seems that the korean developers have no concept of what the new player experience is and no desire to improve it, and any of their attempts to do so have just made the game worse, like aforementioned starting town. Like other korean games this game is just an endless grindathon at the later levels and the developers seem to think that all anyone cares about is getting a bigger level number. It's a shame because there are genuinely some good features to this game, some of the music is actually spectacular, the animations are really surprisingly clean for their time as well, minus the clipping issues of course but this is a game that has been struggling perpetually since it's creation and honestly it's a miracle it's even still playable.

[@goldensunwhiz92]

Wow. What a blast from the past! I played this back in like 2008 or so back when it was run by Acclaim. It was super grindy back then but that's what I enjoyed at the time. I never made it past the 5th or 6th level (around that point the grind got even worse) and I never used the premium stuff cause I was in high school at the time and didn't have much pocket money. But still, I really enjoyed it. Sad to see that it's gone so downhill since then. But it'll always have a special place in my heart. Especially those cute minute long videos that showcase each clans fighting techniques. Oh, did they ever introduce the Advanced Clans? I remember that being talked about at the time (Iron Fist, Noble Families, etc) but I don't think anything came of it.

[@uutarn]

Lindy beige has taught us many things; talking for nearly an hour about siege ladders being amongst them...

[@mitch3503]

I'm not sure it would really count as a bad MMO, but I would really like to see you try Mabinogi. Played it a bit recently and it has a pretty vast amount of skills and professions.

[@DeusinMachina]

I was a well known Nuker in this game when it was still owned by Acclaim. Speaking without the rose tinted glasses, it was never a good game. But it was so much better than this. This makes me sad to see

[@bondo532]

9dragons also known as bad dragon online