The game would have been appropriately hyped if it weren’t for a few massive fuckups.

1. Resource gathering was supposed to be a cat & mouse game. But the potential PvP while gathering resources doesn’t appeal to the masses, so marketing added a “you can’t touch me” PvE flag.

2. Item duplication. There were exploits that allowed item duping. They didn’t reset the economy after those exploits were addressed, and they didn’t catch everyone.

3. They decided the content was too easy (especially given the duped gear above) and made everything much harder after a couple weeks. Again, no server reset. So if you didn’t get in in the first couple weeks and duplicate some items in that time, you were forever behind.