To any1 who said SB doesn't belong here. First of all, Shadowbane was the first player grave looting, player city building MMO.
No it was not, UO was the first, and actually Shadowbane drew inspiration from UO, it combined a Level based system inspired from EQ (which quickly became apparent that it was a mistake for a PvP oriented game) and the Sandbox element of UO specifically designed for Conflict and Empire building ...
UO had Player Cities and Free for all PvP with full Loot way before SB.
The OP said it best, no one up to today has actually duplicated UO, many have made games inspired from it, but none did it the UO way nevertheless.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
@ Dana. None of those 5 games "redone" would make it in 2010. Industry evolved too much. People were served better meals. I like what you say about DAoC PvP and War and Wow though "... as War and Wow showed a 2 faction PvP doesn't work...". More people play WOW PvP than any other MMO. And "it works" so well they are even on ESPN. You can log in at 04.00AM and you have your pvp within 1 minute. How is that "not working" ? Typical mmorpg.com nostalgia and bombastic reasoning. I bet there are thousands of people wanting the original Donkey Kong of 1982. But it will not sell in 2010. Let me guess... you are playing Aion right now and think it's an mmorpg. Right.
wow has made it on advertising, most mmo's dont have tv spots.
WOW is a joke, it had its part in mmorpg's, a sad part but let alone its part. I dont see people sticking to a 1/2 retard game in the future.
Games will progress just as tech. must.
When the morons playing wow are intro. to real game play that creates great communities and challenge, they will jump ship.
Just as pot smoking has come back, so will a eaningful playing exp. in a mmorpg.
I disagree with a lot on your list because it is based on nostalgia, rather than practicality or even fun gameplay. City of Heroes just got the remake you asked for, and even mentioned, in the article. It's called Champions Online. That is the closest thing you'll ever see to a City of Heroes remake. The secret identity idea sounds cool, if you're making a movie. But practically, in a game, secret identities would be very boring for players. "Hey look, I'm a regular Joe who has no powers right now!" Does that really require a game? Wouldn't it be easier to just turn off your computer and go to work? Ah, the game we fondly call Reality! Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online MMOs could work with huge overhauls. So these first two on your list were the most practical targets for remakes. But these remakes couldn't compete in today's market if they were too true to form of the originals. It's not 2002 anymore. You have to make a game that can compete with WoW if you want a blockbuster, and even that's not a guarantee that your title will be popular or sustainable. I know it's been years, but Dark Age of Camelot really doesn't need a remake yet. They need to let WAR burn off some more steam and crank through some more expansions before being truly capable of pushing out a worthy Dark Age of Camelot remake. As for Ultima Online, a remake would simply require so many changes that it would fail to be an Ultima Online remake. You wouldn't be able to call it that. You would have to call it, "A game based on ideas from Ultima Online." If you really re-made Ultima Online like you're saying, it would fail faster than Tabula Rasa. This pick on your list was a pure nostalgia pick. There's a reason nobody has copied UO.
lol how can ac not compete? besides graphics, its beyond anything wow has...
To be honest everything in AC is what most players want.. you can solo or group.... u get better exp in a group... you get exp from being in a guild... they have a open pvp server... you get good drop items... you can get exp from crafting... its a vast open world with free content every month.... lol .. you can make your own class.....player housing...emotes lol
wow is the big boats of the 70's, the market will come back to its sences... all they need is a sweet show car...
City of Heroes has a sequel its called Champions Online. Its the same developer and the game was designed to be the sequel to COH. This isn't up for debate, they remade COH and its called Champions Online, end of story. How sad is it that a writer made it to the front page of mmorpg, who didn't even know NCSoft was a PUBLISHER. They wern't even a good publisher, they canceled Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa... I don't trust NC Soft with any game, they want to suck it dry and then forget it ever existed. Richard Garriot the man behind Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa is suing them now after they canned his last game.
Do you even know what you're talking about? CO is not the sequel of CoH. Yes, CoH was originally developed by Cryptic who then sold the IP to NCSoft, in which pretty much the whole dev team stayed with NCSoft. There studio was called NC/Norcal or something, but now they're called Paragon Studios.
So, yea NCSoft is a publisher, but if you haven't noticed they are developers too. Look at Lineage I/II, Aion, and now CoH. About Tabula Rasa, it was an unfinished game and was a huge mistake revamping the entire game in the middle of development.
I completely agree with Ultima Online as being #1. Being a long time player of from the beginning I have long awaited a remake of it. They attempted UO2 several years back and it failed before even entering any real testing. Then again they were also trying to go more sci-fi/fantasy merge with it. Asherons Call I agree with being on the list but for me would have been in the #2 or #3 spot. I for one have never had as much fun PvP'ing as I did in AC (besides UO before the split of course!). The other games listed never got my attention, thats not to say that they were not good games, just not my cup of tea.
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"I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone
Oh the good old days before the abomination of WoW entered the scene and attracted millions of zombie freaks that need linear, easy and casual play with big shiny pointers to get them to where the xp/loot is.
Unfourtanetely that crap worked and almost all MMORPG developers are still trying to copy WoW and cash in on the $$.
Those that try anything different are few and far inbetween and usually end in disaster (like Darkfall).
A Re-make of UO would be awesome... and for those who say that it cant be done without introducing some changes, you are right, but that wouldn't alter the essence of the game. All you need to do is to introduce a mayor conflict in the game to encourage ppl to grab a sword or shield or axe and to pick a side.
Skills can be developed without turning away from the original UO.
My guess is that nobody wants to do the remake because they are afraid of the ppl who actually played the original game to go against this new version because is not the same with up-to-date graphics.
I don't think UO would be any more than a niche hit these days..its way too hardcore and an unfriendly experience for new players and the casual crowd, and whether we like it or not we are not the majority anymore. The only game on that list I would play in a new engine would be AO and that is mainly the setting.
not more than a week ago I was giving my gf a long explanation about why I enjoyed playing uo and all the great memories and stories I had from the game and its nice to see some other people miss that game style
Although I've only played a couple of these games on this list, one that should NOT have been added was City of Heroes. With all the updates (issues), incredible changes to the game, and an incredible Dev team that actually listens to the players (although PvPers might counter that), this game is not a game that should be remade right now.
Maybe in 2-3 years, start developing CoH2? Sure. Right now? Pfffft. Going Rogue is the next expansion and will do well for adding new material, zones and powers to the game.
One of the most unique MMO's ever created! A sequel to it is just about a 100 times more interesting than a sequel to City of Heroes (CHAMPIONS ONLINE IS ALREADY OUT)
Seriously, when are we going to get a decent spiritual successor to Planetside?
"While it may have the Sandbox element of UO, it does not have the RPG element of UO, just like Darkfall."
That is an enormous mental and illogical leap to take. So just because it is a first person game, it can't have RPG elements? Developers of MO have said it will be focusing a lot on RPG. So take that as you will.
Nice list and it would be a dream come true for me as I didn't get into mmo's until much later than most of these and my transition then was even slow my first mmo being SWG I had never even heard of most of these games until long after the NGE when I then began to look more into mmo's hoping to find a game to expand on the mostly good times I had in Galaxies. COH I played and mostly hate to say that the game mostly ran it's course for me with a DC and a Marvel game on the horizons and Champions just released I think that those games would have more to offer fans of both mmo's and the super hero genre than COH 2 would. And AC is a bleh for me after knowing what Funcom has achieved with both it's first and second mmo release and after not being dazzled by anything else the've ever done I'm sternly of the mind that they have much to prove to be able to gain my gaming dollars, there are just far too many grey areas where they are concerned and the biggest blow from them to me is their playing fast and loose with the communities trust they have made far too many interpretive statements to really be a force int he industry right now hopefully that will change but right now they haven't even begun to do that. The other three though in a perfect world would be great to see happen.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Sorry Zzulu, all games consider themselves as MMORPG's that does not mean that they actually succeed in having RPG elements in to them.
Darkfall views itself as an MMORPG..tell me please, where is the RPG elements in it really? It doe snot even have a a Local chat, not to mention Chat Bubbles to foster RPG interaction.
It has no tools, whatsoever for players to build communities, it is but a game of destruction appealing to community destroyers, and community destroyers cannot be expected to build a vibrant community.
UO was a game of Creative Construction, communities flourished along with the villages and towns that they built and then went forth to interact with one another share and learn from one another.
As a player you could meet up with people in a player town near Trinsic, and then some other people in a player town near Britain and have two completely different experiences, because each town was customised with own traditions and ways of doing things according to the vision and goals of the players that built them.
In Darkfall the only experience you will have when you approach a player town is getting attacked and killed. no tools for RPG interaction whatsoever (you can't even sit on chairs with your character around a table with friends), let alone build a community.
So it goes to show that what people claim and how things are in reality can be two very different things in many cases.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Attacking City of Heroes is a good way to attempt to bump your article post count, but it doesn't make you very well informed or any more of a shock media jock.
City of Villains is/was CoH2. It was put out a couple of years ago. CoH:GR will be in beta soon - that will be COH3. So you are behind the learning curve on CoH. As you don't have a grasp of the game, you are hardly one to post on how or why it needs changing. The players of the game post ideas to the forums every day that are 100x better than yours an the DEVs do implement many ideas that are introduced by players.
Regardless if you can get a travel power at level 1 in some other game - you can get a travel power at level one as well with the help of a good Super Group - and there are many in City of Heroes.
With all the lame MMORPG's out there, you could have picked a far better one for a remake. Honestly, I was not impressed with WoW when I tried it, so as far as I'm concerned it needs a remake far more than the City does.
Yeah, City of Heroes IS a great game, and it HAS been improving with FREE updates (we call them Issues - think comicbooks) that occur multiple times a year. You can go to the website and check out the information on the most recent update Issue 16 - and the info on all the previous Issues. And when you are looking and seeing what has been added for FREE, you will understand that the game isn't stagnant - it is constantly in flux and improving itself with every release.
So before you go writing another article with erroneous information, get your facts strait or is that all just shooting-from-the-hip opinion?
---
Oh, I forgot. I could care less about the Signature characters in any game. Some people do. As far as I'm concerned, my characters and other player characters are far more important in a game than any of the Signature characters.
What about the old Sierra game "The Realm"? Great 2d scroller game that had some really interesting features, ie. the rogue class could actually steal things from other players as they walked by, at lvl 100 you could become an ingame GM or you could choose to keep lvling with no lvl cap, etc. A lot of people may not remeber it but think Leisure Suit Larry style graphics with a fantasy setting and quest grouping. Was a great game for 10+ years ago.
Because Shadowbane had serious problems: It's own community. A remake won't fix that. When one guild "owns" a server meant for thousands, there's a problem. This happened on many of the servers. Human nature sucks. It's hard to code around it.
Those issues really just caused population to decline slowly as winners won and losers lost. The way to deal with this world conquest reality in a game as intense as SB was on folks is to simply recognize that servers have a useful life. Call the end of this useful life a set of "winning conditions," which would trigger a catastrophy - a server wipe - new cities - new aliances - new conflict. A new start. That's what Shadowbane really needed to deal with the issues you rightly identify.
Because Shadowbane had serious problems: It's own community. A remake won't fix that. When one guild "owns" a server meant for thousands, there's a problem. This happened on many of the servers. Human nature sucks. It's hard to code around it.
Those issues really just caused population to decline slowly as winners won and losers lost. The way to deal with this world conquest reality in a game as intense as SB was on folks is to simply recognize that servers have a useful life. Call the end of this useful life a set of "winning conditions," which would trigger a catastrophy - a server wipe - new cities - new aliances - new conflict. A new start. That's what Shadowbane really needed to deal with the issues you rightly identify.
That is a great idea. Have a race to win then restart with maybe new content that can only be used after specific goals are met.
If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world C.S. Lewis
Comments
No it was not, UO was the first, and actually Shadowbane drew inspiration from UO, it combined a Level based system inspired from EQ (which quickly became apparent that it was a mistake for a PvP oriented game) and the Sandbox element of UO specifically designed for Conflict and Empire building ...
UO had Player Cities and Free for all PvP with full Loot way before SB.
The OP said it best, no one up to today has actually duplicated UO, many have made games inspired from it, but none did it the UO way nevertheless.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
wow has made it on advertising, most mmo's dont have tv spots.
WOW is a joke, it had its part in mmorpg's, a sad part but let alone its part. I dont see people sticking to a 1/2 retard game in the future.
Games will progress just as tech. must.
When the morons playing wow are intro. to real game play that creates great communities and challenge, they will jump ship.
Just as pot smoking has come back, so will a eaningful playing exp. in a mmorpg.
lol how can ac not compete? besides graphics, its beyond anything wow has...
To be honest everything in AC is what most players want.. you can solo or group.... u get better exp in a group... you get exp from being in a guild... they have a open pvp server... you get good drop items... you can get exp from crafting... its a vast open world with free content every month.... lol .. you can make your own class.....player housing...emotes lol
wow is the big boats of the 70's, the market will come back to its sences... all they need is a sweet show car...
city of heroes??
i can agree a little... been playing COH since beta and a "COH2" would be nice, but COH can be fixed without scrapping completely..
NC2 has been improving the game over time, things once said impossible are becoming possible...
what is needed is more content... more zones... hopefully going rogue can correct some issues, and maybe others fixed down the road....
Do you even know what you're talking about? CO is not the sequel of CoH. Yes, CoH was originally developed by Cryptic who then sold the IP to NCSoft, in which pretty much the whole dev team stayed with NCSoft. There studio was called NC/Norcal or something, but now they're called Paragon Studios.
So, yea NCSoft is a publisher, but if you haven't noticed they are developers too. Look at Lineage I/II, Aion, and now CoH. About Tabula Rasa, it was an unfinished game and was a huge mistake revamping the entire game in the middle of development.
I completely agree with Ultima Online as being #1. Being a long time player of from the beginning I have long awaited a remake of it. They attempted UO2 several years back and it failed before even entering any real testing. Then again they were also trying to go more sci-fi/fantasy merge with it. Asherons Call I agree with being on the list but for me would have been in the #2 or #3 spot. I for one have never had as much fun PvP'ing as I did in AC (besides UO before the split of course!). The other games listed never got my attention, thats not to say that they were not good games, just not my cup of tea.
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"I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone
Oh the good old days before the abomination of WoW entered the scene and attracted millions of zombie freaks that need linear, easy and casual play with big shiny pointers to get them to where the xp/loot is.
Unfourtanetely that crap worked and almost all MMORPG developers are still trying to copy WoW and cash in on the $$.
Those that try anything different are few and far inbetween and usually end in disaster (like Darkfall).
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A Re-make of UO would be awesome... and for those who say that it cant be done without introducing some changes, you are right, but that wouldn't alter the essence of the game. All you need to do is to introduce a mayor conflict in the game to encourage ppl to grab a sword or shield or axe and to pick a side.
Skills can be developed without turning away from the original UO.
My guess is that nobody wants to do the remake because they are afraid of the ppl who actually played the original game to go against this new version because is not the same with up-to-date graphics.
UO all the way. I am really EA needs to step up it's game. Once Bioware finishes launching SWTOR get some of them and Mythic on UO and do it.
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I don't think UO would be any more than a niche hit these days..its way too hardcore and an unfriendly experience for new players and the casual crowd, and whether we like it or not we are not the majority anymore. The only game on that list I would play in a new engine would be AO and that is mainly the setting.
not more than a week ago I was giving my gf a long explanation about why I enjoyed playing uo and all the great memories and stories I had from the game and its nice to see some other people miss that game style
Although I've only played a couple of these games on this list, one that should NOT have been added was City of Heroes. With all the updates (issues), incredible changes to the game, and an incredible Dev team that actually listens to the players (although PvPers might counter that), this game is not a game that should be remade right now.
Maybe in 2-3 years, start developing CoH2? Sure. Right now? Pfffft. Going Rogue is the next expansion and will do well for adding new material, zones and powers to the game.
UO.
If it was remade following the same core design decisions.
DAOC, AO, AC deserve remakes as well.
City of Heroes dont, its a joke of a game and I spit on it.
Unmentioned games that deserve remakes as well: The original SWG and Shadowbane.
Both games had yet unmatched characteristics.
All those games, with the technologies available nowdays and the near future would be huge successes.
What about PLANETSIDE?
One of the most unique MMO's ever created! A sequel to it is just about a 100 times more interesting than a sequel to City of Heroes (CHAMPIONS ONLINE IS ALREADY OUT)
Seriously, when are we going to get a decent spiritual successor to Planetside?
"While it may have the Sandbox element of UO, it does not have the RPG element of UO, just like Darkfall."
That is an enormous mental and illogical leap to take. So just because it is a first person game, it can't have RPG elements? Developers of MO have said it will be focusing a lot on RPG. So take that as you will.
Nice list and it would be a dream come true for me as I didn't get into mmo's until much later than most of these and my transition then was even slow my first mmo being SWG I had never even heard of most of these games until long after the NGE when I then began to look more into mmo's hoping to find a game to expand on the mostly good times I had in Galaxies. COH I played and mostly hate to say that the game mostly ran it's course for me with a DC and a Marvel game on the horizons and Champions just released I think that those games would have more to offer fans of both mmo's and the super hero genre than COH 2 would. And AC is a bleh for me after knowing what Funcom has achieved with both it's first and second mmo release and after not being dazzled by anything else the've ever done I'm sternly of the mind that they have much to prove to be able to gain my gaming dollars, there are just far too many grey areas where they are concerned and the biggest blow from them to me is their playing fast and loose with the communities trust they have made far too many interpretive statements to really be a force int he industry right now hopefully that will change but right now they haven't even begun to do that. The other three though in a perfect world would be great to see happen.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
WWII ONLINE tops them all. We do not need rehashed remakes of failed fantasy crap MMOs.
Sorry Zzulu, all games consider themselves as MMORPG's that does not mean that they actually succeed in having RPG elements in to them.
Darkfall views itself as an MMORPG..tell me please, where is the RPG elements in it really? It doe snot even have a a Local chat, not to mention Chat Bubbles to foster RPG interaction.
It has no tools, whatsoever for players to build communities, it is but a game of destruction appealing to community destroyers, and community destroyers cannot be expected to build a vibrant community.
UO was a game of Creative Construction, communities flourished along with the villages and towns that they built and then went forth to interact with one another share and learn from one another.
As a player you could meet up with people in a player town near Trinsic, and then some other people in a player town near Britain and have two completely different experiences, because each town was customised with own traditions and ways of doing things according to the vision and goals of the players that built them.
In Darkfall the only experience you will have when you approach a player town is getting attacked and killed. no tools for RPG interaction whatsoever (you can't even sit on chairs with your character around a table with friends), let alone build a community.
So it goes to show that what people claim and how things are in reality can be two very different things in many cases.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Attacking City of Heroes is a good way to attempt to bump your article post count, but it doesn't make you very well informed or any more of a shock media jock.
City of Villains is/was CoH2. It was put out a couple of years ago. CoH:GR will be in beta soon - that will be COH3. So you are behind the learning curve on CoH. As you don't have a grasp of the game, you are hardly one to post on how or why it needs changing. The players of the game post ideas to the forums every day that are 100x better than yours an the DEVs do implement many ideas that are introduced by players.
Regardless if you can get a travel power at level 1 in some other game - you can get a travel power at level one as well with the help of a good Super Group - and there are many in City of Heroes.
With all the lame MMORPG's out there, you could have picked a far better one for a remake. Honestly, I was not impressed with WoW when I tried it, so as far as I'm concerned it needs a remake far more than the City does.
Yeah, City of Heroes IS a great game, and it HAS been improving with FREE updates (we call them Issues - think comicbooks) that occur multiple times a year. You can go to the website and check out the information on the most recent update Issue 16 - and the info on all the previous Issues. And when you are looking and seeing what has been added for FREE, you will understand that the game isn't stagnant - it is constantly in flux and improving itself with every release.
So before you go writing another article with erroneous information, get your facts strait or is that all just shooting-from-the-hip opinion?
---
Oh, I forgot. I could care less about the Signature characters in any game. Some people do. As far as I'm concerned, my characters and other player characters are far more important in a game than any of the Signature characters.
What do they do anyway?
Try to stand around and be cool?
Who cares.
Player characters actual get things done.
Be the fire! Stop staring at it!
EQ 1 would be worth a remake over some of them other ones
last time i read any of your post lol
in the end u are crying about what?
What about the old Sierra game "The Realm"? Great 2d scroller game that had some really interesting features, ie. the rogue class could actually steal things from other players as they walked by, at lvl 100 you could become an ingame GM or you could choose to keep lvling with no lvl cap, etc. A lot of people may not remeber it but think Leisure Suit Larry style graphics with a fantasy setting and quest grouping. Was a great game for 10+ years ago.
Those issues really just caused population to decline slowly as winners won and losers lost. The way to deal with this world conquest reality in a game as intense as SB was on folks is to simply recognize that servers have a useful life. Call the end of this useful life a set of "winning conditions," which would trigger a catastrophy - a server wipe - new cities - new aliances - new conflict. A new start. That's what Shadowbane really needed to deal with the issues you rightly identify.
Those issues really just caused population to decline slowly as winners won and losers lost. The way to deal with this world conquest reality in a game as intense as SB was on folks is to simply recognize that servers have a useful life. Call the end of this useful life a set of "winning conditions," which would trigger a catastrophy - a server wipe - new cities - new aliances - new conflict. A new start. That's what Shadowbane really needed to deal with the issues you rightly identify.
That is a great idea. Have a race to win then restart with maybe new content that can only be used after specific goals are met.
If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world
C.S. Lewis
Excellent post Dana. You have gained my respect.