SWG, by far. I simply fell in love with the sandbox (coming from D2!!) and nothing since has had even remotely close to the kind of depth SWG had. Don't get me wrong, SWG had its faults, not the least of which was the lack of combat content.
I still dream of how awesome SWG could have been had they focused development on enhancing the sandbox with linear content rather than trying to turn the sandbox into a linear game. Still one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen, and I quit SWG well before the NGE, so it's not like I'm some nerd-rage vet who still cries about it every day (although admittedly I do cry about it on occasion lol).
That being said, I did miss out on EQ, UO, DAOC, and AC. So I might very well have missed some great mmos.
UO (pre-Trammel), hands down. No classes, skill-based system, the ability to unlearn and re-learn skills, making characters truly dynamic. Huge game world and the best crafting I've ever done.
Unfortunately I enjoy 3D too much now and Darkfall is my "spiritual" successor to UO. If DFO added a skill cap with the ability to SLOWLY evolve characters over time, it would top UO. Until then, UO is still the best!
Asherons Call 1 before the bots, xp chains, and 3rd party apps really took hold.
Asherons Call 1 was a world not a game.
Wide open, do what you want, be what you want, go where you want.
Epic quests, some of which are not rivaled even today. Frore and Atlan Weapons/stones come to mind off the top of my head. Shadow Wars, towns being decimated and rebuilt(Arwic).
You felt like a hero taking on dozens of monsters at once, like Olthoi(very evil bugs), or you felt humility when you were one shot by the Diamond Golem you missed while wondering the Obsidian plains.
The loot generator is the best I have seen in a game bar none. You could get a bunch of garbage loot, or you could get those awesome Sword VI gaunlets. A health potion, or a wicked good bow, with bow VI, Bloodseeker VI, Heartseeker VI on it. Then there were the anomalies like a shield with a bow buff on it, lol....
Great game, great world. I would still be playing it if my new ISP got along with their antiquated network protocal but alas after many attempts it does not.
*edit*
Honorable mention
UO - 'nuff said
Anarchy Online
The latest one in the running is Fallen Earth.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Asherons Call 1 before the bots, xp chains, and 3rd party apps really took hold.
Asherons Call 1 was a world not a game.
Wide open, do what you want, be what you want, go where you want.
Epic quests, some of which are not rivaled even today. Frore and Atlan Weapons/stones come to mind off the top of my head. Shadow Wars, towns being decimated and rebuilt(Arwic).
You felt like a hero taking on dozens of monsters at once, like Olthoi(very evil bugs), or you felt humility when you were one shot by the Diamond Golem you missed while wondering the Obsidian plains.
The loot generator is the best I have seen in a game bar none. You could get a bunch of garbage loot, or you could get those awesome Sword VI gaunlets. A health potion, or a wicked good bow, with bow VI, Bloodseeker VI, Heartseeker VI on it. Then there were the anomalies like a shield with a bow buff on it, lol....
Great game, great world. I would still be playing it if my new ISP got along with their antiquated network protocal but alas after many attempts it does not.
*edit* Honorable mention
UO - 'nuff said Anarchy Online The latest one in the running is Fallen Earth.
AC 1, my favourite part of that was where you had to research all your spells, or persuade someone to tell you how to cast them.... awesome.. just awesome!
I could probably make 3 pages of why its still more advanced and better then every single MMO out today ( except the graphics ), but i will just list a few instead.
open world not one instance in the game, also the game is world wide. there is no NA and Europe servers there is just servers that anybody can play on, i have met a ton of great people from all over the world and it made the community very unique.
Towns were people lived. No these wernt towns people built for there guild or what ever, these towns were all over the map and people called them home. you see in this game you didnt have magic icons above NPCs telling you what to do, you had to explore and talk to others and find things out for yourself.
you didnt level up then move on to the next area to call home. Your town was your home, its were you started, its were you first met people, its were you kept your mules, its were you ran back to when your day was done, its were you saw all your friends. games dont have that anymore, in todays game a town is a stepping stone with some NPC quest that you do untill you move on to the next town.
In AC when you ran to the next town there was a whole new community that lived there, it was amazing.
Real Danger, this game had real danger when you traveled. when you and your group set off to do a quest just getting to the dungeon could mean many fatalities. part of the quest was just getting there, and there was no rezzing if you died you were running all the way back. so it meant sticking together and helping each other out.
the loot system was the best i have ever seen, NO 2 items were the same. loot was totaly random by look color stats anything could drop off a mob. you couldnt go online and see a list of weapons or armor you want to get. there was very few "sets" of armor that could be made and you had to work to get it. not just look up online what boss drops it and go camp.
NO classes!!! omg that was the best, you could be a sword wielding fire ball throwing guy with run speced if you wanted. there was 4 different kinds of magic to use each one had a huge bennifit to a player.
and the last thing i will touch on is the different types of attacks. hands down my favorite part of the game. Each mob had a weekness and you had to figure it out. there was fire, acid, cold, lightning, slash, blunt, pierce, and each mob type would be more vulnerable to one of them, once you found out wich one it made hunting alot better. there was War spells for each and weapons for each. so you never used the same weapon for ever, there was many many options.
I could never name just ONE "best" MMORPG that I played. Several I have played have been the "best" (imo) at one or two specific things within the games, making them part of my "top ten."
UO - loved the freedom (no set classes FTW), and skill system, and community (and I actually LIKED Trammel, which is an unpopular opinion, but like I care...hah)
EQ2 - absolutely incomparable in housing and crafting, in my opinion and one of the best communities around
LotRO - the most beautiful game world, as far as landscapes go, and also an exemplary community
WoW - color palette, fluidity of motion, polish...many hate the gfx, I happen to rather enjoy the whimsical "cartoony" design when it does NOT include anime's "big-eyed kids"...for me, WoW was "the" game to play when I was in the mood for whimsy and feeling youthful, and....here's the cardinal sin....I actually liked WoW's PvP (more at release than after, but still....some of my best gaming memories are from world PvP before they started adding all the crappier PvP, back when we had the Tauren Mill / Southshore "football match" all the time, and the big city raids)
Fallen Earth - I enjoy the hybrid feel of a themepark blended with a sandbox, and the "realism" of travel (although it also can get on my nerves sometimes when I have to make very VERY long trips), I like not being limited in crafting skills I can learn
Vanguard - Diplomacy...one of the very BEST features EVER put in an MMO, imo, and the thing that I miss the MOST about the game
If I were to sit here and think about it longer, I'd probably come up with things I really liked from other games too. I just don't think I could pick ONE game, because no SINGLE game has ever satisfied all of my preferences for an MMO.
Great sense of community, RvR was enough 'sandbo'x to not get old - even after years, gear was not very imprtant in the early days (i hate grinding for gear...^^), getting to max level was a grind - but people were very relaxed about it
Asheron's Call: GREAT FUN classless game !!! With almost no zoning at all to explore the world !! Spent 2-3 years
StarWars Galaxies: The next big one after AC and then I spent 4 years to develop my business and shops + mayor of a cities !! OH MAN still no game is like this !!!
Fallen Earth: The closest one that I can find for SWG !! but still missing the ingredients of housing, shops, etc..... but I'm optimistic for FE future !!
Asheron's Call 2: Quite simply, the Community and the fact it was so unique. Classes and Races were unique, world was easy to get into. I miss it a whole lot.
Its EvE online for me - mainly because of its free form sandbox design but also because the ships look very nice.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
What met it great was the community, it had flaws and lacked content but I feel it was starting to head in the right direction where content is concerned (DWB, Corvette, Wookie World).
I think the one character per account enhanced the community aspect of the game, you relied on other players to feel voids for your character. Also, one player per account really cuts down on asshats in the game because you quickly get a reputation of being one, in WoW I can just make another toon be a complete dick and no one in your guild could care less.
* Sandbox style world; huge map. You can explore for hours and hours.
* Stat-based character system, not class based. I like this. Lots of customization options available.
* Awesome, mature community.
* I enjoy the PvP and the PvE both quite a bit.
* I enjoy the combat system.
* I enjoy the graphics, especially after the recent updates - amazingly accurate for what you would imagine a post-apoc world to look and feel like.
* Lastly, the best crafting system I have ever seen in a game, ever. Period. I can log on and have fun simply harvesting and crafting, and I have never been able to say that about a game before.
Its trancended beeing on MMO, and is a real place. It no longer feels like some developers creation and vision. Its a place formed by the people who lives there.
DDO
Best "free" fun ever. Gets everything right that I hate about other fantasy MMO's. Very well designed dungeons. Very, very few 'kill X monsters' quest. Friendly mature players for the most part.
Eve online. Great graphics, Awesome gameplay, A ton of options and pvp with actual risk. The best part I get to let the gear head freak flag fly and mess with all those awesome looking ships!
Close second: Saga of Ryzom Simply the best on foot mmo since Swg pre-CU
Edit: I refuse to name Pre-CU as my best mmog since it's long been dead. Just pisses me off to bring it up.
I love Eve, it's just so pain-staking to do anything in it. I personally think (to add to the whole simulation aspect of it) they should make the Capital ships only usable by several players.
Seeing as how no individual player is going to get one alone (unless they're insane) I just think it would be neat. Have people set at the electronic warfare stations, a helmsman, the missle defenses, the laser defenses.
Ok, that wasn't relevant to the topic... but I felt like saying it all the same haha.
And to answer your question OP, personally I don't really like any MMO out atm; they're all so shallow "point a to point b" stuff with no immersion.
WoW was glorious back in vanilla; you really felt like you accomplished something in the raids... now all I can enjoy is hopping in a BG and loling at how bad everyone is now.
I have high hopes for the old republic. Bioware makes it very clear that they want to bring the "RPG" element of "MMORPG" out. And from an undisclosed friend in an undisclosed location that was in the alpha; they're doing freaking awesome at all the "MMO" aspects as well, even in this early stage.
I can't wait
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW -------- Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD --------- Played and loved: Eve and WoW -------- Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
The best MMO I have ever played is Darkfall. Why Darkfall? 1) The community for one. It's full of a great group of people. Even the people who have killed me I have struck up conversations with them after and learned some new tips, or telling me they left my stuff on body, etc. 2) The freedom. This is huge. Darkall is about player freedom and little to no restrictions. 3) Feeling. Darkfall has brought back the emotional experience for an MMO. 4) Huge world, no instances. I hold Vanguard in high regard in this area, but Darkfall has surpassed it with a very smooth seamless world. 5) Feature set: from player made cities, housing, sieges, ships 6) PvE that isn't boring. No blindly pressing 1, 2, 3, 4 etc while eating in this game. The AI is great (not perfect and can still undergo improvement) and challenging with the fear of enemy players running across you at any moment. Those are a few of the reasons of why I love Darkfall.
Agreed, it would have to be Darkfall for me as well. I missed out on great games like DaOC and UO, and AC because I didnt play MMOs back then. Darkfall for me has been an amazing experience. I can understand how folks would miss some of the old games i listed above, darkfall from what I can tell brings that back to the MMO genre.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Star Wars Galaxies PRE-CU hands down. Raph Koster is the god of MMO's for UO is second on my list and he was head developer for both games.
SWG was about community and making people work together. The crafting economy was top notch as was the skill system which brought people together in many different ways. The player cities were great and the resouce part of the game that was used with crafting was again top notch.
With that said the game had it's flaws and was far from perfect. Even so it ranks as number 1 in my book. I have not played SWG pre cu in over 6 years and found the other day a way to go back and play. I'm one happy camper.
WoW would be my top. They have received a sub from me for the past 5 years now. The game has a ton of content, a steady stream of additional content that is included with the sub fee, and a decent rate at which they release expansion packs. End Game Raiding can be fun, and the combat has a nice fast pace.
Asheron's Call 1 and 2 are my close second. AC1 was very open. Had a good skill system and the magic system was completely awesome (pre-Split Pea). The amount of free content Turbine has developed for AC over the past 10 years is astounding.
What I liked about Asheron's Call 2 was that the classes were very interesting. I mean c'mon, using bees as weapons? Very original. AC2's combat system was a lot of fun too. You can AC2's influence in WoW in many regards. I just wish Turbine would have had a real shot at releasing AC2 in a complete state. The game was in great condition at the end, but it was never going to recover from the mistakes of the release and first 6 months after.
One more accolade I'd like to toss out would be to DAoC. While I did not enjoy PvE in DAoC, the PvP system was completely amazing. It was the first mmorpg to show how popular PvP can be if done properly. Relic runs and those long nights out in Emain are memories I will carry with me. ToA is what made me leave.
Comments
SWG, by far. I simply fell in love with the sandbox (coming from D2!!) and nothing since has had even remotely close to the kind of depth SWG had. Don't get me wrong, SWG had its faults, not the least of which was the lack of combat content.
I still dream of how awesome SWG could have been had they focused development on enhancing the sandbox with linear content rather than trying to turn the sandbox into a linear game. Still one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen, and I quit SWG well before the NGE, so it's not like I'm some nerd-rage vet who still cries about it every day (although admittedly I do cry about it on occasion lol).
That being said, I did miss out on EQ, UO, DAOC, and AC. So I might very well have missed some great mmos.
EVE is the best. Darkfall is going right behind it...
PlanetSide....Still nothing else remotely like it out there...
UO (pre-Trammel), hands down. No classes, skill-based system, the ability to unlearn and re-learn skills, making characters truly dynamic. Huge game world and the best crafting I've ever done.
Unfortunately I enjoy 3D too much now and Darkfall is my "spiritual" successor to UO. If DFO added a skill cap with the ability to SLOWLY evolve characters over time, it would top UO. Until then, UO is still the best!
~~ postlarval ~~
Asherons Call 1 before the bots, xp chains, and 3rd party apps really took hold.
Asherons Call 1 was a world not a game.
Wide open, do what you want, be what you want, go where you want.
Epic quests, some of which are not rivaled even today. Frore and Atlan Weapons/stones come to mind off the top of my head. Shadow Wars, towns being decimated and rebuilt(Arwic).
You felt like a hero taking on dozens of monsters at once, like Olthoi(very evil bugs), or you felt humility when you were one shot by the Diamond Golem you missed while wondering the Obsidian plains.
The loot generator is the best I have seen in a game bar none. You could get a bunch of garbage loot, or you could get those awesome Sword VI gaunlets. A health potion, or a wicked good bow, with bow VI, Bloodseeker VI, Heartseeker VI on it. Then there were the anomalies like a shield with a bow buff on it, lol....
Great game, great world. I would still be playing it if my new ISP got along with their antiquated network protocal but alas after many attempts it does not.
*edit*
Honorable mention
UO - 'nuff said
Anarchy Online
The latest one in the running is Fallen Earth.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
AC 1, my favourite part of that was where you had to research all your spells, or persuade someone to tell you how to cast them.... awesome.. just awesome!
Asherons Call 1
I could probably make 3 pages of why its still more advanced and better then every single MMO out today ( except the graphics ), but i will just list a few instead.
open world not one instance in the game, also the game is world wide. there is no NA and Europe servers there is just servers that anybody can play on, i have met a ton of great people from all over the world and it made the community very unique.
Towns were people lived. No these wernt towns people built for there guild or what ever, these towns were all over the map and people called them home. you see in this game you didnt have magic icons above NPCs telling you what to do, you had to explore and talk to others and find things out for yourself.
you didnt level up then move on to the next area to call home. Your town was your home, its were you started, its were you first met people, its were you kept your mules, its were you ran back to when your day was done, its were you saw all your friends. games dont have that anymore, in todays game a town is a stepping stone with some NPC quest that you do untill you move on to the next town.
In AC when you ran to the next town there was a whole new community that lived there, it was amazing.
Real Danger, this game had real danger when you traveled. when you and your group set off to do a quest just getting to the dungeon could mean many fatalities. part of the quest was just getting there, and there was no rezzing if you died you were running all the way back. so it meant sticking together and helping each other out.
the loot system was the best i have ever seen, NO 2 items were the same. loot was totaly random by look color stats anything could drop off a mob. you couldnt go online and see a list of weapons or armor you want to get. there was very few "sets" of armor that could be made and you had to work to get it. not just look up online what boss drops it and go camp.
NO classes!!! omg that was the best, you could be a sword wielding fire ball throwing guy with run speced if you wanted. there was 4 different kinds of magic to use each one had a huge bennifit to a player.
and the last thing i will touch on is the different types of attacks. hands down my favorite part of the game. Each mob had a weekness and you had to figure it out. there was fire, acid, cold, lightning, slash, blunt, pierce, and each mob type would be more vulnerable to one of them, once you found out wich one it made hunting alot better. there was War spells for each and weapons for each. so you never used the same weapon for ever, there was many many options.
I could never name just ONE "best" MMORPG that I played. Several I have played have been the "best" (imo) at one or two specific things within the games, making them part of my "top ten."
UO - loved the freedom (no set classes FTW), and skill system, and community (and I actually LIKED Trammel, which is an unpopular opinion, but like I care...hah)
EQ2 - absolutely incomparable in housing and crafting, in my opinion and one of the best communities around
LotRO - the most beautiful game world, as far as landscapes go, and also an exemplary community
WoW - color palette, fluidity of motion, polish...many hate the gfx, I happen to rather enjoy the whimsical "cartoony" design when it does NOT include anime's "big-eyed kids"...for me, WoW was "the" game to play when I was in the mood for whimsy and feeling youthful, and....here's the cardinal sin....I actually liked WoW's PvP (more at release than after, but still....some of my best gaming memories are from world PvP before they started adding all the crappier PvP, back when we had the Tauren Mill / Southshore "football match" all the time, and the big city raids)
Fallen Earth - I enjoy the hybrid feel of a themepark blended with a sandbox, and the "realism" of travel (although it also can get on my nerves sometimes when I have to make very VERY long trips), I like not being limited in crafting skills I can learn
Vanguard - Diplomacy...one of the very BEST features EVER put in an MMO, imo, and the thing that I miss the MOST about the game
If I were to sit here and think about it longer, I'd probably come up with things I really liked from other games too. I just don't think I could pick ONE game, because no SINGLE game has ever satisfied all of my preferences for an MMO.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
DAoC:
Great sense of community, RvR was enough 'sandbo'x to not get old - even after years, gear was not very imprtant in the early days (i hate grinding for gear...^^), getting to max level was a grind - but people were very relaxed about it
Neocron ( f2p atm ) its the one and only post apoc mmo with a fair mix of PvP/PvE. Fallen Earth is just a Sandbox compared to NC`S thrill...
Warhammer
Tabula Rasa what a shame, they had such good ideas. i still dont get what happend
Asheron's Call: GREAT FUN classless game !!! With almost no zoning at all to explore the world !! Spent 2-3 years
StarWars Galaxies: The next big one after AC and then I spent 4 years to develop my business and shops + mayor of a cities !! OH MAN still no game is like this !!!
Fallen Earth: The closest one that I can find for SWG !! but still missing the ingredients of housing, shops, etc..... but I'm optimistic for FE future !!
Asheron's Call 2: Quite simply, the Community and the fact it was so unique. Classes and Races were unique, world was easy to get into. I miss it a whole lot.
Its EvE online for me - mainly because of its free form sandbox design but also because the ships look very nice.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
DAOC for RvR
CoX for the fun factor
AoC for the most belivable world and best combat.
Lotro for the PvE.
SWG for the housing aspects
Wurm for the terraforming
Old UO for the sheer freedom
Auto Assault for blowing things up
FFXI for it's charm
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
SWG (pre-cu)
What met it great was the community, it had flaws and lacked content but I feel it was starting to head in the right direction where content is concerned (DWB, Corvette, Wookie World).
I think the one character per account enhanced the community aspect of the game, you relied on other players to feel voids for your character. Also, one player per account really cuts down on asshats in the game because you quickly get a reputation of being one, in WoW I can just make another toon be a complete dick and no one in your guild could care less.
Best MMO I've played - Fallen Earth.
* Sandbox style world; huge map. You can explore for hours and hours.
* Stat-based character system, not class based. I like this. Lots of customization options available.
* Awesome, mature community.
* I enjoy the PvP and the PvE both quite a bit.
* I enjoy the combat system.
* I enjoy the graphics, especially after the recent updates - amazingly accurate for what you would imagine a post-apoc world to look and feel like.
* Lastly, the best crafting system I have ever seen in a game, ever. Period. I can log on and have fun simply harvesting and crafting, and I have never been able to say that about a game before.
I have to list several.
AO- Really good fun for quite a while, after it got fixed.
Shadowbane- If something like Shadowbane 2 comes out, they will own my soul.
WoW- Original was probably the most fun, but I did love being one of the very first to have a flying mount in BC.
Darkfall- I've never been so scared in an MMO, ever. Lots of heart-pounding I-hope-i-don't-die.
EvE
Its trancended beeing on MMO, and is a real place. It no longer feels like some developers creation and vision. Its a place formed by the people who lives there.
DDO
Best "free" fun ever. Gets everything right that I hate about other fantasy MMO's. Very well designed dungeons. Very, very few 'kill X monsters' quest. Friendly mature players for the most part.
I love Eve, it's just so pain-staking to do anything in it. I personally think (to add to the whole simulation aspect of it) they should make the Capital ships only usable by several players.
Seeing as how no individual player is going to get one alone (unless they're insane) I just think it would be neat. Have people set at the electronic warfare stations, a helmsman, the missle defenses, the laser defenses.
Ok, that wasn't relevant to the topic... but I felt like saying it all the same haha.
And to answer your question OP, personally I don't really like any MMO out atm; they're all so shallow "point a to point b" stuff with no immersion.
WoW was glorious back in vanilla; you really felt like you accomplished something in the raids... now all I can enjoy is hopping in a BG and loling at how bad everyone is now.
I have high hopes for the old republic. Bioware makes it very clear that they want to bring the "RPG" element of "MMORPG" out. And from an undisclosed friend in an undisclosed location that was in the alpha; they're doing freaking awesome at all the "MMO" aspects as well, even in this early stage.
I can't wait
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW
--------
Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD
---------
Played and loved: Eve and WoW
--------
Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
Agreed, it would have to be Darkfall for me as well. I missed out on great games like DaOC and UO, and AC because I didnt play MMOs back then. Darkfall for me has been an amazing experience. I can understand how folks would miss some of the old games i listed above, darkfall from what I can tell brings that back to the MMO genre.
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
My best are:
Asheron's call-darktide 10years ago
Asheron's call 2-darktide
Darkfall current mmo.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Star Wars Galaxies PRE-CU hands down. Raph Koster is the god of MMO's for UO is second on my list and he was head developer for both games.
SWG was about community and making people work together. The crafting economy was top notch as was the skill system which brought people together in many different ways. The player cities were great and the resouce part of the game that was used with crafting was again top notch.
With that said the game had it's flaws and was far from perfect. Even so it ranks as number 1 in my book. I have not played SWG pre cu in over 6 years and found the other day a way to go back and play. I'm one happy camper.
World Of Warcraft
Because of the amount of things to do, the graphic's style and the fact that I never have to worry about it dieing.
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein
WoW would be my top. They have received a sub from me for the past 5 years now. The game has a ton of content, a steady stream of additional content that is included with the sub fee, and a decent rate at which they release expansion packs. End Game Raiding can be fun, and the combat has a nice fast pace.
Asheron's Call 1 and 2 are my close second. AC1 was very open. Had a good skill system and the magic system was completely awesome (pre-Split Pea). The amount of free content Turbine has developed for AC over the past 10 years is astounding.
What I liked about Asheron's Call 2 was that the classes were very interesting. I mean c'mon, using bees as weapons? Very original. AC2's combat system was a lot of fun too. You can AC2's influence in WoW in many regards. I just wish Turbine would have had a real shot at releasing AC2 in a complete state. The game was in great condition at the end, but it was never going to recover from the mistakes of the release and first 6 months after.
One more accolade I'd like to toss out would be to DAoC. While I did not enjoy PvE in DAoC, the PvP system was completely amazing. It was the first mmorpg to show how popular PvP can be if done properly. Relic runs and those long nights out in Emain are memories I will carry with me. ToA is what made me leave.