DAoC's introduction of RvR was revolutionary, and like it or not, made a huge impact on global gaming. Leaving it out of this article is a crime against gaming journalism.
DAoC's introduction of RvR was revolutionary, and like it or not, made a huge impact on global gaming. Leaving it out of this article is a crime against gaming journalism.
How did it make a huge impact on Global gaming?
I mean, at least one could say that Everquest helped spawn World of Warcraft though in Truth World of Warcraft probably influenced game design more than Everquest (for better or worse your pick).
But Dark Age of Camelot didn't spawn any additional RvR games because of its "greatness".
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Everquest has enjoyed 18 years of continuous play, 24 expansions, numerous legacy games (e.g., EQII (with its own 17 expansions), Everquest Online Adventures etc.), and wasthe first commercially successful MMORPG to use a 3D game engine. It even won a 2007 Emmy award. That's a pretty big footprint.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I agree leaving out DAoC seems like a mistake. It's RvR was the basis for other games PvP.
As far as EQ not being in I don't see why it would need to be when WoW does everything it did better, at least in my opinion.
Which other games' pvp? Warhammer was made by the same people so it's not that it influenced that game so much as that game was made by the same people who wanted to accomplish some of the same things.
Same with Elder Scroll's Online's pvp as Matt Firor was involved with Dark Age of Camelot.
So it didn't really influence other RVR games and in truth I can't really think of a lot of RVR games. Guild Wars 2? Was there something else in its pvp that was influential?
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Everquest has enjoyed 18 years of continuous play, 24 expansions, numerous legacy games (e.g., EQII (with its own 17 expansions), Everquest Online Adventures etc.), and wasthe first commercially successful MMORPG to use a 3D game engine. It even won a 2007 Emmy award. That's a pretty big footprint.
I'm actually going to say that out of all you listed, the only thing that it was really influential in doing was using the 3D engine. THAT was big.
It being successful all this time isn't so much influential/impactful as it just "being successful".
While it did have legacy games, I think that was more about it being successful and its owners wanted to take advantage of that success. Everquest II, to die hard Everquest players, seemed a huge letdown. Not that it doesn't have its proponents.
The Emmy was a tech Emmy. Not to sniff at that, I'll never win a Tech Emmy. However, I wonder if that's not more tied into it using 3D technology?
Do I think it belongs on this list? Absolutely.
1, it showed that MMORPG's in the west could have a huge affect on the mainstream populace leading to the other game that REALLY had a huge affect, World of Warcraft.
2, as you said it used 3d technology
However, I also think there's argument against the first point as in truth World of Warcraft really had the larger impact and in fact World of Warcraft wanted to minimize/remove a lot of things that sort of "made" Everquest what it was. That was kind of the whole point of World of Warcraft.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
This was a bad article in 2014. There's no need to revisit this. Worse than a random necro from someone who didn't notice the date, this one is spawned by System.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
EQ doesn't deserve to be on this list. It was game breaking. It didn't bring anything new to the table. It wasnt globally accepted and it didn't shape the world of MMOGs. Y'all should turn off ya fanboy modes and look at the facts.
You know that Blizzard took from EQ just like most MMOS of the time, took aspects of mechanics and put them in their game with their own take on it. It was exactly the opposite of what you say, and helped set some basic standards for mechanics still used today....it isn't fanboy.
Although I agreed with your comments on the BLESS and AI R post Torval, you are less then insightful on this....at it's core EQ had the elements that McQuaid is trying to bring back to gamers that are fans of that kind of gameplay in Pantheon. It doesn't make any sense to ignore one of the pioneers that contributed to a large chunk of the pie as to why we are all here.....
Being that i have been an active gamer,chat room person for as long as anyone,i have seen all the phases over time in the gaming industry.
Even when i resided for example in Quake and Unreal Tournament,i talked to a lot of different people about different games because unlike many hanging out in a greedy battle.net,the real gamers hung out in heat.net and multi game multi supported business that allowed gamer's to witness and play all sorts of games and not just Blizz games.T.E.N was another.
Anyhow to my point,when i was listening and talking about other games,one game came up often outside of the FPS genre and that was Ultima and EQ.I would say Ultima a bit more as EQ was strictly online and Ultima had several single player games.
NOBODY talked about Blizzard,yeah yeah believe it or not ,i am not making this up and have mentioned many timers,i didn't even know a single thing about Blizzard prior to Wow.
So the industry and chat rooms were talking Ultima/EQ UT99and Quake and that was the big games.Then of course we had the first rendition of EA sports games like NHLPA 93 and then basketball and Football and golf games.
The FF franchise was very popular,mostly the FFVII game,for me it was earlier,the FF3 game was amazing and when a friend said FFXI was coming and similar to FF3 i was ready and willing to jump in.
So there is the timeline and guess what,up until FFXI,nobody cared about Blizzard,it was SOE and SE dominating with soem good games from the Might N Magic series as well Duke Nukem,Baldur's Gate and of course Zenimax/Bethesda
Yes Wow in 2005 was it,created a stir among kids and a wave of "follow the leader",hes buying so im buying and shes buying,nobody really knowing anything other than they are buying.So i feel unlike the previous era of old school games,i felt Wow was way more a "on a whim purchase" than any of the other games prior.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This was a bad article in 2014. There's no need to revisit this. Worse than a random necro from someone who didn't notice the date, this one is spawned by System.
The system?.... the system! Bill IS the system.
These are great throwbacks. Look at all the discussion it's created, again! Good discussion about a review, news blurb, or editorial is what makes coming here so much more fun than any other gaming sites.
Don't be salty just cuz he laid out a solid argument that pushes you out of your comfort zone.
It's created discussion all right. It's just using the social media mentality of 'retweeting' a topic without adding anything original. Recently, people were attacking @SBFord of posting a News story without verifying the information.
His exclusion of EQ1 is simply unwarranted. It was the first game with a fully 3D world to roam about in full screen. UO prior to EQ was a restrictive, isometric mess until Origin put out a major 3D enhancement. There's some valid considerations that can be made that WoW wasn't a first generation game, like the others, but really the starting of the second generation of MMORPGs.
My list substitutes EQ1 in place of WoW, but his other four are pretty solid, even if less available to many western players.
And I'm more crusty than salty. Years of low-sodium diets do that to ya. Using the s-word willy-nilly like that might cause a hoard of doctors to want to monitor my dietary regimen a bit more closely than I'd care.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
He is talking on a global level not just a NA one. EQ had little impact outside of NA. Whereas Lineage(rarely ever counted on this site) affected far more and had a much broader reach, as he said, it spurred a new market in that region which exploded in popularity and spread even to our neck of the woods.
Not trying to start a fight, but if he was really talking on a global level then "Fantasy Westward Journey (2004)" wouldn't be on that list as it had zero impact outside of Asia.
I think Torval pretty much said it. You're thinking "china = 1 country and there are other countries" over "china = a huge population more than many countries combined".
Now, if it didn't have any impact outside of, say, Lichtenstein then yeah you would have a point.
So, off the cuff, If I add up the populations of France, Italy, Spain and Germany I get ~ 256.73 million.
China has 1.35 billion.
We could add Great Britain and it still won't surpass China. And Australia.
Lot of people do that... take the whole population of china and talk like they all have access to gaming or even computers.
Now sure, they have a lot of gamer's...but cmon people...the amount of poor folks far, far, outnumber the people there that have computers or are able to play games.
Populations of countries, and populations of people that game in those countries, are worlds apart, even in smaller (population wise) countries like the U.S.
Wow. No EQ? No DAOC? Heck, you could even argue that City of Heroes should be here due to the massive customization you could do (both cosmetic and advancement)
Hell, even Shadowbane could arguably get a spot because of the massive battles and sieges of playerbuilt cities (which AFAIK, they were the first to do it)
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
EQ doesn't deserve to be on this list. It was game breaking. It didn't bring anything new to the table. It wasnt globally accepted and it didn't shape the world of MMOGs. Y'all should turn off ya fanboy modes and look at the facts.
Yes kids, there were more than 5 influential early MMOs and the extent of their influence is highly debatable. How dare this guy have just 5 that are not my 5... especially Asheron's Call where I lost my MMO virginity. The nerve!
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Leaving out EQ and DAOC is a pretty big mistake. If it weren't for those two games, WoW would not have ever have existed.
EQ brought with it, you know, 3d graphics. EQ also brought in grouping and raids. Three huge, defining factors, of MMORPGs. Arguable on the raids part. (WoW,FF14, Rift, SWTOR, LOTRO, and Wildstar would not exist without EQ)
DAOC brought in a PvP system that was something players who were not griefers could get into, as well as the original version of Battlegrounds and PvP progression.
No, people trying to mirror its success by cloning it did.
You are both right. The reason games like SWG did NGE, LA creating SWTOR and all those other games was a direct result of WoW's success and companies trying to get a piece. The FF MMO Lead said their game when they redid it was a WoW clone. The one similarity all those different companies had was that they were trying to mimic "WoW" so yes he is right when saying "WoW" hurt the industry.
Man I miss Richard's articles for this very reason, 4 years later and it still stirs up strong opinions. I loved reading his articles. It was also fun discussing and arguing with him. He's an author that often popped into his only article threads and further elaborated his perspective. Great stuff.
He had 5 spots and I can see why he chose FF11 over EQ. FF11 broke a lot of ground and was actually innovative. EQ was DIKU in 3D. SWG was not significant. Interesting game, but it's a blip on the map. Again, DAoC not that significant in the bigger picture.
The reason Richard's articles ruffles feathers, in my opinion, is because he does compare things globally. Lineage still has more impact on the industry than any other first gen MMO except for WoW. WoW is still largely driving the western MMO market while Lineage still drives a huge portion of the eastern market on mobile.
I wanted to pick a different list "because" but I can't argue with it. UO, FF11, Lineage, WoW, and while I wouldn't have picked it I can't argue that FWJ should be on the list. It's very hard to look at things with a broad eye. This article does that.
While WoW did have a huge impact on the Western MMO market, it's primary market is still the East (China). You don't have to look far for the proof, just look at the recent Warcraft movie which was a massive flop everywhere except in China. Not only did Warcraft succeed in China, it broke all kinds of records there. Sadly China alone is still not enough for the sequel.
Let's be realistic, WoW never had 12mil subs, probably not even half of that. Blizzard is just using F2P chinese players to heavily inflate their numbers (yes even today!). Besides their numbers were quarterly, so 6mil in a quarter is at best 2-3mil monthly active players in the West. A number that ESO already achieved with Morrowind expansion. Not so impressive anymore eh?
I don't think people realize how important (and huge) is China's gaming market. Just look over at PUBG as the most recent example, chinese players make up for 80%+ of the entire playerbase. There is a reason why Tencent is so dominating the entire gaming, they have practically no rivals at all, all US-based companies are just fishes compared to them.
Hell Tencent owns 25% of Activision Blizzard's shares, that's the only reason why Blizzard is even allowed to release games in China. On top of that they even have 84,3% shares in Supercell (seven of the top 20 highest-grossing mobile games), Riot Games (LoL is by far the most successful PC game to date), and now they are about to completely take over Epic Games as well (Fortnite), which has already achieved 45mil of players without even releasing in China, and without the PvE part of the game. Oh and I totally forgot about Dungeon and Fighter and Crossfire, which are 2nd only to LoL. They sure seem to be swallowing the entire gaming market all by themselves, no doubt getting a strong headstart, as there are rumours that China will inevitably drop the ban on Western games.
It sounds like a lot of people were looking for an article about the MMORPGs that meant a lot to us, here in the West. This article was more focused on games that most influenced the industry, and sheer numbers is what's important in that sense.
Perhaps we could have another article, one about the games that first told us, "Yes, you can use your computer to ROLE PLAY, and do it with a Massive Multiplayer base by going Online!"
The big industry games aren't really about RPG and the MMO part often means hordes of players in battles you just get lost in.
What we here in the West are looking for is something else.
EQ gave us that immersive in-the-world view of a land with elves and dwarves and adventures to share.
SWG (which I never played but revere just from the legends I have read) gave an open world where all sorts of occupations and activities were worthwhile, valued by others.
City of Heroes provided unprecedented range and customization of characters and powers, and opened up the world of comic book superheroes. (It was the one game to which I kept up a subscription, so I have to refrain from going on and on about that one.)
If MMORPGs die and are replaced by MOBAs and other MMOs, I believe it will be because those making games failed to look at the best elements of games like these, combine them, and build on them in the direction that EQ was aimed at -- taking the original, PnP RPG experience (which in turn was a refinement of "Let's Pretend") and bring it along as much as possible in the direction of the Holodeck experiences on Star Trek(tm).
Instead, like WoW, they are taking the visual trappings of EQ to make games that are glorified video-game experiences, battles and more battles for levels and loot, to "keep the quarters coming," and everything else is just new ways to reward (i.e. feed the addiction) the player or get them to cough up more real L$$T for the company.
Comments
I like your logic, but you might of wanted to use George Washington instead of Ben Franklin! Ben franklin never was a president!
I mean, at least one could say that Everquest helped spawn World of Warcraft though in Truth World of Warcraft probably influenced game design more than Everquest (for better or worse your pick).
But Dark Age of Camelot didn't spawn any additional RvR games because of its "greatness".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
As far as EQ not being in I don't see why it would need to be when WoW does everything it did better, at least in my opinion.
Same with Elder Scroll's Online's pvp as Matt Firor was involved with Dark Age of Camelot.
So it didn't really influence other RVR games and in truth I can't really think of a lot of RVR games. Guild Wars 2? Was there something else in its pvp that was influential?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It being successful all this time isn't so much influential/impactful as it just "being successful".
While it did have legacy games, I think that was more about it being successful and its owners wanted to take advantage of that success. Everquest II, to die hard Everquest players, seemed a huge letdown. Not that it doesn't have its proponents.
The Emmy was a tech Emmy. Not to sniff at that, I'll never win a Tech Emmy. However, I wonder if that's not more tied into it using 3D technology?
Do I think it belongs on this list? Absolutely.
1, it showed that MMORPG's in the west could have a huge affect on the mainstream populace leading to the other game that REALLY had a huge affect, World of Warcraft.
2, as you said it used 3d technology
However, I also think there's argument against the first point as in truth World of Warcraft really had the larger impact and in fact World of Warcraft wanted to minimize/remove a lot of things that sort of "made" Everquest what it was. That was kind of the whole point of World of Warcraft.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
No, people trying to mirror its success by cloning it did.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You know that Blizzard took from EQ just like most MMOS of the time, took aspects of mechanics and put them in their game with their own take on it. It was exactly the opposite of what you say, and helped set some basic standards for mechanics still used today....it isn't fanboy.
Although I agreed with your comments on the BLESS and AI R post Torval, you are less then insightful on this....at it's core EQ had the elements that McQuaid is trying to bring back to gamers that are fans of that kind of gameplay in Pantheon. It doesn't make any sense to ignore one of the pioneers that contributed to a large chunk of the pie as to why we are all here.....
Even when i resided for example in Quake and Unreal Tournament,i talked to a lot of different people about different games because unlike many hanging out in a greedy battle.net,the real gamers hung out in heat.net and multi game multi supported business that allowed gamer's to witness and play all sorts of games and not just Blizz games.T.E.N was another.
Anyhow to my point,when i was listening and talking about other games,one game came up often outside of the FPS genre and that was Ultima and EQ.I would say Ultima a bit more as EQ was strictly online and Ultima had several single player games.
NOBODY talked about Blizzard,yeah yeah believe it or not ,i am not making this up and have mentioned many timers,i didn't even know a single thing about Blizzard prior to Wow.
So the industry and chat rooms were talking Ultima/EQ UT99and Quake and that was the big games.Then of course we had the first rendition of EA sports games like NHLPA 93 and then basketball and Football and golf games.
The FF franchise was very popular,mostly the FFVII game,for me it was earlier,the FF3 game was amazing and when a friend said FFXI was coming and similar to FF3 i was ready and willing to jump in.
So there is the timeline and guess what,up until FFXI,nobody cared about Blizzard,it was SOE and SE dominating with soem good games from the Might N Magic series as well Duke Nukem,Baldur's Gate and of course Zenimax/Bethesda
Yes Wow in 2005 was it,created a stir among kids and a wave of "follow the leader",hes buying so im buying and shes buying,nobody really knowing anything other than they are buying.So i feel unlike the previous era of old school games,i felt Wow was way more a "on a whim purchase" than any of the other games prior.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
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Sherman's Gaming
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His exclusion of EQ1 is simply unwarranted. It was the first game with a fully 3D world to roam about in full screen. UO prior to EQ was a restrictive, isometric mess until Origin put out a major 3D enhancement. There's some valid considerations that can be made that WoW wasn't a first generation game, like the others, but really the starting of the second generation of MMORPGs.
My list substitutes EQ1 in place of WoW, but his other four are pretty solid, even if less available to many western players.
And I'm more crusty than salty. Years of low-sodium diets do that to ya. Using the s-word willy-nilly like that might cause a hoard of doctors to want to monitor my dietary regimen a bit more closely than I'd care.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Lot of people do that... take the whole population of china and talk like they all have access to gaming or even computers.
Now sure, they have a lot of gamer's...but cmon people...the amount of poor folks far, far, outnumber the people there that have computers or are able to play games.
Populations of countries, and populations of people that game in those countries, are worlds apart, even in smaller (population wise) countries like the U.S.
Hell, even Shadowbane could arguably get a spot because of the massive battles and sieges of playerbuilt cities (which AFAIK, they were the first to do it)
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
1 post.....
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You are both right. The reason games like SWG did NGE, LA creating SWTOR and all those other games was a direct result of WoW's success and companies trying to get a piece. The FF MMO Lead said their game when they redid it was a WoW clone. The one similarity all those different companies had was that they were trying to mimic "WoW" so yes he is right when saying "WoW" hurt the industry.
Let's be realistic, WoW never had 12mil subs, probably not even half of that. Blizzard is just using F2P chinese players to heavily inflate their numbers (yes even today!). Besides their numbers were quarterly, so 6mil in a quarter is at best 2-3mil monthly active players in the West. A number that ESO already achieved with Morrowind expansion. Not so impressive anymore eh?
I don't think people realize how important (and huge) is China's gaming market. Just look over at PUBG as the most recent example, chinese players make up for 80%+ of the entire playerbase. There is a reason why Tencent is so dominating the entire gaming, they have practically no rivals at all, all US-based companies are just fishes compared to them.
Hell Tencent owns 25% of Activision Blizzard's shares, that's the only reason why Blizzard is even allowed to release games in China. On top of that they even have 84,3% shares in Supercell (seven of the top 20 highest-grossing mobile games), Riot Games (LoL is by far the most successful PC game to date), and now they are about to completely take over Epic Games as well (Fortnite), which has already achieved 45mil of players without even releasing in China, and without the PvE part of the game. Oh and I totally forgot about Dungeon and Fighter and Crossfire, which are 2nd only to LoL. They sure seem to be swallowing the entire gaming market all by themselves, no doubt getting a strong headstart, as there are rumours that China will inevitably drop the ban on Western games.
Perhaps we could have another article, one about the games that first told us, "Yes, you can use your computer to ROLE PLAY, and do it with a Massive Multiplayer base by going Online!"
The big industry games aren't really about RPG and the MMO part often means hordes of players in battles you just get lost in.
What we here in the West are looking for is something else.
EQ gave us that immersive in-the-world view of a land with elves and dwarves and adventures to share.
SWG (which I never played but revere just from the legends I have read) gave an open world where all sorts of occupations and activities were worthwhile, valued by others.
City of Heroes provided unprecedented range and customization of characters and powers, and opened up the world of comic book superheroes. (It was the one game to which I kept up a subscription, so I have to refrain from going on and on about that one.)
If MMORPGs die and are replaced by MOBAs and other MMOs, I believe it will be because those making games failed to look at the best elements of games like these, combine them, and build on them in the direction that EQ was aimed at -- taking the original, PnP RPG experience (which in turn was a refinement of "Let's Pretend") and bring it along as much as possible in the direction of the Holodeck experiences on Star Trek(tm).
Instead, like WoW, they are taking the visual trappings of EQ to make games that are glorified video-game experiences, battles and more battles for levels and loot, to "keep the quarters coming," and everything else is just new ways to reward (i.e. feed the addiction) the player or get them to cough up more real L$$T for the company.
But, hey, that's business!