What are some games you think made significant contributions to the histoy of graphical MMORPG and the development of the current generation of MMORPGs but does not get much credit for it
Puzzle Pirates proved that micro-transactions can be an effective and profitable business model in the NA market.
Project Entropia, about a year prior. Probably some other game I can't remember in the interim, too.
As far as I knew there weren't many NA players in PE until 2006 or so, no?
It was actually pretty successful here early on, largely due to the timeframe it was released. People looking for something new/different. I think it might have actually been the first essentially "free" MMORPG, too. It's a good thing you brought up PP, though, or I wouldn't have probably remembered Entropia.
It's boith, sort of. Glueing your phrases together with the proper qualifiers: underappreciated games in graphical MMORPG history that made significant contributions to graphical MMORPG today(current generation of MMORPGs).
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
Good point about underappreciated MMOs since WoW was released. There are though quite a few of them that have flat out stunk though, like Hellgate. Hellgate would have been uber had it not been P-2-P.
Underappreciated MMOs: A Tale in the Desert. It's a true MMO because it needs a player community to function. It's truly PvP because you're always competing with other players even if there is no combat involved. It also is unique because it resorts exclusively to crafting and other forms of community play.
Auto Assault. This was the first and only car-based MMO. It had a lot of potential but I think that NCSoft dropped the ball on it. A lot of players also dropped the ball on it by giving it an extremely bad rep it never recovered from. I am not quite sure why other than that it didn't release with as much content as it should have. It's a shame because had it been given the proper support, I think it would have done well as a PvP/quick-based car MMO.
Shadowbane: It did have a lot of problems true, but it also had a lot of great features like the fact that every city you saw was player-made and player-run. It had a huge amount of community content: player politics, cities, wars, and your battles could have real impact on the game world. Leveling was not that important and people pulled together to rush each other at mob spawns that could be attacked at any time by enemies. It also had a very flexible character creation system. Had this game been released with better graphics and a better engine that allowed for smooth performance, I think it would have been a hit.
Back in EvE. Started with BatMUD. Main MMOs have been EvE and DAoC.
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
But I fail to see its connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs? Some of you guys really need to read the post and not just the title of it. You only get a couple dozen characters for a title.
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
WTF?I guess i would need to spell out all the plus sides to being a 100% flash based MMO, and point out how many MMO's are now, and will be flash based. Some of the largest, and most successful MMO's are flash based, and this trend will just continue. To my knowledge, Dofus was the first (Of that scale, and complexity) , and was also the first to use raster graphics, and pixel art in a flash based MMO (As oposed to the current crop of Vector art ones).
You know its funny, you asked this question of people here, yet you keep coming up with arbitrary rules, and interjecting your personal opinion as disqualifiers. You knowladge of MMO's seem to be limmited to only thoes created by the top 5 "Big house" studios.
Mabye you should have created the rules in your OP.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
WTF?I guess i would need to spell out all the plus sides to being a 100% flash based MMO, and point out how many MMO's are now, and will be flash based. Some of the largest, and most successful MMO's are flash based, and this trend will just continue. To my knowledge, Dofus was the first, and was also the first to use raster graphics, and pixel art in a flash based MMO (As oposed to the current crop of Vector art ones).
You know its funny, you asked this question of people here, yet you keep coming up with arbitrary rules, and interjecting your personal opinion as disqualifiers. You knowladge of MMO's seem to be limmited to only thoes created by the top 5 "Big house" studios.
Mabye you should have created the rules in your OP.
Of course it's arbitrary, as it's my thread which I've chosen to create, thus it's defacto arbitrary. That said, I haven't changed anything; I was pretty god damn explicit. Let me refresh your memory, though I suspect it's not your memory that's the problem but, instead, reading comprehension.
"What are some games you think made significant contributions to the history of graphical MMORPGs and the development of the current generation of MMORPGs but does not get much credit for it?"
It's not my problem you don't understand what a MMORPG is or what "current generation" actually means.
And Project Entropia/Meridian 59 are "big house" productions, just like you are an intelligent, witty poster.
Its amazing how many people who clamour on for a sandboxy, free for all, open pvp game have missed this one.
Its gone now, went the way of the dodo, tho some pservers are still up, project69 being the best, and some new company seems to have picked it up but im unsure if its another pserver or for real.
See this game had balance, almost perfectly balanced, it had huge sprawling maps. it had no overworld map that made it easy. it had free for all pvp. it had full loot (except the lucky one or two items you could grab near your corpse) it had no instanaces, it had dungeons that took months to get to the end of, so deep you went insane. it had a range of bosses from solo to full blown party. It had pvp rules that were unbreakable, it had a castle to take over for your guild, that meant something when you fought to keep or take it. Guilds meant something because you spent ages to get them as a group, no one person could start up a guild, and leaving one really meant nothing towards getting another. It gave a choice that you just dont see these days.
For all that sandboxers keep asking for, they just list features that actually were in LoM, which I have yet to see elsewhere.
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
What are some games you think made significant contributions to the histoy of graphical MMORPG and the development of the current generation of MMORPGs but does not get much credit for it
Puzzle Pirates proved that micro-transactions can be an effective and profitable business model in the NA market.
Project Entropia, about a year prior. Probably some other game I can't remember in the interim, too.
As far as I knew there weren't many NA players in PE until 2006 or so, no?
Relevance?
The relevance was that i stated the 'NA market' - a market initially very resistant to microtransaction MMOs at the time. Eight explained, however, that they were in fact big in NA at the time. (Thanks, Eight!)
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
"What are some games you think made significant contributions to the history of graphical MMORPGs and the development of the current generation of MMORPGs but does not get much credit for it?" It's not my problem you don't understand what a MMORPG is or what "current generation" actually means. And Project Entropia/Meridian 59 are "big house" productions, just like you are an intelligent, witty poster.
lol, Thanks for LOLZ man, really. People have been posting under you're guidelines, you just keep changing the "Rules" as I have said.
There Isn't a thing i have posted that wasn't correct. Dofus being a forerunner to CURRENT GEN MMO's is spot fucking on (In relations to flash, and its use of it). They just happen to be MMO's you don't consider. Because you don't think anything not made by SOE, Blizzard, MYTHIC, ETC... counts.Your definition of "current generation" MMO's only seem to include those with a down loadable 3d client. Meaning MMO's like http://www.habbo.com/ Don't count, even if they have contributed greatly indirectly to the current generation of MMO's. Boath Dofus and habbo have well over 10 million users. Each.
To be correct, Near Death Studios and Mindark are independent studios (and one is fucking really old at that, and has not made any new games), and to be very correct, Entropia Universe is not a MMO's, its quite technically an online casino by law and license to operate (It does say MMORPG on the main page, yes) ....Its also now a bank.
But that's nether here nor there. You asked the question, however you seem to not like the answers your getting.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Easy. Raiding bosses. Raiding bosses in an instance. Progression raiding.
Now this guy on the other hand........ LOL.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
A Tale in the Desert pioneered so many things as to be ridiculous. Probably the biggest one is the earliest game that I'm aware of to have much depth to the crafting system. It came before Ryzom, SWG, Puzzle Pirates, or EVE, the other games reputed in at least some quarters around here to have a good crafting system. And it did such a ridiculous variety of things in its crafting mechanics that most things that you can see done in the crafting in more recent MMOs were done earlier by A Tale in the Desert.
It also pioneered community donations to unlock content. You know that Ahn'Qiraj event in WoW? That was borrowed from the university system in ATITD. Apparently EverQuest has more recently done the same thing with their progression servers.
The game also had a lot of things that didn't catch on (and in some cases, it's good that they didn't catch on). It also had things that merely haven't caught on yet. You know how people around here say they want a seamless game? A Tale in the Desert has no loading screens at all, in spite of an enormous map (about 5 hours to run from the top edge to the bottom edge), but you just run whereever. It doesn't even make you log out when a patch is applied to the game. How's that for seamless?
I honestly don't think there are 'underappreciated games'.
The two games that really brought the genre to life get most of the credit (and rightly so).. they are UO and EQ. DAOC also is up there because of RvR.
I honestly don't think there are 'underappreciated games'. The two games that really brought the genre to life get most of the credit (and rightly so).. they are UO and EQ. DAOC also is up there because of RvR.
Actually, your post is a testament to the fact that there clearly are underappreciated games that contributed to MMORPG development. For instance, as you would probably argue yourself and ,in fact, you essentially just did, that WoW borrowed significantly from EQ(and others, but just using your example). But, as much as you can argue WoW borrowed from EQ, you can also argue EQ borrowed from meridian. It's even more ironic in that you think DAOC is "up there" because of RvR, when Meridian had "RvR" in their faction system which EQ later copied into a race-based system on Tallon/vallon Zek. And if it's entirely a popularity contest, then why give UO/EQ any credit at all? They aren't/weren't even a fraction as popular as WoW.
Please list any game that had raiding on the scale of EQ. And I don't mean 40 zerging fools pewpewing and everyone camp spawning the mob. Please list any MMO prior to EQ that had progression raiding. Name any MMO prior to the LDoN expansion that did instance raiding as we know it today.
Oh, and the DKP system was created exclussively for EQ also.
Personal list of underapreciated games in MMO history (feel free to flame)
Two Towers MUD, Middle Earth MUD, Rogue MUD and many other creative MUDS from the '91-'93 timeframe
Neverwinter Nights on AOL.
Dark Sun Online
My personal favorite as one poster alluded too even though it was one of the shortest i played...Shadowbane (god i would kill for a modern day shadowbane like i would kill for a modern day Master of Magic). Most fun i had in an MMO was Shadowbane. I was in a sub guild of The Black Watch called House Winterwind. Our main guild got so powerful on the server the devs united the other clans and spawned demons to attack our main city. Fun times.
This game improved quite a bit toward the end of its life. It had rough edges for sure but it was also quite innovative. Rather than shamble around on foot in the post-apocalyptic future like mutant hobbits on our way to Mordor, we got to speed around in tricked-out, modded death-mobiles, crushing everything in sight like Mad Max.
Sure - it needed work but it was getting better by leaps and bounds just as the plug was pulled on it. It was a great concept and I hope we get another game like this sometime in the future.
Comments
Puzzle Pirates proved that micro-transactions can be an effective and profitable business model in the NA market.
Project Entropia, about a year prior. Probably some other game I can't remember in the interim, too.
As far as I knew there weren't many NA players in PE until 2006 or so, no?
It was actually pretty successful here early on, largely due to the timeframe it was released. People looking for something new/different. I think it might have actually been the first essentially "free" MMORPG, too. It's a good thing you brought up PP, though, or I wouldn't have probably remembered Entropia.
per the title:
underappreciated games in MMO history
per last para of OP:
significant contributions to MMO history
It's boith, sort of. Glueing your phrases together with the proper qualifiers: underappreciated games in graphical MMORPG history that made significant contributions to graphical MMORPG today(current generation of MMORPGs).
Dofus, the game has probably more than 100 000 active subcribers and huge amount of F2P players and its battle system is unique in the MMO world unless you count other games made by the same producer, but most MMO players outside France don't know anything about the game.
Good point about underappreciated MMOs since WoW was released. There are though quite a few of them that have flat out stunk though, like Hellgate. Hellgate would have been uber had it not been P-2-P.
Underappreciated MMOs: A Tale in the Desert. It's a true MMO because it needs a player community to function. It's truly PvP because you're always competing with other players even if there is no combat involved. It also is unique because it resorts exclusively to crafting and other forms of community play.
Auto Assault. This was the first and only car-based MMO. It had a lot of potential but I think that NCSoft dropped the ball on it. A lot of players also dropped the ball on it by giving it an extremely bad rep it never recovered from. I am not quite sure why other than that it didn't release with as much content as it should have. It's a shame because had it been given the proper support, I think it would have done well as a PvP/quick-based car MMO.
Shadowbane: It did have a lot of problems true, but it also had a lot of great features like the fact that every city you saw was player-made and player-run. It had a huge amount of community content: player politics, cities, wars, and your battles could have real impact on the game world. Leveling was not that important and people pulled together to rush each other at mob spawns that could be attacked at any time by enemies. It also had a very flexible character creation system. Had this game been released with better graphics and a better engine that allowed for smooth performance, I think it would have been a hit.
Back in EvE. Started with BatMUD. Main MMOs have been EvE and DAoC.
But I fail to see its connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs? Some of you guys really need to read the post and not just the title of it. You only get a couple dozen characters for a title.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
WTF?I guess i would need to spell out all the plus sides to being a 100% flash based MMO, and point out how many MMO's are now, and will be flash based. Some of the largest, and most successful MMO's are flash based, and this trend will just continue. To my knowledge, Dofus was the first (Of that scale, and complexity) , and was also the first to use raster graphics, and pixel art in a flash based MMO (As oposed to the current crop of Vector art ones).
You know its funny, you asked this question of people here, yet you keep coming up with arbitrary rules, and interjecting your personal opinion as disqualifiers. You knowladge of MMO's seem to be limmited to only thoes created by the top 5 "Big house" studios.
Mabye you should have created the rules in your OP.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
But I fail to see it's connection with the current generation of MMORPGs. What did it do --first-- that was later imitated by many other MMORPGs?
Its 100% flash for one.
I know when I think of the current generation of MMORPG, the first thing that pops into my mind is flash-based. Umm, not.
WTF?I guess i would need to spell out all the plus sides to being a 100% flash based MMO, and point out how many MMO's are now, and will be flash based. Some of the largest, and most successful MMO's are flash based, and this trend will just continue. To my knowledge, Dofus was the first, and was also the first to use raster graphics, and pixel art in a flash based MMO (As oposed to the current crop of Vector art ones).
You know its funny, you asked this question of people here, yet you keep coming up with arbitrary rules, and interjecting your personal opinion as disqualifiers. You knowladge of MMO's seem to be limmited to only thoes created by the top 5 "Big house" studios.
Mabye you should have created the rules in your OP.
Of course it's arbitrary, as it's my thread which I've chosen to create, thus it's defacto arbitrary. That said, I haven't changed anything; I was pretty god damn explicit. Let me refresh your memory, though I suspect it's not your memory that's the problem but, instead, reading comprehension.
"What are some games you think made significant contributions to the history of graphical MMORPGs and the development of the current generation of MMORPGs but does not get much credit for it?"
It's not my problem you don't understand what a MMORPG is or what "current generation" actually means.
And Project Entropia/Meridian 59 are "big house" productions, just like you are an intelligent, witty poster.
Legend of Mir (2)
Its amazing how many people who clamour on for a sandboxy, free for all, open pvp game have missed this one.
Its gone now, went the way of the dodo, tho some pservers are still up, project69 being the best, and some new company seems to have picked it up but im unsure if its another pserver or for real.
See this game had balance, almost perfectly balanced, it had huge sprawling maps. it had no overworld map that made it easy. it had free for all pvp. it had full loot (except the lucky one or two items you could grab near your corpse) it had no instanaces, it had dungeons that took months to get to the end of, so deep you went insane. it had a range of bosses from solo to full blown party. It had pvp rules that were unbreakable, it had a castle to take over for your guild, that meant something when you fought to keep or take it. Guilds meant something because you spent ages to get them as a group, no one person could start up a guild, and leaving one really meant nothing towards getting another. It gave a choice that you just dont see these days.
For all that sandboxers keep asking for, they just list features that actually were in LoM, which I have yet to see elsewhere.
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
Puzzle Pirates proved that micro-transactions can be an effective and profitable business model in the NA market.
Project Entropia, about a year prior. Probably some other game I can't remember in the interim, too.
As far as I knew there weren't many NA players in PE until 2006 or so, no?
Relevance?
The relevance was that i stated the 'NA market' - a market initially very resistant to microtransaction MMOs at the time. Eight explained, however, that they were in fact big in NA at the time. (Thanks, Eight!)
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
lol, Thanks for LOLZ man, really. People have been posting under you're guidelines, you just keep changing the "Rules" as I have said.
There Isn't a thing i have posted that wasn't correct. Dofus being a forerunner to CURRENT GEN MMO's is spot fucking on (In relations to flash, and its use of it). They just happen to be MMO's you don't consider. Because you don't think anything not made by SOE, Blizzard, MYTHIC, ETC... counts.Your definition of "current generation" MMO's only seem to include those with a down loadable 3d client. Meaning MMO's like http://www.habbo.com/ Don't count, even if they have contributed greatly indirectly to the current generation of MMO's. Boath Dofus and habbo have well over 10 million users. Each.
To be correct, Near Death Studios and Mindark are independent studios (and one is fucking really old at that, and has not made any new games), and to be very correct, Entropia Universe is not a MMO's, its quite technically an online casino by law and license to operate (It does say MMORPG on the main page, yes) ....Its also now a bank.
But that's nether here nor there. You asked the question, however you seem to not like the answers your getting.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Easy.
Raiding bosses. Raiding bosses in an instance. Progression raiding.
Now this guy on the other hand........ LOL.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
A Tale in the Desert pioneered so many things as to be ridiculous. Probably the biggest one is the earliest game that I'm aware of to have much depth to the crafting system. It came before Ryzom, SWG, Puzzle Pirates, or EVE, the other games reputed in at least some quarters around here to have a good crafting system. And it did such a ridiculous variety of things in its crafting mechanics that most things that you can see done in the crafting in more recent MMOs were done earlier by A Tale in the Desert.
It also pioneered community donations to unlock content. You know that Ahn'Qiraj event in WoW? That was borrowed from the university system in ATITD. Apparently EverQuest has more recently done the same thing with their progression servers.
The game also had a lot of things that didn't catch on (and in some cases, it's good that they didn't catch on). It also had things that merely haven't caught on yet. You know how people around here say they want a seamless game? A Tale in the Desert has no loading screens at all, in spite of an enormous map (about 5 hours to run from the top edge to the bottom edge), but you just run whereever. It doesn't even make you log out when a patch is applied to the game. How's that for seamless?
I honestly don't think there are 'underappreciated games'.
The two games that really brought the genre to life get most of the credit (and rightly so).. they are UO and EQ. DAOC also is up there because of RvR.
Actually, your post is a testament to the fact that there clearly are underappreciated games that contributed to MMORPG development. For instance, as you would probably argue yourself and ,in fact, you essentially just did, that WoW borrowed significantly from EQ(and others, but just using your example). But, as much as you can argue WoW borrowed from EQ, you can also argue EQ borrowed from meridian. It's even more ironic in that you think DAOC is "up there" because of RvR, when Meridian had "RvR" in their faction system which EQ later copied into a race-based system on Tallon/vallon Zek. And if it's entirely a popularity contest, then why give UO/EQ any credit at all? They aren't/weren't even a fraction as popular as WoW.
Please list any game that had raiding on the scale of EQ. And I don't mean 40 zerging fools pewpewing and everyone camp spawning the mob. Please list any MMO prior to EQ that had progression raiding. Name any MMO prior to the LDoN expansion that did instance raiding as we know it today.
Oh, and the DKP system was created exclussively for EQ also.
Personal list of underapreciated games in MMO history (feel free to flame)
Two Towers MUD, Middle Earth MUD, Rogue MUD and many other creative MUDS from the '91-'93 timeframe
Neverwinter Nights on AOL.
Dark Sun Online
My personal favorite as one poster alluded too even though it was one of the shortest i played...Shadowbane (god i would kill for a modern day shadowbane like i would kill for a modern day Master of Magic). Most fun i had in an MMO was Shadowbane. I was in a sub guild of The Black Watch called House Winterwind. Our main guild got so powerful on the server the devs united the other clans and spawned demons to attack our main city. Fun times.
I would add UO but i dont think its underappreciated.
Facepalm for miss-spelling Neocron.
High five for mentioning Neocron!
The original mmofps. Yes, it was out before PLANETSIDE.
City of heroes/City of Villains
There are many thing other MMORPGs do wrong that CoX does right.
Boring loot grinding (fixed)
Solo or Group based (do both – fixed)
Boring travel times (fixed)
Limited customization of appearance (fixed)
Limited character build options (fixed)
Boring quests (ok, make your own – fixed)
And if my opinion (on a very subjective issue) auto target combat that is actually fun (with a group).
Auto Assault
This game improved quite a bit toward the end of its life. It had rough edges for sure but it was also quite innovative. Rather than shamble around on foot in the post-apocalyptic future like mutant hobbits on our way to Mordor, we got to speed around in tricked-out, modded death-mobiles, crushing everything in sight like Mad Max.
Sure - it needed work but it was getting better by leaps and bounds just as the plug was pulled on it. It was a great concept and I hope we get another game like this sometime in the future.
The old version of runescape was way unappreciated, the pvp was the best i have ever played in any game and i have played a lot of mmo's.