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What game was the king of MMORPG's before WoW?
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I started off MMO gaming with UO, but it didn't really feel immersive , probably due to the graphics, EverQuest put you right in the driving seat with it's 3d graphics, but it did a whole hell of a lot more than that, it built up the most solid community I've seen in any title & that was I think mostly down to it's focus of core gameplay being group oriented, because you needed other players to get stuff done.
As much as I liked UO I'd have to say EverQuest was the real innovator & much of what EQ did was setting the template for everything that followed in Fantasy MMO games, I never tried DAoC & wish I had but it was second fiddle to EQ, but it still had what was then regarded as a great deal of success,
WoW made MMOs popular so it really was the first conqueror.
Unless you want to go all the way back to the text games on AOL and NWN... which was then followed by The Realm, and shortly thereafter EQ/UO... it was all downhill from there.
Text based games on AOL? I was not aware that AOL hosted text games... If you mean MUDs though, they don't count. They are not only completely different than an MMO, but none of them were "famous", let alone more populated than few hundred people at a time.
asheron's call had a good number for a player base too, and it came out the same year as everquest
Tradewars was pretty cool in its day.
Wrong. FFXI at its peak beat Everquest's top numbers.
The correct answer, however, is probably Lineage.
everquest/ultima online.
although like somebody else stated there was no king. most gamers didnt know what MMOs were and the MMOs that were coming out at the time werent trying to outdue eachother.
Originally posted by Scagweed22
is it the graphics? the repetativenesses? i mean what is the point? you could be so much more productive in real life
Real life brings repetition and pointlessness too. The only thing real life offers is Great graphics. Its kinda expensive too and way to dependent on the cash shop. Totally pay to win as well. No thank you. Ill stick to my games.
Wrong. FFXI at its peak beat Everquest's top numbers.
The correct answer, however, is probably Lineage.
It's hard to tell how true those number from Lineage and FFXI were. MMO in Asia are still played a lot in Gaming Cafes, each game sold there doesn't necessarily get played and could be sold in bulk or licensed in bulk to a Café. Because a PC Cafe has the game doesn't mean it's getting used.
The price and subscription the games there use is much much lower than here, so if a game cafe buys 20 keys for the price of 1 in the West, but they only have 1 person playing that game in the cafe, are those 20 subscriptions or 1? Arguably it's just 1, but I'm sure Square and NCsoft count that as 20.
Everquest or Asheron's Call were the major MMO's before WoW but I would say that Everquest got more press/marketing then Asheron's Call did so it turned out to be a more popular and recognized game.
I myself played Asheron's Call and loved it, if it had modern graphics I would definately play it agian. Some of my most fun times playing an MMO come from Asheron's Call.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Before WoW there was Anarchy Online before that there was EQ before that there was UO. I base this on the popularity of the games and wether or not they won the awards....
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?
So your a sheep ;-) ...
- Ultima Online
- Everquest/Asheron's Call
- Anarchy Online/Dark Ages of Camelot
- World of Warcraft
hows that sound ?
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
EQ is the game that set the standard for ALL MMOs today.
People can argue "Ultima Online" or all those text based games (all technicalities) Neverwinter Nights is Not an MMO at all.
Lineage had the a large player base. But gaming in asia is a completely different ball game when it comes to business standards. For instance. Is WoW the most popular game now based on players? R you including games like "Maple Story", "Rose Online", "Flyff" and all of the other f2p asian games that have a HUGE player base?
Everquest was the first MMO that had a monthly subscription fee (9.99) that was extremely successful and paved the way for other companies to produce games like it.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
umm no just because you played UO and liked it more than EQ on a personal level...
Lets get this straight, WOW is not the king of MMO's, it is more like the pop princess.
As to the king of MMO's pre WOW and in my opinion it is still great fun to play is Everquest. It as previously stated is what all other MMO's are based on. So quote Lineage, etc, they all copied EQ. And further to this, EQ still has some of the best classes out of any MMO, Shadowknight in EQ is still an awesome class to play and I still look forward to logging mine in after all these years. My WOW Hunter and Warrior are long forgotten.
WoW is still the king, because its numbers rein supreme over any other game. I am not saying it is the best game out there, but by popularity and brand recognition alone, it is in a class of its own.
Also, you act like EQ was origonal. Every class in EQ was based on classes from MUDs that were based on classes from DnD and so on. Claiming that EQ was better than Lineage because EQ came before it is just stupid. EQ was the known name in the west, but Lineage crushed EQ in the world market.
How many people do you know that are named Muhammed? Not many, if any? Strange, since it is the most common name in the world... Just because things are not common in one place, does not mean that it is not common in the world sense.
Hardly, I don't even know one person who left EQ for Lineage and I've talked to thousands of players.
The numbers of Lineage are to be argued, since game cafes are something completely different than a game played at home in the West. It's very easy to play with numbers if you're selling a key to each PC in a game cafe, even if no one plays on the PC.
Everquest by far and it ain't even close. The makers of WoW and NWN have said it themselves. Check out the trailer for the new documentary on Everquest called Evercracked.
Hardly, I don't even know one person who left EQ for Lineage and I've talked to thousands of players.
The numbers of Lineage are to be argued, since game cafes are something completely different than a game played at home in the West.
Ok, this is exactly what I am talking about. You have asked THOUSANDS of players? Really? You have actually asked THOUSANDS about this? I highly doubt it. And even if you did, it would not matter, since you are still playing in the west. If I ask every American I can find on WoW how many of them have played Lineage, I doubt there will be that many. However, if I log into a korean game, such as Ragnarok, or something similar, I bet you that the answers would be VERY different. Once again, how many people do you know named Muhammed?
Mountain Dew is the number one selling soda in the United States. And yet in the five years I spent in Norway, very few had even heard of it. Ask an American what Root Beer is, and I would assume most, if not all would know. Now, go to Europe, and ask again. Blank stares is what you are going to get.
Yah Lineage was the shiz world wide but in the states you couldnt touch EverQuest. Still to this day everquest does well. Its up to its 15th expansion pack and its doing well. but yeah a common misconception is calling WoW King of MMOs isnt true. It does great yes. But if you want to talk about king of MMOs it would be the most influental.Ground breaking game and so on. That would be EverQuest. It was the first graphical MMO and for to many reasons to go through now it would be the king of MMORPGs. At least in My oppinion.
The most successful game was Everquest by number of subscriptions. And also my influence and impact... every MMO has been heavily heavily influenced by it. EQ introduced the concepts of raiding and grouping (as opposed to solo or "hero" play of RPGs). The developers of WOW such as Rob Pardo and others have publically stated they based their gameplay on EQ and until this year the top 3 guys on the WOW team including Jeff Kaplan got their jobs at Blizzard specifically because of their experiences end-game raiding in WOW (both guildleaders of FOH and LOS got jobs designing the raids in WOW).
UO was also influential. Despite what the cluessless nerd above wrote, UO is the game which introduced subscription based MMOs to the mass market (although primitive pay to play MMOs like Meridian predated both UO and WOW). In fact those of you who have been around and know your history distinctly remember the public dialogue that Starr (Long, the Garriott's right hand man) about pricing plans in UO beta: options being game free, monthly sub. high game price + no sub. etc etc. Obviously they netted out on the option where you pay the box and then also pay out the ass every month... which maximizes revenue but back in 97 most analysts thought the general public was not loser/nerd/desperate enough to actually pay up to $200 a year to play a game that costs them 10 bucks a year to actually run (aside from development costs).
UO is also important because the Koreans ripped it off to make the first Lineage. The entire genre of Korean and Chinese MMOs are basically versions 2,3 and 4 of the UO client. In the US UO gameplay has been heavily dominant in "pvp" MMOs although those have not been successful as a genre. Everything from Shadowbane back in the early 2000s to Mortoal Online which in is development now follow closely the open world/ player driven/ skill based game design of UO.
It's important to note that EQ and UO themselves have totally separate geneology. UO is a direct outgrowth of traditional PC RPGs that were popular in the 80s and 90s... that took the evolutionary step of going online. This is why UO based games stress open gameplay (open classes, skills based leveling instead of classes, interactivity of worlds through housing, etc) all things that popular RPGs stressed. EQ-WOW-Aion is an outgrowth of text-based unix MUDs that go back to the 70s. In fact SOE was sued by DIKUMUD and others for actually stealing code for the combat engine (basically everything in that little "box" that tells you what's going on) from existing MUDs. Going back and stealing class archetypes from past games led to a diversity and complexity in classes that's so good it's still being used as the template for Wow, Warhammer and Aion today and its MUD antecedents are reflected on the stress of distinguishing between range/melee combat, and between spells and melee. Back in the day all you had were words on the screen and keeping the classes distinct was very important. It also is reflected on the emphasis of teamwork/party interaction as the central hub of gameplay (back then all you had to entertain yourself was talking to ppl in your party there were no graphics)
I didn't say I asked thousands of players, I said I talked to thousands of players and never heard of anyone leaving EQ for Lineage, there was never an exodus to Lineage when it came out. Most EQ players didn't seem to care or even knew about it.
And like I said, unless you actually count the subscriptions of players playing at home, the numbers Lineage had are on very shaky ground. Game cafes buy game licences in bulk, if a player plays on that PC or not doesn't matter, if the same player plays on a different PC every night, doesn't matter, it all gets added up. It's simply very hard to estimate the real number of players who played Lineage.
WoW is still the king, because its numbers rein supreme over any other game. I am not saying it is the best game out there, but by popularity and brand recognition alone, it is in a class of its own.
Also, you act like EQ was origonal. Every class in EQ was based on classes from MUDs that were based on classes from DnD and so on. Claiming that EQ was better than Lineage because EQ came before it is just stupid. EQ was the known name in the west, but Lineage crushed EQ in the world market.
How many people do you know that are named Muhammed? Not many, if any? Strange, since it is the most common name in the world... Just because things are not common in one place, does not mean that it is not common in the world sense.
EQ was original, I didn't say the classes were. I said the classes were still some of the best, as in implemented well and fun to play. Learn to read and comprehend what is being written. As to Lineage, I never said which game was better. I said the template for all modern games was Everquest.
Also for you information, I live in Australia and we have many Muslims, I have met many people named Muhammed, so again your assumptions and ignorance is astonishing.
Once again, this was formed in MUDs, not MMOs. MUDs had massive PvP and PvE well before the first MMO was even conceptualized.
Lineage 2 (c2 ZOMG) and its still hella better then WoW
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/8241/curseseal1yq.gif