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What game was the king of MMORPG's before WoW?
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Interesting debate.
I wonder where Dark Ages of Camelot would stand in this mix of opinions. I'm not sure if the numbers were ever there to support the "King of MMO"s" mantle. But I found that game much more stimulating than WOW. It had better character customization, PvP, housing and more gritty graphics.
Well, Ultima online was the first MMO, so I guess that counts; but the first real KING of MMO's to emerge, a game that attracted hundreds of thousands of players, was Everquest. Don't let Everquest 2 fool you, it's father game was a POWERHOUSE way back when. after that...It was really a toss-up between a bunch of games. There was a few years where a bunch of games were struggling to be the top dog. Then WoW came and took all their ideas, brought them together, and polished them like a shoe-shiner. Yup.
Everyone early on said EQ, which of course was a world beater right off the bat. It forged a new path in the online gaming world, and was the standard to beat in the "mainstream" mmorpg world.
...still, maybe not many remember it, but Meridian 59 broke the ground for a pay to play mmorpg and to this day I still think that world had the best pvp ever. The schools of magic there have never been beaten. yeah Qor may have been overweighted somewhat, but anyone who ever mastered it would have made a strong argument that the process surely justified the power.
and the power shifts were nicely done long before such concepts were fronted in the mainstream games.
does ANYONE here remember M59?
Lineage hardly counts..why?
As we all know 90% of the mmo's from the east namely korea suck bigger donkey balls than well anything. Yet all these games from Korea have mass appeal because that's all they do overthere apparently is grind grind grind. ANYBODY can design a game that you run around killing things endlessly for months for no apparent reason...whats make a game great has a little something extra. That's what made EQ great, SWG, WoW.
What made everquest so successful was that it attracted a base that was the still-growing DnD-type cast of crew, but presented such things in a way that wasn't hard (and was even fun) for the general populace to understand. So it grew past the audience that it was originally aimed at. Same thing happened with WoW. Or at least that's my take on it.
Behold another xenophobe who either never played EQ or simply has "selective memory loss". I loved EQ1, but if are going to claim it wasn't an utter grind fest in which you didn't just sit around killing mobs for months on end, then you are completely full of it. EQ, and basically every MMO that came out around the time of the original Lineage, were gigantic grindfests in one way or another. The only difference is the rest aren't korean so you don't have some cultural bias towards them.
Behold another xenophobe who either never played EQ or simply has "selective memory loss". I loved EQ1, but if are going to claim it wasn't an utter grind fest in which you didn't just sit around killing mobs for months on end, then you are completely full of it. EQ, and basically every MMO that came out around the time of the original Lineage, were gigantic grindfests in one way or another. The only difference is the rest aren't korean so you don't have some cultural bias towards them.
exactly every mmo before wow had huge grinds eastern or western i can't think of a single one that didn't take months- a year to cap out.hell even eqoa was really bad grind till the petter PL bug was introduced, and stayed for MONTHS.
but EQ deffinitly was King preWoW western side but world wide i would have to say Lineage 2.
Everquest aka Evercrack
Everquest.
6 years of my life damn..
R.I.P Chikaca Whachuchu
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.
When PC game subscribtions are included, they include all accounts who have had accessed that game in the month the subscribtions were counted. NCsoft does not include every account created, just the ones accessed.
Everquest was not the most popular MMORPG before WoW. Lineage and Lineage 2, both released before WoW, were much more popular than Everquest.
Originally posted by SonikFlash
Lineage hardly counts..why?
As we all know 90% of the mmo's from the east namely korea suck bigger donkey balls than well anything. Yet all these games from Korea have mass appeal because that's all they do overthere apparently is grind grind grind. ANYBODY can design a game that you run around killing things endlessly for months for no apparent reason...whats make a game great has a little something extra. That's what made EQ great, SWG, WoW.
Everquest was also build around killing monsters to level up your character. To point at Lineage and call it a grind but at the same time saying Everquest is not is silly.
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.
When PC game subscribtions are included, they include all accounts who have had accessed that game in the month the subscribtions were counted. NCsoft does not include every account created, just the ones accessed.
The Lineage data is from 1998, how can you with certainty say how the numbers were counted. Game cafes are not a reliable way to gauge subscriptions or players, don't say they are when they obviously aren't. NCsoft can't tell if that new character is an alt or another player.
Also, can anyone actually still find official press releases or is everyone just basing them of random numbers.
Everquest by far was the MMO king, before WoW. No game had a greater affect on people's lives than EQ in its prime, former fellow EQ players will attest to that. No other MMO caused people to kill themselves over losing a level or cause people to stop going to work all together. I've read stories of parents losing their children to social services because of EQ. There's a reason why EQ's addiction level was associated with heroine and the Lineage games were not.
Current MMO: Aion
MMO Watch: Warhammer 40k Online, SWToR, GW2.
Played: Planetside, SWG, EQ, EQ2, L2, WoW, RFO, KAL, MxO, Voyage, RO,Vanguard,Tabula Rasa, Horizons, CoH/CoV,, Lotro, FFXI
First MMO: Everquest (Tunare Server, Ronin/Tide Guild)
The question wasn't, what game had the most subscription?. The question was, what was the king of MMO's before WoW? When people I knew who wouldn't touch a video game with a 10 foot pole recognized the EQ name, and news media were dubbing it Evercrack, I think it wins over Lineage. EQ's visibilty quotient was leagues beyond any other MMO, but nowhere near WoW's current pop culture level.
EQ though to me DAoC was always a more enjoyable game.
I still remember being in beta for EQ1 and actually talking to the devs in game. I told them then that EQ was going to be huge and they laughed. They said they would be happy just to get around 5k players for the first month. They didnt even expect their game to be as huge as what it was and still is in many respects. I give the vote to EQ1 for being the king of MMO's period, even above WoW!
You have no idea what Korean MMOs are about. You sound just like all the other people who tried one and found that they would not become max level in a week so they quit and now post stuff like you do about every Korean game that comes up in a topic.
Everquest was definately King. I cant remember if it was on the Kunark expansion box or if it was written in some gaming magazine way back then but i remember the quote it was ... "Buy Everquest for someone you love ... if you never want to see them again" . LOL .. so true i still play the flippin game.
Work hard Play Harder
Behold another xenophobe who either never played EQ or simply has "selective memory loss". I loved EQ1, but if are going to claim it wasn't an utter grind fest in which you didn't just sit around killing mobs for months on end, then you are completely full of it. EQ, and basically every MMO that came out around the time of the original Lineage, were gigantic grindfests in one way or another. The only difference is the rest aren't korean so you don't have some cultural bias towards them.
exactly every mmo before wow had huge grinds eastern or western i can't think of a single one that didn't take months- a year to cap out.hell even eqoa was really bad grind till the petter PL bug was introduced, and stayed for MONTHS.
but EQ deffinitly was King preWoW western side but world wide i would have to say Lineage 2.
you both misread me :P
consequently you both agreed with me and reinforced my point
As far as korean games go the ones that i did max lvl in were lineage and rising force online, so no i didn't just get my feet wet and say they sucked. I grinded my ass off for freaking ever and the result of that. Worst experience of my life.
so that would basically make
WoW = The bastard child ?
eq swg wow swtor
(personal guess)
I was referring to where they all got a start, and yes, it pretty much was the real start of "graphical" online RPG's. I am not referring to the remakes that came later. I am referring to the one hosted by AoL. It was D&D based, involved leveling a character, rolling for stats, and combat by running through various zones. It also offered PvP/PvE, high-end loot, etc.
People also paid (before AoL went "unlimited access") by the hour to play (by paying an hourly Internet access fee). Talk about an insane monthly fee.
For whoever mentioned Meridian 59 forgot about that one! I think that was probably around the same time as The Realm.
There was also a Sierra based one I believe (beside The Realm), called something like Yserbius... can't remember its been so long.
Given this reply i assume you are too young to remember but Neverwinter Nights on AOL. It was an MMO for AOL subscribers that used the "gold box" engine. It was a graphical MMO, and the only reason i paid for crappy aol in the early to mid 90's (and once they closed it down i kicked aol to the curb).
I assume you were referring to Biowares NWN which probably cannot be considered an MMO since the publisher nor the developer ran official servers. However Biowares NWN was predated by NWN on AOL by almost a decade.
NWN on AOL was followed by M59, the Realm and Dark Sun Online.
Everquest.
Did I mention that SOE ruined it with PoP expansion? (and subsequent).
idk i can see how you'd think that but i still enjoy it today../begs for a revamp and re-release of EQ