Originally posted by Kyleran I have the internet as my forum where I can bitch about it. (even if no one gives a care what I say) I've decided, until I see DAOC 2 I'm never going to be really happy, so might as well take some small enjoyment from what is out there now and in the future.
I'll let you bitch if you let me bitch. I'm in the same toilet as you. Until I either see DAoC Origins, DAoC 2, or somehow magically timewarp back to classic Everquest, I'll never be happy.
I thought it was a wonderful afticle and brought up some very interesting points. I have felt that some of the games are stagnating but if everyone compares games to WOW of course they are going to be stagnant. I love WOW but I love many other types of games as well. I'm not a one genre type of gal. But I also do feel that a lot of new ideas are starting to come out of the wood word too. Dawntide for instance. I feel we are on the cusp of a new series of games. I know i've been looking for a new concept for a while now and they are very slowly coming out. Almost to slow. But if I try to be paitiant i'm sure something soon will fall into my lap that i will fall in love with. Cudos all.
People like differing styles of the genre and then they like differing aspects as well. I want to be immersed and not have to worry about "how long until I'm max?". There will be games like this they will not disappear. Then you can have games where players can just play a... well game and sit in town, teleport to a dungeon, finish the dungeon, teleport back if you want. Quick fun or more than fun? None are going to disappear.
all the mechanics you described, leaded to this desaster. i cannot see how this is maturity.
well, the industry became more mature, in terms of making profit. but this leaded mostly to a k9ind of fast-food and soap-operas. these games are even no MMORPGs anymore from my point of view.
MMORPG'S are nothing but CRAP UO EQ DAoC SB AC they are true blue MMORPG'S the golden age not the puddle of piss of today's crap.
Agree. I don't see any evolution out there. The stuff that's come out in recent years... A continual dumbing down. That's the de-evolution. It's the idocracy of mmo's!
all the mechanics you described, leaded to this desaster. i cannot see how this is maturity.
well, the industry became more mature, in terms of making profit. but this leaded mostly to a k9ind of fast-food and soap-operas. these games are even no MMORPGs anymore from my point of view.
I have to say I don't see them evolving. yes a couple of guys like FE and AOC tried something new with combat. Cant speak to DC yet as I have not tried it. MMO are regressing now days. You still have the big guys and the copy cats. You still see more copy cats and very little innovation that works.
" Everyday, in every way, things are getting better all the time..."
I don't know about evolution ( let alone de-evolution! lol) but I guess I think that maybe MMOs are crawling out of a pit if companies are no longer trying to ' be the next WOW' and have decided that 'WOW is WOW' and they are finally trying to do something new and different. You can't go back to the way things were so try and be original.
I have to say I don't see them evolving. yes a couple of guys like FE and AOC tried something new with combat. Cant speak to DC yet as I have not tried it. MMO are regressing now days. You still have the big guys and the copy cats. You still see more copy cats and very little innovation that works.
I think mmo's are starting to become stagnant.
Sorry but thats the way I look at it.
Agree!
I can't agree. MMOs are not starting to become stagnant. They have been stagnant sine 2004. The pressure to make money has led to this devolution. I see no signs of anything original or fresh. The basic elements remain the same.
And I will not add an exclamation point because I see no reason to celebrate.
My opinion is that MMO's are regressing, not progressing. When you can look back at games like UO and AC1 and find those games offered far more freedom of choice then the present new age stuff. And don't try to pawn off TERA's combat as something new, both Utlima and AC1 used the exact same design.
The MMO's of today are dumbed down to be almost boring. No one plays these games very long because of that. We just keep hoping from one game to the next hoping that something will entertain us.
The suits are interesting in only one thing, that is appealing to the broadist audience, hence it has to appeal to the "I want it now crowd". No one wants to take the time anymore to work for something.
The genre is in a very sorry state and there looks to be few bright spots in the future.
Are you the same Ozmodan from the old vn boards by chance?
OT:
Couldn't agree more with this post or the others stating similar sentiments.
The genre today is a case study in appealing to the lowest common denominator for the greatest financial gain to put it quite bluntly. MMO's for the last few years have been nothing more than glorified console games.
I'm all for change, but only if it's for the better. While there have been some good things to come out of recent MMO's, for the most part I agree with the de-evolution sentiment.
All that said, a good and well written article none the less Bill.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
MMORPG'S are nothing but CRAP UO EQ DAoC SB AC they are true blue MMORPG'S the golden age not the puddle of piss of today's crap.
It's amazing how people could call those games thoe golden age of MMORPGs. Those rose colored glasses really start to affect people's brains after a while.
The reason why the "old" MMOs were so "immersive" were because of their enormous lack of content made you find your own things to do. Camping mobs for 10-12 hours or more for an item drop somehow gets equated to content or a "fun time."
These old MMOs weren't great because of their complete lack of content or game play.. they were popular because of the communities. It was the people who stuck with it through those hard times that kept you playing and not the hours of grinding mobs pressing the same 3 buttons over and over again.
At least the MMOs these days are trying to give a little variety to game play. If that means that there is less grinding then I'm all for that. The downside is that people spend less time in an MMO and are more willing to move on to the next one.
Nostalgia can be a horrible thing and sometimes blind people to how bad things really were.
Remember when I wrote last week that we don't have to agree? This is a perfect example.
I fully understand the sentiment that folks see the current trend in MMO gaming as one of a "dumbing down". To that end, I think my only argument is that the experiments we're seeing in new game modes, gameplay, and financial models is all beneficial. The big massive immersive worlds you crave and love will not be forgotten forever, and developers will come back to them. Some may even be doing so, and we just don't know about it yet. *wink-wink, nudge-nudge*
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Found it to be an odd article since the general consenus seems to be that we are at a low point in the MMO genre with the last batch of AAA releases- The "innovations" and maturation the author sites can best be found in AoC, "Agreed, AOC failed to have the promised features, bigger areas, and lagged to high heaven so it bombed". "Warhammer had eye scurvy art, and nearly pointless pvp, agreed". Warhammer, Aion was a huge commercial success despite what any group of heavily opinionated players feel, numbers do not lie. Aion, "Agreed FFXIV was a broken steaming pile of bugs and copypasta, so it bombed" .Final Fantasy, and other games like Runes of Magic, ROM is one of the largest 3D F2P MMO's to date? STO etc "Agree STO bombed". Most/many of which would be considered huge failures-not a single one of which met or exceeded expecations.
Kind of like eating at McDonalds every day and then writing an article about how food has "advanced" from having to wait for an actual server, for stuff to be cooked to order, and prepared just for you-to being handed a bag of pre cooked fries and burgers-and calling it an improvement/innovation or maturation.
Oddly disconected article .
How is Aion or Runes of Magic a failure?
To start, I don't care about Runes of Magic and have never played it, but I hear it is one of the largest F2P mmo's in the western market. Also I quit Aion about four months ago once I hit 50 and didn't want to waste any more time grinding or waitng for the level cap to be raised.
Also, as far as subscription models go, Aion is the second most played MMORPG on earth. Or was for some time?
Why don't you just be honest and say that you are part of the crowd that hates them because it's not to your tastes. You know, the crowd of people that exists for every MMORPG in existence.
I am possitive every MMO has people who hate that particular game. For whatever reason, Theme park model, sandbox model, shakey launch, few bugs, un-refined pvp, PVP in general, Non-PVP, Bunny hopping, No jumping, f2p model, art direction, character models, poor voiceovers, from a different country. Just to scratch the tip of the iceburg on reasons why people scream FAILURE.
all the mechanics you described, leaded to this desaster. i cannot see how this is maturity.
well, the industry became more mature, in terms of making profit. but this leaded mostly to a k9ind of fast-food and soap-operas. these games are even no MMORPGs anymore from my point of view.
Hearing your comment made me miss SWG. The only MMORPG that I truly felt like it was a home away from home. Since the ol days, I have played EQ2, WoW, POTBS, Aion, FFXIV, DF, GW, and various F2P titles. While some of them where pretty enjoyable, non of them had that home feeling, or true sense of progression , hunting, economy, community, and rivalries.
Also I am not seeing what some people might call rose colored glasses, EQ was my first MMO and I started playing it a month or so after the initial release. Looking back to that, it had a great community, but it really did take hours to do anything in the game.
SWG although quite buggy, and what many would call broken. Many also found to have an amazing community, and you never felt rushed to progress, so even though it may take a while to do a task, you wouldn't feel like you were waisting time all the while looking at a huge mountian to climb in front of you.
What a strange dichotomy of odd and opiniated factoids coming through the ether .... net.
First, this is aimed at our estemed author in question...
Fact #1: MMOs are close to reaching their 20th Anniversary?
Interesting fact if that were a true statement. While I could reseach the historical/pertinent data and prove your statement in error, I don't think I'm in the quite in the mood at the moment. The reason? Do your own damn reasearch. After all, you're receiving a paycheck or two, including one from The Boss Right Here in River City.
I have so have a thing against your stated optimism. We all want our ships to anchor off your writer 's island of fine white beach and have you proclaim to the universe in general, "See? I am the seeker and you are a mere jester of mmo procrastination."
More Rum, please.
However, I reach into the point of basic mmorpg negativity when I constantly hear of company bankruptcies, employee firings (pardon me, downsizings) reaching into the thousands that we all hear about today. The sandbox may not be as attractive as it may appear to be a sandbox of desperation, or kiitty dung. Either way, it's a win-win for someone anyway.
I do not comment often, as you can see, but there are times when we must put down our heyboard and other assorted newly introduced methods of interactivity. You know, fun stuff. I do hope you're right in your visions. This is the stuff of entertainment, love, and endless hours online doing.... something...
Well, I have mixed feelings about this. To me, the first two developments are *horrible*. They are pushing MMOs in directions i do not enjoy, closer to fighter or an FPS. These are genres I basically hate. In order to grow their audience, the current round of MMOs are alienating the entire fan base that made them popular in the first place. It also does not seem to be working, as teh last MMO to come out that was really successful was in 2004 or so, before any of these changes took place.
As for the third, the variety of themes, that is great! I can't wait to see more worlds based on original ideas, different laws of physics and reality. The more they change, the better. I mean, one fo the greatest strengths of the MMO is creating a world where you can "get away" and by changing the settings significantly it makes this all the easier to do.
Unfortunately, when I add it all up, I wouldn't say MMOs are maturing, though. The changes you pointed out are weighted to appeal to the immature. This would mean that MMOs are devolving, not evolving, which is unfortunate for all of us that originally made the genre successful.
I agree with most of what you said.....well put.
Instead of dumbing down MMORPGs to be nothing more but an enhanced RPG experience with a internet connection.......enhance the RPG / FPS / Console generes by incorporating networking technology (Kind of like Battle.net).
MMORPGs was once a unique game genere that offered something different than you could get with any other type of game.
I get that successful niche's get mainstreamed and the product will change to fit the wants & needs of the biggest audience. Just saying, its ashame that such a immersive, deep community based game has to go the way of the dodo bird so that it can become the same kind of game experience you can get somewhere else.
The game originally cost standard AOL hourly rates to play. Depending on the user's rate plan, this could be USD$6.00 per hour for a flat rate plan, or $8.00 per hour during premium (daytime) hours or $4.00 during off hours.[citation needed] As the years progressed, Internet connection costs dropped, AOL and NWN membership grew, the servers became faster and the hourly player charge declined. As a result of these upgrades, the capacity of each server grew from 50 players in 1991 to 500 players by 1995. Ultimately the game became a free part of the AOL subscriber service.
Near the end of its run in 1997 the game had 115,000 players and typically hosted 2,000 adventurers during prime evening hours, a 4000% increase over 1991."
"Neverwinter Nights has a user base of 115,000, say protesters, although it draws about 2,000 regular players, said Miles. In the Neverwinter Nights forums on AOL, gamers are crying for boycotts, and a large number of gamers in the forums have announced their intention of canceling their AOL accounts when the games go down. But, as one protest letter being circulation puts it, "the idea of a 'boycott' is ... very appealing, but again, there are 8 million AOL subscribers and we question whether or not AOL would notice a few 'dropouts.'"
Certainly not. The game ran on one server only, and was built to hold 200 players at one time. This number was slowly expanded over the years when additional areas were added, and then again when the game continued to be a favorite. Neverwinter Nights spanned from version 1.0 to version 2.2, during which many new areas, bug fixes, and plenty of quests were added to the code. The final capacity upgrade was 500 players, and every night there was a bottleneck of hundreds waiting on that one person to leave the game so they could log in. This occurred till the night the game was taken offline, which was July 18th, 1997."
50-500 is hardly "massive" by definition, imho. The Wiki article itself defines it as a "Multiplayer" game, rather than a "Massive Multiplayer" game.
Massive for it's time? That argument could be made. A predecessor to MMO's, quite probable.
I have to agree with Einherjar_LC, that the first widely acknowledged/recognized MMO would probably be UO, released in 1997.
"Ultima Online is a fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. It is online-only and played by thousands of simultaneous users (who pay a monthly fee) on various game servers, also known as shards."
Once you hit the "Thousands" mark, I think you get the right to be referred to as "Massive".
Sorry about the odd text font formatting of that last post.
As far as the article, Puberty maybe, as in the early stages of puberty. MMO dev houses are like young teenagers, who try to be popular by copying "the cool kids" in school (EQ/WoW clones).
Gone, for the most part, are the days of Sandbox/Virtual Worlds, in favor of the Theme Park model, ad nauseum. For the most part, severely lacking in innovation and forever addicted to elves and orcs and fairies.
Belch!
Thankfully there are some indie houses who are daring to bring *some* sandbox aspects back into play, though even those games are largely Theme Park oriented.
Me? I want a nice big Sandbox to play with my "Tonka Toys". <chuckle>
MMOs as in mediocre video games intentionally exploiting the psychological elements of gambling addiction through carefully crafted gameplay and pricing methods while operating in a regulatory void are thriving.
MMOs as in massive virtual worlds to discover and immerse yourself in are going extinct.
The problem with MMO COMBAT is that its a waiting game or a spamming game. Its all about your super-skills and basic attacks eventually do less than 1% damage. In fact a point arrives where its all about "Stats vs Stats" and nothing else.
I remember when I coded three different types of bots in a shooter game...and I summoned them as part of a test. Two bots were Attack Bots, the other was a defensive shield bot, capable of healing the other two. The last bot was a heavy weapons bot.....All bots had between 3000 - 5000 Health. There were power ups scattered throught out the map...and the bots were going after the four players...in a 4v4..Each player having 100 health mind you.
The result was through actual thinking, Using the map itself and environment, along with the weapons scattered, the players managed to destroy the bots by working together. I remember when two players got together and fired rockets and planted bombs....and pushed them back.
When I saw how cool it was that players could think their way and it was about thinking and not about having some guy with 1 million health and 90% immunity to damage...These were bots with no resistance to damage and had their attacks....I remember seeing that kind of thinking and I said "wow, mmorpgs truly are for the blind" as I tested in six different groups of four, and each of them had a different way of destroying the bots..
I remember UT2004's Invasion mode.....which pretty much proved to me how outdated most MMORPG combat truly is.
Comments
He who keeps his cool best wins.
I thought it was a wonderful afticle and brought up some very interesting points. I have felt that some of the games are stagnating but if everyone compares games to WOW of course they are going to be stagnant. I love WOW but I love many other types of games as well. I'm not a one genre type of gal. But I also do feel that a lot of new ideas are starting to come out of the wood word too. Dawntide for instance. I feel we are on the cusp of a new series of games. I know i've been looking for a new concept for a while now and they are very slowly coming out. Almost to slow. But if I try to be paitiant i'm sure something soon will fall into my lap that i will fall in love with. Cudos all.
Exactly!!
People like differing styles of the genre and then they like differing aspects as well. I want to be immersed and not have to worry about "how long until I'm max?". There will be games like this they will not disappear. Then you can have games where players can just play a... well game and sit in town, teleport to a dungeon, finish the dungeon, teleport back if you want. Quick fun or more than fun? None are going to disappear.
MMOs have been virtual worlds, you could live in.
nowadays they are just games.
all the mechanics you described, leaded to this desaster. i cannot see how this is maturity.
well, the industry became more mature, in terms of making profit. but this leaded mostly to a k9ind of fast-food and soap-operas. these games are even no MMORPGs anymore from my point of view.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
MMORPG'S are nothing but CRAP UO EQ DAoC SB AC they are true blue MMORPG'S the golden age not the puddle of piss of today's crap.
Agree. I don't see any evolution out there. The stuff that's come out in recent years... A continual dumbing down. That's the de-evolution. It's the idocracy of mmo's!
Agree!
Agree!
" Everyday, in every way, things are getting better all the time..."
I don't know about evolution ( let alone de-evolution! lol) but I guess I think that maybe MMOs are crawling out of a pit if companies are no longer trying to ' be the next WOW' and have decided that 'WOW is WOW' and they are finally trying to do something new and different. You can't go back to the way things were so try and be original.
I can't agree. MMOs are not starting to become stagnant. They have been stagnant sine 2004. The pressure to make money has led to this devolution. I see no signs of anything original or fresh. The basic elements remain the same.
And I will not add an exclamation point because I see no reason to celebrate.
---------------------------
Rose-lipped maidens,
Light-foot lads...
Are you the same Ozmodan from the old vn boards by chance?
OT:
Couldn't agree more with this post or the others stating similar sentiments.
The genre today is a case study in appealing to the lowest common denominator for the greatest financial gain to put it quite bluntly. MMO's for the last few years have been nothing more than glorified console games.
I'm all for change, but only if it's for the better. While there have been some good things to come out of recent MMO's, for the most part I agree with the de-evolution sentiment.
All that said, a good and well written article none the less Bill.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
It's amazing how people could call those games thoe golden age of MMORPGs. Those rose colored glasses really start to affect people's brains after a while.
The reason why the "old" MMOs were so "immersive" were because of their enormous lack of content made you find your own things to do. Camping mobs for 10-12 hours or more for an item drop somehow gets equated to content or a "fun time."
These old MMOs weren't great because of their complete lack of content or game play.. they were popular because of the communities. It was the people who stuck with it through those hard times that kept you playing and not the hours of grinding mobs pressing the same 3 buttons over and over again.
At least the MMOs these days are trying to give a little variety to game play. If that means that there is less grinding then I'm all for that. The downside is that people spend less time in an MMO and are more willing to move on to the next one.
Nostalgia can be a horrible thing and sometimes blind people to how bad things really were.
Remember when I wrote last week that we don't have to agree? This is a perfect example.
I fully understand the sentiment that folks see the current trend in MMO gaming as one of a "dumbing down". To that end, I think my only argument is that the experiments we're seeing in new game modes, gameplay, and financial models is all beneficial. The big massive immersive worlds you crave and love will not be forgotten forever, and developers will come back to them. Some may even be doing so, and we just don't know about it yet. *wink-wink, nudge-nudge*
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
Follow me on Twitter if you dare.
Nice read, thanks
A good writeup, and I basically agree to everything.
But... 20 years? Did I make a time travel to 2019? I thought UO was the first MMORPG? <.< >.> <.<
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
UO is considered the first widely accepted MMO and it was released in 1997.
Even at that, we're still off by roughly 8 years :P or I've time traveled with you.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
How is Aion or Runes of Magic a failure?
To start, I don't care about Runes of Magic and have never played it, but I hear it is one of the largest F2P mmo's in the western market. Also I quit Aion about four months ago once I hit 50 and didn't want to waste any more time grinding or waitng for the level cap to be raised.
Also, as far as subscription models go, Aion is the second most played MMORPG on earth. Or was for some time?
Why don't you just be honest and say that you are part of the crowd that hates them because it's not to your tastes. You know, the crowd of people that exists for every MMORPG in existence.
I am possitive every MMO has people who hate that particular game. For whatever reason, Theme park model, sandbox model, shakey launch, few bugs, un-refined pvp, PVP in general, Non-PVP, Bunny hopping, No jumping, f2p model, art direction, character models, poor voiceovers, from a different country. Just to scratch the tip of the iceburg on reasons why people scream FAILURE.
Hearing your comment made me miss SWG. The only MMORPG that I truly felt like it was a home away from home. Since the ol days, I have played EQ2, WoW, POTBS, Aion, FFXIV, DF, GW, and various F2P titles. While some of them where pretty enjoyable, non of them had that home feeling, or true sense of progression , hunting, economy, community, and rivalries.
Also I am not seeing what some people might call rose colored glasses, EQ was my first MMO and I started playing it a month or so after the initial release. Looking back to that, it had a great community, but it really did take hours to do anything in the game.
SWG although quite buggy, and what many would call broken. Many also found to have an amazing community, and you never felt rushed to progress, so even though it may take a while to do a task, you wouldn't feel like you were waisting time all the while looking at a huge mountian to climb in front of you.
What a strange dichotomy of odd and opiniated factoids coming through the ether .... net.
First, this is aimed at our estemed author in question...
Fact #1: MMOs are close to reaching their 20th Anniversary?
Interesting fact if that were a true statement. While I could reseach the historical/pertinent data and prove your statement in error, I don't think I'm in the quite in the mood at the moment. The reason? Do your own damn reasearch. After all, you're receiving a paycheck or two, including one from The Boss Right Here in River City.
I have so have a thing against your stated optimism. We all want our ships to anchor off your writer 's island of fine white beach and have you proclaim to the universe in general, "See? I am the seeker and you are a mere jester of mmo procrastination."
More Rum, please.
However, I reach into the point of basic mmorpg negativity when I constantly hear of company bankruptcies, employee firings (pardon me, downsizings) reaching into the thousands that we all hear about today. The sandbox may not be as attractive as it may appear to be a sandbox of desperation, or kiitty dung. Either way, it's a win-win for someone anyway.
I do not comment often, as you can see, but there are times when we must put down our heyboard and other assorted newly introduced methods of interactivity. You know, fun stuff. I do hope you're right in your visions. This is the stuff of entertainment, love, and endless hours online doing.... something...
-- The Maxx
NWN via AOL, 1991.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
Follow me on Twitter if you dare.
I agree with most of what you said.....well put.
Instead of dumbing down MMORPGs to be nothing more but an enhanced RPG experience with a internet connection.......enhance the RPG / FPS / Console generes by incorporating networking technology (Kind of like Battle.net).
MMORPGs was once a unique game genere that offered something different than you could get with any other type of game.
I get that successful niche's get mainstreamed and the product will change to fit the wants & needs of the biggest audience. Just saying, its ashame that such a immersive, deep community based game has to go the way of the dodo bird so that it can become the same kind of game experience you can get somewhere else.
Calling shenannigans on that response....
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_%28AOL_game%29
"Neverwinter Nights was the first multiplayer[1] online role-playing game to display graphics,[2] and ran from 1991 to 1997 on AOL."
"Cost and playerbase
The game originally cost standard AOL hourly rates to play. Depending on the user's rate plan, this could be USD$6.00 per hour for a flat rate plan, or $8.00 per hour during premium (daytime) hours or $4.00 during off hours.[citation needed] As the years progressed, Internet connection costs dropped, AOL and NWN membership grew, the servers became faster and the hourly player charge declined. As a result of these upgrades, the capacity of each server grew from 50 players in 1991 to 500 players by 1995. Ultimately the game became a free part of the AOL subscriber service.
Near the end of its run in 1997 the game had 115,000 players and typically hosted 2,000 adventurers during prime evening hours, a 4000% increase over 1991."
That last line is a poorly worded, based on the citation: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/06/4625 , which says.....
"Neverwinter Nights has a user base of 115,000, say protesters, although it draws about 2,000 regular players, said Miles. In the Neverwinter Nights forums on AOL, gamers are crying for boycotts, and a large number of gamers in the forums have announced their intention of canceling their AOL accounts when the games go down. But, as one protest letter being circulation puts it, "the idea of a 'boycott' is ... very appealing, but again, there are 8 million AOL subscribers and we question whether or not AOL would notice a few 'dropouts.'"
Doing Further research, i found this at: http://www.bladekeep.com/nwn/index2.htm?http%3A//www.bladekeep.com/nwn/demise.shtml (Note, click the link for "History")
"WAS THE GAME UNPOPULAR ON AOL?
Certainly not. The game ran on one server only, and was built to hold 200 players at one time. This number was slowly expanded over the years when additional areas were added, and then again when the game continued to be a favorite. Neverwinter Nights spanned from version 1.0 to version 2.2, during which many new areas, bug fixes, and plenty of quests were added to the code. The final capacity upgrade was 500 players, and every night there was a bottleneck of hundreds waiting on that one person to leave the game so they could log in. This occurred till the night the game was taken offline, which was July 18th, 1997."
50-500 is hardly "massive" by definition, imho. The Wiki article itself defines it as a "Multiplayer" game, rather than a "Massive Multiplayer" game.
Massive for it's time? That argument could be made. A predecessor to MMO's, quite probable.
I have to agree with Einherjar_LC, that the first widely acknowledged/recognized MMO would probably be UO, released in 1997.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online
"Ultima Online is a fantasy role-playing game set in the Ultima universe. It is online-only and played by thousands of simultaneous users (who pay a monthly fee) on various game servers, also known as shards."
Once you hit the "Thousands" mark, I think you get the right to be referred to as "Massive".
;-)
Sorry about the odd text font formatting of that last post.
As far as the article, Puberty maybe, as in the early stages of puberty. MMO dev houses are like young teenagers, who try to be popular by copying "the cool kids" in school (EQ/WoW clones).
Gone, for the most part, are the days of Sandbox/Virtual Worlds, in favor of the Theme Park model, ad nauseum. For the most part, severely lacking in innovation and forever addicted to elves and orcs and fairies.
Belch!
Thankfully there are some indie houses who are daring to bring *some* sandbox aspects back into play, though even those games are largely Theme Park oriented.
Me? I want a nice big Sandbox to play with my "Tonka Toys". <chuckle>
MMOs as in mediocre video games intentionally exploiting the psychological elements of gambling addiction through carefully crafted gameplay and pricing methods while operating in a regulatory void are thriving.
MMOs as in massive virtual worlds to discover and immerse yourself in are going extinct.
The problem with MMO COMBAT is that its a waiting game or a spamming game. Its all about your super-skills and basic attacks eventually do less than 1% damage. In fact a point arrives where its all about "Stats vs Stats" and nothing else.
I remember when I coded three different types of bots in a shooter game...and I summoned them as part of a test. Two bots were Attack Bots, the other was a defensive shield bot, capable of healing the other two. The last bot was a heavy weapons bot.....All bots had between 3000 - 5000 Health.
There were power ups scattered throught out the map...and the bots were going after the four players...in a 4v4..Each player having 100 health mind you.
The result was through actual thinking, Using the map itself and environment, along with the weapons scattered, the players managed to destroy the bots by working together. I remember when two players got together and fired rockets and planted bombs....and pushed them back.
When I saw how cool it was that players could think their way and it was about thinking and not about having some guy with 1 million health and 90% immunity to damage...These were bots with no resistance to damage and had their attacks....I remember seeing that kind of thinking and I said "wow, mmorpgs truly are for the blind" as I tested in six different groups of four, and each of them had a different way of destroying the bots..
I remember UT2004's Invasion mode.....which pretty much proved to me how outdated most MMORPG combat truly is.