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[Column] General: My Most Memorable MMOGs
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
It's approaching two decades since I started writing about the massively multiplayer category. I don't recall the exact date or even which title was the first I covered, but since then, I've played hundreds for at least a few hours each, and seen lots more. Recently, I was asked which ones I most remember. While this question may seem simple enough, it took me a fair bit of time and thought to answer.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: My Most Memorable MMOGs.
Comments
I only played for a month but it felt like forever. My parents wouldn't let me resub with school starting and back then they deleted inactive characters after a few months!
Years later I would go back with one of my brothers and play a new character for longer. But it was never as magical as that first time...
It's interesting to think if WoW had not been made EQ2 would have been considered a smashing success.
What are your most memorable MMOGs, and why?
Nostalgia ftw
Chronologically my first memorable impact would be UO too, only with a deeper "passion"... You wrote "I can't say I loved the actual game. I didn't hate it by any means" well, neither did I, in a sense... Honestly, I try to not overuse the term and I give it only to a selected few, but UO is one of them: I loathed it. Deeply. From the gut
It even managed to push me away from the whole genre on pc (I went back to p'n'p rpg). On the other hand, at least it gave me enough spare time to dive into CS, it was very vivid around that time and I loved it.
(for the record, I was all about rpg back then, both on paper and on the pc. I was running / hobby developing MUD, was into several MUSHes, not to mention I was a massive Ultima fan. I still am, to this day. That's why UO kicked so hard. Maybe if it's released as "<random named> Online Game, warning: may contain traces of rpg-is elements" it would've been easier to swallow that Lord British gave his name to it
but that thing had nothing, not even a slice of Ultima in it. Was a huge letdown for me.)
Second big moment would be CoH. By that time CS started to lose its sparkle (at least for me, didn't like CS:Zero), I was already back into the MUD/MUSH scene, and wanted to have something with more folks in it. Dabbled with EQ, DAoC, AC, all were lame. (yep, throw the rocks if you want
) Middle-earth was still in development. Then I bumped into word of a superhero mmo... as a comic fan it triggered my Pavlovian reflex right away 
And it was a great game indeed. I still like Cryptic, 10 years and 3 games later, simply because of CoH.
Third, because you also wrote three, I'd say the closure of AA. "The loss of innocence". Up until that point (from the early '90s) it was unprecedented, at least for me. When a game was out, it was out. Even if the company goes down, or the servers are shutting down, the game lives on, on different servers, with different people. It was true to everything, from MUDs through fps servers to even private servers
And then those f***s at NCsoft said: "ok, we will close AA. Because we can. Suck it up, fellas." It was tough...
Are your most memorable MMOGs the same as the ones you've played the most?
From the three above, only CoH, obviously. But for the rest, yes. Because there are many more big moments
(LotRO, AoC, TSW and STO)
Which current MMOGs are likely to be considered most memorable 10 to 15 years from now, and why?
The same. With rapidly closing to 40 and gaming through all my years I don't think there will be mmos more memorable than those above. And the why part would take pages and pages of text, so I'd rather skip to answer that
Having started back in the days of PBEMs and BBS...followed into MUD/MUSH...browser games, etc.
I would say my most Memorable relevant game would be SWG-preCU as that is the graphical game I spent the most time in. However, to be honest, the really most memorable game would be the PBEM i spent years writing for called "Imperial Secrets". Although, since the title says MMOG and not MMORPG I'll have to give honorable Mention to a few browser games like "Monarchy" and "Space Merchants", that I played for years as well. Heck, my sig line is still a remnant of "Monarchy".
~I am Many~
That's why every MMO that comes out now there's people that call it a failure.
I think the success of Wow forever changed the genre because for years, companies were trying to chase the subscriber numbers that Wow had and I think companies and investors have focused on this far too much instead of just creating a game aimed at a particular audience and setting realistic goals regarding sub numbers.
The gaming media probably doesn't help alot of the time, spreading hype before a games release that more often than not is simply not met (because it was unrealistic to begin with) and games are considered 'failures' well before they have actually failed which probably contributes to them actually going into a real decline.
My top 3 are in order of played.
1 Anarchy online = Played for years. Truely the last real living world with so many players everywhere. It was the most fun i've ever had in online gaming.
2 DAOC = I played it for awhile and it was fun. What i remember fondly was the music in it. I forget what the race was i played but they were giant like into nature. A friend of mine really was into this game and i played it with him.
3 Earth & Beyond = This was my second favorite online game. They have a really amazing emulator up and running of this game, so i'm still playing it. So much better than Eve online to me.
I remember playing eq2 when it came out. And it was horrible. It tooks a couple of years before it became any good but the damage was done. And it didn't help that it came out the same time wow did. Eq2 when it came out just wasn't fun to play. It had so many things wrong with it. The big one was mob placement. Elites mixed in with standard mobs you needed for quest. You had to be grouped to do anything in that game after the starter zone.
You sir, just made my day! Quick google search found the emulator for me. Checking this out!
I played EQ1 when it came out, i played for approx 10 minutes. The Pc I had just couldn't handle it. I am so glad for that moment in time.
Several years later (2008) I ventured back into MMORPG's with WoW - that game consumed 4 years of my life.
With that time consumed in mind, I think back to when I was a much younger lad and my 10 minutes with EQ and the fact that my pc couldn't handle it so I walked away from the genre not returning until my late 20's, I think wow, if my pc would have been able to run that game, I would not have a college degree today, I wouldn't own my house, probably wouldn't be married, wouldn't have the job I have, and I would just overall be a much different person.
For worse or better - it's besides the point, i just think I would be a very different person had I let EQ consume me at that moment in time. I was 17 years old when that happened, prime age for making life changing decisions - considering the addictive nature of mmorpg's especially popular ones like EQ and WoW, I would have been doomed. I don't know how kids do it today.
About 5 years prior to that 10 minutes with EQ i had become deeply involved in an older Mythic Entertainment title called Rolemaster Magestorm - this game was a 3 faction pvp rpg instanced offered up by Mythic - I was in a guild with people all around the world at 12 years old, I played as an Elementalist - they had the ability to fly and inflict pain with mind spells - i would compete in a structured online tournament in the middle of the night 2 am with my German guild mates - absolutely amazing time, and probably had a massive impact on how the beloved DOAC came to fruition. - check out Rolemaster Magestorm and you will see what I mean.
"...to having arguably the most forthright style in communicating with fans, outboarding the official forums, etc. Some individual things worked out less well than others..."
The Paladin classlead without any knowledge of even basic game mechanics was hilarious.
For me it's UO and Everquest. UO because you could just do so many things. It really showed you what an MMO could be. From taming, to housing, and mounts, the crafting and harvesting systems. UO felt like a virtual world.
EQ didn't reach as far as UO but it addressed the rampant PKing and put it all in a 3d world. I've enjoyed many games over the years but those two were the grandaddy's of the genre and I had my largest enjoyments out of them personally. SWG and DAoC also had a big effect, but not to the same level as those two titles.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
My most memorable MMOs...
Great topic, Richard...
For me, the most memorable MMOs have been, in order:
1) FFXI. Not my first MMO (my third, actually), but easily my all-time favorite. Bar none. The first one to utterly suck me in and keep me hooked from almost my first moments as a level 1 Mithra Monk, lost and clueless in Windurst.
I still consider FFXI - pre-Abyssea - the high-water mark for PvE MMOs. So far, none has come even close to matching it for me, including ARR. I could spend hours sharing stories, frustrations, achievements and all manner of other memories created over the nearly 8 years I spent as an Adventurer in Vana'diel.
SE captured lightning in a bottle in so many ways with FFXI... sadly, only to squander it with all the sweeping changes they brought in with Abyssea.
I seriously can not say enough good about this game and the amazing times I had in it. Even considering the frustrations I dealt with (which I remember quite clearly as well lol), I'd go back in time and start it all over again if I could. And I'd find some way to prevent SE from creating Abyssea.
I'm grateful I got to experience it at its best.
2) Lineage 2. This was my PvP counterpart to FFXI's PvE and I played it about 5 years in all. In the PvP world category, none has come close. Like SE with FFXI, NC did so much right with the design of L2, and I've yet to see it matched. Many have dismissed the game as "just an endless level grind with a serious bot problem." They're right with the bot problem - NC never got it under control. However, it was soooo much more than just a level grind. NC crafted the game in such a way that PvP wove through every part of the game - even the PvE. Everything influenced, or was influenced by competition between players - even if it wasn't directly through battle.
Like SE with XI, NC would go on to undermine all they'd built over several years with the GoD expansion and F2P. Now it's basically a cash shop with levels, xp and script-dominated PvP. Oh yeah.. and bots. Tons of bots.
For me, Lineage 2 will always be Prelude through Interlude... especially Chronicle 3 and on. It also has some of my favorite music in any MMO. Here's a couple sets of selections... 1, 2
3) Shadowbane and Asheron's Call 2: I don't remember which came first anymore, but one of these was my absolute first, and the other my absolute second. Shadowbane, in particular, blew me away with its amazing character depth at creation, and as you leveled up. It was actually overwhelming to me as a brand-new MMO player lol. Few MMOs I've played since have come close. I didn't get very far in either game.. SB was a bit beyond me as a newbie, and AC2 never really took off and was eventually taken offline. Still, I have fond memories of my earliest days in each of them, they "popped my MMO cherry", and so they deserve a spot on this list.
Honorable Mention: Anarchy Online Another game with an amazingly deep and flexible character development system. The implant system, in tandem with nano tech, and the way you can stagger between the two, to legally "tweak" your characters is amazing. The world was massive and varied. The ways you could customize your characters was a lot of fun and often zany (see: Atrox wearing a dress). Also, leets.
Nexus and Asheron's Call. The latter took YEARS of my life and years to get over.
Luckily, this was in the time when it was easy to sell your character for 100s or even 1000s of dollars, which I did and recovered most of the finances lost.
After that, nothing really compares. DAOC was great while in classic, Eve was fun as well.
I review lots of indie games and MMORPGs
I clearly remember the day I discovered MMOs. I had friends at Uni who were into MUDs but I was still in my pen & paper days to be interested in anything else.
Then one day in April 1999 I went into the video game store and asked for some advice about what to buy. The guy walked me over to a load of EverQuest boxes and started explaining how it was an online roleplaying game. I didn't really understand what he meant at first and then it dawned on me that it would be like playing D&D, except with lots of other people over the internet. I took the box home and that was it! Still playing MMOs 15 years later (and wishing they were as good as the old ones).
1) Asheron's Call. It wasn't my first MMO, but it was my home for longer than any other (4 1/2 years). I loved the incredibly intricate skill/stat system, the huge scope of the world, the facial customization, the unbelievable variety in loot, the original creatures and inhabitants, the volumes of lore, the GM-driven events, the monthly updates, the in-world housing, the essentially endless levels, and so much more.
2) Star Wars Galaxies. I played a dancer and a creature handler. It was glorious. I lived an entirely non-combat life. I did, eventually make another character and live the shooty-stabby lifestyle, but those early days of chatting with other dancers and musicians in the cantina were magical: mastering the minigame of dancing (there was an actual art to transitioning from move to move), the fun of spending the play session with a hired ranger, who'd help me track down creatures to tame, the joy of training those creatures and selling them as pets or mounts from my home storefront, it's not something I expect to see again.
3) City of Heroes. There were a number of things about CoH that bothered me (limited tilesets, little variety in mission layout, etc.), but no game I've ever played has done PUGs better; there was no trinity required for success, and teams were always more about figuring out how to play with one another than they were about defeating content. That was amazing.
CoH's character customization of either type (avatar or build) is still largely unequaled. For someone who loves alting, there simply has never been a better game made; you could make 20 characters without any two of them playing or looking even remotely like the others. There were also hundreds and hundreds of badges to collect, and you could display each and every one of them as a title, you could write your own backstory, and you could change your entire look and character concept at the drop of a hat if you came up with a better idea.
The good times I had on a DAoC RP server will never be matched.
The community was patient and helpful and really into the spirit of on-line fantasy... which is what "RP" meant in those days.
The modern millions of MMO gamers don't have that old spirit... they want "reward" for as little effort as possible, and the old challenges from DAoC just don't fit anymore.
If you have good DAoC memories, then I am very happy for you... too bad we can't turn back the clock!
I even miss my Hibernian house... gotta have that pumpkin patch...
"I'm a nerd, and I'm pretty proud of it." - Gilbert, Revenge of the Nerds[1984]
Lineage 2 was my first I was young and accidentally sold my expensive matched pair of swords for one 0 to few adena and just quit but i loved it til then