Without any of the previous four WoW would not be what it is today. Yes, it would have succeeded, but not near as well without the other genre changing games to show it how. Now, we see a slow death of these classic MMO's, all of them, and shallow games being released yearly. At least some of these are still around to enjoy from time to time.
LOL, funniest part was i got to the end, noticed the lack of DAOC or EQ in the list, first thought that went through my head was "I bet Aihoshi wrote this". I scroll up to the top, and lookety who the author was.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Well I have to agree with Richard, the Korean and Chinese entries were very important to the market. Just because you did not play them, they had a significant playerbase.
Final Fantasy XI had nothing earth shattering about it and was more a niche game than anything.
Somehow you have to include EQ, DAoC and SWG. They were all very significant. Each introduced major new concepts to the genre, which Final Fantasy XI did not.
Fact everquest is missing amazes me.everquest set the standards and style for many mmorpg we know.even wow developers have openly said without everquest there likely be no wow.
A lot of comments about poor choices but did you ever stop to think that maybe the choices were made on purpose.... to get tons of comments rolling? We all know what the defining MMOs were in that time period. Think of it as a form of acceptable trolling.
As has been repeated many times above, not including Everquest in this list is inexcusable. Like WoW, EQ cast a huge shadow over the online gaming industry for a while. It was the first game that people outside of gaming had ever heard about. It was the first game to "go public". Before that MMORPGs were the purview of early denizens of the internet. Games like DAoC were produced as Anti-EQ games and people talked about games being "EQ killers". Before WoW this game was the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it introduced many things that most of us take for granted in our online gaming (level based advancement, anyone?). Whether games that came out later copied or rejected the base principles of EQ, they were influenced by it, just as games that come out now-a-days are influenced by either copying or rejecting the WoW model. Even people that didn't game knew about EQ.
Were DAoC and SWG good? Yes. Were they groundbreaking? The data seem to suggest that they weren't. As noted above no one seems to be in a hurry to copy those games, so their influence is limited. In the end I'm not sure these games would pass the "Star Test", meaning that even people who don't game would know of these games. You ask the average person who doesn't game what EQ or WoW is and they'll know. Ask them what DAoC or SWG was and they'll go "What?"
After that I can see the logic behind the rest of the picks. I'd probably drop the fourth choice in favor of EQ.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
I would say UO and EQ are the most important MMORPGs as they both pushed mmorpgs into the mainstream.. well in the west anyway. At the time nothing else was realyl every mentioned... maybe AC as well but anythnig after that took ideas from those games.
Odd asian games never really took hold in the west and still find it hard to do so to this day.. but its no surprise they had higher sub numbers due to the population numbers in asia..
Everquest was the biggest MMO played then but only in the USA NOT the world. Lineage drew in players from all around the world. Introduced things EQ used for their game.
Nexus, Lineage and Lineage II helped create NCSoft.
Lineage was released in the USA, China, and Japan as well as South Korea (of course) It was a HUGE Success.Plus Taiwan 3 years later to monster numbers. In fact the numbers were larger than Everquest by HUGE numbers. It may have been super popular, EQ meaning, but most important? Only in America.
Lineage was huge in the East but did very poorly in West (less than 10,000 US subs)
Ncsoft financials: Detailed L1 subs from Q1 2004 thru Q1 2006 BY REGION
Final Fantasy XI had nothing earth shattering about it and was more a niche game than anything.
Except it had more subscriptions than EQ, and for a far longer period of time.
Group oriented content, skillchains, amazing story, cross platform.
Nope nothing there......
That is complete nonsense. Might have had more subs than Ultima, but not even close with EQ. I had some friends who played it and I tried it with them. It never had much of a following and the servers never had anything close to full ever. My friends were constantly trying to recruit people to play. Besides the cross platform, the game offered nothing new at all, except a lot of grinding. Asheron's Call was a better game with skill chains. As to lore, it was not any better than any other of the genre at that time.
Final Fantasy XI was a MMO backwater, that really never had any success beyond the small niche of players it had.
As to EQ pulling from Linage, that has to be the most ridiculous assertion I have seen on this forum lately. The games are nothing alike at all.
Yes I know the history of the western games with 450,000 to 500,000 max EQ subs but EQ DID pull concepts from Nexus and Lineage. Or did those features just magically appear from OTHER western games? No they did not. Ask Brad? He is on here all the time and used to be in our Lineage guild. Know the REAL facts before you just formulate opinions from posts without full contexts
Dungeons and Dragons has been around since 1974
as i mentioned, EQ was developed since 1996 - before Lineage existed
i linked an interview where Mayong Mistmoore came from: Brad's character in a D&D campaign
As an Asian. I can say with all seriousness and trying to not be bias that Lineage deserves a spot on this list way before EQ does. We are talking about the Most Important
I understand that Lineage was NetHack with an MMO shell at first! but it was so much more once it grew. Grow it did! Into one of the most played video games of all time. Even over EQ. When it launched in Taiwan in 2000 in gained an additional 200,000 subscribers. Just from Taiwan!
I understand that westerners think EQ started this whole MMO craze but that really is only true in the USA. Lineage introduced things before EQ did. Castle Sieges, Classes, XP, Quests, Monster Killing, Character Alignment which had an affect on gameplay. PVP (which was a HUGE factor)
Plus came out a year sooner than Everquest.
Everquest was the biggest MMO played then but only in the USA NOT the world. Lineage drew in players from all around the world. Introduced things EQ used for their game.
Nexus, Lineage and Lineage II helped create NCSoft.
Lineage was released in the USA, China, and Japan as well as South Korea (of course) It was a HUGE Success.Plus Taiwan 3 years later to monster numbers. In fact the numbers were larger than Everquest by HUGE numbers. It may have been super popular, EQ meaning, but most important? Only in America. Which is fine! No issue with that. AT ALL. but list of most important I am not sure really what it brought to the table to warrant inclusion. Nexus, the precursor to Lineage (Jake Song on both games) should have had a mention at least, It was a MASSIVE hit with a million subs! It even predates Meridian 59 (though Meridian 59 was 3D)
FFXI deserves a place for being....well..FF on PC and console. I thought Honestly that Phantasy Star Online should have been on the list. It was a huge hit and the first console MMO that was done right. (THAT to me is important enough.) DAoC I think not so much for the list. I agree with that not being listed. Great game? Yes. One of the Most Important? No. Sieges were already being done years before in Lineage.
Thank you! Westerners are so entitled sometimes. Fact is games from overseas are vastly more popular and make more money and have more players than games in the West. Always have and always will.
That list is a tough sell for a Western MMO fan audience... EQ, Asheron's Call, DAoC and SWG are the roots of Western MMO development missing from this list.
Eastern MMOs with their huge weapons, soft-core hentai, inflated damage and stat numbers, downright goofy stories and bizarre angry vegetables shouldn't even be considered, for any purpose, with their Western counterparts. And yes, I am a biased Western MMO player: I like my heroes a bit more mature and not wearing schoolgirl uniforms.
The markets are different enough that, if for unknown reason you want to have a global MMO discussion, you'd be much better off making 2 lists and giving some mention to the very few that managed to successfully crossover... WOW and FF are about the only two that managed that and I'm still not seeing a lot of FF "clones" developed in the West.
There are even relatively crappy MMOs that crashed and burned that have had a much more significant influence in Western MMO development: Warhammenr Online, let's not forget, started the whole Achievement craze as well as "dynamic events" that many Western MMOs subsequently incorporated
From what I can see, western MMOs are influenced by previous Western MMOs and likewise with Eastern ones influencing that market. Heck, even Western FPS games influence Western MMO development to a far greater extent than Eastern MMOs do.
Like I said, two separate lists is much more appropriate. The global MMO market is of interest to financiers and other money people. Your audience here is primarily Western gamers with Western tastes.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The (East/West) markets are different enough that, if for unknown reason you want to have a global MMO discussion, you'd be much better off making 2 lists and giving some mention to the very few that managed to successfully crossover... WOW and FF are about the only two that managed that and I'm still not seeing a lot of FF "clones" developed in the West.
..
From what I can see, western MMOs are influenced by previous Western MMOs and likewise with Eastern ones influencing that market. Heck, even Western FPS games influence Western MMO development to a far greater extent than Eastern MMOs do.
Comments
1. UO
2. EQ
3. DAOC
4. SWG
5. WoW
Without any of the previous four WoW would not be what it is today. Yes, it would have succeeded, but not near as well without the other genre changing games to show it how. Now, we see a slow death of these classic MMO's, all of them, and shallow games being released yearly. At least some of these are still around to enjoy from time to time.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Well I have to agree with Richard, the Korean and Chinese entries were very important to the market. Just because you did not play them, they had a significant playerbase.
Final Fantasy XI had nothing earth shattering about it and was more a niche game than anything.
Somehow you have to include EQ, DAoC and SWG. They were all very significant. Each introduced major new concepts to the genre, which Final Fantasy XI did not.
As has been repeated many times above, not including Everquest in this list is inexcusable. Like WoW, EQ cast a huge shadow over the online gaming industry for a while. It was the first game that people outside of gaming had ever heard about. It was the first game to "go public". Before that MMORPGs were the purview of early denizens of the internet. Games like DAoC were produced as Anti-EQ games and people talked about games being "EQ killers". Before WoW this game was the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it introduced many things that most of us take for granted in our online gaming (level based advancement, anyone?). Whether games that came out later copied or rejected the base principles of EQ, they were influenced by it, just as games that come out now-a-days are influenced by either copying or rejecting the WoW model. Even people that didn't game knew about EQ.
Were DAoC and SWG good? Yes. Were they groundbreaking? The data seem to suggest that they weren't. As noted above no one seems to be in a hurry to copy those games, so their influence is limited. In the end I'm not sure these games would pass the "Star Test", meaning that even people who don't game would know of these games. You ask the average person who doesn't game what EQ or WoW is and they'll know. Ask them what DAoC or SWG was and they'll go "What?"
After that I can see the logic behind the rest of the picks. I'd probably drop the fourth choice in favor of EQ.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Except it had more subscriptions than EQ, and for a far longer period of time.
Group oriented content, skillchains, amazing story, cross platform.
Nope nothing there......
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
I would say UO and EQ are the most important MMORPGs as they both pushed mmorpgs into the mainstream.. well in the west anyway. At the time nothing else was realyl every mentioned... maybe AC as well but anythnig after that took ideas from those games.
Odd asian games never really took hold in the west and still find it hard to do so to this day.. but its no surprise they had higher sub numbers due to the population numbers in asia..
Lineage was huge in the East but did very poorly in West (less than 10,000 US subs)
Ncsoft financials: Detailed L1 subs from Q1 2004 thru Q1 2006 BY REGION
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/misc/q12006-lineage.gif
in the same way, EQ was huge in the West but did poorly in the East
SOE launched EQ china in 2002 but it never had success
EQ was in development since 1996 and was not influenced by Lineage
EQ was primarily influenced by Diku MUD and Dungeons and Dragons
http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=17392
early EQ required casters to sit and stare at their spell books when regaining mana
EQ2 fan sites
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
That is complete nonsense. Might have had more subs than Ultima, but not even close with EQ. I had some friends who played it and I tried it with them. It never had much of a following and the servers never had anything close to full ever. My friends were constantly trying to recruit people to play. Besides the cross platform, the game offered nothing new at all, except a lot of grinding. Asheron's Call was a better game with skill chains. As to lore, it was not any better than any other of the genre at that time.
Final Fantasy XI was a MMO backwater, that really never had any success beyond the small niche of players it had.
As to EQ pulling from Linage, that has to be the most ridiculous assertion I have seen on this forum lately. The games are nothing alike at all.
Dungeons and Dragons has been around since 1974
as i mentioned, EQ was developed since 1996 - before Lineage existed
i linked an interview where Mayong Mistmoore came from: Brad's character in a D&D campaign
http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=17392
EQ2 fan sites
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
i've seen a few games mentioned as inspiration for EQ -- never lineage
you have a sourced quote for your claim?
EQ2 fan sites
Thank you! Westerners are so entitled sometimes. Fact is games from overseas are vastly more popular and make more money and have more players than games in the West. Always have and always will.
Smile
That list is a tough sell for a Western MMO fan audience... EQ, Asheron's Call, DAoC and SWG are the roots of Western MMO development missing from this list.
Eastern MMOs with their huge weapons, soft-core hentai, inflated damage and stat numbers, downright goofy stories and bizarre angry vegetables shouldn't even be considered, for any purpose, with their Western counterparts. And yes, I am a biased Western MMO player: I like my heroes a bit more mature and not wearing schoolgirl uniforms.
The markets are different enough that, if for unknown reason you want to have a global MMO discussion, you'd be much better off making 2 lists and giving some mention to the very few that managed to successfully crossover... WOW and FF are about the only two that managed that and I'm still not seeing a lot of FF "clones" developed in the West.
There are even relatively crappy MMOs that crashed and burned that have had a much more significant influence in Western MMO development: Warhammenr Online, let's not forget, started the whole Achievement craze as well as "dynamic events" that many Western MMOs subsequently incorporated
From what I can see, western MMOs are influenced by previous Western MMOs and likewise with Eastern ones influencing that market. Heck, even Western FPS games influence Western MMO development to a far greater extent than Eastern MMOs do.
Like I said, two separate lists is much more appropriate. The global MMO market is of interest to financiers and other money people. Your audience here is primarily Western gamers with Western tastes.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
i agree - great points
EQ2 fan sites