EQ and UO were Top games Pre-WoW.. SWG should not be there in the first place.. If you would have search the net for MMO back then 2 games would have pop instantly EQ and UO yet EQ was cheaper then UO. Which is why I played EQ.. I search a lot.. Runescape was a browser game.. it would not fall into those categories where you had to download a client and play. Now a days people classify browser games as part of the mmo but back them they weren't.
Why SWG should not be there it was popular but you are already referencing EQ which is its predecessor.. SONY did not get the license just cause they are SONY they got it cause they ran EQ very successfully prior to the disaster they did after Lost Dungeons of Norrath.. The game went some what dead after Gates of Discords.. and went down the drain when they release EQ2..
I heard of DAoC and Asheron Call but they did not pop as UO and EQ did..
WIsh that all those claiming pvp and what not making drama over it.. play EQ Zek servers under the rule sets of the time see how your opiumness shines lol.. Some of those who claim wow was the best and made this and that most who play EQ and UO know that you guys could not cut it and most quit after level 10. EQ quiting levels were between 10 and 20. If you made to 10 all easy contents was over...20 was the deal breaker cause some classes did allow you to solo to 20.. but 20+ you need groups and no one would pick you from LFG after bad rep lol.. There was no need for parsers or any third party tools to know if the avatar was bought on ebay auction or any other blackpurchase lol.. You had to know what to use and how to use it.. and be able to last the fight with a single mana bar.. LOL no xp, mana, hp pots or cash shops lol.. good old meditation to bring mana/hp back up for another fight lol..
I'd add Anarchy Online for its - infamous as we see it today - invention of "free to play MMO".
At least to my knowledge that was first mmo that did it back in 2004 or so.
And also - luckily that did not stay - real life adds on in-game billboards if you play for free.
Anarchy Online was also the first MMO to use instanced dungeons. While every other game had dungeons that anyone could access at any time, AO would generate a dungeon that was unique to a player or team and only they could access it.
I also loved the fact that it went full-blown sci-fi while every other MMO at the time was using the tried and true (if not boring) fantasy setting. I loved that game and played it for years before finally moving on.
Not really ludicruos it was a reality .. if you did not have a good computer EQ would not run most EQ server were run at max capacity. The lag was a constant and worse deadly killer.. it kill raids made you loose your corpse.. had to go to zone ask for necro or bard to find it.. pay donations to find it. Those with out a good pc suffer those with good pc and bad connection suffer.. The amount of bandwith between game and client was heavy.. So if you take into consideration that most who play EQ were tech's and future generations that became techs.. If you had a lag problem guildies would help out to lower your lag and bottom line EQ had an immense player base.. and most had to deal with tech problems to be able to enjoy the game else suffer to lag.. Back then pc tech support was not as friendly as they are today LOL..
You could say that about ANY online game at the time. Everquest, hell the MMORPG genre at that time was niche behind FPS and RTS games for online gaming which suffered just the same.
It's such a ridiculous statement. I could even argue that the reason we have better computers and internet is because of online pornography. Do you remember how bad that was in the late 90s?
It's always so weird to me that basically no one ever mention Ragnarok in these kind of discussions anywhere, it is so unpopular in NA/EU...
Ragnarok will always be my favorite MMO (back in the old days, now it's trash). When everyone is talking about how magic was EQ or vanilla WoW, I always think about RO, nothing will ever come close IMO, till this day there is no build set in stone for most classes in RO, you could do useful subtle changes and still be optimal/competitive, there was so much variety.
Best BGM ever, maybe it's just nostalgia but I think RO OST is just awesome.
I don't know ANYONE who played that game for a considerable time and don't hold good memories from RO.
You could even argue that one of the reasons we have better Internet and computers is because of EverQuest
Is probably the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard.
This i can agree with.
You had to be there to know why that comment make sense.. is Just like saying AOL open the door to unlimited and better internet.. yet you had to be there that when it happen AOL could not handle it and most people had to wait long long times and had to come up with tricks just to stay online.. Yet they were the one who open the door for it to happen since before then internet login was hourly and very expensive..
Wtf are you going on about lol I played EQ from 99 to 2004 on dial up. Don't lecture me on the lag or how long it took to zone.
Don't tell me how bad the Nexus was when they bought Luclin out.
not everything can make the list but anarchy online deserves a mention though.
3 of 5 on list still functional.other 2 do exist but only as emulators.
only one ,everquest is still with its original makers even though they have had several name changes but same studio.
though with what been happening lately with daybreak games i wish everquest would go third party to broadsword as DAoC and UO has.
I think Planetside 1 needs to be up there. I know most people wouldn't see it as a typical RPG but I would say it is. With the cert system and how originally they could only be changed once every 24 hours, you were really pushed to create a class of your own that you could master.
1. SWG
2. DAoC
3. PSO on my dreamcast
4. Ragnarok Online
5. Everquest
5. Anarchy Online
Shadowbane ran like crap on my pc (was in the beta) so never picked up that title. WIth that, I miss the golden days of SWG the most.
Shadowbane ran like crap on most of our computers. We fought SBEXE errors almost as much as we fought the enemy. Many of us still loved the crap out of it, though.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
As far as prior to the anomaly that is WoW, I'd go with that list for the impact they made on the genre. 1) EQ 2) Ragnarok Online 3) Ultima Online 4) DAoC 5) Lineage I/II
There's certainly games I preferred to play more, and ones like Asheron's Call that I loved alongside SWG and Planetside. However I don't feel like these titles, even though I liked them would cut it for a list of top titles because they have considerably less of an impact on the genre as a whole. Some of them certainly have a legacy in many people's minds, but I can't say I've really seen other titles try to really retread the strong elements of SWG or the mechanics of AC, etc.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Meridian 59 really started the MMO thing, when it released there were just MUDs and it invented a lot of features modern MMO still uses. Of course it suffers when you compare it with games 7 years newer (M59 launched in '96) but for it's time it was a great game and I am not so sure EQ would have been the same game without it.
Lineage even now have 3 million subscribers, it was a great game for it's time and it had and still have more players then all the games on Garrets list put together.
And I feel that Asherons call also would deserve a number on the list, it was a rather interesting game.
Techncally AOL's Neverwinter Nights was a graphical MMO launched in 1991.
Not the later Bioware NWN, but the original MMO on AOL that used the "Gold Box" systems and rule set. 50 players per server was pretty massive for 1991, and it was eventually upped to 500.
I don't think Lineage was translated to English until about the time Wow released. EQ2 released a week or two before wow hence at the same time and it too was a buggy mess for the first year. Anarchy Online was such a buggy mess for the first few years, most just gave up on it, Shadowbane was also a buggy mess, liked the game, but just found it too unplayable to enjoy it. I think it was the unending bugs that eventually killed Shadowbane. SWG was quite buggy for the first year, but they got it working decently after that.
So I would replace Shadowbane on your list with Asheron's Call.
Till this day i never played Everquest 1 (doubt i will now) because DAOC, SWG, and City of Hero's were in the way, oh and Legend of Mir 2 must get a mention of also taking me away to these far off lands. But somebody laughed about the comment about "improvement of internet thanks to everquest", how many disconnections did we always have back then playing these games? especially when (always happened) when in a dungeon, got kicked out of game , logged back in... and back in the city!! or dead. Damn, the amount of keyboards i used to go through.
I don't think Lineage was translated to English until about the time Wow released. EQ2 released a week or two before wow hence at the same time and it too was a buggy mess for the first year. Anarchy Online was such a buggy mess for the first few years, most just gave up on it, Shadowbane was also a buggy mess, liked the game, but just found it too unplayable to enjoy it. I think it was the unending bugs that eventually killed Shadowbane. SWG was quite buggy for the first year, but they got it working decently after that.
So I would replace Shadowbane on your list with Asheron's Call.
Lineage had a worldwide release in 1998. Lineage 2(NA) which you might be thinking of released half a year or more before WoW did.
Lineage is without a doubt the most successful MMO from the 1990s and likely second most successful MMO of all time.
This topic in particular is about someones personal list, so it doesn't surprise me Lineage isn't on it. However when lists say Best MMOs of all time and they almost never include anything outside the west, it really bugs me. Because how those should really read is, Best MMOs in the west.
Actually most sources agree the US launch of Lineage the Bloodpledge was Oct. 24th, 2001.
I played it for about 6 months in early 2002 before moving on to DAOC for the next few years.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't think Lineage was translated to English until about the time Wow released. EQ2 released a week or two before wow hence at the same time and it too was a buggy mess for the first year. Anarchy Online was such a buggy mess for the first few years, most just gave up on it, Shadowbane was also a buggy mess, liked the game, but just found it too unplayable to enjoy it. I think it was the unending bugs that eventually killed Shadowbane. SWG was quite buggy for the first year, but they got it working decently after that.
So I would replace Shadowbane on your list with Asheron's Call.
Lineage had a worldwide release in 1998. Lineage 2(NA) which you might be thinking of released half a year or more before WoW did.
Lineage is without a doubt the most successful MMO from the 1990s and likely second most successful MMO of all time.
This topic in particular is about someones personal list, so it doesn't surprise me Lineage isn't on it. However when lists say Best MMOs of all time and they almost never include anything outside the west, it really bugs me. Because how those should really read is, Best MMOs in the west.
While Lineage was popular in Asia, it completely failed in the western market. Yes, he is obviously talking about the western market since unless you are conversant in Korean or Chinese, eastern games are almost unplayable in the west.
I would also agree that FFXI should of been on this list somewhere.
Not to say the list is bad. But personally I played FFXI from launch until SE forced me out when they changed the core concept of endgame with Abysea. That game was at least until abysea a game where you could literally play it endlessly, it was polished, it had a strong economy, very strong community, even after nearly 20,000 hrs put into the game over the years it never ran out of stuff that was worth doing once, something very few other mmos pulled off especially in todays era. Even WoW with its massive success in Burning Legion and such FFXI was still going strong at 500k+ active subs, where all other mmos were tanking in sub numbers.
EQ was the father of FFXI, but at least in my opinion FFXI surpassed EQ. I would put FFXI #1 on my list, EQ #2, probably SW #3
Comments
EQ and UO were Top games Pre-WoW.. SWG should not be there in the first place.. If you would have search the net for MMO back then 2 games would have pop instantly EQ and UO yet EQ was cheaper then UO. Which is why I played EQ.. I search a lot.. Runescape was a browser game.. it would not fall into those categories where you had to download a client and play. Now a days people classify browser games as part of the mmo but back them they weren't.
Why SWG should not be there it was popular but you are already referencing EQ which is its predecessor.. SONY did not get the license just cause they are SONY they got it cause they ran EQ very successfully prior to the disaster they did after Lost Dungeons of Norrath.. The game went some what dead after Gates of Discords.. and went down the drain when they release EQ2..
I heard of DAoC and Asheron Call but they did not pop as UO and EQ did..
WIsh that all those claiming pvp and what not making drama over it.. play EQ Zek servers under the rule sets of the time see how your opiumness shines lol.. Some of those who claim wow was the best and made this and that most who play EQ and UO know that you guys could not cut it and most quit after level 10. EQ quiting levels were between 10 and 20. If you made to 10 all easy contents was over...20 was the deal breaker cause some classes did allow you to solo to 20.. but 20+ you need groups and no one would pick you from LFG after bad rep lol.. There was no need for parsers or any third party tools to know if the avatar was bought on ebay auction or any other blackpurchase lol.. You had to know what to use and how to use it.. and be able to last the fight with a single mana bar.. LOL no xp, mana, hp pots or cash shops lol.. good old meditation to bring mana/hp back up for another fight lol..
Anarchy Online was also the first MMO to use instanced dungeons. While every other game had dungeons that anyone could access at any time, AO would generate a dungeon that was unique to a player or team and only they could access it.
I also loved the fact that it went full-blown sci-fi while every other MMO at the time was using the tried and true (if not boring) fantasy setting. I loved that game and played it for years before finally moving on.
I just needed something to round out my list. A list of 4 seems wrong, and anything else out pre-wow wouldn't make my list.
Ironically, I made more friends via PSO back in the day than I did AC1.
It's such a ridiculous statement. I could even argue that the reason we have better computers and internet is because of online pornography. Do you remember how bad that was in the late 90s?
Ragnarok will always be my favorite MMO (back in the old days, now it's trash). When everyone is talking about how magic was EQ or vanilla WoW, I always think about RO, nothing will ever come close IMO, till this day there is no build set in stone for most classes in RO, you could do useful subtle changes and still be optimal/competitive, there was so much variety.
Best BGM ever, maybe it's just nostalgia but I think RO OST is just awesome.
I don't know ANYONE who played that game for a considerable time and don't hold good memories from RO.
Wtf are you going on about lol I played EQ from 99 to 2004 on dial up. Don't lecture me on the lag or how long it took to zone.
Don't tell me how bad the Nexus was when they bought Luclin out.
It's still a dumb comment.
3 of 5 on list still functional.other 2 do exist but only as emulators.
only one ,everquest is still with its original makers even though they have had several name changes but same studio.
though with what been happening lately with daybreak games i wish everquest would go third party to broadsword as DAoC and UO has.
4) anarchy online,
3) neocron or planetside 1,
2) galaxies and
1) daoc ... ofc
and for the record, a MUD is a MUD and a MMO is a MMO. maybe that's why we called em MUDs and MMOs, and not only MMOs. MUDs were NO MMOs.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Definitely #1 MMOFPS!
Good list too. Played them all except UO and Shadowbane.
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
1. SWG
2. DAoC
3. PSO on my dreamcast
4. Ragnarok Online
5. Everquest
5. Anarchy Online
Shadowbane ran like crap on my pc (was in the beta) so never picked up that title. WIth that, I miss the golden days of SWG the most.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
2) Anarchy Online
3) City Of Heroes
4) FFXI
5) Dark Age of Camelot
1) EQ
2) Ragnarok Online
3) Ultima Online
4) DAoC
5) Lineage I/II
There's certainly games I preferred to play more, and ones like Asheron's Call that I loved alongside SWG and Planetside. However I don't feel like these titles, even though I liked them would cut it for a list of top titles because they have considerably less of an impact on the genre as a whole. Some of them certainly have a legacy in many people's minds, but I can't say I've really seen other titles try to really retread the strong elements of SWG or the mechanics of AC, etc.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Techncally AOL's Neverwinter Nights was a graphical MMO launched in 1991.
Not the later Bioware NWN, but the original MMO on AOL that used the "Gold Box" systems and rule set. 50 players per server was pretty massive for 1991, and it was eventually upped to 500.
http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)
( Note to self-Don't say anything bad about Drizzt.)
An acerbic sense of humor is NOT allowed here.
1. DAOC
2. EQ
3. AC
4. SWG
5. UO ( EQ quickly replaced it on my hard drive)
So I would replace Shadowbane on your list with Asheron's Call.
I played it for about 6 months in early 2002 before moving on to DAOC for the next few years.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Not to say the list is bad. But personally I played FFXI from launch until SE forced me out when they changed the core concept of endgame with Abysea. That game was at least until abysea a game where you could literally play it endlessly, it was polished, it had a strong economy, very strong community, even after nearly 20,000 hrs put into the game over the years it never ran out of stuff that was worth doing once, something very few other mmos pulled off especially in todays era. Even WoW with its massive success in Burning Legion and such FFXI was still going strong at 500k+ active subs, where all other mmos were tanking in sub numbers.
EQ was the father of FFXI, but at least in my opinion FFXI surpassed EQ. I would put FFXI #1 on my list, EQ #2, probably SW #3