Phoenix Jones
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Posted - 2006.03.03 02:23:00 -
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Well a little review into MMORPG history (this isn't a accurate assessment).
The first real MMORPG games that sucked people in was the Major 3. Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call. Lineage was also up there with a quoted Substantially Larger Subscription Base, but was mostly focused on the asian markets.
Ultima Was first (before that, MUDS which are text based online adventure games). Somewhat diabloesk with its 2d graphics, was a bit addiction to people.
The game that really set the whole MMORPG craze off was Everquest. Seemingly came out of NOWHERE, it slowely gained fan support as one of the first Fully 3D mmorpg online games with a persistent world. This game was the first game for alot of people because it truely brought a sense of community to everybody who played it. The main reason it did was because the player had a real avatar (a 3d model representation of themselves), which had basic social skills, and the such.
It was really the first game that would allow a person to Cross the entire continent, to go say hello to someone. Now they didn't have to actually do ANYTHING with them... but merely go over and "wave" at them. It had a real nitch of reality in it and cause of its social based gameplay, took off as the worlds first and leading MMORPG game. From Everquest's Game Model (which was not entirely their own), many other games spawned to try to grab a piece of the MMORPG Pie.
Asheron's Call came next. A step up in graphics from Ultima (AC was in 3d), but modeling and the actual look of the game was a little dated when compared to EQ. Similar to Everquest and in someways better, someways worse. AC still promoted the Socialization aspect of the MMORPG ideal.
From Ultima Online, Everquest and AC, spawned other games like Dark Age of Camelot (which became the main competator with Everquest). Now the main fight between DAOC and EQ was, who would come out with mountable Horses First (as silly as that was, mounts in Fantasy games are greatly wanted).
Another MMORPG game that showed Amazing Potential but Fell WHOLELY Short is a game called Horizons. Now the real interesting Tidbits about the game Horizons was not the actual game, but the development team and the timeline at which Events happened. Their whole Nitch was to create the first Player Controlled Dragons ( IE. the player could be a dragon). Now they succeeded at this, but not without Massive conflict between the CEO and the rest of the Development team which finally ended with the actual overthrow (removal) of the actual creator (author) of the game.
As Newer games spawned, the first real MMORPG spacegame was developed, Earth and Beyond. I managed to play E&B for a time in its short existence and there were quite a few idea's from that game which I believe Eve could partake in (such as flying formations). That games development was haulted due to internal issues with their Support firm (Basically, the company Fired Everybody Developing the Game, and moved the Content Team to the Development of another MMORPG, Ultima X, which was abandoned soon after development). Earth and Beyond was shutdown 1 1/2 years ago and many of its inhabitants moved into the Eve Universe (to which CCP developers offered open arms to those wanting to be a Space Cowboy).
Between Everquests indoctrine and present day, around 100 MMORPG's have been or Are in Development at this time. The Present MegaGiant World of Warcraft Leads the Pack. THis is mainly due not to the complexity of the game, but the reputation of the Development Company Blizzard Entertainment, which takes anywhere from 3 to 7 years to develop a game, but each game has come out to be a blockbuster hit (Games such as Lost Vikings, Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft). Recently WOW has stepped into the MMORPG market and truely banked on thier reputation and their idea's to carve out a piece (a very large piece) of the MMORPG market.
Just a little trip down memory lane
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