Whether your first MMORPG was Ultima Online, EverQuest, Vanguard, or even World of Warcraft, it is difficult to replicate the magic of your first love. Which game solidified your fandom in MMORPGs? There are so many that some of us have played (can I count my secret passion for Sims Online?), but which are YOUR standouts? Share and let us know!
Savanja said:Whether your first MMORPG was Ultima Online, EverQuest, Vanguard, or even World of Warcraft, it is difficult to replicate the magic of your first love. Which game solidified your fandom in MMORPGs? There are so many that some of us have played (can I count my secret passion for Sims Online?), but which are YOUR standouts? Share and let us know!
I did start in Ultima Online and while that was fun the isometric view was never immersive. I never felt like I was in the game. Not until EQ did I finally get that feeling and ever since then I prefer playing nearly exclusively in first person. So EQ1 really started my love of the MMO genre.
The one with many good memories from the older days is Dark Age of Camelot. It was my first serious MMO or MUD though I had dabbled in Asheron's Call, The Realm and Yserbius. I had been very much a single-player game specialist (all the Wizardry games, all the Might and Magic games and many others going back to the first CRPGs commercially sold - Temple of Apshai and one whose name I forget) and reluctant to try any multi-player games. Chosing AC over Everquest was clearly a mistake and then I went to DAOC because I had read so many books set in the King Arthur mythos. Just as I played LOTRO and Conan because I was so familiar with the lore.
I played pretty much every RPG I could get my hands on. The first time I ever stayed up all night was because I got completely immersed in Might and Magic 3 on Sega Genesis (this wasn't the first one I played, just the first one I stayed up all night playing lol). I have always held character development in a game as the standard, so any game I could play (typically RPGs at the time) that let me save my character and continue to progress had my attention.
When it came to MMORPG's EQ was the first one that blew the others out of the water. I could spend endless hours in this world and my character was mine...it was like the best of all the other RPG's I had played AND MORE. There was no "game over" when you beat the game, you could just keep going! And being able to play it with thousands of other people was icing on the cake.
EverQuest was my first true love in the MMORPG world. I had tried Ultima, but it just didn't resonate with me. When I tried EQ (at the launch of the first expansion (Ruins of Kunark), I absolutely fell in love immediately. I spent countless hours leveling, exploring, and chatting with folks while we all waited for health or mana to regen, haha.
I first got a taste of MMORPG's by playing on text based MUDs (Multi User Dungeon/Dimension/Domain) and in particular gravitated to the MOO (MUD-object-oriented) category of MUD which allowed players to actually program in their own objects within the game. So players could create their own Rooms and objects to be in that room that others could then interact with and such.
One such MOO was created to simulate the Pern universe from the Dragon Riders of Pern books by Anne McCaffery.
I really enjoyed playing on that one and we were able to code in actual Fire Lizards and Dragons as objects which could then lay eggs and we could have full on Hatching Ceremonies where players could roleplay attempting to 'Impress' a newly hatched Fire Lizard or Dragon. Once one of these Fire Lizards or Dragons were Linked to you as the Object Owner, you could then control it the same way you controlled your own character, having it move around rooms and such and pick up other objects etc... Was great fun. No real combat in that Server and was strictly a roleplay MUD/MOO but I spent a lot of time meeting people and pretending I was a resident of a 'Hold' on Pern :-)
The origional Pern MOO server evolved into PernMUSH (Multi-User Shared Hallucination) which is yet another sub type of MUD that also allows Object creation but uses a different/newer code type. It ran from 1991 until 2014... so sadly you can't check it out anymore.
Later on I did play a bit of Ultima Online, but my computer at the time was an Apple which couldn't play it of course, so I spent most of my time at my friends place watching him play. Then of course came Everquest which motivated me to beg my parents for a non Apple PC so I could play it. I had first been playing on my friends computer and account, but after a few weeks my Dad caved and got us a new PC and I got my own EQ account and had to restart my character and catch up to my friend... the rest as they say is history.
Before I bothered with MMOs it was the glory days of LAN parties and lugging around CRT monitors and everything else required. I remember one of my IRL adventuring buddies playing EQ with one of the LAN party bros and him relating a story of getting incessantly told to Taunt TAunt TAUNT! I would give him a hard time for camping in a game when we could just head out into the Cascades.
I do not recall the exact year my wife and I finally rolled up some Vah Shir and stared down the MMO path. I would often ask her to type for me in party chat as I played a Bard, heh. To this day I detest PoE because the damn drums never-ever dropped >.<
The most memories were in vanilla WoW in which we had two accounts each (coming from EQ, I at times would run a full party by myself).
We did the raiding thing of course having been affiliated with TSF (the small guild we were actually in was Tribe) on the EQ Test Server and then with some people that moved over to WoW. I would never recommend 8hrs of twisting in VT to anyone...
As for WoW, PvP sucked us in and my wife loved smashing people with Windfury and a 2h hammer, while I would one-shot clothies on my hunter.
Currently, she enjoys ESO the most due to the housing and she is an officer with The Dragon Lair.
I still bounce around between a number of MMOs (not EQ) and do not consider any of them my favorite.
p.s. damn the Red Star and Thread!
My first MMO was Ultima Online, too. This was long ago, it felt like it was in a different life. But the most beautiful memories of UO I have is when I was adventuring alongside my guild. Later, there was Runes of Magic which fills the hole in my heart that left UO.
The one I'm missing most is Tabula Rasa. May it rest in peace!
I began with MUDs, then moved on to Ultima Online for a time. I also dabbled in EverQuest, Asheron's Call, and Star Wars Galaxies, but nothing really took my time the way World of Warcraft did between 2004-2008. In spite of that, I still consider UO to be my favorite, if I had to pick one, because it still stands to me as the first and best sandbox experience.
In the year 2000 I was doing well financially and so for Christmas I went to pawn shops and bought myself 3 used gaming consoles + games. One from each of the big names on the market. A few months later I bought my first computer. Weeks after that I stood in a Best Buy with a copy of EQ in one hand and a copy of Asheron's Call in the other. After a long time pondering I bought AC and life was never the same. I don't think I ever turned on one of the consoles again.
What really got me hooked - beyond the magic of a virtual world - was that in my first few hours, several players helped me out with buffs and giving me gear. I'd never been in any community where complete strangers were so kind, friendly and generous. I was hooked for the next 10-15 years.
As many people, I dabbed a little bit in muds when no graphics computer existed... and then later on discovered EQ and was instantly hooked. I played for too long, too many hours, casually and then in a top raiding guild. I only ever played an ogress Shadowknight named BeautyQueen. She was so cute with green hair and a lovely bone as top knot. I think she was level 40 or so when I finally met a GM that made me change my name because BeautyQueen was against the naming rules... what naming rules? I had two minutes to change her name to Grobobos (which in french translates to something like Big hurting), with her surname which was Doucemamel (which translates pretty directly to sweet/soft utter. What can I say. I was always the romantic kind).
A lot of memories in EQ.. The first when you are a small ogress in Feerrott and you meet this guy with shiny armor. The first time when you actually see other people and realise that you are actually big. I mean, when I started the game, I didn't realise that ogrrras where so tall and big compared to others races. The first time I went to Innothule swamp. The first dragon raids as invited guest. Just seeing 50 or 80 people preparing for hours before going all in... All the plane raids with all the break ins in Plane of Fear, the wipes, ... the plane of time raids where I really was starting my HL guild life.
And then my sweet little ogress married a hobbit. Yeah, I know, you shouldn't mix love of food with love in food... but what can I say. He was such a sweet little hubby.
After I finally got engaged and got kids, I stopped MMOs. I tried SWG, Vanguard, and some others more recently but I get bored pretty rapidly, I must admit. Most importantly, I haven't found any real community in those games. We'll see how it goes with Pantheon, but the group centric play is what I look for.
I've played a lot of MMORPGs and when I worked on a community site making content, I hit some of them pretty hard. My first was UO. EQ busted open a whole new world for me in the way of immersive gaming. EQ2 was my biggest love. I don't play as much as I used to, but I am so looking forward to playing Pantheon with everyone.
Everquest was my favorite nostalgic gaming. Starting out as a weak nobody in a world without hand holding was so much fun.
You struggled to progress in a deadly world which drove us to work together.
Class identity was fantastic and while the ranger memes were there begging for a bit more balance, they mostly felt capable enough while leveling.
Races were full of flavor and had powerful differences instead of skins with exactly the same stats for everyone and 1-2 minor alterations. The giant strong race can neither be strong nor hearty.
Magic items were actually rare. Instead of items every 20 mins you had items every 20 levels. It was great.
Bartering and trading in person was both horrible and memorable. It really gave the feel of happening upon the upgrade. Many players would actually play as merchants for hours a day. Even the NPCs were great because you could buy what other players would sell. It was a simple mechanic that made the world feel lived in.
Time has of course ruined everything I used to love about EQ.
The struggle was removed.
Class identity was leveled out on more and more things. Class abilities are now just clickies so everyone is equal all the time.
Races are once again skins because stats get maxed with trash drops.
Magic items are everywhere and super powerful.
Bartering is void of human interaction, but with all these OP magic items who needs it?
Tigersin said:all I do now days is think about it and play D&D.
You gotta branch out to other table top systems. So many great ideas out there in the ttrpg world that completely trounces the d20 everything idea of D&D. EQ was largely inspired from the AD&D based MUDs but now we have so many amazing tabletops to take inspiration from. MMOs need to go back to the TTRPG inspiration of less is more. So you played the game for 6 years totalling 900 hours and you only had 4 different weapons? No no, I also had throwing knives...
1) Tibia - my first MMO and the one I played with my mates from school and talked about at the school breaks - good times!
2) Fly for Fun aka Flyff - not the best of MMOs but the people I got to play it with at the time absolutely made up for all flaws of the game
3) Lineage 2 - Good MMORPG all around, played with decent folks on private server
4) DDO - Amazing game - unfortunately I didn't have anyone to play with
There were many more but nothing that kept me for too long (usually around 2 weeks)
Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to play EQ, EQ2, Vanguard or Ultima Online that most of people here are constantly talking about T.T
I am really sad no one has talked about the open world system in Eve for nostalgia. It was another thrown into a deep end MMO full of memories. We say the world feels lived in, but in Eve that felt more true than any other MMO.
Eve created the best MMO universe in terms of player impact on the world. Trusted friends were more valuable than all the credits you could farm. Even if you simply decided to go solo questing the Eve "instance" created wasn't private. You and your friends could be doing a big pve quest fight against NPC pirates only to have other players drop in. Sometimes they were enemies sometimes they were simply miners looking for rare minerals created for your quest. Sometimes they would be allies saying they are hunting a pirate in the zone and they wanted to warn you to keep an eye out for x player, a pirate they are hunting down. I played for years and still can't tell you the specifics on things like crafting.
The scope and specializations of the world was fantastic. No single player could do it all at the same time. If you wanted to go mining you didn't go out in your tough battle ship you would go in an unarmed mining ship. You would be a vulnerable but a highly effective miner. That vulnerability pushed players to work together and painted a target on your back for other players to work against you. That motivation to group is important to the game world. Everything had pros and cons for balance. Just as in real life, the further away you are the less your weapons need to adjust their aim. Thus sniping is a little used style but can be highly effective in ideal circumstances and only in those ideal circumstances. Honestly even though my nostalgia is centered on combat, the PVE mining operation is a marvel of a game system. The world was simply so great due to its complexity. It is a shame no MMO aims for complexity and interdependence any more.
Specific nostalgia:
I once helped defend a large mining operation my guild was doing. Compared to every other MMO, Eve large gets complicated. We had of course mostly people mining, a few people guarding, one local transport to hold mountains of ore so the miners could just mine forever and one active transport to move ore back to a safe station so the risk is never too high. At this point it was more of a chat room making tons of in game currency to split between the players. The slow paced social aspect of MMOs lost to time. Teaching the newer players in their small mining ships what to look for and how to work in a convoy for speedy money making. We are interrupted by enemy players warping in. The vulnerable unarmed mining ships flee as they were told to do. The enemies locked the ore carrier down preventing it from leaving. The smaller defensive force was outmanned but not drastically. The ideal size for a counter attack.
I was cloaked and parked around 80km away with a laughably big heavily armed ship. I pop out of invisibility with a hard hitting volley of attacks on their support ship and drop all my sniper drones. The smaller more manouverable enemy ship wouldn't be in danger if it was in close or even moderate range, but due to my position I could unload high damage volleys accurately. I take a huge chunk of the shields from the support craft then, 2 seconds later my drones volley repeatedly. The pirate finally tries to flee but they are clearly losing the ship. My teamates go from panicked to excited as another pirate gives up and flees, ensuring our victory. We move to locking down the most expensive pirate ship and hurting them in their wallet while padding our own.
For me, like many others, it was the original EverQuest. I wasn't there on launch but joined fairly soon after. I feel that my age, mid teens, and the emergent nature of the genre empowered its hold on me. But even to this day so much of it stick works for me; the graphics, the world structure and game mechanics, the differences and synergies between classes. Perhaps most importantly, then and now, was the ability to play first person. I actually felt like I was my character; rather than some Lakitu from Mario Bros.
Not sure if it counts as a MMORPG these days due to the instancing but it has to be Guild Wars Prophecies for me. We had just upgraded to broadband internet and the ability to play with other people from all over the world was incredible. It was also a fantasic game and an example of LAS done incredibly well with the different build diversity in that game.
Jobeson said:You gotta branch out to other table top systems. So many great ideas out there in the ttrpg world that completely trounces the d20 everything idea of D&D. EQ was largely inspired from the AD&D based MUDs but now we have so many amazing tabletops to take inspiration from. MMOs need to go back to the TTRPG inspiration of less is more.
My first was Anarchy-Online. I was too poor for EQ when it came out, but heard lots about it and was really excited to try MMOs. When my finances improved, I chose AO as my first based off some interesting box art and my desire to try a sci-fi setting.
I immediately fel in love with the game and remember being blown away when I saw my first Bronto (life sized Brontosaurus). It was part of a herd of what was, by orders of magnitude, the biggest creature I'd ever seen in a game.
I also really enjoyed exploring a massive world and loved the freedom of just heading off in any direction.
Everquest is definitely my most nostalgic game that really hooked me on MMO's for life. But I got my start in The Realm, and in fact the guild I was in there made a pre-planned move to Everquest with the intention of beginning a cross game sister-guild. Unfortunately, we didn't plan a starting location, so it took several weeks before people from Freeport finally made contact with those of us from Qeynos/Surefall Glade!
I do also have a special place in my heart for Star Wars Galaxies. Playing a Bounty Hunter and being able to take missions on Jedi, track them down, and ambush them was a thrill. And my parter (whom I met in Everquest actually) became widely known on Intrepid with her Bio-engineered beasts and her clothing creation (she had 2 accounts). She was so in demand, and we had so much in-game currency because of it, that I used to walk into my favorite armor crafter's store and order full sets of pre-sliced armor, with specified minimum slice percent requirements for every piece, and simply drop a million credits to make it worth his while. When that game was shut down, we still had 5 years paid up for all 4 houses. And her bio-engineered beast combos and my BH damage allowed us to basically duo damn near everything. We took out a dark jedi NPC that we later found out was in fact a 5-man encounter. If they would have only stopped putting so much emphasis on trying to balance PVP it could have been even better.