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MMORPG History
At start, what is the MMORPG? MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) is an online computer role-playing game (RPG) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (most commonly in a fantasy setting) and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
MMORPGs are very popular throughout the world, with combined global memberships in subscription and non-subscription games exceeding 15 million as of 2006.Overall, revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005 and are expected to reach over a billion dollars by 2009.
The first gameworlds. The beginning of the MMORPG genre can be traced to text-based (entirely non-graphical) Multi-User Domains, or MUDs, with the first being developed by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw in 1978. These games ran on private servers, usually at a university, and sometimes without the knowledge of the system's administrators. Players would typically connect to the games using a TELNET client, and gameplay was similar to role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. By typing commands into a parser, players would enter a dungeon, fight monsters, gain experience, and acquire loot.
Similar games quickly surfaced during that period for the PLATO System. MUDs (and later their descendants such as MUSHes and MOOs) were sometimes wildly different from one another, but shared many basic interface elements. An example of this would be a player's means of navigating his or her character around the gameworld by typing in compass directions ("n", "se", etc.).
Many MUDs are still active and a number of influential MMORPG designers, such as Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid, Mark Jacobs, Brian "Psychochild" Green and Damion Schubert, began as MUD developers and/or players.
World-wide MMORPGs. Access to the Internet, forming a global playerbase, caused game companies to grow in popularity and accumulate truly massive numbers. With this global access to paying customers, there also came a surge in profitability for game companies.
If there is a game that qualifies as the Neanderthal game (Neanderthal being the spot in human evolution in which Homo sapiens were indisputably human) in MMOG evolution, it's Meridian 59, which was released in 1996. Originally developed by an outside firm, Meridian 59 was the first game to incorporate large numbers of players in a single world, a persistent world, and many of the other identifying elements of MMOGs. Like many experimental games, it was not corporate sponsored, and was created under unusual circumstances. Meridian 59 marks the introduction of the term "massively multiplayer." In 1996, as Hawkins tried to explain his game to the press, he used terms like "massively multiplayer" and "3D persistent world" quite liberally. Meridian 59 stood at the crossroads of many technologies. Along with its place in MMOG history, it also stands out for its use of the same 2.5D graphics technology that id Software popularized in DOOM. Meridian 59 was the first effort at some technologies, and one of the last significant uses of others. A cult following quickly grew for Meridian 59 that still exists today.
Ultima Online, released in September 1997, is now credited with popularizing the genre. It featured 3D isometric/third-person graphics, and was set in the already popular Ultima universe. It was also a more involved, complex game than many of its predecessors.
The next famous game is EverQuest. EverQuest, launched in March 1999 by Verant Interactive (later acquired by Sony Online Entertainment), brought fantasy MMORPGs into the Western mainstream. It was the most commercially successful MMORPG in the United States for five years, and was the basis for 12 expansions (as of October 2006) and several derivative games. In 1999, following Ultima Online and EverQuest, was another hit, Asheron's Call. Together, these three games are sometimes referred to as the original "big three" of the late 1990s.
MMORPGs in the new millennium. By the turn of the century, game companies were eager to capitalize on the new market. The concept of massively multiplayer online games expanded into new video game genres around this time, though RPGs, with their ability to "suck in" the player, were (and still are) the most financially promising.
When The Sims Online launched in the first part of 2003, it got an amazing send off. Electronic Arts had sold more than six million copies of the single-player version of the game. Newsweek did a cover story on The Sims Online, and stories and publicity for the game appeared everywhere. If you look at the screens of The Sims Online and The Sims offline, they look remarkably similar. When you play the two games, they play quite differently. Even though they are set in the same world and they have the same title and the same graphics, the actual play experience is radically different. The Sims is a one of the best online games.
MU Online is a free 3D MMORPG that takes you, the player, into a fantasy world full of excitement, adventure and monsters. With several ways to train your character, MU is a sure way to a unique adventure. Join others in the quest to bring the continent of MU back to peace, and clear it from the clenches of Kundun and his forces forever.