Everquest was probably the most famous but Dark Age of Camelot was a better game by far. We all have UO and Everquest to thank for starting the whole Massively Online aspect of MMORPG games, but camelot was an RvR game with castles to take over and players had to choose which side they wanted to join and it really mattered compared to joining the Horde or Alliance in WoW where it doesn't really matter at all.

It had good RvR right from the start. The graphics were better than EQ's and were even upgraded with patches to entirely new models and an upgraded graphics engine. Fighting animations in camelot were also really fun and interesting and sometimes really good. I would say camelot was the best MMORPG for its full duration up until WoW came out with its fast-paced tactical combat and casual gameplay that totally smacked games like UO, EQ, and Camelot for being so slow. WoW tends to hide all the math calculations that are going on better. So you don't feel like you're playing a card/board game (which is what RPGs started as).

I also would like to point out that Warhammer is also a better game than Everquest 2. But that's another story. Also, I kept cancelling my WAR subscription and going back to WoW despite the fact that they keep fixing thousands of warhammer bugs and making it better. Maybe someday Warhammer will patch me back into a more long-term subscription.

Originally posted by Brahmd

EQ is the game that set the standard for ALL MMOs today.

People can argue "Ultima Online" or all those text based games (all technicalities) Neverwinter Nights is Not an MMO at all.

 

Lineage had the a large player base. But gaming in asia is a completely different ball game when it comes to business standards. For instance. Is WoW the most popular game now based on players? R you including games like "Maple Story", "Rose Online", "Flyff" and all of the other f2p asian games that have a HUGE player base?

 

Everquest was the first MMO that had a monthly subscription fee (9.99) that was extremely successful and paved the way for other companies to produce games like it.

The modern NWN and NWN2 games aren't MMOs, it's true, but the first commercial graphical MMO was NWN on AOL in the mid-90s.

Irrespective of that, EQ was the king of MMOs prior to WoW, at least in the Western Market.

~Ripper

Originally posted by spades07

what is the king of rpgs, fps, rts', action games and puzzle games?

Diablo 2, Unreal, Command and Conqure, Action includes shooters but If I had to add another CS1.6, Puzzle Pirate.

Originally posted by Plasmicredx

Everquest was probably the most famous but Dark Age of Camelot was a better game by far. We all have UO and Everquest to thank for starting the whole Massively Online aspect of MMORPG games, but camelot was an RvR game with castles to take over and players had to choose which side they wanted to join and it really mattered compared to joining the Horde or Alliance in WoW where it doesn't really matter at all.

It had good RvR right from the start. The graphics were better than EQ's and were even upgraded with patches to entirely new models and an upgraded graphics engine. Fighting animations in camelot were also really fun and interesting and sometimes really good. I would say camelot was the best MMORPG for its full duration up until WoW came out with its fast-paced tactical combat and casual gameplay that totally smacked games like UO, EQ, and Camelot for being so slow. WoW tends to hide all the math calculations that are going on better. So you don't feel like you're playing a card/board game (which is what RPGs started as).

I also would like to point out that Warhammer is also a better game than Everquest 2. But that's another story. Also, I kept cancelling my WAR subscription and going back to WoW despite the fact that they keep fixing thousands of warhammer bugs and making it better. Maybe someday Warhammer will patch me back into a more long-term subscription.

 

I really did enjoy DAOC and in some aspects it was a better game but it did not top EQ.

Sadly RVR was a joke in that game. I think zerging was actually started in DAOC because I had never seen it in any other mmo before. granted I did not play UO though. I dont know how it was on other servers but ont he server I was on, RVR sucked. During primetime you had everyone out trying to gain ground and take castles and what not against each other, which was a lot of fun. However, our server appeared to be the server the overseas folks chose to play on. The end result was, our keeps were constantly taken with no effort at all considering we were playing on an east coast server so it was mostly dead during the day except for the overseas guilds playing. So without a doubt, every single day we logged in, all of our keeps were always taken and of course everyone else was getting on at the same time and that made it even more difficult to recover our own keeps by the end of the night. Just so we had it to do all over again the next day. That was not my idea of enjoyment. And sadly, I almost always end up on a server of a new game that either the spanish speaking folks have decided to make their server or an overseas guild decides to make their server. The plus side to the spanish speaking folks is, its amazing how many of them are able to learn english just playing the game. At the least, usually enough to get by.

Seriously, only ONE person vaguely remembers Meridian 59? Man...I'm old, and apparently daft as well....

M59 predates EQ by almost 2 years, and to date, imo, still had the best pvp scheme....

Everquest got the ball rolling in a huge way. While Ultima Online was the first, Everquest appealed to more players for many of the same reasons that Blizzard copied for Warcraft.

Dark Age of Camelot was a big name and a huge step in showing players that loved PvP a really good time and what an MMORPG could offer them.

City of Heroes was a big, big name in terms of success stories in taking a fresh idea and giving players a huge amount of variety in character creation and a fun world.

Over in Asia it was all about Lineage, and no one is going to argue that point due to their monstrous subscription count.

In my opinion, those were the big boys of MMORPG's until WoW arrived. Which others have already covered.

Star Wars Galaxies was king before WOW. It was the game that got me into MMORPGs. Too bad they had to go and try to be WOW. WOW sucks, why would you want to copy it. Only people that like playing WOW are the kind that like having their hand held the whole way through.

Its OK Momma WOW is here, nothing to be afraid of. I'll tell ya where to go and what to do.  Don't be afraid of the bad old boogey men, I'm right by your side. They won't hurt you.

That about sums up WOW. Just joking of course. Don't need a bunch of WOW fanboi's stalking me, lol.

Originally posted by StarPoint117

Originally posted by spades07

what is the king of rpgs, fps, rts', action games and puzzle games?

 

Diablo 2, Unreal, Command and Conqure, Action includes shooters but If I had to add another CS1.6, Puzzle Pirate.

All a matter of personal opinion just like with MMOs.   For innovation, popularity or for just personal opinion?

I think the original HALO really gave the FPS genre a popularity boost.  I think that Starcraft was an innovative and easy to learn RTS game that is still popular today.  I think that Guild Wars is a good non-mmo RPG with pvp aspects.  I think Ocarina of Time was a puzzle based game and is still ranked amoung one of the best games ever made. I think that Exteel is a good PC action game.    

Starcraft is the most Popular RTS, Fable 2 and Oblivion are fairly popular RPG's,  CoD4 for FPS, Dynastgy Warriors for action, Tetris for puzzle. 

My Favorite FPS is Rainbow Six 3 Rogue Spear, my favorite RTS is ROME:Total War  my favorite action game is Exteel, my favorite RPG is Dungeon Siege, My favorite Puzzle game is.... well... i don't really like puzzle games.  

BTW.... I love RTS, why Command and Conquer over Homeworld, Starcraft, Warcraft, Dark Reign, Total Annihilation or Dune?

Everquest was by far the best game for Emersion and content in an MMORPG. Other games where out back in 1999 that were text based that offered the same thing but offere no graphics i.e. Dragonrealms on MSN zone.

It's amazing how someone's dislike for something make it cloud history.  Lets set this straight so we all understand.  The original question was what game was 'king' before WoW.  Lets first say that WoW is king now.  End of story, even if you hate it.  You know why.

1) 11+ million subs

2) I can go to any guy or gal walking down the street and say World of Warcraft and a pretty good percentage are going to know what I'm talking about.  What other (current) game does that apply?

As to pre-WoW, I think the correct answer is Everquest but you can make a strong argument that wasn't true in 2004 (when WoW launched).  1999-2002, EQ was king, due to subs and popularity.  Again, most people knew what Everquest was, most people didn't know what Lineage was unless you were in Asia.

From 2002-2004, I'm not sure there really was a 'King'.  There were a bunch of them during that time that would lay claim (SWG, DAoC) but I don't think any of those reached popularity to WoW or even EQ levels (maybe SWG, there was a ton of hype for that).

Originally posted by Korvenus

EQ was the most popular in the west while Lineage was the most popular in the east.

This one speaks the truth.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Korvenus

EQ was the most popular in the west while Lineage was the most popular in the east.

 

This one speaks the truth.

 

I would like to correct this statement. Lineage was and still is only success in Korea. Yes, only in Korea. It does not success in the East. No, it failed in China. It failed in Japan. It failed in Taiwan, and oh yes, it failed in the US as well.

So, no, it did not success world wide. It only success in Korea. Period. It was a success due to players from a single country. Isn't that special? :)

I suppose if you wanna get technical with the eastern countries, Lineage was to Korea as FFXI was to Japan.  Not sure what game was the most popular in China though, but then I thought Chinese government imposed internet censorship so maybe nothing really took off in China back in the days.  Well except for gold farmers maybe lol.

As for the western world, EQ1 was the most popular and one of the longest running MMO's....and it's still running and cranking out expansions once a year.   Which, the sad part is many of the newer MMO's are not nearly as populated and they are not getting expansions at all.  It was the first true 3D MMO and many of us grew up with EQ1 during our teen/college years.  It was the bomb.  The question OP asked wasn't what game was "the best" to you, he asked which MMO was king before WoW.

To people bashing EQ1, well you'll be surprised to know Blizzard took lots of ideas from EQ1, except they made them more accessible and created what WoW is today.   EQ1 was King for 5 years from 1999-2004, WoW took the throne in 2004 and became King for 5 years.  It'll be very interesting to see what MMO becomes the next to take the throne.  My guess is it's gonna be the next Blizzard game, sorry Aion fans.

Originally posted by Mardy

I suppose if you wanna get technical with the eastern countries, Lineage was to Korea as FFXI was to Japan.  Not sure what game was the most popular in China though, but then I thought Chinese government imposed internet censorship so maybe nothing really took off in China back in the days.  Well except for gold farmers maybe lol.

I have to disagree. FFXI is different. There are no regional servers. Everyone in the world play on the same server farm and they are located in Japan. Now, take a look at the FFXI census. There is one for every year. Look at the 1st section, the login statistic. You can see the login distribution. You can clearly see 2 peaks. One starts in the morning US time, peak at around noon then drop off. One starts in the evening US time, peak at around mid night then drop off. Those are the 2 peak time for western players and eastern players and you can clearly see that the western peak is much higher than the eastern peak. So, the majority of FFXI players contradict to popular belief are not Japanese players. The majority of FFXI players are actually US players. Around the time when FFXI released, it's the other way around, then it became even, then players from the US become dominant.

The most popular games in China are Chinese made games, of course. Back in the day, it was Legend of Mir series, which were Korean made, but then Chinese made game like Westward Fantasy and Zhengtu Online took over. Saying nothing really took up in China back in the days was very naieve and uninformed. China has legitimate Chinese players too. Their market is absolutely huge and develop very quickly too. Do you know that The9 started dealing with Blizzard for WoW way back when the game still in beta? Chinese players get to play World of Warcraft not very long after the US. Because of the gold farming activities in the US servers, most people when refer to Chinese players seem to thing they are all gold farmers. It's not even close to the truth. They do play MMOs for fun and pay for them legitimately. Most big title in the west did actually make their way to China. Ultima Online did, Everquest did, DAoC did, Everquest 2 and WoW did and many others new MMOs as well. So don't be stereotype and consider all Chinese gamers are gold farmers please.

Originally posted by Thachsanh

 So don't be stereotype and consider all Chinese gamers are gold farmers please.

I think you took my post the wrong way, but no biggy, I probably didn't make the joke funny enough.  I'm Chinese myself so making fun of other Chinese folks living under Government's internet censorship is like second nature to me.  Anyway, we were talking about games that had lots of subscriptions, so the ones you mentioned that were popular in China, were they as big as Lineage/EQ1?

And we were talking about king of MMO's pre-WoW, and I was mostly answering to the post above mine when that person said Lineage was popular in Korea but wasn't in China & Japan.  That's why I brought it up to separate game popularity by eastern countries.   As for FFXI, I always thought Japanese players had the upper hand in the population "back in the days", but I could be wrong.

/cheers

Originally posted by Heidi

Originally posted by SSSJKiNg

 

 

I am just wondering since I didn't start playing MMO's until after WoW.  What game was the most famous before WoW.

 

First of all, Warcraft is not the most famous mmo at the moment.  Warhammer Online is.  As for what game was famous prior to Warhammer that would be Star Wars Galaxies. 

Period, end of story.

 

 

I am just wondering what you are smoking, and also wondering were I can get some of it.

It has been said 90 times already, but it was Everquest in the west and Lineage in the East.

Ultima Online , and a close second would be SWG Pre-Cu both immense worlds lots of virtual world fun.

Everquest...without it, there would not be WoW. :)

Originally posted by micona

Good old everquest made the genre what it is today nothing else came close .

I don't entirely agree.  Everquest was the big MMORPG before WoW, but before that was Ultima Online which will never be forgotten because MMO's like WoW saw the great mechanics it had and still to this day use ideas that UO came up with.

But yeah, before WoW, it was Ever"crack"

yep Evercrack....almost DAOC.......and  scifi AO