Originally posted by Kokushibyou

"On September 25th, the MMO industry turned 12 years old. In 1997, Origin launched Ultima Online and while it wasn’t the first multi-player RPG (MUDs) or even the first one with graphics (Meridian 59), "

Why does everyone say Meridian 59 was the 1st graphical MMO?  Especialy if you are writing an article you should put in the effort to look these things up. 

From wikipedia:

"Meridian 59, the first commercial, 3D massively multiplayer game, was developed by Archetype Interactive and published in September 1996 by 3DO."

"The Realm was launched in March 1995 for Windows personal computers. It was designed in the tradition of graphical MUDs, before the popular usage of the terms "massively multiplayer" and "MMORPG"." Refering to Sierra's The Realm Online.

Meridian 59 was not the 1st graphical MUD, it was the 1st 3D MUD.  The Realm gets no respect, sigh.

 

I even played The Realm, you're right I should have mentioned it there, but the larger point is moot since that's not where I was counting from.

Sorry, M59 still appears on our list, The Realm has long since disappeared as far as I know. I simply forgot it when sorting by age.

Originally posted by ebonfire

Originally posted by Dana

Originally posted by ebonfire

I read this before I headed out, and what I have to say has been eating at me all day.  I am by no mean an EQ2 fanboy as I've only played it for about 3 months total over the last two years, and I understand the desire to adhere to the time line, so with that being said...

You talk about how the MMO landscape has changed, and I think that reflects more in EQ2 than any game I can think of.  It launched a few weeks before WoW, and has since released 5 expansions, almost being marketed as a release each time.  What started out being very group centric, unforgiving at times, is now a shadow of what it was designed to be when it launched.

I think that the EQ2 you can log in a and play now is most definitely a post WoW reaction to how the industry has changed.. the bulk of the game you have now is post-WoW.

 

Just one more time...

EQ2 launched before World of Warcraft.

The article was about the top 10 games launched after World of Warcraft.

 

First, you obviously didn't participate in the train wreck that was Vanguard at launch, or you wouldn't be giving it a free pass right now. 

My point was simply that EQ2 also launched early (a few weeks before WoW), grossly missed the marked, was reworked with a ton of content added after WoW was released, and managed to survive in the shadow of WoW in a way that really reflects on what kind of game it has become.  If you were writing from an intellectual standpoint, and not from entertainment standpoint, then we might have a decent conversation about the true transgressions of the industry after WoW was released.

Apologies if I came off snippy, but if you click through the thread we'd been over the launch dates about twice a page ;)

You have a valid point about EQ2 in a general sense, yes, it's clearly a much different game and, yes, surviving against WoW had a lot to do with that. It's an interesting thing to consider.

For the purposes of the article though, if I'd made one exception, I'd have had to include every single game anyone thought of before WoW because there would be some argument (I mean, honestly, you can make a pretty good case for WoW's influence on UO too).

So, yes, I agree. Interesting point, interesting debate and something we'll file away for future articles, but within the confines of this one, that was a can of worms I wanted to avoid.

Originally posted by Longswd

I've long taken exception to a lot of games being listed here that shouldn't be, imo. The latest being Torchlight. It's not a MMO. It doesn't even have have a multiplayer component, much less being a MMO. No Internet , LAN or even split screen multi. Nothing. Yet it's pimped here anytime there's news on it. Makes not a bit of sense to me.

 

Regarding to Torchlight, I've always looked at it this way.

The devs tell us it will be made into an MMO in the future. We take them at their word.

The game we're listing is not the game that launches in two weeks. When it does launch, we're not going to flick it "live" on our list. It will still be in development.

Just because the MMO is a few years away doesn't mean we don't list other games, so why punish Torchlight for releasing an intermediary product?

If they were not launching a single player RPG, but had announced everything else the same, they'd be on the list.

Originally posted by ihaveurnose

Hmm, Dana I must ask, why is runescape not on the list?

 

EDIT:

Sorry if this has already been asked/answered, I didn't want to read through 16 pages lol. (If it has been answered, please tell me which page it is on)

It was released before WoW.

Originally posted by ebonfire

I read this before I headed out, and what I have to say has been eating at me all day.  I am by no mean an EQ2 fanboy as I've only played it for about 3 months total over the last two years, and I understand the desire to adhere to the time line, so with that being said...

You talk about how the MMO landscape has changed, and I think that reflects more in EQ2 than any game I can think of.  It launched a few weeks before WoW, and has since released 5 expansions, almost being marketed as a release each time.  What started out being very group centric, unforgiving at times, is now a shadow of what it was designed to be when it launched.

I think that the EQ2 you can log in a and play now is most definitely a post WoW reaction to how the industry has changed.. the bulk of the game you have now is post-WoW.

Just one more time...

EQ2 launched before World of Warcraft.

The article was about the top 10 games launched after World of Warcraft.

Dana Massey pens today's MMORPG.com Staff Blog that looks at MMORPGs, how we define them and what should and should not be on the list from a developer, editorial and reader perspective. He then asks for your feedback.

Every time we post about Global Agenda, Guild Wars or CitiesXL, I can write the first, second and third forum response myself.

“This isn’t an MMO!”

“Yes it is, read the FAQ!”

“I disagree with what you said.”

We get it. They’re not exactly Ultima Online. Yes, Global Agenda has a lot of instancing, and yes CitiesXL is a city-building game.

The question our community asks is why we list and cover them, and there is a simple answer: We take a feed them to the sharks mentality.

Read it all here.

Originally posted by Masoniclight

Dana,

I appreciate the list and think it was well done and well thought out, but I do have to ask why WoW's counterpart that came out in the same year was not mentioned? And by that counterpart I am, of course, referring to City of Heroes.

After the same 5 years WoW has been around, I would argue that COH was not only a groundbreaking game (first true Superhero MMO) but that it set a standard in that genre that has still not been met. COH has been a great success in its own right and I feel really should have been added to your good list.

I am glad to see you did have Aion.. if any game can challenge Cuild Wars and WoW it is this game.. beautiful world, awesome story, unique pvpve core... it will continue to do well in my opinion.

just my .02 influence.

City of Heroes came out before WoW, so it was as simple as that. I stuck to the launch date cut off pretty strictly. CoH came out in April, EQII about 2-3 weeks before WoW. That's why both were not included.

Originally posted by mlauzon

The contest ended last night, and still no winners have been announced, what's going on..?!

From the contest page:

"The winners will have 24 hours to claim their prize...after this time they may be disqualified and re-selected using a method of our chosing (typically another random drawing)."

Originally posted by Mirandel

I did cleaned up my PM today and could delete "winning" message (at least it is not there). What can I do now to get rid of the advert?

Forwarding this to our tech guys, one should be by soon with much more qualified advice :)

Ah, I see, sorry I misunderstood the issue.

See the post above... That should sort you out.

Originally posted by DAS1337

The #1 and 2 selections are spot on.  Guild Wars is a great game in it's own right, and to tack on the fact that its FTP.  You can't get much better.  Lord of the Rings will have subscribers until the game servers are shut down 20 years from now.  Or unless Lord of the Rings 2 is released.  It's unfortunate because there are several games that don't get recognition because they were released a few weeks to a few months before WoW, but have managed to survive the WoW era and prosper.  And then there are the obvious AAA games that get left out to garbage that wouldn't be on my top 50 to play list.

 

However, this is all my opinion.  Agree or not.

As many have pointed out, I was not writing the Top 10 AAA Hardcore MMOs Launched Since WoW.

That is a fine article and maybe one I will write some day, but this was Top 10 MMOs since WoW, which is different. Club Penguin, for example, obviously doesn't appeal to you (or me), but that doesn't mean it's not a huge hit or a great game.

If I were going for Hardcore MMOs since WoW, yes, I'd have included WAR, Conan, and, heck, even Darkfall.

Originally posted by Daedrick

Everything is in the title. fix it please.

Which ad? I tried the skin and it works fine. Not seeing any others on the site today.

Originally posted by Mirandel

I am trying to open a news and istead that stupid advert is opening with no link to the news I wanted to see. For how long do you plan to keep it here? It's expied anyway, can you just remove it?

Umm, I think you might want to check for some bug in your system. As far as I know, we don't have any such ad.

Originally posted by Dawnsinger

Dana, is the only way you get people to view / reply to your articles to type stupid or controversial things? Really, Club Penguin? Guild Wars isn't even an MMO.

You read and replied, you tell me? :P

We're looking into it everyone. Not sure what happened yet.

Originally posted by SonikFlash

I like where your going with that Dana,

@Everyone Else, be fair F2P games vastly outnumber P2P, meaning the f2p list is going to be subsequently longer

The problem, and reason I waffle on it, is AAA vs. Indy.

Take EVE for example. Where do you put that? It's clearly AAA, but really it's an indy game, it just did so well that we think of it as AAA. At that point, we're essentially making an arbitrary quality judgment, and that doesn't seem fair.

We could always change AAA and Indy to Western, but I'd prefer not to break it down that way as that implies foreign games are somehow worse. And as we all know, it's all in how you do it. Lineage II and Aion for example, are they AAA or Imported?

Originally posted by VultureSkull

 

I played VG a year after release and then again recently after the trail was released and the graphic engine was sorted out(although slight hitching remained). And I am a fan of VG don't get me wrong.

So I believe i have seen it in its best state. And it has taken nearly 3 years (i may be wrong) to get to his stage. It has 3 to 4 devs working on it and the progress is slow, it doesn't even have alternative advancement properly implemented into it yet!

There exists some rudimentary sliders for Int, wis, str, etc which would make some classes different, but my main char was a rogue and given these sliders, every single rogue in VG is exactly the same, save their armor. This is an RPG, i want my char to be slightly different to the next man's char but alas we are still waiting, and given the 3 man team the wait is going to be long!

AoC has population, i am not talking about Xfire, as i don't even know what that does, i am talking about my direct experience, I know for a fact that VG has low pops and is set in a massive land, whereas AoC has a decent pop where PUGs are easily come by.

 

So in my opinion, VG is a great game but fails on the two aspects that make up an MMORPG, the MMO referring to Massive amount of people playing, VG=fail, or at least it feels like fail given the landscape, and the lack of class customisation lets the role playing down bit badly, AoC passes these two basic criteria easily...........imo.

Others may have different experiences, i like both games, and as such tell it as i see it.

 

Noted the criteria you used to compile the list, it may have been beneficial to include these in a side note of the article to avoid any confusion.

Vanguard got the nod over WAR and Conan in my mind as a kind of "most improved" prize. I think of the three, mostly due to amount of time passed, it has made the most improvements.

All three had eerily similar launches.

Conan is improving, as is WAR, but both still have a ways to go. Vanguard, though, seems to have found its stride.

Originally posted by ronpack

The only MMO that I can think of that should be on the list is Dungeon and Dragons Online. It seems to have become popular since it's now free to play.

Originally posted by VultureSkull

Originally posted by Vinterkrig

lol at this list....

Indeed,
 

"They pushed through and survived to be a decent title, if not the massive hit that had once been projected. Hopefully, for their sakes, list omissions like Warhammer Online and Age of Conan can eventually chart a similar course."

This is the conclusion from the Vanguard piece, implying that in someway VG tops AoC and WAR.

I have played all 3 titles and i find it hard to comprehend how AoC is not better in every single aspect of the game, from launch state, to content, to innovation, to graphics, to population, to development, infact every aspect.

And then to suggest that AoC can eventually chart a similar course to VG, when they are way ahead of them in the first place takes the biscuit imho!!

When did you play Vanguard, if you don't mind me asking?

We're slowly rolling out list upgrades, which includes new fields.

One field we're considering is "category," which would be the only largely subjective one on the list. That would categorize each game into one of four fields:

-AAA: Produced by large studios, with large budgets.
-Indy: Produced by small, independent studios.
-Classic: Older than 8 years.
-Imported: Translated games originally aimed at other markets.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by VultureSkull

Originally posted by jus123

Lotro diservs the 1. place. I agree with this list.

 

 

I don't, but that is neither here nor there as this is the

"Top Ten MMO's since World of warcarft" according to Dana. So her list is for her and not for anyone else really.

This is evident from the statement "What follows is purely my opinion and I looked over every game on our list with a launch date after WoW"

I may have missed it in the posts following, but it is clearly missing from the article as to what Dana based her opinion on.

 

Dana, could you please enlighten us.

 

Thanks,

His opinion ;)

But anyway, it was as the article said entirely my opinion. I personally put more value on good reviews, high rating meter scores and general (albeit anecdotal) tone of the community than I did on guesses at subscriber numbers, but in a few cases, business also came into play when this community wasn't exactly the target audience (Wizard and Penguin).

The list is a weekly opinion column. So that's what you got. There's nothing scientific about this. I largely modeled it after sports power rankings, if that makes sense, although I don't intend to revise the list every week :)