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Incline The definitive list of proper and true MMOs.

Kane

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Because felipepe literally wrote a Codex for RPGs I do the same here for MMOs, except that I am not retarded enough to make this my magnum opus. Still, completeness sake that mean mistress demands it. (I am also kinda bored right now). This post wants to tell the tale of one of the most infuriating, insane and sometimes most funny aspects of game development in the past 20 years.

Every game not on this list ain't an MMO and is therefore shit, as are the people playing those games. If you haven't played any of these games or disagree that these are the only and true MMOs, please go outside and get laid instead of posting in this thread.

Essential terminology

Functional: You can launch the game and play it. It is not in alpha or beta state but actually has been released at some point.
Carebears: Losers that tend to do boring tasks like gathering crafting and abhor PvP. If they are the overwhelming majority of players in your game or if your game is catering to them, chances are your game is pretty shit and you should switch games, or, if you are a developer, reconsider your life and think about why you went into the game making business (hint: fun).
Full Loot: When you die, you lose everything you have on you and anyone else in the world can pick it up and use it. This is essential for a true MMO experience (also called 'the kick'), because once full loot is core to your game all the other important systems kind of fall into place automagically.

The sacrosanct list

Ultima Online | Origin Systems (*1997/09/25)
The one, the only. Released in late 1997 by Origin Systems and still operated by EA for money today, those greedy fuckfaces. Ultima Online kind of defined the term MMO as we know it today (I'll ignore the cries from the baboons playing Everquest and its clones here). Set in the fantasy-world of the preceding singleplayer games of the same name, Ultima Online allowed thousands of players to simultaneously play the game online for a monthly fee. It was not single-sharded though.
Has everything. Lacks nothing. Its greatest legacy is probably its timing (hence, skill)-based PvP system.
Perfect game if it wasn't for shitty graphics, shitty interface, shitty controls and generally being a shitty outdated turd only played by people that also enjoy shoving increasingly large spiky objects up their butt. As a consequence not even its several expansion packs could halt the player numbers steadily declining over the years. The death-knell to this game is widely considered the introduction of a care-bear copy instance of the game server that existed in parallel to the original hardcore full-loot environment.

Asheron's Call | Turbine Entertainment Software (*1999/11/02)
Asheron's Call was the first MMO to introduce a large, dynamic, seamless 3D world occupied by hundreds of players. Also featured an advancing in-game story that was updated every month. Naturally it was subscription-based. Asheron's Call peaked in early 2002 and since then steadily declined. In late 2003, Turbine purchased the rights of the franchise from its publisher, Microsoft, and assumed full control but was unable to halt the decline.



Dark Age of Camelot | Mythic (*2001/10/10)
While borderline non-MMO it still qualfies because it spearheaded largescale PvP and faction based PvP. Mythic made this game and when they were bought by EA they turned to shit and so did the game.

Shadowbane | Wolfpack Studios (*2003/03/25 - 2009/09/01)
Created by a bunch of MUD-veterans, Shadowbane is a fantasy MMO noted for pioneering Open World PvP and dynamic world content. You could morph terrain, build and raze buildings and even hire AI combatants. The Worldmap was completely seamless. Territory and cities were player owned. Shadowbane also featured a government system and was the first game to have a political metagame. And it had zero quests. Shadowbane is as much a cult as it is a game; you cannot claim to have played MMOs if you don't have played Shadowbane. Unfortunately the game was buggy as shit, so it shut down in 2009. And as such there is no way for you youngsters to learn about proper & true MMOs anymore.

Eve Online
The only functional MMO out to date. Features player driven economy, open world PvP and has a political metagame. It is also a super boring grindfest full of carebears.

Darkfall Online

The theoretically best MMO ever made. Features Quake-like combat in a massive Morrowind'esque World with full loot and a player driven economy. Everything is craftable, repair does not exist. Political metagame is somewhat limited. Sounds too good to be true? Yes, it has been shut down. The developer (Aventurine) is a bunch of shifty greek bastards that preferred guzzling ouzo and driving race cars instead of keeping the dream alive. When it was alive it was known for it horrible levels of grind that even brought tears to the face of the most hardened Korean MMO Veteran.

Darkfalll: Unholy Wars
The sequel to Darkfall Online by the same company that did the original one, Aventurine. Was shut down too, because Aventurine is shit and logically so was the game.

Darkfall: Rise of Agon / Darkfall: New Dawn
A bunch of nerds who want to play game developer brought the license for Darkfall from Aventurine. Idiocity seldom comes alone, so another bunch of nerds thought they are better at playing game developer than the aforementioned idiots and also bought the license, so there are now two competing teams defiling Darkfall's rotting corpse. They both have irrelevant ideologic differences about the future of Darkfall, so a cooperation is out of the question.

Mortal Online
Back in the day also known as Darkfall's Competitor, this one wants to offer Ultima Online with enforced full frontal nudity (you cannot go 3rd person view!) but falls short at anything, simply because the developers are like 4 people and they're incompetent and are using UE for a friggin MMO game. What the hell?

Star Wars: Galaxies
Crappy IP but hey at least it was a sandbox. Released in 2003 as one of Lucas Arts last follies, it had true open world PvP and a player driven economy. It was most renowned for his galaxy sized player crafting system.

The Repopulation:
A fan made spiritual sequel to Star Wars: Galaxies that is currently on hold because the people behind the game's Engine (Hero Engine) went bankrupt. Yeah that's a fun story. But that's what you get used to in the proper & true MMO business.

Planetside 1&2
The two games are largely identical, except for 1 being plain superior at everything so I list both in a single paragraph. Made by Sony Online Entertainment and therefore doomed to fail, the definitive MMOFPS experience. Skill is somewhat essential, so you need to bring your cock along. Features large wars on giant battle fields that have the potential to last days - in reality fucking OP TR just rolls in with their zero recoil one billion DPS rifles and instagibs anything. L2P TR seriously.

Camelot Unchained
Sequel to Dark Age of Camelot. Not yet released. Potentially shit.

Crowfall
NYR. Has some weird character based class system but also Voxel Destruction. Most features seem half-baked. Potentially shit.

Albion Online
NYR. This is a EVE Online clone in a fantasy world that also stole a couple of ideas from Darkfall. Like the abysmal Grind - of all things. Why didn't these morons copy the graphics instead? Potentially shit.

The Exile
NYR. Formerly known as Das Tal this game is aimed at the well hung portion of the population. Wants to combine BLC combat with Guild Wars 1 GvG and Asheron's Call'esque territory control. Potentially kinda cool.

Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade
NYR. Planetside meets Warhammer. The vision is boner inducing but we all know how it will end.

Gloria Victis:
NYR. Motrtal Online with magic. It's garbage and it's going to be free.

Chronicles of Elyria
NYR. EA & Crowdfunded game, so it will be a disaster. This one wants to be a real medieval MMO (not one with servers capped at 20-60 players). Features a feudal system.

Screeps:
NYR. The one true MMORTS on the list. You literally program your units and they do their stuff even when you're offline.

Crush Online:
NYR. Moba inspired faction warfare on a world made of chained arenas.

Star Citizen.
NYR. Already a legend for being vaporware.

Shroud of the Avatar
NYR. Fanatasy version of Star Citizen.

Dual Universe
NYR. An upcoming single-shard sci-fi MMORPG focused on emergent gameplay and building.

I am sure I forgot something important. The formatting is a mess. I will update the formatting and add more games/expand the existing ones as I find the time and can be arsed to. Feedback is welcome, but if you play Everquest or one of its expansion packs you're literally worse than hitler and the cancer killing gaming, so just don't post.
 
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Bester

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Post full of misinformation.

and are using UE for a friggin MMO game. What the hell?
First of all, it's UDK, and second it's completely irrelevant. The only problem UDK presents is that their servers don't support multi threading, which means they can't have more than about 100-150 people per area. More than 150 people means a new server instance has to be started, so that means phasing. But considering that MO has 200 people online on average and they're never in the same area, that literally never even happens.

Thanks for triggering me.

The Repopulation:
A fan made spiritual sequel to Star Wars: Galaxies that is currently on hold because the people behind the game's Engine (Hero Engine) went bankrupt.
As far as I know, it was 3 people who worked on it. Their coder was shit, he was one of the main shareholders. That "hero engine" of his was unusable, nobody could get more than 15fps in the game, which was the reason why it died. But they got around $700k between the 3 of them and shut it down. I think they're pretty satisfied with the way it turned out. Last time I heard, they said they wanted to make it on UE4 next time, but yeah, they're most likely snorting coke on some exotic islands.

The developer (Aventurine) is a bunch of shifty greek bastards that preferred guzzling ouzo and driving race cars instead of keeping the dream alive.
AFAIK nobody was playing Darkfall anymore. Would like to know why, btw.

Crowfall
Most features seem half-baked. Potentially shit.
Like what features? All modern MMOs are likely to be shit, but this one at least promises some unique things.
 

Kane

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The only problem UDK presents is that their servers don't support multi threading, which means they can't have more than about 100-150 people per area.

How can you say that limitation is 'completely irrelevant' when we're talking about MMOs? :retarded: Please try to not disqualify yourself in your first sentence next time, then I might entertain reading the rest of your post.
 

Bester

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Do I have to explain things so simple? Even WoW has phasing, how do you think it supports all these masses when they rush the first area when an addon comes out. MMO entails a large number of people per server, not per area. It's up to game designers to make it so people are evenly distributed between areas. In vanilla days we'd raid Stormwind and it'd start lagging like fuck, because of exactly this limitation of people per area.

Also, don't imply that you even knew about it, because MO never does phasing, since it never goes beyond 200 people online. You were just attempting to write "witty commentary", but didn't know what to say and let your mouth run for no reason.
 

Kane

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MMO entails a large number of people per server, not per area.

This is so wrong on multiple levels. An MMO is first and foremost defined by player-freedom. It has to support both a large number per server and a large number per area to truly qualify as MMO. See Eve Online nullsec average battle sizes in its prime for reference.

It's up to game designers to make it so people are evenly distributed between areas.

No it's not. You reek after carebear. It's up to the players how and when they gather and the developers have to support that.
Everything else is not MMO. Especially not some totalitarian system that arbitrarily divides the player base because the developers can't code.

In vanilla days we'd raid Stormwind and it'd start lagging like fuck, because of exactly this limitation of people per area.

That's nice and all but World of Warcraft is not an MMO and also shit.
 
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Hobo Elf

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MMO entails a large number of people per server, not per area.

This is so wrong on multiple levels. An MMO is first and foremost defined by player-freedom. It has to support both a large number per server and a large number per area to truly qualify as MMO. See Eve Online nullsec average battle sizes in its prime for reference.

Indeed. If an MMO was based on the amount of people on a server then games like Diablo would be considered an MMO as well, since you have thousands of people on the same server but in different game rooms.
 

Bester

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Indeed. If an MMO was based on the amount of people on a server then games like Diablo would be considered an MMO as well, since you have thousands of people on the same server but in different game rooms.
If you apply this thinking to the list in this thread, you can just empty the list.

Eve Online is an exception due to the click and move control scheme, like LA2. They're much less cpu consuming. Eve online is even more unique due to the fact that there's no navmesh whatsoever. They're like a chat server: there's no physics, collisions, etc involved, or the amount of them is minimal. There is no constant replication of movement to everyone in vicinity, only the destination coords are sent once.

There are no modern MMOs that can support more than 200 people per area. Anarchy Online had phasing, WoW has it, etc. Planetside has 150 people max per area.

It's not something that they advertise obviously, all MMOs say they're 4000 per server which makes people think it's also per area, but it's not.
 

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Indeed. If an MMO was based on the amount of people on a server then games like Diablo would be considered an MMO as well, since you have thousands of people on the same server but in different game rooms.
If you apply this thinking to the list in this thread, you can just empty the list.

Eve Online is an exception due to the click and move control scheme, like LA2. They're much less cpu consuming. Eve online is even more unique due to the fact that there's no navmesh whatsoever. They're like a chat server: there's no physics, collisions, etc involved, or the amount of them is minimal. There is no constant replication of movement to everyone in vicinity, only the destination coords are sent once.

There are no modern MMOs that can support more than 200 people per area. Anarchy Online had phasing, WoW has it, etc. Planetside has 150 people max per area.

It's not something that they advertise obviously, all MMOs say they're 4000 per server which makes people think it's also per area, but it's not.

Other than the dungeons and the two different regions, WoW seemed to do pretty fine before phasing was introduced. Are you suggesting that technology has regressed? Never played AO, dunno how that worked. Planetside is hardly an MMO as well. It's just a larger-than-usual scale team based FPS. Literally Tribes with a larger server cap.
 

Bester

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Other than the dungeons and the two different regions, WoW seemed to do pretty fine before phasing was introduced.
I'm going to repeat it then, WoW doesn't have "two different continents", it has a server per area. E.g. you seamlessly transition between two servers when you go from Terokkar Forest and enter Nagrand: you get disconnected from the old server and initiate a connection with the new one. The mobs you see in Terokkar will suddenly disappear and new mobs from Nagrand will appear in front of you.
Each area (server) will start lagging if more than the intended number of players enter it, the intended number being around 150-200. Or, as modern wow architecture does it, a new instance server will pop up and people will get redirected towards this server instead.

This is how it works in all modern MMOs with WASD type of movement. The better the movement (e.g. prediction), or the better the mobs' AI, or the more mobs there are in the area, etc, the less people per area will be allowed. Modern MMOs allow 150-200 people per area. You don't see it, because game designers made sure you'd all be evenly distributed most of the time, for example there isn't enough mobs to grind if there's more than the intended number of players in the area, so they'll leave for another area.
 

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Other than the dungeons and the two different regions, WoW seemed to do pretty fine before phasing was introduced.
I'm going to repeat it then, WoW doesn't have "two different continents", it has a server per area. E.g. you seamlessly transition between two servers when you go from Terokkar Forest and enter Nagrand: you get disconnected from the old server and initiate a connection with the new one. The mobs you see in Terokkar will suddenly disappear and new mobs from Nagrand will appear in front of you.
Each area (server) will start lagging if more than the intended number of players enter it, the intended number being around 150-200. Or, as modern wow architecture does it, a new instance server will pop up and people will get redirected towards this server instead.

Except this doesn't apply to players. Players don't suddenly disappear from your view when they step into a different region, otherwise you could just juke and LOS people by standing next to a border. It doesn't matter if this kind of shit is done to mobs to reduce lag, it's still persistent for players, and that's what matters. And that's also forgetting that you used to be able to kite monsters from zone to zone. That's probably not possible anymore since Blizzard has pussified everything in WoW.
The good old days of kiting Stiches into Goldshire, Redridge or Westfall. :troll:
 

Bester

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Players don't suddenly disappear from your view when they step into a different region, otherwise you could just juke and LOS people by standing next to a border.
It does apply to players, but it's done in a smart way with all kinds of exceptions. Also the border isn't just a line, it's two borders and when you're in between two borders you can be on either server depending on who's seeing you and where you party is, and whether you're in combat, etc.

And that's also forgetting that you used to be able to kite monsters from zone to zone.
It's managed one way or another. For example, servers can talk to each other, so a mob can stay on the old server, but if a mob is being kited across multiple areas, the old server will communicate it to those area servers.
I don't think it's possible anymore, precisely because it's tricky.

it's still persistent for players
You, the players, are transferred between area servers. The player view distance combined with various interserver mechanics makes it so you'll almost never notice it. I have I think around 2000 hours played and I noticed it only a couple of times.

There's a reason it's called seamless travel.
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Not checked out Project Gorgon raw? It's a decent explorefag game but has carebears and it's uniquely mad.
 

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Eve Online is an exception due to the click and move control scheme, like LA2. They're much less cpu consuming. Eve online is even more unique due to the fact that there's no navmesh whatsoever. They're like a chat server: there's no physics, collisions, etc involved, or the amount of them is minimal. There is no constant replication of movement to everyone in vicinity, only the destination coords are sent once.

Nothing of that it's true at all, you're even required to use collisions to your advantage on certain ganks.
 

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Shroud of the Avatar indeed looks as medieval Star Citizen. Speaking of which, MMORPG.com just gave SotA 5 (! out of 10) - they decided to review due to no more wipes.
 

Rahdulan

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Eh, I had fun with Saga of Ryzom back in the day. It's also a game that refuses to die no matter what.
 

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Post full of misinformation.
As far as I know, it was 3 people who worked on it. Their coder was shit, he was one of the main shareholders. That "hero engine" of his was unusable, nobody could get more than 15fps in the game, which was the reason why it died. But they got around $700k between the 3 of them and shut it down. I think they're pretty satisfied with the way it turned out. Last time I heard, they said they wanted to make it on UE4 next time, but yeah, they're most likely snorting coke on some exotic islands.

HERO powers Old Republic and TESO, so you're way off base there buddy.
 

Bester

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you're way off base there buddy.
Lol. Teso ditched it, for obvious reasons, buddy.
Why The Elder Scrolls Online Isn't Using HeroEngine

For the Old Republic, they took something to make their prototype on (like TESO), but then instead of starting from scratch, they took the "rewrite the shit parts" approach - rewrote the renderer and probably 90% of the code, buddy. Hero engine is an unusable pile of shit written by some incompetent dude that displays 15fps, buddy. You should've checked Repopulation out while it was still online, buddy.
 

Kane

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you're way off base there buddy.
Lol. Teso ditched it, for obvious reasons, buddy.
Why The Elder Scrolls Online Isn't Using HeroEngine

For the Old Republic, they took something to make their prototype on (like TESO), but then instead of starting from scratch, they took the "rewrite the shit parts" approach - rewrote the renderer and probably 90% of the code, buddy. Hero engine is an unusable pile of shit written by some incompetent dude that displays 15fps, buddy. You should've checked Repopulation out while it was still online, buddy.
First off - both TESO and TOR are terrible games that should've never been made. Now, for TOR, they licensed an alpha version of the engine, rewrote most parts of it and it turned out to be even more shit than what later became the official Hero Engine. In any case, there are enough places on this forum to discuss these crappy games, you don't have to do it here. Let's keep this topic clean of decline.
 

Bester

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In any case, there are enough places on this forum to discuss these crappy games, you don't have to do it here.

God forbid if we discuss MMOs in an "definitive list of MMOs" thread. :oops:
 

Lhynn

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I remember being in areas with other 600+ players in lineage 2.
 

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