Following the lead of Cameron and Aaron… and because it’s something I can put up quick to prove I’m not dead. I hesitate to call this a “Top” 10 list, since a similar list I put together on a different day would probably be somewhat different… relative valuation depends upon my mood. However, each of these represents some positive memories and definite good times, so…
The Realm
My first real graphical MMO, and you never forget the first. (Still available, by the way. A nice little diversion, if you can handle slightly dated graphics.)
Ultima Online
For all the issues over the years, I still find this game to be one of the most inspiring of all.
EverQuest
From spending a week recovering a corpse from the depths of Blackburrow, to finally working my High Elf over to Qeynos… a lot of satisfying memories of real challenges overcome.
Shadowbane
Some good ideas hidden behind the smack-talk rhetoric… a way to occasionally escape the tension without logging out of the game would have made it even better, tho.
A Tale in the Desert
This one makes my list for sheer creativity and exploration of alternative styles of play. Yes, sometimes I do play to bake bread.
Horizons
An ambitious title with some good ideas and interesting setting, that in the end just couldn’t quite meet the expectations of it’s best (worst) fans… but not for lack of trying.
City of Heroes
A solidly fun little title, and one that has grown with time. Maybe not real deep… but enjoyable nonetheless. If nothing else, flitting around amongst the skyscrapers was worth the price of admission all by itself.
Dungeons and Dragons Online
For bringing back the magic-user/thief multiclass alone, DDO would make my list (Damiano Lives!). Throwing in some actual dungeon crawling, as limited as it might have been… sheer bonus.
Tabula Rasa
It has it’s problems, but at a minimum, I will likely always remember my very first participation in a group defense to hold the Hydro Plant in Divide. A nail-biter of a victory, blowing Linkers and Thrax back thru the gate one shotgun blast at a time… absolutely glorious.
Pirates of the Burning Sea
My first real sailing mission during testing, bearing down on a pirate under full sail with the wind to our aft, cannon at the ready… it’s not even released yet, and it makes my list for that one moment.
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 21, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Aaron
Horizons is the only MMO I ever uninstalled on the first day. I was that bored/irritated with the initial experience.
One thing I will give it, though, is that it was the first MMO I’ve played that included a non-humanoid race. I think that could be viable in the right setting.
I always heard that the original designer had a lot of cool pie-in-the-sky ideas that all got cut out when the leadership switched hands, though I never read the ideas. For that reason, I tend to include Horizons with the likes of Wish, Trials of Ascension and other designs that never saw the light of day. The sad thing is that people often confuse failure of concept iterations with failure of the concepts themselves, so good ideas get left in the dust.
December 21, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Tipa
Some of Horizon’s original concepts included pairing races with their polar opposites (like Angels vs Demons, etc), a full underwater civilization, and dragon players dropping other players from great heights.
December 24, 2007 at 4:34 am
damianov
Horizons had it’s issues, definitely. However, it also had some interesting ideas, which is why it made the list. It is one of the first examples I can recall of the concept of “crafting classes”, for example. The dragon race was an interesting diversion, too.
I generally ignore the early hype involved in MMO marketing, which is why the excessive amounts associated with Horizons never really impacted my view on it. Once a title hits open beta, then you can start to get a feel for what it really will… until then, everything is “sounds interesting, but can you fit it in with everything else?”
December 24, 2007 at 4:51 am
damianov
P.S. I wanted to mention/explain the two glaring omissions from my list… WoW and EQ2.
WoW didn’t make it because it quite frankly just didn’t (and doesn’t) do much for me. I recognize it’s a great game, lots of people love it, all that… but for me, it was “same old, same old” at release, and still is today. My highest level character is only mid-30s, and will likely never progress much further. It just doesn’t do it for me: I’m certainly happy that it does work for so many others, tho. The more the merrier…
EQ2 (and DAoC, and even AC to some degree) didn’t make the cut, in some ways because EQ did. My experience with EQ2 in particular was based on initial release (bleh) and more recent occasional re-engagements (much better each time). No grand memories stick out from any of that involvement as of yet, tho, so it lost to EQ. And in paring the list down to 10, I found that after a variety of other considerations, there simply wasn’t room left for yet another high fantasy hero’s journey title, given others I definitely wanted to include. (Already had 5, after all)
Anyway, some explanation for what might have had people scratching their heads…