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I heard about this list (http://www.mmocrunch.com/2007/12/04/top-5-most-memorable-events-in-mmorpg-history/) on a Podcast, and pretty much agree that it's not all that great. Waking the Sleeper as a most memorable event? Really?

I sorta lean more closely with Zonk, who posted his own list (http://www.massively.com/2007/12/06/the-most-influential-mmog-moments/). MUD1, yea. NGE, absolutely. Cancellation of Mythica and closing of EnB? Not really.

Therefore, here's my own Top 5 most Memorable Moments in MMORPG history, so you can flame it and post your own.

1- MUD1
Started it all. I never played it. But it's impact is unarguable.

2- UO Trammel
While the genre was smaller, to so radically change the pinnacle MMO of its day was a huge deal. And the game did radically change as a result. But they managed to roughly retain the accounts they had, so this was more a controversial topic for vitriol than something that damage the game and the company in all sorts of ways. For that, we go to:

3- SWG: NGE
For a game that got so much wrong while trying for so much right, it shouldn't have been possible to shock anyone anymore. But the NGE was able to do that. There is probably more talk about the NGE than SWG itself. And everyone who ever talks about MMOs in any way knows about this. And I mean everyone, from veterans 5-hour-a-nighters to business folks who make money decisions about the genre they'll never play. There is such a thing as bad PR, and this is it.

4- AO launching
UO and EQ1 launches were bad, but the genre was smaller too, so the impact narrower. Later on though, say, when AO was about to launch, there were enough people in the Big 3 (EQ1, UO and AC1) to have a good mass of folks chomping at the bit for something different. So a lot of attention was focused on the first MMO to launch in good while, thus making more public the trainwreck-from-a-carfire launch that was the first 7 weeks of AO. Less so than the NGE, AO's launched still touched a lot of people, both those affected by it personally, and the ever-growing number of pundits/ranters who talk about this stuff all the time.

5- Lum going to Mythic
This is not a shout-out really, and didn't affect any games per se. However, it did mark the end of the place where much of the early MMO ranting went on. Since then there's been zillions of sites and communities that have sprung up, splintering the genre fans all over the place, themselves a group that has grown by the millions. It is impossible really to have one definitive place to go for advanced ranting. The numbers just don't allow for it. But back in the day, there was that one place, and then it was no more.

Honorable mentions:

• Non-unlockable Jedi: so much conspiracy surrounding whether they were actually in SWG when people were trying to figure out how to unlock them.
• Killing Lord British: come on, it was a bug (they claim). A big deal at the time, but didn't really affect that many people personally.
• WoW: Broke, what, five or six different records? Absolutely affected a lot of people, and changed a lot of things at a business level (for both good and bad). But it's a modernized EQ1 with a PvP game that actually makes sense (in that context), so neither controversial nor particularly enlightening for "change".
• Club Penguin: Not the first Flash-/Browser-based MMO, but the first to be valued so much ($350m buy + $350m potential). That's huge no matter how you spin the numbers. It's worth mentioning because a) of those numbers; and, b) it highlights the emerging new audience for MMOs. Those players will not likely graduate to Lineage 2, for example.
• Eve: The bank heist. That guy who started a bank, took all sorts of money (valued somewhere at $70k realworld I last heard) and ran. Talk about a topic!

I didn't listen to the pod cast, so I don't know what his rationale was, but Waking the Sleeper was a top 5, if for no other reason than it was the first time in a major MMO that the world changed permanently based completely on the actions of the player base.

1. UO - reading about it in Wired magazine, I never knew games like, this existed, was a big spread…

2. EQ - lots of gamers make the jump and MMOG is introduced to larger set of "early adopters", and MSM articles abound about inattentive spouses addicted, online romantic liasons, markets for virtual property, etc.…

3. WWII Online - the hilarity that ensued upon its launch

4. SB - just the whole crazy hype ("What does any of this have to do with Shadowbane?" over a game that was vaporware for an extended period, then released as a really cool implementation sans sb.exe errors and technical failings that doomed it…

5. WoW - the Office Space commercial stamped confirmation that the game flavor is totally MSM now

Wow, here I ended up thinking this'd be the lead-balloon thread of the day  :-)


I don't really agree. Yes, in the context of a linear contrived experience where the players have no impact on the world, this one thing they could do was interesting and unique. But any game prior to UO that allowed for player-built structures was much more interesting, because that affected many more people than a few dozen of the l33t-est endgamers nearly nobody else for the rest of time would ever come close to becoming. I find the telewarping of week-one home building to be higher on the list, though because games prior to that allowed for player-owned structures too, I didn't think it'd make the list.

Did Waking the Sleeper predate AC's destruction of an entire town (Arwik was it?) based on player choice?  I can't remember anymore. :(

From the way the original list was written it seemed like quite interesting one, because it made it sound like something that wasn't supposed to happen, i.e. players managed to kill something that was expected to be unkillable, through sheer organization and what have you. This sort of work, affecting the game world in unforeseen manner while staying within the game mechanics *is* memorable, akin to say, if some group of players in EVE managed to turn high-sec area into lawless space by suppression of NPC guards and what have you. Quite different from just picking one of options offered by the developers.

That happened. They patched the Privateers out of the game because we were at war w/ half the playerbase in high-sec.

SubSpace refuses to die
Virgin Interactive Entertainment intended it only as an experiment in Internet games. They put no effort into marketing or distribution. They didn't want the cost of running the servers, so they switched them off. So the community reverse-engineered the billing server, then the client (now called Continuum). VIE went out of business, and community was king.

EverQuest raiders kill Lord Nagafen
Birth of the "raiding game" concept in 3D, defining the next few years (and WoW's raiding game).

Asheron's Call end of beta
It didn't just launch - the world changed. Fire rained from an altered sky, destroyed a town and fire mobs invaded. I witnessed an RP couple commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. The first malleable online world was born.

Microsoft dumps Vanguard
World's biggest software company hires world's most successful MMO developers (before WoW), cancels other MMO projects and pumps money into making teh bestest gaem evar. Fails and pawns off half-finished assets. Big budget flops turn MMO industry from "let's all make one" to "let's only make one if we can win".

SWG marries resource/crafting complexity with PvP
Every few weeks, unique resources spawn, each with multiple randomised stats out of 1000. You use an old stack of iron ore with stats 989 683 221 1000 960 and the new wood 374 978 977 963 744 to make an iron-studded handle. You experiment on it and get handle stats 979 793 742 900 861. Via a similar process you design a blade with awesome stats. From these you brew up a sword design with the best stats seen on your server. You mass produce them and arm your guild, which is raiding a PvP player-built destroyable structure. Armour, buffs, poisons, antidotes, are all crafted. It's war, with an arms race - most people use the Boeings and the Pfizers, but the unknown variables in PvP war are coming from your guild's own labs.

No, I believe the destrucction of Arwic came first. Also, there was another event where all the water ran red with blood. At least I think it was a separate event. AC had a lot of events.

Im going with MY most memorable moments.

1. UO: First time I got explosion / ebolted by a lone PK...still remember the red's name. David Killmore. I vowed to have my revenge, but never saw him again :( The opening of that Treasure Chest and the song, 'Stones'. Being surrounded by like 10 guys in Yellow robes called 'Trinsic Borrowers' and trapped my the stole everything off me. Brit Xroads. Later, big faction fights. The first time I made grandmaster and killing Ogre Lords until I became a Lord so I could show it off. The feel of leaving town limits.

2. Shadowbane: My first siege. Even with the multiple SB.EXEs, it was such a cool thing to be a part of. I remember walking up to the commander rune spawn area and seeing one guy there. I stop for a sec, the mob spawns. The idiot actually attacked the mob with an R5 Minotaur Barbarian standing there watching. He must have felt what was coming, and he called out "Morals". It didn't work, once he got to about half health I ganked him, finished off the mob, grabbed the rune and got the hell outta there. Then sold it on ebay for 75 or 100 bucks...can't remember.

3. WoW:I started on a PVP server with friends, on our way to sixty we had so many great fights. The back and forths at Tarren Mill were awesome. Scoring my first purple in MC and rolling a 74 to win! Killing Vael for the first time. Owning in Arathi Basin. All good times.

4. Neocron:The 10 on 10 outpost battles. Keeping my whole team alive with heals and deflectors. Killing a robocop dude with a friend. The 10 on 10 OUTPOST BATTLES! Looting a 5 slot Cursed Soul off a tank. Fights in Pepper Park.

5. Subspace: Powerball. This could honestly be anywhere in the Top 5, I played a long time and loved it. The ultimate spaceship pew pew game...and a sport in one. Chaos Zone for some good old fashion turreting, ganking, mine repping, bounty hunting, Kill/Death whoring...Average hunting. Absolutely great game.



Honorable mention:Planetside: Being a part of 80 man raids, all on Teamspeak, all seperated into divisions. Leading these raids. Having a Sunday Night fun raid, with everyone making a MAX character with the name "RickJames#of100" while spamming local with overused Rick james lines. Lightning Raids. Holding a gen room from 3 times your numbers until you finally run out of ammo.

Honorable mention: Eve Small gang roams in this game can be great. Scanning out a guy in a belt YARR and getting a point on him as he tries to warp away. Killing an officer spawn with like 1.5 - 2.0 bil.

Honorable mention: SWG: Watching the sunrise over the Naboo Palace. Breathtaking enough where I will never forget it.

Honorable mention: AO: First time I was able to fly as an MP. Beautiful game, and pretty fun.

Honorable mention: LOTRO: Jamming out Jessica on my lute. And the Stones song from Ultima. Pretty game.

My top moment in an MMO is when I won bajillions of influence in a costume contest on CoX and I was just walking by.  Those people who had been hanging around there for an hour or so were so pissed off.  I got loads of nasty, outraged tells.  I couldn't stop laughing!

Memorable moment: Watching a bunch of people sploiting at a mission terminal in SWG -- when all of the sudden, a CSR came in and started issuing orders to cease their activities. Everyone panicked and ran in a completely different directions. Like it was the 5-0 or something -- and as if running was actually going to help.

I ALWAYS run away when GMs appear to tell me to stop doing something I'm doing.  Well, they don't even have to appear, they just have to say something.  I usually scream, too.  If they ban me, I email them hobbit porn.

Ah, that brings back memories. I played a Thief and needed the traveler rune, which was about half a world away from our city/area of influence, so I was solo. I had camped it several times before with no luck. Finally I see the mob appear, but some Johnny Come Lately wanders up and engages the mob. I had been there longer, so I snuck up and pickpocketed the mob (back before they patched that out) and took my rightful rune just before the guy killed it (he was some melee combat class- barb or warrior or something). As soon as I saw him go to loot, I took off running. Several very naughtily worded tells came my direction as he chased me. Eventually I got tired of running from him and called out to the guild for a summons, and off I went.

SO much to like about SB. Pity that the shortcomings overcame the goodies.

That's immersion!


Bah. I went out of my way to stick with Darniaq-style moments instead. Even twisted my SWG moment into a Darniaq-style moment to satisfy the thread. And now look what you did.

I even grief threads! rawr!

Off the top of my head:

AC - Dartktide - the Invasion of Kara by the Mercs

AC - The entire Bael event, from the success full defense by only one shard, to being teleport 6 miles above a city, to the twinky incident

AC - my encounter with Og (detailed in the back of Lum's book, find the old thread if you care)

UO - the murder of LB

CoH - the first time I logged in and made a character. Hated the game in the long run, but the character generation was mindblowing the first time.


Honorable mention to Shadowbane when my guild found the developer Island hidden in the very top corner of the map.

Heh.  I remember doing that little trick. 

I have (had) a 5 medium houses hidden away on Tattoine; one has a mission terminal inside it that I picked up (/pickup) from Talus IOP.  I used autoit to exploit delivery missions for about 4 months prior to the 'bug' getting fixed.  Those houses are filled with little exploited items that I never told anyone about.

1.  EQ - Seeing EQ for the first time on my brother in laws computer.  It totally blew my mind that he was zomg online fighting and talking to other players!! even though I wasn't much of a DnD junkie.  I just thought it was cool he absolutely freaking out about getting ganked by another player while trying to kill some dragon.  The PKer in me was born.
2.  SWG - Following its development for months.  Hearing the music play as I 'landed' in Mos Eisley for the first time on June 27, 2003.
3.  Dark and Light - Still basically an MMO n00b, I had no idea the pitfalls of crappy promises of the world MMOs.  Followed it, pulled nearly my entire guild over to rooting for it.  Stayed home from work for launch day to absolute crap.  Vowed never to get suckered into that sort of thing again. 

Still an MMO n00b.  Still get suckered.  I'm too much of an optimist.
4.  SWG NGE - Not much more needs to be said
5.  AO - Followed its development after getting hooked into the genre by EQ.  Heart crushed at its launch.  Nearly caused me to quit MMOs entire thinking they were all like this. 

Being old and memory challenged, I can't remember 5 most memorable moments.  But I do have one, and that was Rainz' ganking of Lord British in UO.  I can't believe the crybaby is still talking smack about that!

>>EverQuest raiders kill Lord Nagafen
>>Birth of the "raiding game" concept in 3D, defining the next few years (and WoW's raiding game).

The really cool thing about this is that those "raiders" were for the most part a disparate collection of random players, because the pool of high level characters was still so small.  I had a friend send me a tell asking if I wanted to help and I ran off to Nagafen's lair.  Ended up getting yelled at for talking "in character", but for the most part things went smoothly.  If I recall correctly, Bodhidarma (who led the raid) got the haste cloak.  Really nice guy, I wonder if he still plays any mmo's.  I really miss that sense of teamwork amongst people not directly tied together by guild alliegance or whatever.  Closest thing that came to it was DaoC RvR.

I still have the screenshots from the first Naggy killing, some day I may decide  not to be lazy and post them somewhere.

My own personal memorable moments:

Getting chased by half of the Yew graveyard (UO) and then saved by two people stepped out of a Runegate and decimated everything with AOEs. My first real encounter with "ubers". 6 months later, buying gold from playerauctions to buy my first house to inherit the guild (you needed to have a house to have the guild stone to have the guild). The first and only time I've ever RMTed, and that only because nothing since has been worth as much to me.

Being asked to meet a smallish group of mature gamers at a campspot in Greater Faydark (EQ1). 8 years and four DIKUs later, this is still my guild. Getting SoW (Spirit of Wolf, runspeed buff) on my Druid. Getting my first KEI on my Magician (mega mana regen buff). Using my Bard's AOE mezz for the first time (to exact revenge on all of Crushbone that had been pulled to the tunnel).

Hitting the level cap in WoW. Never hit the level cap in a DIKU before. My first Battleground, when I realized that 6-second-casting spell just wasn't going to cut it anymore.

Breaking 10mil creds in SWG from an energy business I created (copied from others doing it), all with minimum Engineering and Musician skills. Building the alliance of guilds that founded our city on Corellia. My first for-fee house decorating assignment. My first A-wing.

My first 17 insta-jump run between our old and new Corp headquarters in Eve, going deep into 0.0 space while we were at war. I was carrying stuff worth maybe 5mil ISK, so nothing in the grand scheme of things, but ultimately what I imagined pre-Trammel UO musta been like for Miners.

That's awesome! "Quick, let's hide around the corner, they'll never find us!"

My personal defining moments:
SWG: As swordsman defense stacker rebel, taking on an imperial with two AT-ST's in tow at once and destroying both - inside a star port with lots of people watching. More fun then I've ever had with my Jedi.

DAoC.: Taking the first relic on Merlin with a huge alliance. 6 of 7 keeps taken down all in one minute by organizing 10 guilds to cooperate. Only one guild failed to take theirs.

SB Beta: Defending the elven CoS town against Bane, we're loosing - then suddenly the undead come to help ! Actually more fun to read about in the role-playing description afterwards then playing it, because I crashed halfway through.

UO Europa:Faction Wars
Huge fights defending the shadowlords base against superior numbers, casting lots of nice energy and poison fields for people to die in.

Reading about the first MuD in some computer magazine in 1984 or so - I just knew these were the games for me then.

I don't have many memorable moments in current gen games that are anything but personal "Oh cool" moments since I don't catass MMOs these days.  But I have a few MUD moments.

1.  Killing Tiamat and defeating the Plane of Fire in SojournMUD a long long time ago.
2.  Getting my first green rune in Tele-Arena.

These are mainly childhood memories I look fondly back on.

Personally leading Martine, Elysa, and the anti-pks into the final battle against Blood monarchy and Gaerlan on AC Darktide, with the outcome not predetermined and potentially changing the game's storyline on our server. Nothing else comes close.

My #1 most memorable memorable moment was EQ1.  I'd tried out this new internet D&D game thingy, and rolled up a high elf cleric.  I'm wandering around greater feydark near the entrance to Felwithe, scared out of my mind of getting killed by random orc pawns and the like (what do you mean theres no way to save your game??).  I'd been too scared to go far into the forest for fear of getting lost, when I dropped concentration and sure enough got lost and couldn't find my way back.  CRAP! 

I stumbled onto a path, which I decided to follow through the forest, crapping myself and jumping 6 foot at every noise.  Then this music starting playing, and up ahead through the fog I saw Kelethin appear in the treetops.  Right there is when my cherry popped and the immersion dragged me into this genre. I can still remember that exact moment and thinking 'Wow, this is impressive'.  Had nothing to do with other people, or raiding, or ganking, and everything to do with the feeling of exploring an immersive world.

Other notable mentions go to the Chessboard in Butcherblock, the pride in doing the Freeport-Qeynos run back when it was dangerous, the feeling of enormity that crossing the Karanas gave you, and the feeling of being at the end of the world when you were in Western Wastes in Velious.  EQ had a lot of problems, but damn their world designers did a good job.

Oooh yes. You could only experience that in the first few weeks of a new server, when nobody could kill any of the stuff that crossed your path in those zones.

I co-founded a guild on a fresh server in August 1999 and while everyone else started "good" aligned characters, I started a troll. At level 6 I had to run all the way from Grobb to Qeynos to join up with them, through the fully spawned Rathes and Karanas - managed to get a bind at Arena from some powerlevellers killing Aviaks (trolls start kos to them, so the karanas were hell), then lived for a few levels with a bind at the Qeynos sewer entrance in the city wall. That was an adventure.

One other good one from AC: Finding a castle in the mountains that wasn't on the map, with 2 guilds living there in an uneasy truce. Using guerilla hit-and-run attacks under a false clan tag, turn them against one another, before sweeping up with my clan.

UO moment tops them all:

My brothers (LA) and I (NY) shared a two-story house on the big peninsula west of Wrong back before you could reset keys. We are hunting stuff in the woods and get attacked by a pair of PKs. The three of us are pure PvE types but we did our best to fight back. I manage to hide my key behind a tree (2D for the win!) but my brother forgets about his and they kill us and get a key. We were so bummed. Then a week or so later I risk a runby of the house and see that they have boxed in our house with small houses so no one can get there without a recall rune which we didn't have since we were all melee back then. I page a GM and convince him to move one of the small houses so I can get to our former house. My brothers and I proceed to spend 2 hours looting the shit out it without recall or gate, running back and forth to Vesper about 20 times each. It was glorious revenge. I never made a character without 40 magery again.

PvP+ on EQ Rallos Zek was fun times, and could fill all the memorable moment slots, including making the run to HH Pass (enchanters had class quest at low level and had to make the trek…)… …also, the original loot rules (where you can loot any corpse) made for some crazy times…

…DAoC compared to EQ was a bland, timid entry suitable for mental patients recovering from surgery…

I can't believe I'm going to start a conversation with you, but you have me curious as that sounds distinctly like Kara. I was there at the time of the blowup between Black Rose and whoever the other group was, which resulted in Val Aurenheim blowing a spazz and leading Mikey and the Mercs to Kara - which was a bit of a shock since I was pledged two ranks under Val at the time, and logged in to find the town a warzone.

Thinking about it, what you are describing sounds like it might have been the second time Kara turned in to a warzone. I don't remember all the details, as I'd moved on to live in Tufa at the time (til the shadows dropped a fucking mountain on my town).

One of the big players of the time Schattenkind wrote up a Darktide history ages ago that actually covers most of it: http://www.schattenkind.com/past-present/history.html (http://www.schattenkind.com/past-present/history.html) It's actually a great read for those of you wondering about our weird infatuation with Darktide.

I've read Schatt's history and took part in that (tho mainly the later GEN vs Kara war, via HoC and Aerious), but I was actually talking about North Mtn Retreat. Everyone had their own personal epic turf war on DT back then, I was in the Tufa Wars too. :)

Would you kindly stop talking about AC?  I never remember the bad times and I really don't want my resub count to reach the double digits.

Heh, I would resub in a heartbeat.. If they removed housing, capped xp at level 126, turned off most of the game's dungeons and removed recalls and portal hubs. But without that, the game's current mechanics are a pale shadow of what it once was. No love.

What killed AC for me was Gear, I could deal with jumpcasting, hell, I actually sold patches to un-fix turbines anti-jumpcast when they finally fixed it, but gear fucking ruined it for me.

I actually downloaded the trial for it a few weeks ago, I just can't get past the 1999 graphics, I really wish they'd put out AC3 and show us some love. (AC1 skills/spells/etc, lotro/ddo graphics!)

But ahh, the memories of darktide, how I loved it so.

Atani
Felixian Prophet
Alarik
KewtFerret

I still talk to KewtSquirrel once a month or so as well, I'm sure you all remember him fondly (:

Yeah, thanks for the reminder about gear. I can so easily revert to resubbing to AC1 if provoked. I have four characters overflowing with gear and collectible items from when a guild I was in disbanded and most of the players retired from the game. I was staying a bit longer and got pack after pack brimming with stuff. I agree with the AC3 idea. Of course, that'll never happen since they shutdown AC2. Bummer.

They could do AC3 as long as they don't call it that.

I didn't play there, but I played an DE enchanter in the first week of Vallon Zek when PvP teams was new and people actually responded to shouts of "raid on Freeport". There was nobody above level 12 yet, but some trolls and ogres had come up to Nektulos to help us.

The run through East Commonlands with this crowd of dark elves and our lumbering troll/ogre allies got the adrenaline pumping. We zoned into the Freeport newbie area and attacked.

And out of the gates stepped a level 14 Barbarian shaman. Levitating. And roleplaying: "Swear te live a peaceful life, go away hame and ye'll not feel my vengeance. This be yer final warning." etc

But we attack anyway. And we are slaughtered by the shaman and his Freeport defenders. He loots one item from each of our corpses and as we return for our gear, he offers to return the item if we will kneel and ask forgiveness.

Of course, he was soon overtaken by non-roleplaying antisocial gankers and the server went to hell. But THAT was a moment.

I just rememberd what has to be the funniest thing I've ever seen in an MMO.

Kewtsquirrel finally figured out how to bypass turbines encyption so that he could inject packets to level up stats/skills at will.  Gave himself 5,000 jump and run skills, we were near Shousi at the time I think, he fully charged a jump while holding forward and warped about 7 screens away on my screen, on his screen, he went up so high the ground fogged out.  Definately some funny shit.

Hi there. :grin:

The trouble with most of the RP guilds on VZ was that they wanted to roleplay people who'd rather be on one of the many PvE-only servers.

The Shanks were pretty cool, though - Barbarian-only guild that RPed by raiding enemy towns, 'defending' Halas/Qeynos/High Hold from non-human 'invaders' and deciding leadership by monthly mass brawls in the PvP arenas followed by hitting the nearest bar.