f13.net

Inspired by Schild's Top 20 ever (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11500.0), I would be interested in making up a completely useless MMO Top 10.

The rules are so simple:

1) List your Top 10 MMOs ever. ORDER IS CRITICAL. Your #1 is better than your #2 which is better than your #3 and so on. Duh.
2) It doesn't matter why you wrote what you wrote. It can be technical, emotional, professional, based on Potential. Who cares? Just list what you think are the Top 10.
3) Comments to your own list are fine, as long as they don't make the list unreadable.
4) Mocking other lists is ok but don't mix your list with your mockings or things will get messy.
5) Titles not yet released are not allowed in the list (No PotBS, no Warhammer, etc.)
6) Browser based are not allowed. It needs a standalone client to make it into the list.
7) Hybrids are: Hellgate doesn't count. Diablo definitely doesn't count. Guildwars shouldn't count but counts. Phantasy Star Online counts. Why PSO and no Hellgate? Cause the need for multiplayer in Hellgate is, sadly, close to none. Plus, how many votes is Hellgate going to get anyway?
*NEW RULE* 8) To have your list validated you need to name AT LEAST 5 titles. This is not the usual "name your favourite" poll. To work it needs you people give points to more than your dearest one, and I think you all have the knowledge to do that. No one here was ever scared by "not having played it long enough" before casting the usefully cynical commentaries. So please, at least 5 names.
 
On my part, I'll assign a score to every game "voted". #1s will get 10 point down to #10s getting 1 point. Then, based on this scores I will update the overall chart everytime a new list is posted.

Here is the updated chart:

Based on 187 votes.

----- The top 10 -----

1263 pts. - World of Warcraft
758 pts. - Dark Age of Camelot   
722 pts. - City of Heroes/Villains
696 pts. - Ultima Online
614 pts. - EverQuest
589 pts. - Eve Online
539 pts. - EverQuest 2
489 pts. - Star Wars Galaxies
466 pts. - Lord of the Rings Online
318 Pts. - Asheron's Call

----- 11th to 20th -----

288 pts. - Shadowbane
286 pts. - Anarchy Online
269 pts. - Planetside
254 pts. - Guild Wars
145 pts. - A Tale in the Desert
131 pts. - Final Fantasy XI
119 pts. - Puzzle Pirates
98 pts. - Dungeons & Dragons Online   
93 pts. - Lineage 2
89 pts. - Tabula Rasa   

----- 21th to 30th -----

68 pts. - Asheron's Call 2
67 pts. - Vanguard 
65 pts. - WWII Online
56 pts. - Horizons
46 pts. - Toontown
35 pts. - Earth & Beyond
32 pts. - Shadow of Yserbius
32 pts. - Saga of Ryzom
28 pts. - Neocron
26 pts. - Meridian 59 

----- 31th up -----

23 pts. - Air Warrior
20 pts. - 10six
19 pts. - Jumpgate
15 pts. - Runescape     
14 pts. - Auto Assault   
13 pts. - Maple Story
12 pts. - Motor City Online
12 pts. - Subspace
12 pts. - Dungeon Runners
11 pts. - Phantasy Star Universe
9 pts. - Endless Ages
9 pts. - FlyFF   
8 pts. - Neverwinter Nights (AOL)   
8 pts. - Voyage Century Online   
8 pts. - Minions of Mirth
7 pts. - Ashen Empires (was: Dransik)
7 pts. - EverQuest Online Adventures
7 pts. - Shattered Galaxies
7 pts. - Lineage
7 pts. - Rappelz 
7 pts. - Fury
6 pts. - Underlight
6 pts. - Test Drive Unlimited
6 pts. - Fung Wan Online
5 pts. - Mankind
5 pts. - Phantasy Star Online
5 pts. - Furcadia
5 pts. - Astonia
5 pts. - 9Dragons
5 pts. - The Matrix Online
4 pts. - Darnk 'n Light
2 pts. - Legend of Mir 3
2 pts. - Dofus
1 pts. - The 4th Coming
1 pts. - Face of Mankind




I update as soon as I can. The last EDIT is up to Lanc, reply #403.

I'll go first so you have something to ridicule if nothing else.

1) Ultima Online - They had nothing to clone and came up with something unbelievably deep. The wordliest of the virtual worlds. And without levels.
2) Eve Online - Elite meets Ultima Online. Meets Shadowbane. Meet art. Still without levels. Forever Love.
3) EverQuest 2 - The best diku ever to me. Beautiful world, great quests, so much content. It's quite an achievement to be this good BESIDE the dull combat.
4) Lord of the Rings Online - Diku, more of the same but with a gorgeous world and few layers of storyline on it.
5) World of Warcraft - EverQuest 2.01. Less soul than both the EQs but tons of polish to compensate. The overall quality is stunning.
6) Motor City Online - Too good too early. The world wasn't ready for it. Unique. I miss you. Rest in peace.
7) Shadowbane - "If only...". Best PvP concept ever. Period. And it's so obvious. Can't they just re-do it?
8) EverQuest - Some things don't need to be good, or beautiful. They just have enough charisma to change the world.
9) Star Wars Galaxies - It tried too many different things to not give it any credit. For a couple of months, it had so much Potential that it dreamed about being the best.
10) Lineage 2 - Too good looking to ignore it. The only one of the lot where the combat is so "POW!" that it almost makes the grind pleasant. Almost.


EDIT: Comments.

I hate to dump on you there, fellow "give Vanguard the benefit-of-the-doubt" supporter, but I don't think there's 10 MMOGs good enough to mention.  Right now, my list looks something like this:

1) City of Heroes
2) EverQuest 2
3) EvE
4) Planetside
5) The rest of you can rot.

1) Asheron's Call (Darktide)
2) Asheron's Call (All other servers)
3) City of Heroes
4) DDO
5) Puzzle Pirates
6) Planetside

Unless I'm forgetting something, didn't find anything else super appealing.  Bartle is ESK, split evenly 1/3 1/3 1/3.

Edit: Forgot ToonTown.  Stick that in at #7.

I'll just list the MMO's that I actually played more then 2 months.

DDO
SWG
CoH/CoV

1) UO
2) Shadowbane
3) WoW
4) EVE
5) CoH
6) EQ I
7) WWIIOL
8) AO
9) DAOC


I THINK those are the only ones I have played in retail.

Edit- crap- forgot WWIIOL.

Are those supposed to be your #1, #2 and #3 respectively?

*1.  City of Heros/Villians -- I still have this on subscription and have been since 1st month (42 freaking months!)  I love making characters and beating up on things.  Plus if you play on the 2 popular servers you can find a team very quick @ all levels.
Good:  It is fast and set for combat, not fantasy, you can fly!  Bad:  The grind (allthough it isn't bad...it isn't great either), not enough developed things (pvp, collecting, crafting...those are in but ain't great).

2.  Toontown--  Was fun to play!  I dropped it from our household, since we spend it mostly on CoH, FPS's, single player games, and WoW.  Good:  Easy to play, easy to learn, had tons of features and lots of content.  Bad:  chat system was lame, but necessary.

3.  Planetside--  How I wish they could have gotten this to take off.  I think it is the hit or miss on fun.  Some nights it was a blast, some nights it wasn't.  Plus they needed a way for 1 side to win and restart.  Battlefield, Battlefront, Call of Duty, Tribes, and Team Fortress 2 have all replaced or chipped away at this game.  Good:  Even playing field, in that a newbie can kill a max level  from day one.  Bad:  Poor marketing, leadership, and implementation.  This could have been a great FPS, but it came off as meh.

*4.  World of Warcraft-- Subscribed to it still, it is a fun version of the fantasy genres.  I keep it subscribed to hop in and help my son out.  A couple of his friends from school will play it, so I'll come help out if they need it.  It sucks for them in that there isn't a lot of lower level population and trying to do quests is a bummer.  We actually have an easier time finding groups on CoH, and we play on a populated server.  But it is fun for questing, hunting, exploring, making stuff, buying and trading (damn the 11y.o. figured out buying and selling principales pretty quick).  Good:  Well polished fantasy game.  Bad:  Sucks for low levels.

5.  Asheron's Call--  Once again a great game the didn't take off.  I liked it because I could do stuff solo or do stuff in a group and the rewards seemed decent.  Maybe it was the fact that it was not standard fantasy that people didn't like it.  Good:  Good mix of how a game that you could log in and do stuff for 1 hour, or 12 hours (your choice) solo or grouped.  Bad:  Was very bland and classes out of wack @ start, was great after it had been out a while.

6.  Ultima Online--  Got me started on this internet gaming.  Was fun, but hectic, started in Feb '98, so has so many nutty stuff happen.  Plus there is so many things that happened in UO it was fun ride.  Good:  1st MMO's for me, wild ride.  Bad:  Way to many changes.

7.  WWII Online--  Another FPS that I was hoping would be fun.  I waited a year before trying it, and it was fun.  It was a great idea, but shitty implementation.  Good:  Massive battles with true combined forces, one side could win and reset the game.  Bad:  OMG!  The design people were idiots, they forgot to do the KISS method and made it some crap that took alot to figure out.

8.  DAoC-- I would say it was good because it had a good launch and not a lot of bugs.  I hate the grind, I wanted to go fight other people, not bash on monster.  Don't pitch a game being based on RvR then tell me it is going to take months before I'm on an even playing ground.  Good:  Neat classes, good launch.  Bad:  GRIND!  Fuck you Lum and Tweety and the rest of you assholes @ mythic. 

9.  Everquest-- I started playing this at launch, and I guess since I played a rogue, figher, and shaman I didn't care for it.  The class balance, dev teams vision bullshit,  and the grind tooks its toll.  Good:  Neat classes and world.  Bad:  Class balance, dev team vision, grind.

10.  Shadowbane--  I waited till it had been out a while (a year or two I think) and it still had problems.  Good:  Good idea of Guild vs Guild, neat classes.  Bad:  Class imbalance, no WASD movement,  seemed to be hard to get established if you weren't in a big guild.

*currently subscribed and have been since I bought the games

Do Diablo II LoD and Hellgate: London count?  They have a persistance world, but smaller instances.  

Edited:  I forgot about playing DAoC, it was fun and had a good launch, but turned into the grind fest.  The bottom three I listed but should put them at negative numbers, DAoC for promising to have fun but making you grind at it, Everquest for making you a psychology experiment, and Shadowbane for just having a shitty game (no WASD movement, grind, and poor class balance), I have no love for any of those games, but listed them since I have only played those 10.

Oops, yep that works.

It might be the only way for some of us to get to 10.  :grin:

I don't think Hellgate counts. Diablo definitely doesn't count. Guildwars shouldn't count but counts. Phantasy Star Online counts. Why PSO and no Hellgate? Cause the need for multiplayer in Hellgate is, sadly, close to none. Plus, how many votes is Hellgate going to get anyway?

This is a tough list. There's an enormous gulf in quality between #1 and #2.

I suggest we all include a rough guess as to our /played in the list too.

1) WoW (15 days /played. Burnt-out from EQ.)
2) UO (4 days, in the alpha/beta only. Tried to find the Ultima, and failed.)
3) LOTRO (2 days. alpha/beta only. Polished diku, not as polished as WoW.)
4) DAoC (4 days, beta only. Got my paladin to level 14!)
5) CoH (2 days, bought in a fit of boredom and quit 2 weeks later)
6) EQ2 (2 days, EoF free trial)
7) DDO (2 days in the beta-- and I got to lvl 10!)
8) Planetside (1 day, free trial)
9) AC1 (1 day, in the beta)
10) EQ1 (60 days? Somewhere around there.)

Edit: I didn't count guildwars or D2.

1. DAoC
2. ATitD
3. WoW
4. EQ2
5. CoH/CoV
6. EQ
7. UO
8. Shadowbane
9. Asheron's Call
10. Anarchy Online

Yes, I played them all for at least 3 months.  I need a life.

1. Asheron's Call
2. EQ1
3. Anarchy Online
4. Shadowbane
5. WOW
6. Auto Assault  - lol no, I kid, I kid.

"Best" in my list based on what I had the most fun playing, as an overall experience.  Not based on refined gameplay, bugginess, graphics, etc.  

1) Asheron's Call 1
2) World of Warcraft
3) City of Heroes/Villains
4) EVE
5) Ultima Online
6) Toontown
7) DAOC
8) Puzzle Pirates

These are all distinct in my mind, each with something to recommend it. Past that point, my list changes to "MMOs that had something that made them not entirely the equivalent of stabbing rusty nails in my eyes". "Best" wouldn't cover it. In fact, even with my "bests", it's mostly a very qualified judgement. (DAOC: sort of fun except for the grind and travel times early, and then exceptionally unfun after Trials of Atlantis, for example).

But honorable mentions in the not-entirely-runny-diarhhea category:

Shadowbane (for the idea, and for the fun of the scout v. thief minigame)
LOTRO (for not entirely fucking up the integration of play into the narrative of LOTR)
Everquest 1 (for being what it was when it was)
Everquest 2 (for having potential fun buried somewhere deep inside the cold, flinty, misguided hearts of its creators)
SWG (for being the most interesting trainwreck I have ever studied or played, and for brief moments of great beauty)
Guild Wars (for a few interesting things and a good revenue model)

Past that, it's all flavors of suck.

1. WoW
2. Shadowbane
3. ATitD
4. EQ
5. DAoC
6. M59
7. AO
8. SWG

1. WoW
2. EQ
3. UO
4. DAOC
5. LoTRO
6. SB
7. Eve
8. AO
9. Lineage 2

I only played my top two for more than three months the rest were anywhere from the free trial to a month or two. I played SWG, but disliked it too much to be able to put it on the list.

1) Dark Age of Camelot
2) World of Warcraft
3) Everquest 2
4) City of Heroes
5) Final Fantasy XI

More or less ordered by how much time I actually spent playing those games.  DAOC and WoW are the only two where I've ever gotten characters to max level.  City of Heroes had promise, but turned into a grind within a few days every time I ever resubbed to it.

Edit:  Edited to add FFXI, which I though was a bit crap other than the world design and job system, but I guess it at least had those bright spots.

1)WoW - Look, I've played for three straight years. Even if other games do things better this would get the default number one
2)Pirates of the Burning Sea - Haha! It's not even out of beta, though this is so close to a release version I'm counting it, and it's already captured my imagination like no other since WoW.
3)Guild Wars - Opportunity squandered, perhaps, and not nearly as fun with all the pve crap layered on top of it as it was at release but for that brief, shining moment...
4)EQ2 - The game that pulls me back in two month spurts from time to time. I love the world and so much content. I'd be there if I could get a damned guild.
5)WWIIOL - It was shit but it was the only one that I stayed subbed to for more than a couple weeks at the time. Again, potential squandered.
6)LotRO - A prettier WoW but how pretty it is...
7)CoX - I never got a character past fifteen but 1-15 is a blast. If they would only make the rest of the game as fun
8)UO - Not my style but the progenitor
9)DAoC - Loved the pvp in my brief stay. Too fucking grindy by a factor of a hojillion but the gritty Arthur is the Arthur I want and they got that part right
10)Shadowbane - I give you props for aspiring for more.

1.   World of Warcraft
2.   City of Heroes
3.   Everquest
4.   Lord Of The Rings Online
5.   EvE Online
6.   Dungeons & Dragons Online
7.   DAOC
8.   SWG

Not enough experience to list 10 MMO's for me, I'm afraid.

1) UO
2) Planetside
3) Guild Wars
4) EVE
5) EQ I
6) DAOC
7) WWIIOL
8) ATITD
9) SWG
10) AC1

UO
WoW
SWG
EQ1
Eve
Planetside

I've played most everything else, but only these six do I consider "top" anything for me.

1) City of Heroes
2) Eve Online
3) World of Warcraft
4) Guild Wars
5) Dark Age of Camelot
6) Phantasy Star Online

Top 10 is a bit of a stretch.  Should have just gone for top 5.

01)10six
02)EVE
03)Shadowbane
04)WoW
05)FFXI
06)Planetside
07)CoX
08)AO
09)EQ1
10)Face of Mankind

===== below here didn't make a top10 MMO vote (lol) =====

Guildwars
LineageII
DAOC
Neocron
Puzzle Pirates

HOLY 10SIX BATMAN

Hrm..  Based on "fun had" and "time played"

1)  WoW
2)  Eve
3)  Planetside
3)  EQ
4)  CoH
5)  DDO
6)  Shadowbane
7)  SWG
8)  DaoC
9)  AO
10)FFXI

1) Ultima Online: Pre Trammel (This is important)
2) World of Warcraft
3) DAoC
4) City of Heroes
5) Anarchy Online
6) Everquest 2
7) EVE
8) DDO
9) Star Wars Galaxies
10) Neocron

1) Asheron's Call (darktide)
2) Daoc
3) Lineage 2
4) DDO
5) SWG JTL
6) WoW

I've played most every MMO out there, but there aren't 10 good ones to make the list.

Hmm, where to rank some is hard.  EQ2 now vs EQ1 at release when the only other option was UO is hard enough to judge, but SWG at release vs after CU vs after NGE vs now is at least three or four different games!  Just for sake of argument, I'm going to judge each of them as it exists today, with what it currently offers vs the others.  It's unfair to the older ones, I know, as (some) newer games built on the successes and learned from the mistakes of the older, but oh well.  I tried to rank them according to how they existed 6 months after release, but ran out of places to put second, third and fourth.  :-)

     1) WoW - polished, playable, fun, and with complete and essentially bug-free content out the wazoo.
     2) EQ2 - the exception to the rule that you can't polish a turd.
     3) LoTRO - almost great in so many ways, yet just a bit short in too many ways, particularly the delayed-action combat.
     4) CoH - probably the most MMO fun I've had over short time frames, but hitting that damn wall around 30 was so painful I just couldn't face the prospect a fourth time. (slow learner!)
     5) AO - it's got its shortcomings, but it's still playable (far more so than at release!) and is still the best option for some pew pew fun.
     6) AC1 - severely tarnished by nerfing PvE to balance PvP and by increasing mob density to the point where exploration became impossible.  But still, how many MMO worlds truly change with the seasons, have had whole towns wiped off the map, etc?
     7) EQ1 - Should probably rank higher, as it's a huge world and many many of its biggest flaws have been corrected.  But too much past history for me to go back, even though my wife is playing it as I type.
     8) FFXI - Did everyone else forget about this one?  It wasn't THAT bad, other than the forced grouping and too-long grind.
     9) DAoC - Strangely enough, I think it could have truly been an EQ killer in it's day had all their resources gone into providing content balance and polish for a single realm PvE game.  They chose a different path than I was interested in, but I'll still give them props for what they achieved in RvR.
     10) Eve - the only one on my list that I haven't played, but I still enjoy reading about and toy off and on with trying - if only I wasn't faced with a 3+ year training handicap.

Dishonorable mentions:
     Horizons - wasn't actually as bad as people made it out to be, but it WAS pretty tedious, especially the crafting which could have been great if resources were either vastly more available or significantly fewer required to actually build anything.
     SWG - which version again?
     EnB - Another game that was better than the general buzz admitted, but 5 levels of content and 45 levels (or however many more there were to the cap) of empty space do not a persistent world make.  Plus it's shuttered, dead and gone.

1. WoW
2. EQ2
3. DAoC
4. CoH
5. Shadowbane
6. AC1
7. FFXI

1) DAoC
2) CoX
3) PS
4) ATitD
5) EVE
6) EQ2
7) Puzzle Pirates

There's nothing else I can stand to give points to.

These games were actually good:
1) World of Warcraft
2) Ultima Online
3) Asheron's Call 1
4) Guild Wars

These were mediocre at best:
5) Planetside
6) Lord of the Rings: Online
7) City of Heroes
8) Dark Age of Camelot
9) Anarchy Online
10) EveryQuest

Did you actually play it???!???  If so what corp?

Reading these lists, it almost seems like we're playing different genres with a bit of cross-over here and there.  You've got DIKU players (WoW, EQ, EQ2, DAoC, LoTRO, AO), and non-Diku, with a bit of overlap here and there.  United under the common banner of 'MMO', but seeking very different things.

1) WoW
2) UO
3) EvE
4) EQ2
4) ATiTD
5) SWG (pre CU/NGE)

The rest I may have fun at times, but I don't hold in highany esteem anymore.  Filling this out to 10 with garbage would be pointless.



Shut up.

1 CoH/CoV
2 UO (early)
3 WoW
4 LotRo
5 SWG
6 DaoC
7
8 NWN
9 Neocron
10 AO


I couldn't come up with another, so no one gets the coveted #7 spot!

(http://iwparker.com/images/ext/toyco.jpg)

Rawr!

1  SWG
2  WoW
3  UO
4  Eve
5  DAoC
6  Shadowbane
7  Neocron
8  CoH
9  DDO

1. Lineage 2
2. WWIIOL
3. Everquest
4. Planetside
5. SWG
6. DAoC
7. Eve
8. Puzzle Pirates
9. WoW
10. CoH

L2 and WWIIOL as my top two might be a sign of a vitamin deficiency in my diet. But no fantasy game did politics like L2 (Eve did them better but I couldn't adjust to the space ship world), and no game did suspense like WWIIOL. Hiding in some bush for 30 minutes while French feet scurry all around you, and you're hoping to god they don't see you because you seriously just spent an hour running through an open field full of tank tracers to get in this position... then you stand up, mow down 3 and head for the nearest building. Damn that game was intense. I wish the engine sucked less balls though.

I still have a desire to resub every time History channel does a Band of Brothers marathon.

1.   SWG (PreCU only, up to patch 12.1 only) - Yes, it had it's problems, but it's still the best MMORPG I've played yet.
2.   WoW - No real surprise here. 
3.   EvE - Despite not playing it that much, I can pass judgement that it is one of the most well done games I've ever played, and I can see the appeal.
4.   LOTRO - Good game.  Predictable, but probably some of the most stunning graphics I've ever seen.
5.   UO - Fun game.  Lots of ways to piss people off.
6.   City of Heroes/Villians - Great, mindless MMO. 
7.   Anarchy Online - Rough start, but ended up being a fantastic MMO.  If they would just update the graphics and clean it up a bit, I'd play again in a heartbeat.
8.   Tabula Rasa - It's not elves!
9.   EQ2 - Would feel bad if the direct descendent of the original wasn't on the list
10. SWGEmu :P

1 WoW
2 DAoC
3 CoH/CoV
4 Toontown
5 ATiTD
6 Puzzle Pirates
7 EQ2
8 LotR
9 SWG

I don't have 10.

1. Eve
2. DAOC
3. WOW
4. Shadowbane
5. AC
6. AO
7. EQ

How totally fascinating. I am tempted to post this thread on my blog just to get more voters.

1) Shadowbane
2) Puzzle Pirates
..


Uhh..

I wouldn't stop you.

1) WoW
2) PoTBS (I know.. its not out)
3) Guild Wars
4) Tabula Rasa
5) LoTRO

Thats all ive really played. Sad.. I know. I honestly wouldnt even consider 4 and 5 in the list really either.

Fine.

1. WoW. For getting it right. Too bad about the endgame.
2. UO. For getting us started.
3. DAOC. For the RvR.
4. Eve Online. Best worldbuilding game ever.

Past my top 4, we're talking games that I played a lot, but don't consider "great".

5. SWG pre-CU/NGE
6. Anarchy Online.
7. Planetside.
8. Guild Wars.
9. SWG post-CU/NGE

99. Getting kicked in the nuts by Mr. T.
100. Everquest.

WoW
COV
PSU
EQ
DAoC
AC1
M59

1) WoW
2) AO (Yes, despite the launch debacle.)
3) UO
4) EQ1
5) AC1
6) Meridian 59 (Does that count?)

Everything else I consider.... well .... everything else.

1)  UO
2)  WoW

And that's it.  Fuck the rest.

You're not just considering that because UO is doing well, are you? ;)

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but if you put WoW on your list you need to donate $5 to the server for sheeple tax.

Kidding.  I'm just bitter it beat CoX.  :P

I talk about comics more than pretty much everyone else here, and even I couldn't really get into CoX.  In fact, I wish I'd thought of it during that thread about the most disappointing games ever, because for however much the concept of a comic book MMO excited me, and how much they got character creation and combat right, they pretty much shit the bed in every other aspect of the game.

Edit - as per new instructions I've moved GW to #5.

I haven't played enough MMO's to fill a Top Ten list.

1) Eve - For the politics (however vicariously I participate in them), the economy and the pvp.
2) WoW - For polish, being relatively bug-free and enjoyable and for being my first MMO. Shame about the endgame though. Interesting that I have no trouble flying in EVE fleets larger than pre-BC raids, but never cottoned on to WOW raiding. The standard against which future DIKU's should be measured.
3) COV - Lovely character generation, but I quit before reaching endgame as it was way too grindy.
4) LoTRO - Fabulous graphics and a beautiful world. Liked the storyline. Was missing something though, possibly "oomph".
5) GW - Tried it for a while, but the heavily isntanced world made for a rather disappointing experience. Also, as twitchy it makes me sound, not being able to jump was a turn off.

Games I haven't played enough to really pass judgement on:

AO - Tried it for a short while, but I guess I'm too superficial to be able to overlook the aging graphics.

These lists are irony, defined. You have to get to #8 before you get out of the type of games we most complain about (iterative DIKU).

The marketing folks were right after all.  :grin:

In order:

World of Warcraft
EverQuest

Guild Wars

Planetside
Dark Age of Camelot

EQ2
SWG

The top two I played for years, each.

GW I jump onto now and then, though rarely.

PS and DAOC I didn't last for the included month.

EQ2 and SWG I didn't last for the trial 7 days.

The games MOST here complain about, you mean.  I and a few others have expressed time after time that, yes, in fact we enjoy DIKU. Onoes.  :grin:

I'm sure my little vote for Shadowbane and Puzzle Pirates will rectify that when Falc updates his post.

Although I'm sure that Shadowbane would qualify as a diku as well... Just not the important parts.

[edit] Ah damn, he did update. Puzzle Pirates is that far down? You people suck.

[edit] Oh wait, that's only up until Evil Elvis' post.

1) UO
2) SWG
3) Eve
4) EQ2
5) Vanguard
6) EQ
7) CoH
8) LotRO

That's it!

SWG gets second place for the period when it was a Koster/sandboxy game. The Vanguard vote is not a joke if anyone wonders - I enjoyed it.

Edit - added LotRO at 8th place.

I agree that UO and SWG should have two different places in the list, at least. No other games have really changed as much as they two over their lives (imho):

UO pre-Trammel
UO
SWG pre-NGE
SWG


Heh, good point :-) I do wonder though... are the folks playing DIKU but bitching about them truly waiting for that 3D pre-trammel UO in the sky? Or has it just become tradition to think they want it?

Lineage 2
WWII Online
Eve Online
EverQuest
Puzzle Pirates
Planetside
DAoC
Guild Wars
SWG
CoH

1. EQ2
2. CoH
3. WoW
4. SWG (pre nge)

Coming up with 10 is very hard. Should've asked for top 3 imo...

1. SWG
2. Eve
3. AO
4. WoW
5. EQ2

Might be worth mentioning when you played your first MMORPG. I can't rate UO, because I started playing about six months after SWG's release, so my looks at UO were sort of backwords "how it was" looks. I'd suspect that I'd rate it pretty high, if I'd played it in it's heyday (post-Trammel), but I'm really just rating it on it's ideas and how I think it fit into things in hindsight.

I'd probably rate (of those I've played more than a few hours of):

1) SWG (pre-CU) -- I wanted a sandbox, I had an awesome house, and I wasn't a min-maxer. I hadn't yet run out of things to do when they released the CU. I was still playing with templates.
2) WoW -- polished, gorgeous (I love the art style) and clean. Reminds me of Disney, actually -- Blizzard is an expert in removing all the hassle and just delivering the fun.
3) EVE Online -- I'm sorry, it was too daring, too well done, and too gorgeous not to rate highly. I only play it intermittently, but I love it when I do.
4) CoX -- Hands down the slickest combat I've come across. I absolutely love it. I just can't stand the part after about level 25ish.
5) LoTRO -- caught the feel of the world, loved the storylines, but the combat just never snagged me. Plus, to be fair, it kept crippling my wife's videocard (heat issues) and we just ended up putting it aside.

Hmm it's hard coming up with 5 MMOs I've got nice things to say about, not going to try 10:

1. EVE : for all it's numerous faults no game (off or online) has held my interest this long.  Dramabombs, PVP with consequences, backroom deals, drama, intrigue, epic player created content.  It's great
2. WoW : well polished and addictive at least until you hit cap
3. UO : my first MMO, set "worldy" expectations which few games have catered to.  Probably would've been happier if I started with EQ
4. DAOC : my first diku so the grind wasn't so obvious or onerous.  Enjoyable PVP
5. CoH : very fun until the level curve disappears into the stratosphere.  Nice community too, everyone seemed to be having fun

Just updated to the last post (Sparky's).

1) UO (Pre-Tram of course)
2) WoW
3) Eve
4) Planetside
5) Shadowbane
6) Neocron
7) Subspace
8) AO
9) LOTRO
10) SWG

1) ATiTD
2) EQ1
3) WoW
4) AC1
5) LotRO
6) SWG (original)
7) EVE
8) EQ2
9) AO
 
Based on how much I enjoyed them at their peak. Hence EQ1 rates above WoW because it was my first, and everything was new and shiny.

ATitD! Should have added that to my list... oh well.

My list...

1. WoW - (4 lvl 70's, 6 lvl 60's. a character for each class and race) So many things done right. Like many have mentioned before, polish, UI, and quest structure were completely different from what was out there before.
2. EvE - (played one of my buddies characters for a bit) The game itself is meh, but the finiancial and political meta-game can't be matched. Really amazing and just view the War thread in the Eve forums for a taste of what I am talking about.
3. DAOC - (3 lvl 50's) PVE was ho-hum, but the Realm vs. Realm action initiated some really interesting scenerios like people conspiring with other realms or performing sabatoge and enabling a real (gain terrority; keep terrority mentality). Never seen such unity for a particular faction (or in this case a realm) in a player base for a common cause since.
4. EQ - (1 lvl 50) Father of the modern MMO. So many phrases and experiences that have entered the pop culture vocab. Grinds, uberguilds, and a new game type created.
5. SWG - (master carbineer/architect/pistoleer and squad leader) GCW was a bust and the whole "How to become a Jedi Holocron" issue was really lame, but the massive expanse of explorable area and the crafting system (love the offline extractors) as well as leveling gameplay that wasn't dependant on killing foozles, was pretty cool. Bugs abounded though and this was before NGE.
6. Lineage 2 - (lvl 48 Gladiator and lvl 49 prophet). Grind was insane. But if a particular guild owned a zone, and you were not friendly with them and you were there without friends, get ready for a whole world of hurt. Graphics were way ahead of anything else out there at the time and you have to admit that the female night elve characters were easy on the eyes even though I never rolled one. Crafting sucked ass though in this game.
7. UO - (can't remember what I played; to long ago) Played from beta and the first 2/3 months of release until Diablo came out. Walk outside town and it was really a no-mans land. Many a time I was running for my life in-game due to the lawlessness of the wilderness. Never really got in the crafting, but I did earn alot of gold rolling a female toon and cybering with sexually frustrated individuals while role-playing a prostitute. Good times even though my wife thought I was fucking crazy when I told what I was doing. I just laughed it off.
8. LOTR - (lvl 50 bard) Even though instancing had been in use before (DDO being an example), I thought that LOTR really used instances to keep true to the source material and dare I say, actually enhanced the original vision of Tolkiens Middle earth. I got to cruise around Rivendell, Weathertop, Angmar and go to Hobbiton and Bag End.

As for 9 and 10, I would leave that for the games I haven't played but heard good things about. COV/COH and AC1.

1)  EQ   (nostalgia vote)
2)  DAOC   (RvR)
3)  WoW   (soulless, but still fun for a while)
4)  Eve     (didn't play it much, but was always impressed with the scope)
5)  EQ2    (Good dev team, always has been a bit akward though.)
6)  Planetside  (played it a bit on release and it didn't suck too bad.)
7)  Guild Wars (Some brief fun PvP moments...horrid PvE, no world kills it)

That concludes the list of MMOs I have anything good to say about.  I never played UO, SWG, LOTRO, AC.

1. WoW
2. AC2
3. COH

What the hell, I play MMOs just as much as you guys.  My rankings are justified totally by time played, and to be fair I'll leave DAOC off the list (even though I played it for 4 years and stuff, despite it being a day job. Oh, and thanks for blaming me for the grind, Jimbo!)

1) Ultima Online. Played for years, Lum the Mad was a dex monkey/poisoner whose specialty was screwing up autocasted UOE recall spells with deadly poisoned newbie daggers. STAB STAB STABBITY STAB
2) World of Warcraft. I've played this on and off since it came out (much more since 2005ish when I finally burned out on DAOC after 4 years), and apparently so has the rest of the planet. I keep rerolling on new characters and servers, so the last patch was a godsend.
3) Everquest 1. This is what I played between UO and DAOC. Never got to raiding level with it, but I had fun yelling at guildmates about corpse runs. Totally a social game for me.
4) City of Heroes/Villains. Still play this on and off. CoH I loved for its combat system and CoV added great lore/storytelling on top of it (because come on, who doesn't want to work for a fascist dictatorship run by a big spider-lookin' thing).
5) Guild Wars. Very pretty. I pick up an expansion when it comes out, play through it like a single-player RPG, then stop. What PvP I've done was fun but I never really felt good at it.

And... sadly, that's all I've played to any extent. To explain the missing choices:

Eve - I have had dozens of people *order* me to play Eve. I just can't do it. I know there's all kinds of rich politics and backstabbing and attack ships glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. But it just never grabbed me, ever. I couldn't get past the feeling I was playing a mildly interactive screensaver.
Asheron's Call - never did it for me, to the undying  :uhrr: of all the good people I know at Turbine.
Star Wars Galaxies - Played it off and on (mostly off) for years as it was my wife's favorite MMO. I loved Jump to Lightspeed. I liked the 2nd combat revamp. I didn't like the NGE. To put it mildly. My wife liked it less since her class (bioengineer) was literally removed from the game.
Anarchy Online - it launched right before I got hired at Mythic, and was in poor shape. Never went back to give it a better chance.
Everquest 2 - gave it a chance every so often (there was a group of people at Mythic that really enjoyed it and kept encouraging me to jump in) but, well, WoW.
Planetside - I suck at shooters.
WW2 Online - refer to above line.
Tabula Rasa - refer to above line. And yes I know it's less shootery but it makes me *think* it is.
Shadowbane - played it for a month, realized that no, I was not hard core enough, and stopped.
Vanguard - played it in beta, realized that no, I was not hard core enough, and stopped.
Final Fantasy XI - played it a week, realized that I could no longer solo ever, and stopped.
DDO - lack of soloing killed this one for me, too.
Matrix Online - you know, I actually liked this one. I liked the idea of Interlock even if it broke horribly with more than 2 combatants. I liked the story and the lore (sue me) and the feel. Another casualty of lack of time.
Lineage II - I am *so* not hard core enough.
Lord of the Rings Online - Literally have not had time to play it yet. I will pick it up when I finally burn out on WoW, I suspect.

1. Star Wars: Galaxies (pre-CU)
2. EverQuest (Velious era)
3. SubSpace
4. World of WarCraft
5. Tabula Rasa
6. Anarchy Online
7. Planetside

Comments
SWG (pre-CU) - the sandbox that worked for me, where I staked my claim and made a difference, crafting for team PvP, still feels like home even though the gameplay is now totally different and doesn't interest me.
EQ (Velious era) - team PvE as team PvP (racing each other to boss spawns), great fantasy atmosphere, terrific dungeons, best raiding game, flawed and grindy.
SubSpace - the great experiment in early MMO internet code I played from alpha 0.79. Was actually a fucking great game, particularly Powerball and the original flag game.
WoW - near-perfect execution, super slick, ultimately limited by offering nothing new.
TR - best sci-fi MMO so far, best achievement in improving the genre's combat.
AO - best ever plot and atmosphere in a MMO, great moments, poor grindy gameplay.
PS - if only it could retain a player population, it would be great.

I can't list any more. I've played many other MMOGs briefly, but none of them have hooked me enough to keep playing. I probably would have liked UO, but as you can see I'm more about the sci-fi than the fantasy, I never liked the Ultima series, and I was too busy playing SubSpace or travelling overseas for 15 months during UO's glory days.

1. SWG
2. WoW
3. Lineage II

1) Ultima Online -- I played it a month, got ganked at the crossroads, quit. Came back after Trammel and subbed for 6 years.
2) Second Life -- No really. Something about this game gets under your skin--I really truly love the people I've met here. For all the places you can sexually cannibalize 5 year olds for 500 Lindens that gives it its sordid rep, there's a load of amazing stuff here. Huge amounts of social interaction, a strange social experiment, live music, building tools that support some incredible RP sims. It's horribly flawed demented genius. 2nd longest in active play to UO
3) EQ2 -- Great game. First level based game I hit max level in. First game I raided in. Wonderful balance between goup/solo/non-combat play.
4) AO -- Great RP, intricate background, interesting game systems & after the mission run dancing to the Gridstream at the Reet's Retreat!
5) DAOC -- Week #2, chaos at the Emain milegate with 1/3rd of the server pop there in lagtastic ecstasy. Nothing I've done in games compares to these huge battles. Nothing. The rest of the game may be crap, but I still get shivers thinking about those.
6) Underlight -- Open PVP, permadeath, philosophy, and player regulated advancement that could cover anything from killing a bunch of nightmares to composing poetry. Amazing game with hideous graphics and a 2 digit population.
7) SWG -- I loved Sim-beru, clothed half the hookers dancers on Wanderhome, but the game was too buggy to play.
8) COH -- Best action-combat in any mmo
9) Eve -- Best game I never play. I played just enough to admire it though.
10) Puzzle Pirates -- Thinking outside of the box and some amazing subsystems. The economic system in YPP is a wonder.

EQ - Not the first MMO I played, but the one that first got its hooks in me.
SWG - Sucked, a lot. But it's like that hot chick that treated you like shit, you hate her, but she was hot and the sex, though probably degrading in many ways, was amazing.
EQ2 - A slow starter to its older sibling, but once the dev team got their shit together, it really started to shine.
CoX - I can create my own superheroes, how can you beat that?
UO - Got ganked a lot, ganked a lot more. The darkest I've ever been in any MMO.
Tabula Rasa - Solid gameplay (so far) and a story I can really get into.
Planetside - MMOFPS. I still love this game, even if the population can't sustain more than one decent battle anymore.

1- EVE Online
2- SWG (pre CU)
3- WoW
4- AC1
5- DAoC
6- CoH
7- AO
8- Planetside

1> WoW
2> EQ2
3> EQ
4> DAoC
5> SWG
6> EVE Online
7> Planetside
8> CoX
9> AO
10> UO

1: Everquest through Velious, My First MMO.
3: DAoC
4: Eve Online 
5: WoW
6: CoH/CoV sadly, the character creation is more fun than the game itself

10: Shadows of Yserbius.  I don't know if it counts as an MMO,per se,  but it's really where I got started down this asinine path.

I'm both surprised and not suprised by how frequently SWG is getting rated. I mean, we've had 100+ page threads on it so obviously people played it. On the other hand, most of those were 100 pages of "Jesus, this blows. Here's what they should have done".

My list includes only those games that I played for more than 3 months.

1) World of Warcraft
2) City of Heroes (and City of Villains)
3) Asheron's Call
4) Toontown
5) ATitD
6) FFXI


(edit: forgot about Toontown)

Are we allowed to mention MUDs?

Just updated.

To answer a few questions, no MUD are not allowed. In regards to Second Life, I quote every single word Numtini wrote, I love it for the same reasons and I spend on/in it much more time than basically any MMO. But I don't think it's fair to include it in our chart as it's (to me) something completely different. Much more a tool than a game.

About what Morat said, isn't ironic to have EverQuest so high in the chart when in that other thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11505.0) it was officially decided that it suck, sucked and utterly sucked since forever?

And what about Planetside's 9th place?

So many interesting things, but the more the votes the better.

On by the way: *NEW RULE*.

To have your list validated you need to list AT LEAST 5 titles. This is not the usual "name your favourite" poll. To work it needs you people give points to more than your dearest one, and I think you all have the knowledge to do that. No one here was ever scared by "not havinf played it" long enough before casting their usefully cynical commentaries. So please, at least 5 names.

I see no PotBS even though by my count it has 18 points.

#1 UO Best mmo ever
#2 EQ1 A lot of fun... but the grind sucked
#3 LOTRO Great game, had lots of fun, but too shallow. Lost interest after a while.
#4 EQ2 If it weren't for Smeadly, I would have never stopped playing this game.
#5 The Shadow of Yserbius - wow, dialup sucked...

The problem with your list is that you were asking for people to list 10.  So people are listing games that they have just played the beta, trial, or the free month then quit.  I've played at least 10 mmo's but most of them weren't worth mentioning because I just had no fun in them.

It's because anyone who named it can't follow instructions.

And regardless of instructions; anyone who puts a game that doesn't exist yet in their top 10 clearly has an opinion as valueless as the gaming 'press'.

Not especially. Just because schild and some guy who never played EQ have had a circle-jerk about how shitty they think the game is, was, and ever shall be doesn't mean a lot of the rest of us didn't play it and mostly-enjoy it for a long time. schild doesn't speak for the board as a whole, he just speaks loudly.

Schild never played Everquest. He played whats left of everquest after about a dozen poorly designed expansions were stuck onto it. If he had plaid during the Ruins of Kunark or Vellious era's... he would probably have liked it. Also... eveyone in that game is capped out now. It's not fun to play an MMO that has a level system like EQs and start a new character. There's no one else to hang with!!

Oh Azazel, I know. But it wasn't just Schild there telling me I was wrong about EQ.

And Modern Angel, rules in the opening post say:

Schild said he played since beta, so it's not about that. Anyway I was just pointing out that as much as everyone is entitled to hate it, that thread seemed to hint at everyone NOW thinking it sucked, even in its glory days. And the fact that even who played it extensively and loved it was posting that yes it sucked made me shiver.

EQ1 only got more approachable after the Vision left the building. Before that everything was measured from minor cockblock to horrific-who-can-put-up-with-those-noise?! cockblock.

I played EQ and hated it so   :raspberry:

And PotBS should get points. Because I said so.

This list speaks purely to nostalgia in most cases though.

The community aspects of MMORPGs change how you view MMORPGs in the future.

For example, if I put together a list, I'd probably have Star Wars Galaxies at the top because I loved running that guild. Even though the game, at times, seemed like it needed more work than the pyramids did.

If you wanted a real top 10 MMOG list, everyone would base their entire list off /played. I think. Some people are just sick sick sick and play the crap out of games they truly hate.

Edit: Still, interesting lists.

Actually, I said "SWG". :)

To be fair, Everquest did completely suck.

But for many types of people it was the first and only choice.

I liked The Realm better than Everquest.

Why is everyone making a big deal out of EQ1 being #6?  Its still under DAOC (broken classes, pop imbalance, TOE, boring world, /stick, buffbots) CoX (which stops being fun once you've finished making your character) and EVE (which everyone admits is a glorified screen saver + player generated content), UO (I wonder if you divided it into pre and post Trammal if UO would be anywhere near that high) & its barely beating out SWG which we should all know was a pile of shit even pre-CU, broken classes, broken HAM, buff lines etc.

Sixth place when many people are listing 5 or less picks really doesn't count for much, nor disprove the idea that EQ1 was a bad game.

This thread stands as a reminder of how fucking BAD mmo's have been so far if you ask me.

No it didn't! So there.

1 - CoX
2 - Gemstone 3/4
3 - WoW
4 - Planetside
5 - EQ 2
6 - Eve Online
7 - DAoC
8 - Guild Wars
9 - Earth and Beyond
10 - EQ

1. MajorMud
2. TeleArena
3. Star Wars Galaxies
4. Mythos - so close. so close.
5. Guild Wars - almost close. almost close.

1. EVE Online
2. LotRO
3. EQ2
4. WoW
5. Horizons (pre-CU)

Fine.

1)  UO.  Because I love it irrationally and fuck you if you don't like it.   :awesome_for_real:

2)  WoW.  Because it was the first MMO to play like it was built by professionals.

3)  Eve.  Because it's the first "meaningful PVP" game that actually worked out.  Plus just reading about it is more fun than some MMOGs I've tried to play.

4)  EQ1.  Because for better or (more likely) worse, it shaped the way of almost everything to come.

5)  AC1.  Because I need a fifth game, and I actually played this one.  For like a week.

1) Asheron's Call 1
2) Horizons
3) World of Warcraft
4) Dark Age of Camelot
5) World War II Online
6) City of Heroes
7) Asheron's Call 2
8) Planetside
9) Star Wars Galaxies
10) Anarchy Online

Hoizons:
Had a true 3d world, but they forgot dungeons and to populate it with many mobs.
Best in-game annotatable map I've ever seen. Saved on own HD in readable format so could clean it up also.  Wish other games would steal this feature.  Explorers dream feature.
You ran faster on roads.
Played a dragon to adult status where one could fly.
Also could level dragon mostly by questing.
Could level crafting on same character without sacrificing combat skills.
I only played it for 3 months because I 'finished' it.

My List of Graphical MMO's:

1. WOW
2. LOTRO
3. EVE
4. COX
5. Shadows of Yserbius

I really think I should be able to enter MUDs.  I've played many more hours and years in MUDs than current MMOs.  My first "3D MMO" was EQ back in '99 and it was awful.  I quit after a few months and didn't pick up another graphical MMO until WOW in 2004 or 2005.  I've been playing MUDs and other DOOR games since '91/'92.

So here's my real list of online RPG games:

1. Tele-Arena 3.0 (Anyone ever play and remember the reroll cheat or the hunter trail spam power level trick?)
2. World of Warcraft
3. MajorMUD
4. TradeWars
5. SojournMUD (And all of it's offshoots, Duris and Toril.)
6. MidPointVoid (Or any other derivation of Owen Emlen's code base LOC,MPV2 etc)
7. LOTRO
8. EVE
9. COX
10.Shadows of Yserbius

Hey, someone else listed TA & MajorMud. Worldgroup MBBS ftw.

After playing Shadows of Yserbius (very expensive, charged per hour) my old buddy showed me how to connect to BBS's with my nifty 2400 baud modem.  Hooray monthly fees.  I played Tele-Arena A LOT. 

I can still map out from the Town Square to the Minotaur. (E D W W W SW S S S)  I think that's right.

Based on /played

EQ
DAoC
AO
CoX
EQ2
Planetside
SWG
WoW

1. Dark Age of Camelot - I played this game from beta through release and up until the release of Shrouded Isles, Trials of Atlantis, and New Frontiers. I was part of a great guild that formed in beta and continued on through release. RvR was what made this game, and I still think it was the best "PvP" implementation in a game to date. It was thrilling, and it gave players the option to just do open field fights or to use the forts as tactical vantage points. I simply have not found an MMOG that has surpassed the fun I had here. It's a shame that so much more PvE grind and such were added, but I understand the need to add more content. I would have been content to simply do RvR forever.

2. Asheron's Call 2 - According to others, there is no logical reason in the world for this, but I really enjoyed this game. I loved the world, the lore, the races and classes, and just generally had fun every time I logged in.

3. EverQuest II - I still play this ~ once per week and it just seems to have grown well since release. Part of the reason this is ranked is because of the nostalgia factor. The world of Norrath became a common environment over the many years I played EQ1 and to see it revisited here and fleshed out further is a lot of fun. Well implemented systems and excellent use of voiceovers also help to add to the immersion of the world, which draws me in and allows me to have a more enjoyable time.

4. City of Heroes - Tried City of Villains, but I suppose they count as the same game. In any case, this ranks because of the f13 groups that used to play this. The game has a lot of fun potential, but became a little too grindy. Nevertheless, a well done MMOG, so much the better with TeamSpeak, schild, and Signe.

5. Star Wars: Galaxies - I can't figure out why I stopped playing this game. It was a lot of fun for me, and another where I had some occasional chances to game alongside other f13 members. I think that the constant and big changes to the game are what drove me away. In MMOGs, it's nice to have a goal, but unless that goal is static for a fair amount of time, it can be frustrating to play. SWG seemed to become a moving target of what to do. Still, I had a fun time, and it deserves some credit.

6. Saga of Ryzom - This had a lot of potential and was another one of those MMOGs that I just plain logged in and enjoyed. It wasn't the easiest to grok at first, but some of the implemented systems (brick system in particular) were interesting and made for a nice change of pace.

7. Lord of the Rings Online - This is one that I love for the IP that it's based upon. I play this on and off every couple months. I liked the music system in AC2 and like this one even better. It is far more involved and is a lot of fun. It may sound ridiculous, but it is a major reason that I still pop on every now and again.

8. Neocron - This game has so much wasted potential. I don't know if it was the size of the development house that limited it, or some foolish decisions, but I had a lot of fun with PvP in this MMOG. It's also the first MMOG where I had encountered an in-game stock market based upon the corporations that you could faction with. Some interesting systems here and a compelling environment for PvP.

9. EverQuest - Nostalgia, really. I spent too many hours of my life playing this, but what an escape it was... Looking back, my god, did we all have the beer goggles on for this one, but, hey I played text-based MUDs for years as well because of the fellow players. The grind and the need to group is what made EQ what it was. It was a forced social, but it worked.

10. Puzzle Pirates  - This was a tough last spot to fill, but honestly, this is another MMOG that I randomly pop onto now and again when I need a good bit of casual fun. The beauty of this one is that you can hardcore game it, or just hang out. The upcoming pirate themed MMOGs have systems that already exist in this game. I like the implementation of the mini-games for ship to ship combat, sword fighting, and trade skills.


Honorable mentions:

• Eve Online - gorgeous graphics and a AAA quality game, I only wish I could devote the time to it.
• Anarchy Online - Because they tried and it didn't turn out half bad, really. Shame they never finished the Midgard MMOG (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/anarchyonline/news.html?sid=2831406) they had planned.
• World of Warcraft - A nice, professional, polished game play experience. For an MMOG, they did a phenomenal job, but didn't make my list because sometimes the rails through the world are too transparent. This would have made an excellent console MMOG like FFXI.
• Final Fantasy XI - Top notch work, but alas, I did not meet the tolerance requirements for group grinding. I so much wanted to play this to the end, but just did not have the patience or time. Great production values on the in-game cutscenes.

1. Ultima Online - A dream come true when I first started playing. Granted, the dream crashed and burned shortly after logging on for the first time, but still. The only MMORPG I've played so far where I've "lived an alternative life", so to speak. In all the others, I've just... levelled, and swapped out loot for better loot.

2. World of Warcraft - Most polished and "complete" MMORPG I've played to date. Also, the only one I've raided in.

3. Dark Age of Camelot - My first encounter with sieges in MMORPGs, and I absolutely loved it. Many other parts of the game put me off, though. (But Darkness Falls rocked!)

4. SWG - Star Wars in space! Uh. I mean... it's a Star Wars MMORPG!

5. Anarchy Online - Great background story & scenario for pvp conflict.

Honorable mention for being the first multiplayer game I played that wasn't on a single computer or across a null-modem cable:
Seth Able's Legend of the Red Dragon

I like MajorMud/SuperMud.  I don't know why MUDs can 't be listed.  I also don't know why there are rules to this thread.  What's THAT all about?

I'll start a separate one for MUDs in the next week. They are a class of their own and there are a lot, so I could see how this could become unwieldy.

MUD can't be listed because there are/were too many and because I think they are a bit off the scope of this game/research. Just a bit.

Also, I hate rules too so let's just ignore them. You post whatever you like. Then I'll update the chart whatever I like it. Better?  :heart:

1. UO (Only wins out over WoW due to more memories made - other people related, not game related.)
2. WoW (Should really be first as I have enjoyed the actual game itself rather than totally relying on other people, like UO.)
3. FFXI (If Grind and slow travel wasn't my hurdle back in the day, I'd probably still be playing.  No, I'm not going back now.)
4. SB (Potential, potential, potential....the rest sucked, but gave me a few months of "what could have been" and it was glorious.")
5. CoH (Grind and boring repetitive missions was the killier here.  Character customization for the win.)
6. AO (Pretty good, but got into it late so most were at 1xxxx level.  The missions got repetitive fast too.)
7. DDO (Good, but too blah to get me to switch from the game of the day.)
8. LoTRO (Same as DDO, see above.)
9. GW (Fun.  Ok, single player.  Just didn't capture my attention for long.)
10. EQ1 (Played because all my friends switched to it.  Really really didn't like it.)


*Edit:  I listed what I've played (sometimes for only a few weeks.)  Some games didn't make the list (read: SWG.)  I went by my lasting impressions on each and by how much they influenced ME (good or bad.)  The rest just were wastes of time and I barely can remember them.  EQ1 got a mention because even though it sucked, it deserves a mention.  I played it for 3 months mainly because there was nothing else.  I returned to UO after that, the market was just THAT bad.

1) WoW.  Talk about polished.
2) Shadowbane.  Depsite all the bugs.  Fatally flawed concept that made for a good 3 months of fun.
3) Jumpgate.  MMO where player skill matterd?  Another Flawed concept that made for 3 months of fun
4) EQ.  First MMO always ranks high, no matter how awful it was.
5) AC1
6) Planetside.
7) AO.  I'll always remember exploiting to form a guild.
8) DDO.  Was fun for two weeks.

Nothing else I played was worth mentioning.

Oh hoooooo. I could still set up macros 10+ years later. Griffon? Sure. SW, NW, N, NW, N, NW, NE, E, NE, N, N, NW.

Maybe I'll buy MajorMud software for f13 with the extra donations (ho ho ho) (kidding or not).

Ah hell, it still runs under Worldgroup MBBS. Blehhhhhhhhhh. They should've really marketed it to just straight linux servers to run independently. I still remember being the first on my server when module 1 hit to get the crystal shortsword. I could gank serious ass in MM.

1) EvE Online
2) ATitD
3) UO
4) AC
5) WoW
6) SWG
7) DAoC
8) WWII Online
9) Guild Wars
10) Puzzle Pirates

Leveling in MajorMUD manually (Read: without scripts) prepared me for hating EQ years later.

edit:
Another memory just popped in. TA was the first game that I played where I had to set my alarm clock to wake me up an extra hour or two early to kill the cyclops for the bronze key before anyone else could.  This also prepared me for hating EQ years later.

Memory2 that just popped in my head!  Talk about permadeath.  I remember ganking people and destroying characters that took them months to make.  Ooooh....

Memory3!!  There were gold sellers even back then on the BBS I played.  You could buy monthly access keys.  Fucking gold sellers.

1) EQ2
2) UO
3) EQ
4) CoH
5) Planetside

I played a mud called Asylum for a while.  It started as a DiRT mud, I think (variation of an aber mud).  Resets were eventually eliminated and I think players could keep their stuff eventually as well - it was so long ago it's a faint memory.  I recall that I learned the meaning of penultimate from playing that game. 

I played Medievia for a few years.  I believe it started as a diku and evolved into something else.  My favorite thing to do was to trade, via this trading system consisting of tradeposts, each with different commodities.  First I'd get the prices from all the tradeposts (via flying around to them and running a quick script).  Then I'd pick the best paying route, fly to a tradepost, buy a wagon, fill it with whatever commodity and then take it to another tradepost to sell.  Could do it solo or with a group.  Could go through the "die and be looted" portion of the world or stay safe, but perhaps perish in a tornado or by angry mobs. Then it was changed so that it couldn't be done solo anymore, except for the very low paying safe routes.  Ugh.

Guild Wars
EQ2
CoX
DAoC
Puzzle Pirates
EQ1
Planetside

Medievia was ugly to look at.  I could light up a dark room with all the florescent magenta cyan and yellow scrolling across my screen.  I developed MUDs in my time and that shit scared me.

Sure, I'll play.

1 - Alan Lenton's Federation, a sort-of MUD available to some proprietary online services before going web/telnet-based in '97. I played this pretty much straight from 1993 to 1997, at varying levels of commitment. It's the only game that ever got me to pay $300/month dial-up bills. It was my first online game and the awesome breadth of experience available at the time, as well as the vibrant social community, I've never really found elsewhere. I think a graphical Fed-alike would be amazingly fun.

2 - Ultima Online. My first graphical game. What can I say? I enjoy baking bread to crush. My favorite character had no skills to speak of - he was an in-game author who recorded the exploits of an Anti-PK guild and stored them in the guild library, which he curated.

3 - EvE Online. Probably the best nontrivial PvP available, as well as one of the most realistic market systems available. Amazing player-driven politics. People read threads about it even if they don't play. However, the grinding of money, dev-involvement drama, and high barriers to entry knock it down a few pegs. Not always the most fun to play, but often fun to be involved in, even if only by proxy.

4 - DartMUD. MUD. The deepest and best PK/political experience I've ever had in an online game. Fantastic and terribly detailed crafting system. There's a reason I still haven't resigned from my semi-inactive immortalship.

5 - Planetside. MMOFPS.  :heart:  I never subscribed due to being poor and in college when it was really active, but the trial accounts I made were lots of fun. Slowly being obsoleted by modern Battlefield clones.

6 - City of Heroes. Greatest character creation system to date. Making up crazy new characters with my housemates and running them around was lots of fun. Unfortunately, the grind strikes you pretty hard as you get higher up. I tried CoV briefly and found it just to be a reskin with a slightly different grind path. Oh well. Still an excellent few months.

7 - A Tale in the Desert. I played this for 2-3 months at a time in Tale 1 and Tale 2. Founding a camp with housemates who are also newbies and building up to be on-par with powerful neighbors? Fun. Actually running most of the horrifically grindy quests or grinding to help the world tech up? Not fun. Also, it has an amazingly terrible interface that just screams RSI-waiting-to-happen.

8 - Mankind. A quirky little French sci-fi MMORTS. Like ATITD, it was a lot of fun getting established, learning the ropes and then moving out of the newbie zone to found a space-guild with some friends in the farthest reaches of the universe. It had open PVP, but I never got that far. Once you get towards the highest tech levels, build times are measured in days/weeks, and manually hauling materials around in lots that filled 20+ cargo ships sucked balls. A better UI would improve it, but not save the game.

9 - There is no nine. Fuck WoW.

10 - World of Warcraft. If only for the polish. I played it for about 4-5 months with some coworkers. It's also the reason I can't stomach DIKU-style games any more. I tried raiding a little. The choice between a nightly aneurysm due to PUG raids/battlegrounds or scheduling my life around a game led directly to the cancel-account button.

You're mad.  I tried playing Horizons once, and it was like trying to stuff my dick in a pencil sharpener:  Virtually impossible to do, and even if you succeed you'll end up wishing you hadn't.

I like that analogy, can I use it?

Are there even 10 MMOG's worth rating? The ones that had potential were more bug-infested than an orangutan's rectum, the ones that weren't too buggy were grindtastic and the one that was neither was really just a polished up, solo-centric gold-plated evolo-turdling.

But, what the hell, I'll give it a try.

1 Shadowbane - Oh the potential - had it worked with even a modicum of stability, it would have been made of niche win. But alas, frothing rage is all that is left of SB, and weeping over the waste of a great character progression system
2 World of Warcraft - How sad is it that #2 is nothing more than an evolved, less buggy iteration of #4?
3 Dark Age of Camelot - A slightly evolved with PVP polishing of #4.
4 Everquest 1 - The mac daddy for me, reduced because of general bugginess and a punitive Vision (TM).
5 City of Heroes - Z-AXIS. Oh and a fucking shameful, unnecessary grind.
6 Ultima Online - Only played it in beta, which is why it's so low. Otherwise, I love the concept!
7 Everquest 2 - A shiny shiny version of #4. How sad.

I can't in good conscience list any others. I could barely make myself list EQ2. I would put Pirates of the Burning Sea but only for the sailing portion, but it isn't out yet. Everything else is a bag of fail.

I still have the original box, and I honestly thought it never made it to America. I remember loving it but chickening out when I read that your fleet and bases could be attacked and wiped out while you were offline. "Don't worry" mused the website "if you so desire we can send you a text message on your mobile whenever your empire (which took you months to build) is about to be annihilated!".

I checked, by the way. The game is still going (http://www.mankind.net/).

I never had a box. It was all digital-download when I played, with a relatively extensive free trial. I subbed for maybe a month before getting bored of the build times. It was really all the manual required hauling that sucked - if I left my empire alone for a few hours, everything ground to a halt as warehouses filled up at my extractors and emptied at my manufactories.

1 - Everquest1. I still remember the awe I felt roaming around the Feerrott, seeing a camp of lizardmen dart away towards the river, then arc back to attack me all at once.  Its hard to appreciate now in light of the improvements to graphics in the last 10 years, but the immersion of the 3d world and the 3d sound effects were jaw-dropping for me.  I am not sure some of the people who weren't there at release appreciate the fact that EQ was one of the first 3d-accelerated RPG games, online or not.  For the time the graphics were quite good, and the world design was varied and very cool.  Had a great time levelling up to 50 with a close-knit bunch of friends and experiencing the first year or so of raids which were primarily open.  Then guilds started to do closed raids, my friends created a guild, invited a ton of people we hardly knew and everything went spiralling down fast.  I have to say that first year, for whatever reason, was the most fun I have had in any game, before or since.

2- DaoC.  I greatly enjoy pvp, but the mindless ganking in UO reminded me more of a juvenile gang-war/mugger fantasy than anything approximating a competition of any kind.  DaoC, with its structured pvp was ideal for my tastes. Even with the population balance issues, the blander-than-cardboard pve, and the class balance issues, I have played daoc for 6 years and still log on every now and then to solo on my "battle bard".  The sense of realm-wide community (at least for the first 3-4 years) brought back the same sort of experiences I enjoyed in the open raids of early EQ.

3 - UO.  My first MMO, and one which I played for 2 years until EQ1 came out.  The open-endedness of the system really made for a cool game dynamic.  I spent the first 6 months as a "monk" with 100 wrestling skill, taking down ettins with my fists... until they nerfed wrestling and decided it was only to be useful as the defensive skill for spell casters with spellbooks in their hands.  I subsequently retired from "adventuring", levelled up my healing skill, and wandered the roads as a "mendicant healer" aiding travellers.  Since I had nothing of value, the pk's learned to leave me be, and because of the crappy networking code, because I lived in one of the first cable modem markets, I could literally run circles around most of the pk's.

4- WoW.  Definitely polished, and after BC, they implemented alot of ways to advance your character, even if, like myself, you don't like large guilds, or having to plan your life around a raid schedule.  The BG pvp was relatively balanced, but the BG's in particular are wearing thin on me despite the newer rewards.  It just lacks the variety that kept drawing me back to DaoC RvR.  The Arena is a cool concept, but it is horribly imbalanced in terms of class combinations, and neither myself nor my 2v2 teammate plan on rerolling just so that we can win more than 50 percent of our matches.  Making only pre-made teams in Arena brings me back to the having to schedule life around other player's play times, which for me is very difficult to do.  PvE levelling up shines, and even the grindy rep gains aren't a bad way to implement alternative advancement for those who won't/can't raid.  Still, I feel like I am probably missing out on a sizeable portion of the game as a non-raider.

5 - SWG(Pre-CU).  Much like UO, this afforded the opportunity to pretty much invent whatever sort of character you wanted.  The crafting system was spectacular, if a little buggy (like everything else).  I did mainly crafting as a droid engineer, with as much pve as I could manage while still being a master DE.  I primarily played SWG as a distraction/vacation from other games, and would log on and just explore and make and sell droids to order.  The space expansion was fun but I never capped out the space skills before NGE hit, and I could no longer do any pve at all if I wanted to remain a crafter, and because I was a hybrid character, my "level" with the NGE was terrible.  I didn't feel like grinding it all out all over again, so soon as NGE went live I packed my bags and headed for better climes, with a station access cancel to my ancient EQ1 account.

6 - Tabula Rasa.  Been playing it a bit since late beta.  I actually enjoy it a bit, but more as a distraction from other games when I am frustrated.  Visuals are nice, although like WoW, it gets a bit tricky when you are accustomed to soloing everything and they drop a bunch of instance quests on you that you can't get done without a bunch of help, which can be very hard to find.  Not a bad game, not sure it is drawing me in like the top 4 on my list though.

7 - LotRO.  Beautiful landscapes, so-so character models and animation.  Slightly bland game play, a little too close to WoW to differentiate it well, in my opinion.  Most enjoyable bit was the in-game music importation, I spent alot of time munging MIDI files into ABC's to play music from competing MMO games for laughs (I have an odd sense of humor and for some reason this struck me as hilarious to hang around Bree playing the EQ theme music or 'Stones').

8 - EQ2.  Nice graphics, cool reimagining of the original world.  Was a bit sluggish and I couldn't bear to turn the graphic settings down because they got ugly pretty fast once the detail bars were slid left.  I actually was looking more toward playing this than WoW, but my old EQ/DaoC buddies went to WoW, so I followed, and just messed around a little in EQ2 on station pass account.  Was a casualty to SWG NGE, when I decided paying SoE any more money was a bad idea.

9- Anarchy Online.  Didn't play this one long, I missed out on the horrible launch, but there was still some bugginess a month or two in, when I played.  Graphics were good for the time, but didn't really draw me in.

10 - Asheron's Call.  Tried this out for a month or so, by the time I tried it the graphics were quite dated and the PC models looked like demented marionettes to me.  Open system led to Tank-Mage-itis like UO, at the time anyhow.

Not listed - Lineage 2, Horizons, AC2 Only played any of them a couple of times, Horizons when it was free trial to say hi to some friends who had decided to take refuge there after quitting daoc and before WoW came out.

Hrrm, didn't realize I wrote a term paper here... Edited some of the extraneous crap from the end of my post

#1 - Lineage 2 (probably going to be mocked for this one, but the early days of it were just pure fun - never experienced that again. I'm still playing it.)
#2 - A Tale in the Desert (best crafting game ever and awesome community)
#3 - Ultima Online (early days)
#4 - City of Heroes
#5 - EvE
#6 - DAoC
#7 - LotRO
#8 - Guild Wars
#9 - Saga of Ryzom
#10 - WoW

1) Ultima Online
2) EVE Online
3) EverQuest 2
4) EverQuest
5) WWII Online
6) World of Warcraft
7) Star Wars galaxies
8) City of Heroes
9) A Tale in the desert
10) Lord of the Rings Online

All of my witty remarks are free for use by the public.  So are all of my stupid ones.

1. UO
2. EQ2
3. PS
4. CoH/V
5. WoW
6. EQ
7. AO
8. SWG

Left AC and Eve off the list because I didn't play them long enough to count. I guess I could round out the list with AC at 9 and Eve at 10, but I wouldn't put anyone below SWG. Besides, I only give a shit about the first four.

De-lurk:

1) City of Villains
2) World of Warcraft
3) Saga of Ryzom
4) Neocron
5) EVE
6) Earth and Beyond
7) Anarchy Online
8) DAoC
9) Motor City Online
10) Everquest

Edit: Adjusted it to ten so as not to skew the results...though, out of 73 votes for WoW, 66 were in the top 5 already,  :oh_i_see:

Fuck, I miss books.

I played a LOT of UO, good timing in my life. One of my favorite characters was the mistress of another of my characters (Sky was their manservant). He was a paladin, she was a thief, but secretly, which was difficult because you used to go red from stealing. Anyway, at one point I was living on Moonglow and I had made a map of the entire island and it had all the houses and as many homeowners/keyholders as I could match them with. I'd spend most of my gametime at that time scouting out opportunities, and filch a key at the bank (which you could often get away with).

I was no bank thief, though! Not in the vapid snatch-n-run or die-n-your-buddy-loots or any other stupid thing that ruined thief gameplay. I would calmly bank the offenders key, note who had it and consult my map. I'd then go scout out the house, and when things were quiet I'd snatch a couple nice items (katanas of vanq were my theft of choice, followed by any server-up rares). Then I'd leave a book I'd written on how I scouted them out, explaining the entire heist. I'd put in tips on protecting themselves against cheesy thieves. Then I'd write that I was leaving them the only copy of the house key. I'd leave the book in a prominent spot (on a table if they were civilized people and decorated), with the key laying on it.

This is back before you could re-key houses. Basically, if someone got your house key, you built a new house or it would get looted continually. Playing a classy thief was so rewarding.

My very most favorite target was the blue frontpeople for pk guilds. I remember getting a couple guild keyrings, I wasn't quite so nice to those guys. In one instance, I gave a pk guild keyring to an anti-pk guild. That was hilarious.

UO was such a great game.

1. LOTRO
2. DAOC
3. EQ
4. COH
5. Toontown

(Obviously I've tried others. Just didn't like them enough to put them on the list.)

1) EQ2
2) UO  (still waiting after all these years for another like it :/  )
3) ATitD
4) WoW (barely, but have to admit it was fun for a couple months)
5) Horizons

edit: Fine, a fifth added.  :oh_i_see:
Many others of course, most forgettable, some hated.

Aperture Laboratories would like to remind you that no posts with less than 5 games will be considered because it makes you look like a member of noobsville.

But couldn't a person legitimately think only 4 MMOs are worth even playing?  In fact, that sounds like something you would say but with a 0 instead of a 4.

Hey, Falconeer made the rule, I'm just playing the part of GladOS. Take it up with him.

HA, I never read the OP  :oh_i_see:

Yes, perhaps WoW wouldn't have so many damn points if people hadn't listed 10 initially.

#1 SWG Classic (Pre CU) - Had problems, but I loved the social and economic aspects.
#2 Lotro - It's pretty, it's LotR.
#3 CoH - Fun fast paced combat.
#4 UO - My first love.
#5 WoW - Played only briefly. It did nothing for me. But it's a beautiful example of its type.
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10 DnL - The game sucked, but early in beta, the boards were fun!

WoW - Static content that never stops, BGs
Eve - Dynamic content that never stops
SWG - Sporadic content of both types
AC1 - Content patches
LotRO - So close, soo close
PS - Had its day, fighting for the same crap every day got old
DAoC - RvR
EQ - My first
WWIIOL - Tense, intense, weighed down by a 10 ton albatross of an engine
AO - Instances

1) Ultima Online
2) City of Heroes
3) Tabula Rasa
4) WoW
5) Dungeon Runners

UO because, dude, any game that keeps my interest for ten whole years deserves some credit.  (Disclaimer:  I'm the CM for it.  The playing-for-ten-years came first, though.)

CoH because it was the first MMO that managed to pry my attention away from UO, it was different, and I really like the combat.

TR because it is hella fun, the clone system is brilliant, and... did I mention it's hella fun?  (Will probably overtake CoH in six months or so.)

WoW because, despite the fact that I quit three times trying to make it through the first 20 levels, I did eventually push past the mind-numbingly trite early game and get to the good bits.  Which are, in fact, good.

Dungeon Runners because it's fucking funny.  And free.  (Disclaimer:  I was the CM for that in beta, and I ADORE the dev team.  I miss you guys!)

I almost listed Guild Wars, because I really did enjoy it, but I don't think I ever actually interacted with another human being while playing it, so it doesn't make sense to compare it.  I've played a handful of others, but most of them I wouldn't have picked up if I hadn't been paid to, and while I can appreciate their virtues, they don't hold the same place in my heart.

1) Everquest
2) World of Warcraft
3) Everquest 2
4) Ultima Online
5) DaOC

Guess I should jump in:

1) EQ--still playing it. Tonight's Anguish raid night :P
2) ShadowBane. Pretty much Haemish said it all.
3) PlanetSide -- again, said before, but seeing 20 tanks, 5 galaxies, 50 inf and dozens of other assorted vehicles massed at a warpgate to break out of sanc loc was simply an awesome thing.
4) Guild Wars -- Organized PvP is always fun, and it caught my attention--10-15 min fights, rinse/repeat eats up a lot of time in a fun way.
5)  :nda:

If the inclusion of  :nda: in my list would violate the rules, put Horizons in there, purely for the potential it could have had.

1. Eve
2. Ultima Online
3. Second Life
4. Dark Age of Camelot
5. FFXI

I didn't really play DAoC, but I have this friend, see. Also, I did play SB and there's no way that's getting on the list.

I agree with everyone who says that 10 is way too many. New poll: how many MMORPGs have you paid money for? Bet the median here is three and amongst normal online gamers it is 1.

1) EQ
2) EQ2
3) SWG (pre-NGE!)
4) LotRO
5) WoW
6) CoH

(and for the record, I paid for all of these! And Vanguard :P)

1) Asheron's Call
2) City of Heroes
3) World of Warcraft
4) Toontown
5) Puzzle Pirates

Following the precedent set by the esteemed Mr. Jennings I will not list the game I work on, as I am woefully partisan.

1) World of Warcraft:  I firmly believe that somewhere in a vault at Activizzard head quarters is The Plan.  It reads 1. Find existing gameplay.  2. Remove as much suck as possible.  3.  Polish.  4.  Profit.  For me World of Warcraft was EQ with all of the suck squeezed out and lots of polish and bug fixing.  This, it turns out, was pretty much exactly what I wanted after playing Everquest.

2) Everquest:  It's an unpolished version of WoW, but the game kicks me in the balls for playing it.  Also my guild expects me to wake up in the middle of the night to kill a dragon who has just spawned so that one person can get an item they will use solely for wipe recovery.  The best times I had in EQ were when I was in college and raiding with a European guild in the middle of the afternoon.  I would study while we waited on the pull, and still have free time to go out and do stuff at night.  This was also my first MMO, so I'm sure Nostalgia is pushing this up the list.

3) Dark Age of Camelot:  Full disclosure, I was a Customer Service Monkey for Dark Age for a bit more than a year.  I still feel justified including it on the list because I played it before I started working there.  Honestly I played it a lot more before I started working there, spending 40 hours a week in the game client listening to people complain about hurt feelings rubs a lot of the shiny off of a game.

4) Vanguard:  Vanguard was a game that was very much aimed at the EQ fan in me.  Very focused on group PvE, lots of classes, lots of complex group interaction.  The problem was that between Everquest and Vanguard I played WoW, and that changed my standards for polish and performance, and Vanguard couldn't match those standards.  I've gone back a couple of times to play Vanguard again, and every time I do I have fun, and then I fall through the world.  It doesn't help that the horizon in Vanguard is hard to see.  WoW raid progression is easy to see, I know what it is I'm working towards.  It's fairly likely that I'll never see the inside of Black Temple, but knowing that it's there, and that if I do get there it's packed with awesome rewards, is important.  I never found that in Vanguard.  Honestly I might still play Vanguard if I had.

5) Jump Gate:  I really enjoyed this game, the little bit of it I played.  It was just enough space fighter game play for me.  I seem to recall quitting because I had to spend a bunch of time mining if I wanted a better spaceship.

6) City of Heroes:  There was a lot of fun stuff in City of Heroes, what killed it for me was grouping.  My grouping experience in City of Heroes was "8 spastics join together, and fighting independently in the same place, racking up XP."  There was none of the interplay of skills and abilities I was used to from EQ.  We didn't need a healer, we didn't need a tank, we just needed 7 other people.  It's entirely possible I was simply doing it wrong, but we were winning.

7)  Planetside:  I only played the free trial, but my experience was:  boring tutorial, boring tutorial, OMG I'm the door gunner on a gunship and I'm recreating Full Metal Jacket this is the awesome!, lag, dead, lag, dead, lag, dead.   Hmm I don't think my computer/internet connection can handle this game.

8) Guild Wars:  I had the same issue with Guild Wars that I had in City of Heroes:  I felt like I was in a group of 8 people doing their own thing and we were winning.  I never felt like I was really part of a team, but I am fully willing to believe that I was simply doing it wrong.  I heard good things about their PvP, but I not a huge fan of arena PvP to begin with.

9) Horizons:  It seemed interesting, but when I tried to play it near release the latency was completely unplayable.  My strongest memory from the game is running off to explore, finding a huge tower, climbing to the top, and finding absolutely nothing there.

10) Anarchy Online:  I played at release.  I feel that accurately summarizes my issues with the game.

Holy shit, I'm logging into f13 for the first time in like 2 years to respond to a poll.  Blame Raph and his poetry blog.

1 - WoW - I can't tell you why, I can only tell you I played it a lot more than anything else.  Proof's in the /played pudding.
2 - ATiTD - Best crafting ever.  Even though I ground charcoal for 6 hours at one point.  Not exaggerating.
3 - Battletech 3025 - Purely on mechalicious potential.  Fuck everyone who assisted in its demise.  In the face.
4 - DaoC - First graphical mud I spent any time on.  I remember enjoying it.
5 - Shadowbane - Because rubberbanding is my favorite gameplay mechanic
6 - PotBS - Patrician II multiplayer
7 - Conan - to hear the lamentation of the women
8 - Planetside - seemed like a good idea at the time
9 - CoH - best character creation/paperdoll minigame I've ever played
10 - Second Life - I don't play it, but it gets points for drawing the pedophiles and furries away from the other games

I am an outlier, obviously, but I have tested and then proceeded to purchase and play almost every MMOG that has been listed in this thread thus far, and some that haven't been mentioned. But statistically speaking, I am insignificant. Glad to see more people jumping in still. This turned out to be a very good poll.

Also, please to be updating the totals soon, Falconeer.  :geezer:

Oh fuck.

Falcon I need a redo, you can see here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11500.0) on reply #18 that I had it in my top20 games of all time, unlike any of this other MMO shit.  I totally don't even think of it as a MMO because it was more of a lobby+gameroom game and I wasn't including those for some reason.  Unless those don't count in which case whatever, but if you can do lobby+room I need to seriously revamp, putting infinity, mpbt3025, gunz & gunbound on my list.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Guild Wars
3. Star Wars Galaxies
4. EverQuest II
5. City of Heroes/Villains
6. Puzzle Pirates
7. Final Fantasy XI
8. A Tale in the Desert
9. Dungeons and Dragons Online
10. EverQuest

Oh! I had a blast playing Gunbound. Wow, I had forgot all about it. I need to re-install that and play again.

Alright, just updated. Thanks to Raph and Sanya's (doesn't she deserve a red name anymore? Isn't "Once a redname always a redname"?) linking we reached 95 votes. As useless as this chart is, 100 votes would be a nice goal.

Note #1 - UO and EQ are now #3 and #4 place. Yikes!

Note #2 - The lurker named "justdave" is the only one other than me to list Motor City Online. For that he wins a dinner, my treat. Seriously, come Roma and you'll get to eat serious stuff.

Note #3 - DrewC, the dev for PotBS, listed Vanguard in 4th place. And you wonder why they just injected more grind in Pirates? (ok, that was unnecessary and rude, but couldn't help it  :awesome_for_real: Sorry ).

Note #4 - Lobby+rooms are so ambiguous. Can't really decide. I'll keep going on them case by case. But if I remember correctly, Battletech 3025 died in beta and never reached release, right? That's why it doesn't count in the first place.

No.

That beta had about 50 times more glorious pwnage in it then most of the trash on these lists...

1. World of Warcraft - Levels 1-60 were extremely fun solo or with friends.
2. City of Hero's/Villains - Fun, original, great customizations.
3. Lord of the Rings Online - Fun gameplay, Tolkien lore, nice visuals.
4. Everquest Online Adventures - First MMO I played, launch sucked, made some great friends I've since lost, first MMO for a console (I believe).
5. Dark Age of Camelot - Fun game, cool RvR, nice classes
6. Ultima Online - One of the early pioneers in graphical MUD's.
7. Everquest - Mainstream media coverage made more people aware of the MMO sub-culture.
8. Horizons - Launch sucked, crappy frame rates in populated areas, missing content - however for some reason I just clicked with the world until I just couldn't take anymore
9. Second Life - RMT, worldly game, potential for extreme player impact on the world.
10. Final Fantasy XI - Could have been a game I played for years - so much potential - couldn't stand the slow combat so much I never even finished the first 30 days.

If I ever make it over there, I'll be sure to cadge any pointers to the non-gringo-tourist food.  :heart:

I'm saddened by the fact that the two games I currently pay for (Dungeon Runners and Eve) are not on my list.  Why do I pay for things I don't enjoy?  Help me, Buddha.

I applaud your strength in having not yet killed yourself despite your high level of Stratics exposure and inabillity to call the peons there a bunch of fuckwits.

HOLY CRAP YOU'RE STILL ALIVE.

Charlie Brown, come home.

1. DAoC -- RvR.  On any given day, you could 8-man, run with a zerg to take keeps,  port to an enemy realm for small group action and ambushes (Doden's runs!), and had your choice of three fairly well poplulated BGs to try your hand at different classes/playstyles.  Buffed level 24 Nightshade in thidranki felt like cheating,  but was ohhh soo much fun.

2. LOTRO -- Dull as paint combat,  some awful instance/dungeon design.  Gorgeous scenery,  very good story-based quests and gameplay.  Probably the best use of flavor in an MMO.  My interest petered out as I finished up most of the polished content at level 47.

3. Magic Online -- If that counts.  If not, disregard and bump up the next three.

4. Tabula Rasa -- Consoley game with fun combat and decent quests.  The CP stuff,  and use of allied npcs vs enemy npcs,  is great.  Already it's starting to wear a bit, though.

5. CoH  -- Superheros.  Pointless grind knocked this out for me in my second month,  though I often think about resubscribing to give it another shot.  I liked the cool, fun, flavorable abilities,  and character creation.

6. WoW -- I think I leveled to 6 three times,  but didn't see anything to drag me away from RvR in DAoC.


I've played a few others,  but didn't last out the first week.

1) EQ
2) EQ2
3) WoW
4) EVE Online
5) LotRO

1 - Everquest
2 - Ultima Online
3 - World of Warcraft
4 - Everquest 2
5 -  Dark Age of Camelot
6 - Star Wars Galaxies (Pre-NGE)
7 - City of Heroes
8 - Anarchy Online
9 - Tabula Rasa
10 - Vanguard

1) AC1 (Darktide)  - content patches and very solo/casual friendly (this and UO were by far the best social experiences I had in MMOs)
2) UO (Siege Perilous - Kal ort Por is for pussies)
3) WoW (polished and pretty)
4) SWG (pre everything)
5) Shadowbane
6) CoH (gets rated for the character creation - beyond that was my fastest burnout ever)
7) Second Life

That covers all the ones I ever played past beta, or actualy paid money towards.

I was waiting for a sequel to House of Sand and Fog to review, but sadly none was forthcoming.

Why, thank you :)  They're not all that bad, actually - judging from the occasional quotes my comrades send me, the DAoC VN boards are a thousand times worse. 

Oh dear god are they ever. Our server went so far as to start their own boards (palomides.net) because the VN Boards were so bad.

1) World of WarCraft
2) Dark Age of Camelot
3) Ultima Online
4) Anarchy Online
5) Guild Wars
6) Lord of the Rings Online
7) City of Heroes/Villains
8) Final Fantasy XI
9) EverQuest II
10) Star Wars Galaxies

Who I was playing with in each MMO is as important as the game play of the MMO itself in my rankings.

1) EverQuest
2) SWG
3) EverQuest 2
4) Guild Wars
5) World of Warcraft
6) ToonTown
7) PlanetSide
8) City of Heroes
9) Asheron's Call 2
10) LotRO

I'm voting based on my memory of time played, which coincidentally, seems to be a key advancement function of several of these titles. :)

1. Asherons call 2
2. Horizons
3. World of warcraft
4. Everquest 2
5. Lotro

at 1: This was my 1st mmo and it had elements in it that are, till this date, unprecedented.  You try and dive into a lake like you could in ac2 :)
    2: The crafting was so addicting. I nearly had a sleep deficiency :)
    3: Cant beat them then join 'em
    4: Best job i ever had .. No really this game took to much effort to actually achieve something.
    5: The everlasting Lifetime option did it for me. ( and my daughter)

1) Ultima Online
2) Everquest
3) Everquest 2
4) Tabula Rasa
5) Vanguard
6) EVE Online
7) Dark and Light

1. Wow - sucked me in for a year where I hardly played anything else!
2. Eve - Awesome concept, a bit difficult to get started without help though.
3. LOTRO - Well executed, too similar to Wow for me to enjoy fully though.
4. Guildwars - Great graphics, gameplay was fun, but it didn't pull me as much as Wow.
5.Tabula Rasa - Haven't played yet, but judging from what I've heard and seen it has potential

1 - World of Warcraft
2 - City of Heroes/Villains
3 - Horizons - I loved this ame, it was just not ready for relaease, and well before it's time.
4 - Lord of the Rings Online
5 - Star Wars Galaxies
6 - EverQuest 2

Purposefully dropping EQ down to ten, now a days it sucks, but it has to get nostalgia props.

10 - EverQuest

1. DAOC
2. Eve Online
3. Ultima Online
4. Tabula Rasa
5. Earth & Beyond

1. 10six
2. Endlessages
3. Tabula Rasa
4. Ashen Empires
5. World of Warcraft
6. Dark age of Camelot
7. Vanguard
8. Anarchy Online
9. Legend of Mir 3
10. Eve Online

1. EverQuest - For me, the community in-game has never been matched.  The game was, in my opinion, harder to play with a mouse as it was more directly descended from it's Text MUD ancestors, and keeping the player's hands on the keyboard encouraged text chat.  More modern games, with little or no auto-attack, require more attention to activating skills during combat which I feel discourages text chat, and while games are now implementing group and/or guild based voice chat, their worlds, in general, are more silent, and extra-guild communities exist largely outside of game.

2. Ultima Online - The fact that I still tell stories about this game must mean they did something right.

3. City of Heroes - While it lacked the chat and community of EQ, it was just pure fun.  The first MMO that I think actually captured the "heroic" feeling as your spandex clad defender of justice could wade into gangs of bad guys and win.

4. Puzzle Pirates - All the fun of familiar time wasters like Bejeweled and Tetris wrapped in a pirate filled world.  Their implementation of card games and gambling is also quite fun.

5. EVE Online - Its like spreadsheets with spaceships, which sounds like it might be crap, but its actually fairly fun to play, especially if you get involved in the out of game corporation espionage wars.

6. Dark Age of Camelot
7. Asheron's Call
8. World of Warcraft
9. Lord of the Rings Online

1. EVE Online
2. LotR
3. Guild Wars
4. Everquest 2
5. Linage2

Wow, they're coming out of the woodwork.

EDIT:  Oh yeah Jeremy, I meant to ask if you're staying with EA for the move over to Virginia.  As much of a prick as I come off as on Stratics (and... well, everywhere) I do hope you're sticking around.  They'll need people who really know the game.

1) Dark Age of Camelot (yes I worked on it, and it's still the MMO I played the most. Apparently I have fewer scruples than Lum.)
2) Everquest I
3) World of Warcraft
4) Ultima Online
5) Lord of the Rings Online

EDIT: to own up to the fact that I worked on Camelot.

I bet this was just a plot to get lurkers to register.

1) DAoC
2) LotRO
3) UO
4) WoW
5) EQ2
6) CoH

If only I had a 100$ (let's say 200$)  bill for every lurker that registered because of this thread...

1) Asheron's Call (pro: you never forget your first; monthly changes; nuking Arwic deep enough to kill mules left there; having mob levels that lied; no friggin Elves. con: trying too hard to out-EQ EQ on epic encounters in later years)
2) City of Heroes (pro: I'm Batmanesque; no Elves; new! fresh! exciting! con: not content with making sure all fights matched their level, all instanced missions were made as indistinguishable as possible too; anything but fighting patched in later)
3) World of Warcraft (pro: clean, elegant design; lots to do. con: unoriginal; has Elves... double now; mob levels tend to override everything; tendency to take the easy route when faced with design problems; essentially a large theme park where nothing ever changes)
4) Asheron's Call 2 (pro: first of the WoW-alikes, but before WoW; fixed all of AC's problems; still no Elves. con: ignored all of AC's solutions; Tumerok's suspiciously Elvish; content patched in later)
5) Auto Assault (pro: I'm a car lol; can blow shit up; no Elves; con: I have to get out of the car why now? shit that got blown up comes back; ride pimping not really effective)
6) Earth: Above & Beyond (pro: in space; no Elves. con: and yet, basically roads; I have to get out of the spaceship why now?)
7) Eve Online (pro: in space; no Elves. con: I read a book whilst "playing")
8) Anarchy Online (pro: not a fantasy game. con: turned out to be a fantasy game with a sci-fi skin)
9) Neocron (see Anarchy Online)
10) Dark Age of Camelot (con: generic_fantasy_epic_01; Elves)
11) The Matrix Online (con: I don't care about your source material, if there's a guy waving his hands around making glowing designs in the air, he's a friggin wizard)

Hey Cuppy!

You still playing your Arasi Necro fairy in EQ2?

/* commentary, vote already recorded */

On EQ1: was my first MMOG, previously had done a lot of RTS MP, C&C, RA, AoE, etc.… …early Rallos Zek PvP+ days were something to behold… …but the sordid ruleset implementation (not even accounting for the PvP stuff), that included bugs that never got fixed…

On DAoC: like stated in another post — a bland, timid entry suitable fro patients recovering from surgery. Yes, it was a cleaner and more solid EQ, but minus the soul. The dungeons in EQ were one of its best features and the world DAoC brought was just not anywhere near as immersive, and the magic/skill system seemed to be unimaginitive and totally spayed and neutered…

On AC: probably the misfortune of launching after EQ meant it didn't get fair trial, did beta and there was some cool things about it, but it just never captured my attention… …always seemed to find something else to play…

On Shadowbane: loved it, sans sb.exe errors and some other failings that could have easily been tweaked. In retrospect, would have profited from periodic clean slates and a better model to keep guild treasuries funded… …a shame that PvP+ gets shanked when it still has never seen a clean implementation…

On AO: no virtual barbie for me!

On SWG: worst MMO ever. At least of the "successful" ones… …too much running around, doing stupid fedex missions. The whole dancing bot mind refresh thing is silly ^ math.huge. And that was before all of the other game framework tweakings…

On ATiTD: unique MMO experience, but still at the core a grind

On WoW: EQ sans most all of the negatives, and in the Blizzard WC world.

I think I've jumped off the MMOG wagon, though if someone did a decent Wild West MMOG, I would be sucked back in…

/flameoff

1) Asheron's Call - The Lore! The Olthoi!
2) Star Wars Galaxies - Before they ruined it
3) Everquest 2 - The one I keep coming back to
4) Lord of the Rings Online - Turbine did Tolkein proud
5) Eve Online - Hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror
6) Vanguard - A disappointment, but not the biggest one
7) Earth & Beyond - Was fun for a couple of months
8) Asheron's Call 2 - I WANTED to love it
9) City of Heroes -- Just not my cup of tea
10) Dungeonds & Dragons Online - THIS was my biggest disappointment

I dare to say that Shadowbane is now greater than ever. I wanted to love it for years and in 2007 my dream finally came true. Clone it (literally) with better graphics and you have an instant winner. I even thought about making a thread about it but chickened out looking back at my Vanguard days.

1) A Tale in the Desert - Best and most important innovation that I've seen anywhere.  I don't play it any more but I haven't exactly found anything better.
2) City of Heroes - Of the big treadmill clone-type games, COH does _everything_ right.  Best graphics.  Best quests.  Everything thematically connected.
3) Wurm Online - Really persistent.  Awsome innovation.  Willingness to go their own way, profits be damned!  Lots of horkyness, but lots of cool, too.
4) Second Life - Learning script crafting was a fun three months.  I mostly stopped because the stuff I wanted to do was too prim-costly.
5) EverQuest 2 - I've only played four of the big fantasy MMOs and never to the high level content, but looking at WoW and EQ2, I just don't get how WoW is more popular
6) Star Wars Galaxies - At first, this was fun.  I think my father and my son and I all played together for a couple hours each Saturday for a year or so.  Now, well, it's not even on the radar.
7) Saga of Ryzom - They tried to do some really, really cool stuff.  In the end it was just boring.
8) EverQuest - My first non-MUD MMO.  I can't compare and properly attribute stuff to UO, etc.  But this really blew my mind for a couple of months.
9) Auto Assault - Driving was fun, fun.  Walking around sucked.  Getting missions sucked.  Teaming sucked.  Loot sucked.  Crafting sucked.  Observe the trend.
10) World of Warcraft - I played for a few months -- again with my dad and son.  I found it ugly and uninspired and as bad as SWG wrt spamming crafters and annoying others, etc.  There just wasn't any reason to play.  Only D&D online was worse.

1.  Ultima Online -- my first MMO and one of my favorite games of all time.  A lot of the negative lessons about UO have been learned and applied, but not a lot of the positive ones, in my opinion.

2.  LOTRO -- Beautiful, immersive and intuitive.  Systemically, a Diku derivative, but very well done and compelling, especially for a Tolkien fan like myself.  Plus, "lazy Ranger" jokes never get old for me.

3.  WWII Online -- I loved the historical equipment and the overall gameplay.  Hours of frustration could be offset by one incredible 30 minute battle.  A game where you can conduct a strategic bombing campaign can't be all bad.

4.  DAoC -- my first real extensive experience with the Diku system.  Fun character classes and great PvP integration into a fun PvE experience.  Still simmering about their drastically changing the group XP system, though.  Made the game much tougher and grindier for casual players.

5.  CoH/CoV -- unmatched (still) character creation system.  Immersive game play.  Flight and super-bounce alone worth the price of admission.  Very casual-friendly up to a certain point. 

6.  JumpGate -- beautiful game, fun in a lot of ways.  Fun was sometimes offset by the heinous travel times and long stretches with, literally, nothing to do.

7.  Anarchy Online -- played at release, but still enjoyed the game for quite a while despite that.  Dual-pistol-wielding doctors.  Too many numbers around stats and equipment properties, but still fun and a beautiful world.

8.  WoW -- Only played a short amount of time due to RL commitments at the time, but overall it's a very tight and well-done game.  Can't argue with results.  The time spent on polishing and improving content paid off.  Another lesson that is paid lip service, but still hasn't really been applied.

9.  Asheron's Call -- Great lore and events system.  Very innovative in a lot of ways.

10.  Lineage II -- best endgame system I've ever seen.  Offset by the grind necessary to get there. 

1. City of Heroes / Villains
2. World of Warcraft
3. EverQuest
4. Final Fantasy XI
5. Anarchy Online
6. Lord of the Rings Online
7. Guild Wars

Cherries.

(http://bohemiancreations.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/cherries.jpg)

Dis thred brakes dem.

Cartoon Network has devs?

1. SWG (Pre-CU). -- I spent the most time in this game, well, other than planetside.


2. Planetside.  -- Completely ahead of its time, many many good times in this game, in fact, one of the best RPG (In the traditional since of ROLE PLAYING) ever created..


3. LOTRO -- What can i say, the story, the quests, the Instances, its one of the most well crafted MMO's i ave ever played.


4. MoM (AKA: Minions Of Mirth) -- The best "Indi" MMO ever created... Really, it had a Dev team of.....2. Really an inspiration here, even if the game isn't truly inspired..but then again. The out of the box features (http://www.prairiegames.com/index.php) in that game, no other AAA Team would touch, are all fantastic.



5. The saga of Rysom -- Beautiful art work, cohesive styling..Creative skill system (You make your own SKILLS!), And to top it all off....The rysom ring, Allowing all the old school PnP Game masters create scenarios IN AN MMO for other to play...Fantastic.

6. Furcadia -- Yep, i fucking siad it, Most MMORPG are simply not. Role playing? Does it have a ? over its head? Furcadia is a strange animal (Punny!), My attraction to it was the tools, the fact that you could craft your own "Dream" is fantastic.. Its also a great source of "Game" designs, as you can quite easily walk into many many experiential game play types created by all sorts of people. The fact that it contained "Furries" didn't matter to me, they were all placed in my Furrie juicer anyway (Who dosn't love a game where you can create a Juicer to extract all of the life water from its citizens??!11!?)

Has Tabula Rasa gotten really good?  I'm suprised to see it so high on these lists, I played in the beta and the game was so boring I couldn't even bring myself to beta test it.

I'd make a list...but I haven't even played 10 MMO's.  :uhrr:

Yep (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/24/cartoon-network-fashioning-an-mmo/)

Heh, wow. I clearly fail at lurking, thanks.

Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but Bang! Howdy (http://www.banghowdy.com/) is quite fun.

More detail here ( http://hgamer.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-top-10-mmos.html )

My list:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Ultima Online
3. Star Wars Galaxies
4. Guild Wars
5. Dark Age of Camelot
6. WWII Online
7. EVE Online
8. Lord of the Rings Online
9. Everquest
10. MUD 1

And even Community wonks, perish the thought...  :)

Interesting. SWG is surprisingly highly rated among players, but I don't think makes a single Developer's list. Wonder why?

1.   Everquest 2
2.   LotRO
3.   Everquest 1
4.   DaoC
5.   WoW
6.   Guild Wars
7.             City of Heros
8.   Star Wars Galaxies
9.   Anarchy Online

1. Everquest - Period.
2. Shadow of Yseribus  - Can't begin to describe how much money i made mowing lawns justs to pay the per hour fee on SN.
3. Everquest II - Beautiful game, great quests rich history of Lore, decent storyline.  Fair PvP but if you got the machine to run it, beautiful game.
4. FFXI - Great game, can tell was designed for console, but still very fun on PC and I liked dual classes.
5. Test Drive Unlimited (360) - Racing people around a huge island night after night and learning people in game for Vs (pvp) races is a blast.  Most underrated MMO out there.
6. DAOC - Unmatched Realm Vs Realm


7?  Legend of the Red Dragon (BBS Door Game).  Although not net based, I think it is fair to consider it a Multiplayer Online Game.  It had the potential if you had the phone lines on the BBS, PvP was there (with addons etc).  Was a blast to play with other people, might not get the "Massive" title because the net wasn't in full swing and the largest BBS's in the area we only like 24 lines, but I might consider it an MMO.

I would consider the LORD a MMO, some might not, so I finished out the list with an 11 just in case OP doesn't see it as one.

7/8. SWG - Playing in an already developed IP added to the open-ness of the game.  I enjoyed pre-NGE just being a vest maker or kicking ass.  Also first really well done player housing in a game.
8/9. M59  - This was really more of a "holdover" game I played between Yseribus and EQ, but very well thought out and pretty iconic interface.
9/10. Planetside - Not sure why this game didn't strike a chord with FPS shooter players, they had the speed down fairly well and rank/objectives.  Just never caught on fully.  Played for a few good months, was fun just needed more infusion of new armor/weapons/updates etc.
10/11. Anarchy Online - I was late to the table on this one because of the launch problems, but ended up being a pretty fun game I invested ~6 months into.

1. Planetside
2. Dark Age of Camelot
3. Vanguard
4. Eve-Online
5. EverQuest
6. EverQuestII
7. Starwars Galaxies
8. World of Warcraft

Of the ones I have played:

1. Dark Age of Camelot
2. Lord of the Rings Online
3. City of Heroes/Villains
4. EVE Online
5. World of Warcraft
6. Tabula Rasa
7. Star Wars Galaxies

1.  FFXI

2.  AC1

3.  EveOnline

4.  DAoC

5.  The Rest having nothing to distinguish themselves from one another compared to their peers.

1.)World of Warcraft
2.)Shadowbane
3.)Guild Wars
4.)Eve
5.)City of Heroes/Villains
6.)LOTRO
7.)Anarchy Online
8.)DAoC
9.)EQ2
10.)EQ

I promise to never post again.

Shit... except for this one.

From what I played of the trial, no.  I didn't find anything compelling enough to play past the first tutorial area.  The combat felt like SWG NGE crapola. Like Mass Effect combat except designed for retards.


I've played a lot more than 10 and I only listed 5.  Hell, I left off a game I played for at least 3 years and another I played for 6 months.  :grin:

I wonder, are all these new guys lurkers who just now decided to register, or did someone post this elsewhere causing an influx of posters?

I'd say so.  I didn't play in the beta, but reports from people who did seem to indicate that it was terribly boring throughout most of the beta, but - and this is rather novel - they fixed it.

I am having a great time running around shooting aliens, I enjoy the story/worldbuilding, and I've been impressed by the speed of their patches.  It's not without kinks - the crafting system needs quite a bit of love, for example - but I have more confidence than usual that it will continue to improve.

Going to include games I have worked on (in this case, UO, LOTRO, AC and DDO). Also only included those I played for more than 3 months, so games that are in beta and new releases won't be on the list:

1. UO - first and still the best.
2. Planetside - played this more than any other mmog other than UO.
3. DAoC - really enjoyed the PvP, first time I gamed with friends who I knew before gaming with them.
4. CoH - superheroes ftw. Playing with people who are different levels is still the best feature ever. More of this please.
5. LOTRO - was the main reason leaving Turbine was so tough.
6. EQ2 - played this with a bunch of old UO friends, got better and better with each update.
7. WoW - enjoyed it but never fell into it, can't ignore the polish though.
8. AC1 - probably would have played this more but joined a bad monarchy.
9. Earth and Beyond - the first mmog that I can recall that allowed me to level entirely through questing, at least for the first 20 levels or so.
10. DDO - loved the combat, wished it had more solo play at launch.

Your list doesn't count as you listed only 4 games instead of the required 5. It's still an interesting list but I won't count the points for it.

I BETA testing Earth and Beyond and can't believe people actually played that game for a prolonged period of time.

Raph posted on his blog... and I couldn't not obey.

Aha. Also, your previous post was an outright fabrication. The enrichment center wishes you would cease enhancing the truth.

I loved the original vision of the game. I loved the space game and feel very strongly they should have launched with it.  I disliked the NGE.

I went with time /played, though, on my list. I never sunk a lot of time into SWG until the expansion, and by that time I never really engaged with any other communities/guilds playing so there wasn't any sticky for me. I really need to play MMOs with a guild so I can crack bad jokes while watching my various bars move in different directions.

(http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/PS/87665~Dude-Wtf-Posters.jpg)

Based on /played that ultimately reflects the degree to which I enjoyed them:

1.  Asheron's Call
2.  WoW
3.  DAoC
4.  Ultima Online
5.  SWG

/agree

But then again, the skewness on WoW is going to go out the window, too so... meh.

The tutorial is bad, the game is not. Once you are running round Memory Tree Hill with a shotgun in the first zone, it grows on you. The control points and well-designed instances can also be a blast.

Tabula Rasa has taken over as number one "most popular" on mmorpg.com. That spot was usually occupied by EVE in the past, then LotRO, so maybe it indicates the current hit among MMO nomads.


So basically this is the new SWG thread that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started writing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll just keep on writing it forever just because this is the new SWG thread that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started writing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll just keep on writing it forever just because this is the new SWG thread that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started writing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll just keep on writing it forever just because this is the new SWG thread that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. Some people started writing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll just keep on writing it forever just because this is the new SWG thread that never ends, it goes ...

Best in terms of "Do I want to play them again?"

1  SB                              - Fucking chains of hope.
2  WoW                         - Still playing, still relatively solid (recent patch aside).
3  LotRO                        - Very pretty, would play more if my guild's hardware could support it.
9  Shadow of Yserbius  - Old enough to explore again for the first time.
10  DDO                         - Started exploited pathing in the first 5 minutes of gameplay, but still picks up the odd recommendation from an unexpected source.

I'd also like to assign my 25 remaining list points as votes against EQ1.

I know in my case, I've actually been lurking for about a year and a half, and registered back in August to be able to read that Trammel thread in the den. Just got a wild hair to post on this one, no clue why.

I started writing it knowing exactly what it was. But I'll have to force myself and stop updating the chart sooner or later. Before ze dreaded stratics monkeys full army gets here maybe?

Should call a closing date now, rather than just cut it off abruptly, imo.

I've been forum lurking for awhile (and a news reader for longer), but I saw this over on nerfbat.com so decided to give it a spin.

Having FFXI be under EQ1 proves you people are morons.  All of you.

I can only think of the following that are better in EQ1:
-no friendpass bullshit
-no 48 cd install
-no playonline = 18 unique passwords bullshit
-less nipponese (had to be said, I for one love our silly asian cousins, the Chinese otoh...)
-less girlymen, sortof, EQ did have multiple elf races.

But core gameplay versus core gameplay FF11 is to EQ1 as WoW is to the non grindy bits of every Diku ever + the raiding of every diku ever.  These lists are totally nostaligia-driven, I didn't know better, I liked my guild more, time /played = good nonsense.  We did a way better job with the top20 video game thread.

I found FFXI to be the worst first 20 minutes of MMORPG ever. The graphics were hideous, navigating the menus was a nightmare, click to move, etc. I spent more time installing/subscribing than playing. Granted, I didn't play EQ1 for very long either, but that was a computer/connection speed issue on my end.

I've lurked for years. Got out of the habit of posting opinionated stuff (and stayed far, far away from things like this) while I was taking money from The Man, that's all. Now that I've finished my stint in detox I can post again.

The graphics were hideous - you are subjectively wrong.  Also remember we are comparing this to EQ1, so you are definitively wrong also.  Don't make me drag some ss's into the light.
navigating the menus was a nightmare - forgot about that, the menu's were console menu's.  My bad that should have been on the list.  Then again the EQ1 ui/buttons are so garish and disgusting well, it could be a tie.
click to move - wrong, both wasd and click to move were supported.
I spent more time installing/subscribing than playing. - I covered that, the playonline shit is wiggitywhack.

Playing FFXI on the computer was awful.  The menus, navigating and actual play mechanics were dreadful.

The menus were bad, but I remember with the most horror the grouping. Pickup groups were all  :uhrr: and :pedobear:

When I realized I'd never be able to log in briefly and have fun, I quit.

Poast moar plz. Tweety rants in F13 would be wicked liquid win.

I'll give you the graphics vs EQ1. Click to move was default, changing to WASD falls under menus sucking.

Alright here is my list:

1) WoW. Based purely on how long I stuck with it and actually enjoyed it before nerd rage set in at grinding for rep and raiding
2) AC1. This is probably the one game I have the most nostalgia about. I still tell funny stories about it to some of my friends. If this game was upgraded with better graphics and rebalanced so life and/or item magic weren't necessary to have a good character it'd be my favorite hands down. I still miss the skill system in this game even if it was incredibly easy to gimp yourself.
3) COH. Take away the grind and this game would be perfect.
4) LOTRO. I think this game may rock in a year or so when more content is in. What's there is fun but alts in LOTRO suck since there are so few quest paths.
5) AO. The game sucked at launch but is great now. I just can't make myself go back to it.
6) DAOC. I didn't stick long with the game but it was fun for the very brief time I played. And I still get tempted to go back sometimes but that's mostly because I have friends who play.

The other MMOs I've played either deserve to be in the bottom 5 (UO) or have too many faults for me to put them in a top 10 list (SWG) or were over rated IMO and I didn't enjoy them. (EQ1)

If you can make it to Divide, then the game really begins to kick in with the Starship Trooper moments.

SOE has 4 in the top 10.

True, but they're also the Linebacker campaign of western MMO houses.

They probably should have tried a bit harder with the tutorial then, eh? If friends were playing this with me or if I had bought the game, I'd feel compelled to go on.  TR had a chance to pull me in, instead it's already off the hard drive.  Also, 3 day trial? Yah, bad idea. 

Anyhow, this isn't a TR thread.  My fault I suppose.

No worries :) I had proposed they reorder stuff to go from Tutorial to Memory Tree (LZ base) to Divide, either by down-leveling stuff or just starting everyone at 5. Memory Tree is a good start to the overall feel. Divide is better I couldn't see them dropping a whole continent of content, and no way the stuff in Wilderness could just be leveled up for some later-game content. It just wasn't interesting enough.

Most of those on this list cut their teeth on SOE games. And we all played EQ2 for the three weeks it existed before WoW  :-)

1.  SB.EXE
2.  SWG (shuddup!)
3.  UO
4.  CoX
5.  Lineage (SHUDDUP!!!)
6.  EQ2
7.  WoW
I don't have an 8, so I'll skip right to 9.
9.  DAOC
10. AC

Honourable Mentions:  Horizons, for the potential; ATitD mostly for the crafting; AO because it forced me to buy a new, cooler computer after it spit the pieces of my old one back at me.

Lineage the first?!

You can click to move in FFXI? I've been playing on and off since release and I didn't know that.

The graphics in FFXI are quite nice, all the models are well done and the armor looks much better than in many very recent games. They did a good job making clothing look truly weighty and three dimensional and the animation is great.

First 20 minutes I'll grant. After I stopped playing for a while I went back and it took me 20 minutes to just *remember* how to do anything.

Don't be such a fuckwit.

Not all of us have played FFXI. I haven't, which kind of disqualifies me from putting it in any of my /played lists.

This a tough list to do but...

#1 A Tale in the Desert  --- I played it from Alpha through to Tale2, ran the biggest fansite and the official forums. Great game, and fantastic community, but too much of a time sink for real life.
#2 World of Warcraft --- Despite Blizzard's continued efforts to dumb the main game down even further, and concentrate most of its resources on developing raid content, its still a great game.
#3 Ultima Online --- My first love (in MMOG terms), too many great memories to recount here.
#4 Dark Age of Camelot --- DAoC was my introduction to being a member of a  big active guild
#5 Anarchy Online --- Some good ideas, and generally good fun, but I didn't find the community all that great.
#6 Lineage2 --- a good solid back to basics MMOG, sadly ruined by gold farmers screwing the economy.

After which they all fade into mediocrity and don't deserve any points (IMO) so I'm not nominating any others :)

From a certain point of view one could say that NO major MMO can be worse than one of its "parents", especially when those are 3 or more years old.
From another, sometimes the improvements are just not enough to make a difference especially with people who do not care about graphics, which are not true improvements and much more the sign of time passing and visual techonolgies getting easier to mold.

Add to that that sometimes there are not just improvements but some steps back too, and it will be easier to understand why people give more credit to the old stuff than to the supposed "new" one.

1) DAoC - RvR is still unmatched as the best way to do pvp
2) WoW - Top quality, quest-based leveling, good raiding. To much grinding later on
3) Shadowbane  - Good pvp, ruined by bugs
4) SWG - Just fun because it was so unbalanced, ruined by patches
5) UO - Faction wars were great fun for me
6) Lotro - Well done WoW-lite, just not enough endgame
7) Guildwars - Nice 8 vs 8 pvp
8) Everquest 2 - Well done pve game, but pvp didnt have enough purpose
9) Lineage 2 - Nice sieges, really stupid pvp, bad pve, but so pretty
10) Everquest - My first 3d mmorpg, the imersion was great because of it

That's Monika T'Sarn (http://swg.allakhazam.com/news/sdetail2617.html?story=2617). Raph's blog This thread sure is bringing in a collection of people significant in MMORPG history.

Bah I remember Monika from her killing me in Shadowbane. Chased her across the desert a few times, but used she killed me after getting the drop on me.

Periods of training interspersed with long diatribes on how wonderful war is even when you have no limbs left Starship Troopers? Or Dougie Howser mind-melding with a bug Starship Troopers?

Yes. Because it is the AWESOME!

I loved that game. Why? Because my Krayt Tissue FWG-5 guns did more damage than her newbie light saber. Everything was so, so, so, so wrong. And felt so, so, so right. Do you put commas between so...s?

1) WoW - they hit the magic formula that appeals to as many playstyles as possible. Been there since beta - no end in sight.
2) LotRO - it's my "don't feel like playing WoW right now" fallback. Great story, gameplay and complexity. Artwork could be much better - preferably more artisitc insted of realistic. The founder's pricing was especially appealing, else I wouldn't have purchased it for a part-time game.
3) UO - played 7.5 years - not sure why. No real connection to the Ultima series (which I loved), EA ruined it and killed any evolution, McFarlane's content went too sci-fi, appeal to the Asian market (ninja, samurai) derailed the content but the uncontrolled PKs in the first years prevented UO from becoming and staying the #1 MMO (I knew several people in RL that left for this one reason). Granted UO was the first in many, many aspects so they taught MMOs companies what not to do as well as what to do.
4) DAoC - beautiful, good crafting system but the grind byond lvl 10 was mind-numbing and focus on racial PvP (for no reason) ruined it for me.
5) SWG (pre NGE) - the #1 hands-down, most successful sci-fi franchise in history... and Sony blows chunks all over it
6) D&DO - great artwork and interface, but too much "one mistake and you're dead... again" to be enjoyable. Too much reliability on grouping especially since it's hard to get a group of your level with such a low population.
7) AC - good basic MMO, but not enough depth. Excellent PvP switch.
8) AO - Creative but nothing special.
9) Shadowbane - forgettable

It actually wasn't a terrible game if you were, say, coming right off of Diablo 2 closed servers, or UO. Yes, it was a different game, but I didn't find it anymore or less grindy than early-stages UO. I did find it way generic on enough levels to chase me back to EQ1 and the followup Western-Fantasy 3D DIKUs. Man was I a fanboi for L2 though, literally camped the NC booth for many tradeshows... until it launched. And AA.

Just updated. 134 votes cast. I think a good deadline could be the release day of PotBS. So I won't have to deal with the moaners wanting to include it in the list since day 1.

P.S: Asheron's Call made it in the top 10, at Planetside's expenses.

1. Ultima Online
2. Guild Wars
3. Dark Age of Camelot
4. City of Villains
5. Asheron's Call
6. Shadowbane
7. World of Warcraft
8. Neverwinter Nights - circa 1994
9. Everquest
10. Star Wars - 1st year of release

Based on /played

1. WoW
2. FFXI
3. CoH/V
4. Eve
5. SWG (pre-CU)

Nothing else made it past the free trial.

#1 World of Warcraft - it got so much right from the start
#2 EQ1 - for the time, it was awesome.  I played for nearly 7 years.
#3 DAoC - EQ1 done right at the beginning, RvR was a blast, too many sweeping changes to classes as the game went on
#4 City of Heroes - good clean fun
#5 Anarchy Online - enjoyed this, but it didn't capture me
#6 Planetside - sometimes great, sometimes terrible, it could have been so much more
#7 UO - fun for awhile
#8 Shadowsbane - nope, not my cup of tea
#9 Horizons - ugh
#10 Lineage - ugh

Yay!  :grin:

Guess I'll have to vote then.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Planetside
3. City of Heroes
4. EVE
5. Final Fantasy XI
6. A Tale in the Desert
7. Puzzle Pirates
8. Ultima Online
9. Earth and Beyond
10. Anarchy Online

Right now your list is biased towards popularity.  You should take every game that has over X number of votes (say X=10 or X=5) and divide the point total for that game by the number of votes that game has received, it will make your list much less biased towards WoW and much more indicative of how people are voting.  For example, say WoW has 20 votes and received an average score of 7, for 140 points, but EQ2 has 10 votes and received an average score of 9 for 90 points.  Currently you'd rate WoW above EQ2 (140 vs 90) but if you make the score averages (total/votes, or 140/20 and 90/10) EQ2 would move above WoW (9 vs 7)..

Just a suggestion..

1. Lord of the Rings Online - It just has it all; interesting classes, useful crafting, immersing storyline, interesting systems.  No real PvP though.
2. Everquest 2 - The fight between this an LOTRO was close in my ranking, but it lost out because LOTRO is more time friendly.
3. World of Warcraft - It's very well done, it's just not really a challenge.
4. Tabula Rasa - Though this position is only tentative with how long it's been out, this is a really fun MMO, done in a very different manner.
5. Dungeon Runners - Guilty pleasure... Diablo by another name.  But well done.
6. Vanguard - I really like the systems and such.  I just hate crashing.
7. City of Heroes/Villains - I like it, but it's just simple.  Not necessarily easy, but simple.
8. The Matrix Online - I love the license, the systems, and the environment.  It's just that the city is really empty- of PCs and NPCs.
9. DDO - I like it, and it's well done.  There are just things missing that you have in other MMOs, and I feel their loss.
10. Star Wars Galaxies - Pre-NGE would be higher.  But well... we won't re-open that wound.

And yes, I paid for and played each of these at least a month, and in addition to these Lineage 2 (love the graphics and characters, but too grindy), Auto Assault (who doesn't love car wars?  But they skimped on certain areas, and just as I can't get into Eve being a ship, I cant get into AA being a car), RF Online (I know... but I bought it before there were reviews!), and Guild Wars (like it, but just can't get into it...)

Jesus, this thread is really bringing them back from the dead. How the hell are ya, Cevik?

Wasn't the thread that brought me, I'm 'here' since the LTM days lurking. I just had to add my list when Sanya recommended it. Nice to know my 15 minutes of fame haven't been totally forgotten yet :-) .


I think I remember you, you were a  Shadowclan scout right ? I like being remembered for this much more then for SWG ! Dagger scout was so much fun.


Exactly my feelings ! SWG was good for me because it was so bad. Riding the wave of imbalances you could have great fun for a while. From animal handler ( at least I never used grauls, I was a spider guy), to commandos with AE death by wounds, to an uber-buffed defense stacker swordsman being able to melee krayt dragons one on one - great fun.

I'm doing great, good to see you are still alive (and hopefully doing well!) :)

I guess I better post a list of MMOGs now since I'm now spamming the thread with useless drivel:

1.  WoW
2.  Shadowbane (with a few less bugs and quarterly server wipes, this would have been number 1 by far)
3.  Everquest II (not at release, but now)
4.  DAoC
5.  CoH
6.  Everquest
7.  LoTRO

1. World of Warcraft
2. City of Heroes/VIllians
3. Shadowbane
4. Puzzle Pirates
5. Ultima Online
6. Star Wars: Galaxies
7. Everquest
8. Meridian 59
9. Eve Online
10. Second Life

I'm sympathetic to giving niche stuff more love, but I don't think an average system would be correctly reflective of peoples' feelings.  The problem is that the 10 people who didn't vote for EQ2 had a chance to, but intentionally left it off their list.  It's not like anyone's never heard of it.  I don't think you can discount their choice to leave it off from their lists, as if they never voted at all.

On the other hand, it'd be interesting to be able to know the difference between "I'm leaving it off because I never played it", and "I'm leaving it off because I played it".  An average score for a game among people who played it would tell you how much players loved something.  I suspect ATiTD is pretty beloved by the people who spent any time on it, though there aren't many of those. 

?

You can't just put Second Life on there and expect people not to notice! What was your Second Life like that it got listed?

Perhaps.

What I'd personally do is list the information in both forms..

Partially by /played, and partially by how influential I think they are or should have been.

1.  Ultima Online
2.  World of Warcraft
3.  Asheron's Call
4.  Shadowbane
5.  Dark Age of Camelot

1. Eve Online
2. World or Warcraft
3. City of Heros - Villains
4. EverQuest 2
5. Dark Age of Camelot
6. Guild Wars
7. Asheron's Call 2
8. EverQuest
9. Dungeons and Dragons Online

Those are all of the ones I have exp with.  I have likes and dislikes about all of them.  But the top three I keep coming back to. I have a current subscription to Eve and COH

I noticed Asheron's Call 2 beat out Vanguard. That says alot about how shitty Vanguard must be. ( I loved AC1 and feel like AC2 is Turbine's biggest mistake so far as a company.)

Noooo! Planetside!

Well, I guess it only appeals to people who are into FPS. :P

I didn't explain my choices before, time to bore you now.

DAoC and ATitD come in mostly because the game mechanics positively helped build a realm community, and the case of daoc, did so despite a generic diku combat model and. Plus RvR is as good as casual MMOG PvP has got.

CoH for 3 things, the approach to character design (both recognising that players want to control what they look like, and also that this does mean faces, it means flashy colours and unique combinations identifyable at 50 yards), the combat mechanic itself, and the model for support characters. The last point about support characters is prpobably the most important, and I've only seen it equalled in EQ2. Support involves managing buffs, debuffs, and heals in an extremely active manner, in almost all MMOGs, support characters usually have the most decisions to make and least time to do it, but CoH manages to take it up another notch above what you get elsewhere and do so with glamour, flair, and fancy particle effects that support characters don't get in other games.

Planetside for showing we don't all have to cut and paste the comnbat model. Darniaq pointed out how everyone keeps moaning about dikus but puts them at the top of their lists. Almost the entire genre is diku, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the best of the genre is diku. That doesn't mean we're happy that the whole genre is diku.

EVE for just looking so damn cool and bringing all the best stories onto message boards. Plus, no elves.

EQ2 for showing that if you beat a dead horse long enough, it really might get up and walk again. Plus for designing fun and active support characters almost as well as CoH did.

Puzzle Pirates because it made my Mum play for more than 30 seconds. Anything that can do that potential.


Things not on the list:

WoW. I really don't get WoW. I understand that it has decent production values, and I understand that there isn't anything outright broken, but it just seemed so unambitious when I played it that I quickly couldn't be bothered. There isn't one thing they've even tried to push beyond the norm. Granted most MMOGs try new things and at least half the things they try are spectacular failures, but elsewhere there usually at least a few features where you can see they've tried to innovate.

SWG. Ok, I get that the resource development model, and vendor model was cool at launch. BUT PISTOL DAMAGE DIDN'T STACK WITH RIFLE DAMAGE. The profession system felt like an incredibly grindy waste of time because of the absurd way most of the skills were top loaded into the mastery box. And obviously the slapstick NGE has been discussed elsewhere.

EQ, Guild Wars, both failed for me for the same reason, you simply can't exist outside a large guild, PLUS there is no good reason for large guilds to help newbies. It continues to amaze me that developers build games in a manner that fails to provide reasons for vets to help noobs.

1. DDO - liked for it's differences, wish more had been done with it; still sub every now and again; needs more content
2. WoW - while i stopped playing at lvl 40, my 12 year old now has multiple level 70's; great game for teens or the casual :-p
3. CoH/Cov - character customization ftw!  Like the instancing; hated the grind
4. Lotro - different flavor WoW but too similar for me to sub long
5. EQ2 - played for a while, liked, but at the time ran like crap on my system; may give it another go
6. Shadowbane - enjoyed the beta much more than the retail; so much potential
7. EQ1 - easy to spot what I didn't like about it but got me in this genre and played for like 1.5 years; good timing
8. NWN1 - I had fun with it, despite it not truly being a MMO but damn if people didn't try to make it one
9. Fallen Age - never made it out of beta, but it had Slugs and i have a T Shirt damnit!
10. AC1 - liked for it's attempted differences in magic system and skills, even if the implementaion wasnt great

WOWInsider has a small blurb about this thread complete with link etc etc.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/12/21/breakfast-topic-wheres-wow/

What the hell...

1) World of Warcraft (though the lichen has started to grow)
2) Ultima Online
3) City of Heroes
4) Everquest
5) Dark Age of Camelot
6) Dungeons and Dragons Online
7) Shadowbane
8) Everquest II
8) Asherons Call
10) Star Wars Galaxies

I would have put Wish in over SWG, but Wish never made it past the rabid goat stage.

WoWinsider??
Good god.. I created a monster!!  :pedobear:  (Luckily I never got any credit for that, yay!  :oh_i_see: )

Most WoW players' first MMO was WoW, so don't expect a rush of top 10s.

Best is hard to judge, since it combines a lot of things, but I'll give it a shot and list the things I like after the game.

1- EverQuest.  - Bard.  Raids.  No coddling (until way later).  Ability to go back and experience former raid content solo or with small groups (again, until way later).
2- Final Fantasy XI - Jobs.  Subjobs.  Cutscenes.  Renkei.  Looking awesome.  High QA resulting in few bugs.
3- Ultima Online - Year 1.  FFA PvP.  Item loss.  Mark/Recall/Gate.
4- World of Warcraft - Short-term mini-goals in the form of quests.  Less, but more varied classes rather than several that do nearly the same thing.  Popular PvP.
5- Lineage II - Territorial control, castle sieges, massive pvp, hot dark elf babes.
6- Dark Age of Camelot - RvR.  Large-scale battles.  Norsemen fighting in the name of Odin!
7- Shadowbane - FFA PvP.  Item Loss.  City building/destruction.
8- Phantasy Star Universe - Action-combat.  Personalized appearrance that doesn't have to be compromised to improve gameplay effectiveness.
9- City of Heroes/Villains - Character customization, fighting large numbers of weak enemies instead of few strong ones.
10- Guild Wars - Skill loadouts that limit the number of prepared skills you can take on a mission.  Pretty characters.

This means you now have to create a blog and tell developers how to create their games without having to deal with such nuisances as milestones, budget concerns, clueless upper management, etc. Preferably in a snarky tone with plenty of Youtube links. Then do a weekly top-10 MMO countdown.

YOU CAN BE THE CASEY KASEM OF THE MMOSPHERE!

(http://www.rbr.com/interviews/images/kasem.gif)

This is internet gold Jerry!

That sounds much more like HRose. And no thank you.

My blog only sports a cheesy Vanguard review because I wear my scars with shame and pride at the same time.

Can I use that?  :awesome_for_real:

(http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=139;type=avatar) (http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/badkitty.gif)

My sentiments exactly.

*delurk*

This is partly based on played time (75%) and the rest based on impact/potential/contribution...

1. Everquest 2
2. Ultima Online
3. Star Wars Galaxies (pre nge - cu was not the worst thing in the world to me)
4. Final Fantasy XI
5. Everquest
6. Asheron's Call 2
7. Vanguard
8. World of Warcraft
9. Anarchy Online
10. World War 2 Online

Everquest 2 is number one on my list essentially because of the sheer amount of time I've played it and the doors the game opened for me.  I've been playing multiplayer RPGs since I ran a BBS in the late 80s but with EQ2 I enjoyed the ride to the end levels so much and for the first time did raiding and explored everything end game had to offer, just a great game - tonnes of content and has that vital MMO driver of the sense of evolution and going concern.

UO is number two on my list for the same reason it appears in the top 2 or 3 on most people's list - it was my first real love affair with this genre.  The feeling of an open ended world where you could live the adventure you wanted to live and create the content you wanted to create was amazing.  I also developed many lasting friendships in this game and really started to realize that the internet had a lot to offer as a social tool.

SWG - Pre Cu.  UO 1.5 in space.  Jump to light speed also brought on some entertaining space combat to add into the mix with the already existing interesting classes, social features (housing, towns, etc), deep crafting and sometimes enjoyable adventuring experience.

FFXI.  I've gotta say for me this is the best group-based-raid-end-game focused MMO.  Yes forced grouping sucks when you actually want to just get in and out but if you have the time to give this game it will give you countless hours of entertainment. 

Everquest.  Probably one of the MMOs I played the least (being a big UO loyalist got in the way of my falling for this game at release) on my list.  But I don't think you have a credible top-MMO list without Everquest appearing in your top 5.  The game set the gold-standard for all that followed and the industry has been trying to make a better EQ ever since.

AC2.  Heralded as the first third-gen MMO and later as a huge failure by most this game always holds a special place in my heart.  Every time I'm feeling burnout in whatever MMO I'm currently playing I say "geez, I wish I could fire up AC2 right now".  There was something about the game to me.  Yes the world was sparsely populated and at times it just felt plain empty but the /music system, the prospect of watching and helping to slowly rebuild the world, the vault system, etc it was just great.  This was also the first game I worked with friends to play together through the levels and I think it was all the better experience for that...

Vanguard - I think we'll wake up one day two years from now and find this list in the top 5 of many people.  I think there is still hope here and that the game in its current form is a solid base to build a great lasting experience on.

World of Warcraft.  I've got quite a bit of time /played in the game but I've never made it to end game.  I've gotten really close but then just lose interest.  I don't know what it is but WoW just does not click with me.  That aside - I realize the contribution this game has made to the genre and I've had some great people join my various guilds where WoW was their entry point into the genre.  I think everyone in this industry needs to thank the WoW team for opening the doors and needs to get to work on innovations that will begin to chip away at their market share (and for the love of god stop trying to make WoW 2.0)

Anarchy Online. Two years ago this was a top 5 for me.  The sci-fi setting was fairly ground breaking for an MMO and despite its launch (ahh June of 2001, AO and WW2O, that was an epic month to be involved in this genre) the game had a lot of fun to offer and tried desperately to bridge the feature gap between UO and EQ offering level tread-mill based game play while trying to include social features like housing, non combat, etc.  I have many fond memories of the game and still login from time to time as a froob.

World War 2 Online.  The final slot on the list goes to a game that is a survivor.  This game had a terrible launch (free gameplay for the first many moons anyone?) and had an engine that made the baby jesus weep.  Despite all of that the game offers a thrilling game play experience when you can manage to find people to shoot at.  In the last few years the team has done a really good job of adding in features to focus the combat and get people into the same place so many of the games cons have been addressed.  Despite the game's small community there are still some epic battles and there is nothing quite like hiding in a building hoping to god that those Germans keep on moving after you spent an hour sneaking behind enemy lines to make that key control point capture.

*relurk*

1. Puzzle Pirates - Great player controlled economy, great PvP, multiplayer is almost forced upon you,  high end action is exhilarating, and so forth. I can't think of a game that comes close to it.
2...gap
3...gap
4.  Guild Wars- Fun. Combat is enjoyable, and the grind doesn't take years.
5. WoW - Raiding is cool. I don't spend more than an hour a week on it though.
6. Ultima Online- This could be a totally different game now. Haven't played for three years or so, but it was fun when I did.
7 Everquest 2- I haven't played a fifth MMO, but my brother says to put EQ2 here.

My top 10 list:

1.) Everquest
2.) World of Warcraft
3.) Dark Age of Camelot
4.) Everquest 2
5.) Star Wars Galaxies
6.) Lord of the Rings Online
7.) EVE Online
8.) City of Heroes
9.) Final Fantasy XI
10.) Vanguard

my top 10 is

1) Dark Age of Camelot
2) Ultima Online
3) Everquest 2
4) Anarchy online
5) World of Warcraft
6) Star Wars Galaxies
7) Everquest
8) City of Heroes
9) Eve
10) Vanguard

Holy shit, look at 'em coming out of the woodwork.

Uh oh.  Now that they're out, we'll probably have to recruit more lurkers, won't we.  Once you un-lurk, you can never go back. 

That's only true for the casual lurker. Hardcore lurkers like me are not so easily converted.

Just updated. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11643.msg381154#msg381154) 150 votes so far.

Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online are so close for third place.
EverQuest 2 just passed Star Wars Galaxies.
Shadowbane got his 12th place back.
Final Fantasy XI is slowly growing.
Dungeons & Dragons Online jumped up in 18th place.

Finally, there is hope for humanity  :-)

And thanks for keeping this list going man. Great stuff!

My pleasure. It's a sort of grind after all, and I am -sadly- used to it.

You're different, Monika.  We know you and we know you're watching.  We feel your eyes on us.  Sometimes I even imagine there's a wee red dot on my forehead!  Anyway, these other lurkers... we didn't even know they existed!  Now we need to get them all to write introduction posts.  (http://www.girlzclan.com/newforum/images/smilies/wreath.gif)

Another lurking chiming in, hooray. I won't bother explaining. I do wish games that could be played through browser were allowed so I could stick Dragon Realms and Gemstone II/III/IV on the list though.

1) DAoC
2) Everquest
3) Ultima Online
4) FFXI
5) WoW
6) Everquest 2
7) Asheron's Call
8) CoX
9) Anarchy Online
10) Eve

1. World of Warcraft
2. EQ2
3. Eve Online
4. Asheron's Call

1.   Asheron’s Call 1 (Microsoft and Turbine, 1999)
2.   MultiPlayer BattleTech (Activision, Kesmai Corp. and GEnie, 1992)
3.   Air Warrior (Kesmai Corp., 1986)
4.   MUD II (MUSE, 1984)
5.   Ultima Online (Origin, 1997)
6.   Anarchy Online (Funcom, 2001)
7.   DAoC (Mythic, 2001)
8.   WoW (Blizzard, 2004)
9.   AD&D: Neverwinter Nights (SSI, Stormfront and AOL, 1992)


1.   Asheron’s Call 1 (Microsoft and Turbine, 1999) – The most fun I ever had playing a fantasy MMO.  Not as pretty as EQ1, but lots more to do and see.  If Microsoft had launched more than one expansion pack in 5 years, it probably would have had a lot more players.

2.   MultiPlayer BattleTech (Activision, Kesmai Corp. and GEnie, 1992) – The most fun I ever had playing a non-fantasy MMO.  Based on the original MechWarrior 3D 1st Person retail game.  Also the first MMO that had true solo activities; you didn’t have to belong to a Great House or player-run mercenary unit unless you wanted to; you could still perform missions and flip a planet’s allegiance to one of the Great Houses all by yourself.

3.   Air Warrior (Kesmai Corp., 1986) – A WWII air combat simulator that was also the first true graphic front end MMO.  Also the first MMO with enough flexibility to allow true emergent game play, designed by the players.  For example, Full-Contact Jeep Racing and Land The B-17 On The Aircraft Carrier competitions.

4.   MUD II (MUSE, 1984) – The commercial successor to the Trubshaw/Bartle MUD I from 1979.  Trubshaw and Bartle showed us where the path began; that alone should get them on every Top <x> list.  MUD II did something 23 years ago that no MMO does today (for obvious reasons): when you maxed your character, you got access to the UNIX commands on the backend and had super-user powers.  The ensuing chaos was annoying, yet amusing at the same time.

5.   Ultima Online (Origin, 1997) – No one will ever develop a fantasy MMO with such depth and breadth again.  At least, not without spending something like $100 million just in development costs.

6.   Anarchy Online (Funcom, 2001) – Funcom gave us instancing, a major innovation that is incredibly useful for some types of MMO designs.

7.   DAoC (Mythic, 2001) – RvR, natch.  One of the first implementations that recognized that PvP doesn’t have to mean just “Me versus You”, but can have greater meaning and context as “My Guys/Side versus Your Guys/Side.”

8.   WoW (Blizzard, 2004) – Nothing revolutionary here, unless you count actually looking at what various player types wanted in an MMO, giving it to them and then polishing the hell out of it as ‘revolutionary’.  Blizzard proved that craftsmanship in development is important, something all too rare in MMOs.

9.   AD&D: Neverwinter Nights (SSI, Stormfront and AOL, 1992) – The first deal cut with a publisher to bring a retail game online as an MMO.  Lots done right, lots done wrong, but still a watershed effort in the industry.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Dark Age of Camelot
3. EVE Online
4. Everquest 2
5. A Tale in the Desert
6. Anarchy Online
7. City of Heroes
8. Lord of the Rings Online
9. Final Fantasy XI
10. Shadowbane

I've always thought it only appeals to people who aren't goldfish...

Your list doesn't count as you listed only 4 games instead of the required 5. It's still an interesting list but I won't count the points for it. You can fix it, but read the rules please.

Here's mine. Note that 1-4 are my best MMOs and from 5 onwards they're my least worst. Note also that I have no integrity or moral compunction regarding pimping stuff I work for.

1: Dark Age of Camelot. I played it and loved it before it was my job.
2: EvE Online. The MMO sphere needs this game to show what happens when you make an game with no preconceptions.
3: Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. Yeah. I know. When it's finished, I fully expect it to jump two places. Bite me.
4: Some MUD I don't remember the name of. It had four different areas - a generic fantasy one, a sci0-fi one etc. It rocked. If anyone knows what it was called I'd be obliged (was something like Legend of Four Kingdoms or so).
5: EQII. If I had time to play another MMO, this would be it.
6: LotRO. So much potential, such a disappointing experience.
7: SW:G. See above but more so.
8: World of Warcraft. It's like a Jessica Simpson album. You might think the music sucks but you have to applaud the production values that make it possible for her to sing in tune.
9: Auto Assault. If they'd implemented gameplay this would have been a very nice game.
10: City of Whatever. Fantastic fun for about a week.

I am weak on rules too after all, but isnt' IainC a redname too?

How the hell can you put Auto Assault, something that tanked and is a "Me Too" of WoW design, in the same Top 10 list as WoW, and at roughly the same level?

Obv I am not IainC. But you answer your own question here. WoW has no innvoation or original ideas. Auto Assault has no innovation or original ideas. They both have fundamentally the same design. So you are left with which one rocked your boat on an artistic level.

Sort of what he said. WoW was a beautifully made game which deserves recognition for that alone even though I am not a fan of the actual game. AA appealed to me because it was a look outside the box regardless of how flawed the implementation of it was. I didn't like either game as a playing experience but I feel that both needed to be recognised for what they brought along.

How can you say WoW had no innovative ideas ? It totally redefined how the genre works. I don't know all games, but lets just look at EQ and DAOC before: You level by finding a nice spot to camp and grinding the mobs that respawn there. Quests are something you rarely do, and only if there's a really good reward at the end. Dungeons are mostly just more places to camp. Leveling requires,for most classes, a group. Leveling is hard.
In WoW, you have quests as the basic mechanism for leveling, instead of grinding on mobs. The quests lead you from area to area, you allways find more of them as you go. You can solo to the top level. Dungeons as instances add something new, a time-limited adventure for a group to join up for.  Leveling is easy. These chances, and not just the polish, are what made WoW so successfull.
And these changes are here to stay, just look at the relative success of Lotro thats following the WoW model allmost directly compared to Vanguard.

Oh  :ye_gods:. Can we please (just a kind request) end it here? The argument about WoW being or not a genre innovator is a well known threadbreaker  :uhrr:

Pretty soon I'll start spouting off about UO Trammel WOOOOO! Its required after any thread, poll or not, reaches 9 pages :)

Nice thread BTW Falc.

Falconeer's right, there's even seperate forums to keep that crap from overflowing into the important stuff.

EQ2 came out before WoW. Thanks for playing.

WoW = polish, art style, low system reqs. Not undermining the importance of those factors, but that's really the only thing WoW did better than anyone else.

Don't worry, we still have the grues.

Three weeks doesn't count. And as many of us were in both, we know which features came to which came first.

Now the discussion is done.  :grin:

/finalword

EQ2 had all the things she touts about WoW, they just weren't implemented very well. But they were there. You can't redefine a genre when a major competitor releases a game with similar features just before you do.

EQ2 AND WoW redefined the genre. And that's the w0rd.  :oh_i_see:

Who cares? Take it to another thread.

You can even call it 300,000 People VS. 9 Million: The Most Unnecessary Fight of the Century.

Didn't EQ2 only add the stuff WoW did after WoW came out and kicked EQ2 squarely in the jimmies?

I seem to recall that they retrofitted that game to be "more WoW", and that it wasn't like that at the start.

I'm just looking at some certain lists and going "What the hell, really?" and figuring some people are insane or are looking through their games with rose-colored glasses.

Yeah. And not just rose-colored but star-shaped too. What's wrong with it?



(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2322/2133823956_c481d53471_o.jpg)

^^^ Early picture of me while playing Asheron's Call 2 beta  ^^^

Absolutely true, I guess I was only pointing out that you were doing exactly the same re: WoW.

It is crazy to argue that any of the straight dikus have an objectively obvious advantage over any of the others; it's only ever going to be about which clicked with you on an artistic level, or which had some specific implementation of the same old shit that happened to appeal to you. Whichever just 'felt' 'fun' to that individual is going to win on any individual list.

The world would only be going mad if, after everyone posted their individual judgement in this way, the game that a bazillion people subscribe to wasn't above the rest on the overall scoreboard.


PS. For what it is worth, EQ2 and CoH both redefined the genre more than WoW FOR ME, because of they vastly improve the model for support classes, which TO ME, is much more important than questing (which yes, was also the primary xp and 'storyline' development driver in both COH and EQ2 at launch). This is why both them got points from me and WoW didn't. Doesn't mean I begrudge other people putting WoW top if WoW focussed on stuff that was more important to them.

Well I'm playing WoW right now, so I have a fresh perspective. :)  I want it to be better (Fucking Battlegrounds, fucking PvP code, fucking Horde) but yeah, good thing it's on top of the scoreboard by a large margin.

WoW quest design and COH quest design are two different animals, though not really knocking COH when I say that.  Never played EQ2, don't want to.  I'd rather some game like FFXI got its shit straight so I'd have fun playing it.

I'm trying to be a designer so I'm recognizing where there was FAIL on the part of game design.  So when I see something like "WoW was just slightly better than Auto Assault!", I want to flog someone.

Edit: Typo.  Most people's choices make sense, I guess.  I should expect oddballs.

Might be smart to play other games, even if you're not grabbed by them (i.e. EQ2) if you want to be a designer....learning from success and failure and all that.

I did play EQ2 and didn't want to subscribe after the trial.  But I've played a *lot* of MMOGs.  At least 66% on the list.

Im enjoying my return to EQ2. The PvP is quite good, although I'd much rather have more RvR, but hey.

Best. Summation. Of. WoW. EVAR.

When does the trend of bashing WOW because it's popular end?

We need more votes for Shadows of Yserbius!

I love how the Stockholm syndrome kicks in on the defenders of the blizzard crown.

I don't bash it because it's popular. I bash it because it sucked when I played it the first time and it was called EQ.

I haven't and won't read the joy in this thread.  Here are my picks, based on a feeling of moving the MMO genre forward.  They also were the ones in order I may have played the longest.  Fun is up there too.

DISCLAIMER:  Just cause they are in this order doesn't mean I would play them again for any length.  They're good, but even good cheese gets eaten up from within with age.  One has to move on.

1, EVE -- I think for what MMO's are supposed to do (online, massive real time player base, coop, PvP, sandboxness), Eve does it.  It also has the most virulent and hostile community I've ever known (f13 lads in-game excluded).  But for technical ability, unique game and art design, it wins.  Eve has the recipe.  I just don't like every ingredient.

2. SWG -- yup, #2.  It was the Moby Dick of MMO's.  Massive, squirrelly, wholly unique and addictive.  I think it was brought low because of bad infrastructure, over-hype, bad community mgmt, and unclear product direction.  I've played in the last 6 months and it still has more to do than WoW.  SWG brought new flavors to the genre.

3. DAoC -- because I may have played it consistently the longest.  A game that has not aged well, but still beat UO, EQ1, Meridian59 hands down for graphical and network technology.  DAoC brought the massiveness of PvP home with good designs via RvR that helped channel a lot of people.  It was unchallenged IMO for the longest time.  DAoC brought PvP mainstream.

4.  WoW -- well its there.  Not worth reading a lot more about.  It's the margarine of MMO's -- slick, ubiquitous, well designed.  Great game design texture but a lack of flavor over time.  Doesn't have the legs an MMO needs for all player styles.  The one world raidathon is too restrictive.  So, it's perfect, but so's margarine.

5.  LoTR -- it seems funny to put that here.  But LoTR is the slickest MMO postWoW that delivers a blend of WoW execution with EQ2 clunkiness.  It beats EQ2 because of performance and a better delivery.  Still not that much fun though.

6.  EQ2 -- a game I tried desperately to like.  It was rich, layered, but clunky, poor designed, and with very limited usability.  It was more concerned with its franchise and shoehorning in content than checking for how its UI and gameplay really worked.  Cool burrito.

7.  GW -- meh.  It worked.

8.  CoX -- meh.  It works.  But -1 than GW for the GRIND.  I mean COME ON, its nearly 2008 already.

9.  ATitD -- because it tried.  And I would add WURM Online and an other Indy MMO out there trying already.

10.  UO/EQ1/M59 -- because they are on everyone else's list.

If you don't like EQ remakes, then you're either playing Eve, UO, or you're in the wrong genre.

It's not that I don't like EQ remakes. (I'm playing EQ2 now) But the "My Life for Aiur" types here talk like it's popular because it's good.

You of all people should know that's not true. It's popular because it retreads the shame shit every Diku before it has, just with better polish than before. That doesn't make it good. That makes it just that, a polished retread. Long on production value, short on substance. If that's what you want, go nuts. But don't act like it's the goddamned robot jesus.

Now you tell me.  Since, can't edit my old message (#3 on this thread), here's the update.  (I'd better fucking have a shot at winning nothing this time.)

1) City of Heroes/Villains - One of the few MMORPGs to include the G part.  This alone makes it #1 versus most of this trash: you can play it like a game and it's fun - holy shit!  For this reason alone, I keep coming back to it despite the grind.  The lacking end-game, some four years after release, would bother me more if I didn't keep rolling alts.

2) EverQuest 2 - "Most improved" is a severe understatement.  It's a bit overly casual friendly these days, but this is overpowered by the sheer mass of the thing.  If all development teams were as active as these guys, I'd have no fear of getting my monthly subscription worth.

3) EVE Online - Perhaps the most daring MMORPG out there.  That it survived and is doing well is a spit in the eye of all the cowards in MMORPG development that hide behind PvP flags and Diku-Mud design.  I really don't enjoy stock markets in space with ganking, but hey, go nuts.

4) Planetside - It dared to be a first person shooter the equal of Tribes but truly massively multiplayer.  A pity their update rate was abysmal and the core tech isn't entirely up to the job.  Dead on the vine, make Planetside II already (as I doubt Huxley will be it because I've read the combat is instanced).

5) Final Fantasy XI - Awkward, console-inspired interface?  Check.  Evil, EQ-imitating grind?  Guilty.  Beautiful, meaningful-feeling world even at low-res?  Okay, everything's forgiven.  Pity I don't have the time or team-finding patience I'd need to make playing this muther my new full-time job.

6) Tabula Rasa - This is another MMORPG that included the G part and, as with CoX, this boosts it above most the trash considerably.  A pity they forgot to include the mid-to-end game.  A step forward that fell and can't get up.  In time, it might be the game that keeps pulling me back as CoX does.

7) Guild Wars - In many ways, genius.  It arrives in an under 1MB installer and unfolds itself insidiously by torrenting everything off your broadband connection.  Contrary to claims I've seen elsewhere, this is the only game that really does patch while you play. However, technical merits alone aren't worth dick: the core gameplay mechanic here requires a brain to succeed while promoting fair and fun PvP.  It falls low on the list only because it's not exactly a MMORPG (that and I don't play it much).

8) Lord of the Rings Online - World of Warcraft lite with fairly decent Tolkien fan service.  Of course, WoW is better at being WoW than LOTRO is, but Turbine earned extra points by me because at least they raised the bar on other people's innovations a bit with things like cutscenes, temporarily playing a monster in PvP, and playing instruments.  Stick that in your pipe and see what color rings it makes.

9) World of Warcraft - Much to everyone's surprise and chagrin, it seems that Blizzard can take other companies' designs, streamline them, provide some Blizzard improved-GUI magic, and create money hats from the admittedly enjoyable prodigy.  Okay, I lied, that's not surprising in the least.  Yet, all my berating in the world won't change the fact that these guys could buy a small country for the amount of subscribers they have.  I heard all that shit before, save your breath and accept that I'm saying the game itself is at least good enough to get #9, happy?

10) Dungeons and Dragons Online - They did a pretty good job of porting the game mechanics to massively multiplayer form (once you stomach it's a completely different execution).  Now, if only they had designed it around infinite adventures instead of forcing players to repeat the same modules over and over again, it might have had a chance to suit the D&D legacy.  B+ for effort.

Dont say this too loudly. The argument that popular = amazing seems to have weight around here.

1. Ultima Online (maybe just nostalgia)
2. Shadowbane (fun, even with sb.exe)
3. CoX
4. LOTRO
5. WoW
6. AC
7. DAoC
8. Eve
9. Puzzle Pirates
10. ATITD

unhonorable mention: EQ for being the root of quite some evil and SWG for screwing up many dreams.

Really? How are they different? I mean really?

WoW:

"Go kill 5 scarlet ass munchers over by the mill"
"Go collect 6 Alterac Monkey Nuts"
"Go walk this gourd over to Jimbob"
"Raid that dungeon and kill the purple++ boss"

CoH:

"Go kill 5 Magic dudes with glowy eyes in that district"
"Go click the 6 glowie things in that building"
"Go fly this doomsday device over to Jimbob"
"Raid that volcano and kill the purple++ archvillian"

CoH uses extensive instances, which means dead things don't randomly come back to life in front of you, and gives the illusion of being able to walk into random buildings to enlarge the game world, whilst simultaneously breaking that illusion by having them all decorated in exactly the same fashion.

I struggle to see how that means quests are 'different'.

Yeah, I had to go by Najal because of SC naming conventions. I sure ran into you a lot and you almost always got the better of me. I can just say it's because you had 5 levels on me :)

on the basic quest. Yes. But on something longer. Let's take for example the lvl 20 instance Van Cleef. I totally loved it. There's something similiar like that in COH but the magic is just not there. It felt too 'modular'.

Talking of level 20, would you see that as significantly different from the level 20 Striga Island taskforce from Hess with the booby trap ambush rooms and giant robots and self destructing volcanoes and shit?


(http://www.site20.co.uk/1.jpg)


Again, obv if you just like the WoW art and script etc, then fair enough. But it's not a design issue or about redefining the genre to include objectively superior things that weren't already there, which is where this conversation started.

These conversations are like UO/Tram discussions with out the rage.

/yawn

#1 DAoC
#2 Planetside
#3 SB
#4 Air Warrior (circa '94)
#5 WoW

Is this now an intarnet nerd slapfight or are we still allowed to post our top 10?

1 - Asheron's Call (Darktide) - early days.  Only game that I've played to stumble across real, meaningful PvP objectives without creating the "loser starved out of the game" syndrome.  Macroing and extreme templates raised the bar enough that I quit.  It's probably better now.

2 - UO, T2A, pre-Trammel period.  The progenitor that also stumbled across oh so much that was right, then tweaked it all out over time.

3 - WoW - my current fave.  Everything has already been said about this, good and bad.  Right now it's good for me because I can be casual as I wanna be and still get my welfare epics (or just level another alt)

4 - Shadowbane - only beats Eve because I played it longer and had a good guild.  Tragic flaws (loser starves) but the mechanics, group battles, fights over territory would be the gold standard if the world had been bigger and easier to hide in, or some other mechanic existed to keep losers around.

5 - Eve - gold standard of open-ended, worldy PvP games.  Too bad I didn't have a group to run with or enough time to really understand all the mechanics. I probably asked too much of it too, by trying to be a trader type right off the bat.

6 - DAOC - Early days I considered "EQ done right".  I think they took it the wrong direction though, because I lost interest and never found it again.  People I know have played it recently and apparently has a lot of life left.

7 - SWG - excellent potential, ridiculous timesinks and all.  Worldy aspects were the win, though clearly not everyone thought so.  Jedi system could have been implemented better.  World was too big for its purpose.  Some other games are huge but clearly not all areas are meant for population (thinking AC1 here).  SWG had too many ghost towns.  I quit before the CE/NWO/XYZ or whatever so I can't speak to that.

8 - Guild Wars - Only played beta, but it has an intriguing subscription model, making it easy to come and go.  Also distills the essence of team-based PvP but doesn't feel very persistent (because it's not)

9 - UO (Siege Perilous, post-Trammel) - fun for a while, but didn't really recapture the old days.  Insular and limited community, for one.

10 - Planetside - great in 3-6 month chunks, but the luster fades quickly.  Haven't been back in a while.  Could use a dose of persistence.  Guild wars had more persistence (!) and that would have been a good differentiator between this game and non-massive FPSes.


I'm surprised to see how high WoW is in several people's lists.

Among the various MMOs I've played, here are the ones I'd put on a top ten list.  The comment in parenthesis is what finally made me stop playing the game.

1) City of Heroes - (Global Defense Nerf + Enhancement Diversification)
2) Planetside - (Neglect, although I still play regularly)
3) Everquest - (Mudflation + Became Reflex Based)
4) World of Warcraft - (Lack of character progression)
5) Everquest II - (I don't really know.  Maybe lack of soul.  I still putter around occasionally.)
6) Lord of the Rings - (Precipitous content dropoff after level 20)

1) Puzzle Pirates - Played this one the longest and still play now
2) FlyFF - Played this for about 6 months until the grind got too much... (Level 69 AoE Ele)
3) VCO (Voyage Century Online) - Fun for a bit, the PK zones were a bit off though..
4) Rappelz - Fun but my experience lowered from the lag I got from it
5) Anarchy Online - Was good for a bit, but a bit too easy to level up
6) Runescape (It was good for my first MMO and on a slow computer)
7) WoW - Most advance MMO out there!!
8) Lineage 2 - Fun whilst it lasted
9) Lord of the Rings Online - Fun but quite repetitve in my experience
10) FFXI - Legend game, good MMO just not as good as the offline experince.


Yokomoko.

http://forums.puzzlepirates.com/community/mvnforum/viewmember?memberid=366835

1 WOW
2 COH
3 DAOC
4 EQ2
5 LOTRO

World of Warcraft, because it is darn addictive - would have been there forever if not of the lack of progression beyond raiding. Just resubbed recently - arena gear seems to offer an altenative to raid gear, but is on a wait-and-see mode first.

COH, because the combat makes you look heroic (flashy power, flashy costumes and flying for the win) and feels heroic  (destroy entire clumps of enemies by yourself)... that is until you find yourself killing the same types of enemies a thousand times over as you get higher and higher in level. The grind felt worse than other mmos because of the lack of features like equipment updates or tradeskills (some crafting only added in very late).

DAOC to me is still the king of group vs group pvp and persistent world pvp. Sad that Mythic did not get their asses together to release DAOC II with a complete revamp of the graphics engine. And a complete revamp of the PVE grinding while they are at it...

1. UO (Pre-Trammel)
2. AC1 Darktide
3. WoW
4. EvE
5. LOTRO
6. DAoC
7. AC2 Darktide
8. L2
9. SWG
10. SB

1) DAOC
2) SWG
3) Vanguard
4) UO
5) WOW
6) Saga of Ryzom
7) Eve
8) Everquest
9) Everquest II
10) Guildwars

Just updated, now with 163 votes.

Not much movement save for Vanguard going up one spot (!?), a few asian new entries and Dark Age of Camelot getting reeeeally close to the 2nd place. Quite an achievement I'd say, which makes me think that the DAoC-ification of upcoming Warhammer is not that bad of an idea after all...

RvR and keeps for the uberwin?

I never played DOAC so I have a question about the game.  How was the world constructed?  There were 3 factions correct?  I'm curious to see how the world was shaped with pvp zones etc.

I am surprised that A Tale in the Desert made it higher than Final Fantasy XI.

There were 3 realms, PvE and RvR were completely seperate areas in each realm, you had to pass through an impregnable border keep to get from your pve realm into RvR.

RvR in each realm was a single non-instanced area, 4 continuous 'zones' in each realm.

Just beyond the impregable border keeps of doom (2 entrances to RvR per realm) you'd have the relic keeps. These are large relic keeps used to house relics that were the ultimate objective of the game. Taking a relic keep would require a raid sized force, you're talking 50+ people.

Beyond the relic keeps you have half a dozen normal keeps, these take about 2 groups + as many groups as the defence can muster.

To get from one area to another you go to your border keep, and wait for the wizards to teleport you to other friendly keeps, according to a supply chain system, or you can run to the shore of your realm and boat across to the enemy realm.

Alternatively there were various sneaky routes through dungeons between RvR zones, but they were only practical for small groups of players who all knew wtf they were doing.



Map of RvR zones:

<damn you EA anti-leeching tech>

I gather there's an island in the sea these days that you can also stop and fight over.

Link to the realm war status showing the live state of keeps and whatnot on a server:

http://guilds.camelotherald.com/realms/index.php?server=Iseult&realm=&v=

There were 3 'Homeland' areas which were large PvE zones, one for each realm. Only members of that realm could go there. Expansions added new PvE zones which were also limited to members of the relevant realm. The PvP areas were accessible in a variety of ways from the homeland areas but were a separate zone. The main PvP area was the Frontier which was 3 large landmasses separated by navigable oceans. There were separate level limited battlegrounds as well which you could only reach by teleporting to and which weren't a contiguous part of the world map. None of the PvP content was instanced, all of it - including the battlegrounds - was an open world environment.

Yes. Because the only real gripe that I hear most often cited is the PvE portion of the game. RvR was and is an awesome implementation of PvP gameplay. I hope that Warhammer Online is DAoC 2.


Prior to the Frontiers expansion, there were no oceans between realms &em; just one huge landmass. The Trials of Atlantis expansion made heavy use of boats and water. IIRC, you could also do ship to ship battle in Frontiers, but I never did.

1) EverQuest
2) World of Warcraft
3) EVE Online
4) DAoC
5) EverQuest 2
6) Anarchy Online
7) Ultima Online
8) Vanguard
9) Dungeons and Dragons Online
10) Meridian59

1) UO
2) WoW
3) SWG
4) LOTR
5) DAOC
6) EQ
7) AO
8) DDO
9) AC

1 - Eve - haven't played it in a long time and the game is far from perfect but for the scope of the game and in the hope that more games will copy some of its features this gets the top place.
2 - WoW - for most time /played, the polish and the fact that it is popular and accessible enough that I could actually join a guild with enough players in my timezone to be able to raid and do all those group type things.
3 - EQ2 - for being the game that I am playing and enjoying at the moment, and for the way they improved the game since launch.
4 - AO - I liked the community, I loved the world design, and because I can forgive the stupid little ships you can fly (Yamaha's? its been a few years).
5 - Meridian 59 - Another game where I loved the world design.
6 - Starport - not sure if this counts but its a fun game - and I cant think of anything else at the moment that I have played and actually deserves points.

I came up with 10 games that were fun or important in their development, flawed as they may have been.

1 Word of Warcraft - No other MMO Comes close to the polished and balanced qualty of WoW, and more the pitty really

2 LotRo - It's Pretty, it's entertaining, and it's not WoW...  That's doing pretty good.

3 Everquest - 3D!  HOW COOL!!!  Once you've played EQ you pretty much know how to play anything that came after.

4 Everquest 2 - Played once, quit, then came back, the dev work has really made this game post production.

5 Motorcity Online - This was fun... but I love racing games...  I miss you MCO

6 City of Heroes/Villains - Amazing Customization, but it got very repetitive very quickly....  how many old lady purses can you really save?

7 UO - Graphic MUD?  Where do I sign up?  *A truely landmark game*

8 Final Fantasy XI - great IP, but got frustrated by the grouping requirement.

9 D&DO - Great IP, decent working of the rules, but the grouping requirement killed me.

10 DAOC - Dark Age of Content (at least when I played up to level 50 as a bard)



and a list of 5 that I played that made me want to shoot myself in the face...  yet kept playing anyway...

  Eve - My copy was broken, the boring option was stuck in the ON position. mine mine mine mine mine mine mine
  Horizons - Not quite as bad as SWG?  Why can't I swim?
  SWG - maintenence on factories, houses, etc!? I already have a job...  aren't games supposed to be fun?
  AO - Please stop shooting me through the damn walls.... please? fixed in a patch, but too late.
  Matrix Online - So bad I don't even know where to start.  I spent most of my time admiring my own shoes to cut down on lag.

1- City of Heroes
2- Everquest
3- World of Warcraft
4- Anarchy Online
5- Asheron's Call
6- Everquest 2
7- Lord of the Rings Online
8- Guild Wars
9- Shadowbane
10- Minions of Mirth

My choices were simply based on how long I paid for the game (for the subscription-based ones). Voting with my wallet and whatnot.

1) Anarchy Online - No kidding, it was my first MMO with some $$$ in production budget and it held me for a very long time
2) World of Warcraft - The last MMO I really got addicted to, even if it only was for a few months
3) Shadowbane - I can stand a lot of crap if there's something decent underneath it, the fact that I love depth in character customization also helps it
4) DAoC - It's a great game, I jumped it a bit late in its life though, would probably be higher otherwise
5) Asherons Call 2 - Even with all its faults AC2 is one of the more intresting and innovative diku experiences, this actually had some potential
6) Astonia - It took my MMO virginity, it was very lite but had some good things going for it

I consider these 6 the ones worth mentioning of all the MMOs I've played, most likely missed a few though.

I tend to remember the MMOs that I have played for a reason that seems to be rather different.  This is why:

1. EQ.  It was the game that pretty much introduced my to my future husband.  That and my sister.

2. DAoC.  Since we lived 1200 miles away from each other, this is how we stayed in touch.  Ventrilo and Darkness Falls brings back great memories.

3.  EQ2.  This is about the time we moved in together and eventually ended up leading a guild on Antonia Bayle.  Never again will I get involved in that.  I have a full time job, thank you.

4.  WoW.  During our time in that game we got married. 

5.  LOTRO.  A continuance of our online legacy.  Both of us got bored after a while.

I am sure we tried other MMOs, like Guild Wars, but not long enough to make an impact. 

1.Puzzle Pirates

2.City of Heroes/Villains

3.Guild Wars

4.World of Warcraft

5.Star Wars Galaxies

1. City of Heroes/Villians
2. Planetside
3. Earth and Beyond
4. Final fantasy XI
5. World of Warcraft
6. Dungeons & Dragons Online
7. Auto Assault
8. Guild Wars
9. Everquest 2
10. EVE

 :ye_gods:

 :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

1. Puzzle Pirates  - No stat boosting items, cooperative play, strong player economy, little grind, could use less poker though

2. Eve  -  love the economic game

3. A Tale in the Desert - game moves to an ending

4. Dark Age of Camelot - Realm versus Realm

5. Maple Story - Free to play, 2D is fun

 :ye_gods:

Play nice kids.

Props to the number one delurker thread of all time!

Did you ever play it? I beta tested AA, so I know from what I speak.

The trailing number is order of where most of my /played time has been spent

WoW - I think the biggest thing that stands out for me is the amazing light client, totally customizable UI and not a half ass scripting language. But the game has no community for me besides my RL friends. (2)
EQ2 - A decent game but my god I'm just getting to a point where the world doesn't look like total ass on my PC with the settings turned up. Last time I played it was so lifeless and so few people scattered over the world. (3)
Air Warrior - First real MMO game I played and really enjoyed, I think I still have a squad patch around somewhere. Multi players per aircraft (gunners on bombers) and other people have mentioned just chaos and fun with jeeps and bombers. (5)
Maplestory - Great little sidescroller that I usually fire up and play still once a week, and its coming to Nintendo DS (6)
FFXI - I really liked the job system, art work, world, and the playonline features the grind killed it for me. (4)
EQ1 - Probably the game with the most /played time but my god there were so many problems, the "social" aspect (read force grouping) of this game has never been reproduced. (1)
ATiTD - I really like the concept and community but the UI kills the game for me. (9)
EvE - I tried this game in many stints but my god it's so tedious to get to anything interesting I'd rather just read about it. (8)
MxO - Played the beta up till release then promptly uninstalled and never played again. Which resulted in me wishing I could shoot a red riot in the general vicinity of person responsible for breaking my Windows install. My friends computer was spared post release but it still was horrible. (7)
Vanguard/Second Life - The total sandbox features are amazing but leads to a downfall of the UI and performance. It's bad but at least I can use it to fill slot ten instead of Vanguard. (10)

I really wish I would have gotten into that one...I have heard great things. Wasn't the pricing plan ridiculously spendy?

Why can't people actually think something is good even if you don't. I never got that, the need to decry something just because you (not specifically) didn't like it. Sometimes I think people do it just to try and not conform, like that shit still matters on it's own.

Like it or not. Others do, and they're sheared for wool either.

Very, had a bill on top of an AOL account :ye_gods: got into the windows beta and ended up getting a bunch of time free :awesome_for_real:

More flies with  :ye_gods: then confrontation? :P

Got tired of waiting for update:

Based on 174 votes.

----- The top 10 -----

1180 pts. - World of Warcraft
696 pts. - City of Heroes/Villains ↑
688 pts. - Dark Age of Camelot   
642 pts. - Ultima Online
582 pts. - EverQuest
546 pts. - Eve Online
506 pts. - EverQuest 2
453 pts. - Star Wars Galaxies
434 pts. - Lord of the Rings Online
293 Pts. - Asheron's Call

----- 11th to 20th -----

262 pts. - Planetside
258 pts. - Anarchy Online ↑
256 pts. - Shadowbane
219 pts. - Guild Wars
137 pts. - A Tale in the Desert
131 pts. - Final Fantasy XI
119 pts. - Puzzle Pirates
98 pts. - Dungeons & Dragons Online   
89 pts. - Tabula Rasa   
80 pts. - Lineage 2

----- 21th to 30th -----

65 pts. - WWII Online
63 pts. - Asheron's Call 2 ↑
58 pts. - Vanguard   
51 pts. - Horizons
46 pts. - Toontown
35 pts. - Earth & Beyond ↑
32 pts. - Shadow of Yserbius
26 pts. - Neocron
26 pts. - Saga of Ryzom
26 pts. - Meridian 59  ↑

----- 31th up -----

23 pts. - Air Warrior ↑
20 pts. - 10six
19 pts. - Jumpgate
14 pts. - Auto Assault ↑
13 pts. - Maple Story ↑
12 pts. - Subspace
12 pts. - Dungeon Runners
12 pts. - Motor City Online ↑
11 pts. - Phantasy Star Universe
9 pts. - Endless Ages
9 pts. - FlyFF   
8 pts. - Neverwinter Nights (AOL)   
8 pts. - Voyage Century Online   
8 pts. - Minions of Mirth ↑
7 pts. - Ashen Empires (was: Dransik)
7 pts. - EverQuest Online Adventures
7 pts. - Lineage
7 pts. - Rappelz   
6 pts. - Underlight
6 pts. - Test Drive Unlimited
6 pts. - Astonia ↑
5 pts. - Mankind
5 pts. - Phantasy Star Online
5 pts. - Furcadia
5 pts. - Runescape
5 pts. - The Matrix Online  ↑
4 pts. - Dark 'n Light
2 pts. - Legend of Mir 3
1 pt. - Face of Mankind
1 pt. - Second Life


The last EDIT is up to fuser, reply #368.

I find the bottom part of this list incredibly interesting.

Phantasy Star Online should be higher.  The problem is that it's not a Top 10 title.  It's a Top 20.

In what way? (cam'on, like you didn't think some one was going to ask.)

EDIT: You know what i would find interesting is if someone placed the development cost of each of those titles next to them. I see a lot of indi titles on the bottom of the list.

Unless I'm completely wrong on how these results were tabulated, I feel it's indicative of two things:

1) the history some of us vets have. You can't complain like we complain without spending way too much in these games. So many eighter go by memory (which is affected by the amount of time spent in a game) or by /played (same deal). Some like to feel all anti-establishment, but we're not that far off from the genre itself imho.

2) the impact WoW has had on the size of the community here. All you need to do is look at the sub-forum with the most posts per day and in general.

We're sheep. All of us. Line up for your sheering!

I'm pretty sure "Face of Mankind" and "Mankind" are the same game, not that it disrupts the rankings much.

Development cost would be a cool addition (not that we'd get accurate numbers).  Not so much for the top, but the bottom.  How much did Matrix Online spend to get 5 pts?

That would be interesting in a train wreck kind of way.  Here's another one - how much was the development cost of The Sims Online (TSO) by EA five years ago that didn't even get on the list at all?  It was one of the biggest developments for its day, if I remember correctly.

there, fixed that for you!  :-)

1. Eve
(lost a year to it, nasty addictive but scary fun, I don't play anymore as it was an infinite timesink, but the unique feature that you can use in game currency to pay your subscription means my delegated training is still going)

2. CoH (Grindy, but had a nice immersion sweetspot, jumping over buildings was great... the defense nerf was annoying)

3. Vanguard (enjoying it for 3+ months now, suprisingly intricate combat, especially in groups. Beautiful world, interesting class selection. Improving, even under SOE)

4 Shattered Galaxy MMORTS from 2002 (2001?) Pure team PVP. shockingly intense at times.

5 NetMech. AC10's and jumpjets are never wrong, especially if you power down... wait for everyone to go past you and make a run at the reactor.

6. Ryzom. Designing your own spells? OMGWT... Supergrindy.

7 Horizons. be a flying dragon, make your own skills. ubercrafting. Occasionally a little grindy. (!)

8. Lotro Love the setting, monster play is a fabulous surprise, died on lack of character diversity and later level content

9. AO. robust and free after all these years.

10. NetTrek (1989) made college nearly impossible. Fucking Romulans.

It doesn't feel like an MMO to me.  Even Guild Wars seemed to have more of a world than PSO.

Also, it depends on the version.  Original PSO was a fucking nightmare, between the greifers and the glitches and their goddamn "anti-cheating measures".

A while ago I put the then-known MMOs on a scale from -5 to 5, where extreme left was open virtual world (SL being that extreme) and extreme right being an entirely contrived linear directed-content experience (EQ1). Then I overlayed a bubble chart based on the population sizes (going only by MMOGcharts for lack of anything else centralized) and was going to go 3D with development costs.

Trouble is, the development costs would have mostly been made up, as in the years size, the population sizes are stretching ever closer to guesswork. These are two bits of proprietary info no company really needs to clearly communicate to the general public so that everyone can disseminate and critique, mock and rant about. And they were mostly only accurate when a game was on the rise anyway.

Further, the business models are all wonky now, from sub-based to xtrans to advertisements to all three. And comparing games of different means and models is almost ludicrous.

To JoeTF's point, LoTRO's monthly fee collection from a few hundred thousand players is probably a lot more per-anum revenue generated than something like Maplestory or Audition with their scores of millions of accounts. But on the flipside, the latter two games cost single-digit millions of dollars to the probably-well-beyond-$35mil of LoTRO. So there's a lot more to pay off on the front end, and a lot more to eventually lose on the back, particularly with Turbine's continued practice of looking like they're constantly in crunch-development mode, based on their content releases.

So getting an easy-to-digest snapshot of the total genre at any given time is pretty much impossible. What you get instead is the sort of bracketing at both an end-user and business level. Things like AAA DVD-ROM sub-based games are all compared against WoW (previously EQ1 or L1 depending on region). Flash-based freebie kids worlds are up against Club Penguin and the pending Disney worlds. "Indie" titles are a catchall for everything from Sherwood Dungeon to SL to Eve, which even for all its accounts is still largely considered an outlier by the bigger companies looking to get into this space, either with one big game or a bunch of little ones. And then there's the ongoing desire to build a library simply by localizing Korean stuff, with xtrans. And finally there's the gigantic potential of both the Chinese and Indian markets that only now people seem to be wondering about.

Stark, I am impressed.

I thought you needed to hail from Italy to be a world class loser or timewaster like me.
Think you are almost ready to join me in my Lineage 2 crusade...  :awesome_for_real:

Thank you, by the way.

I googled up Sherwood Dungeon, having never heard of it.  It's a dumbed-down kiddie MMO, but the graphics are good for this sort of thing, and it was dead-easy to log into.  I was impressed to be running a character around a reasonably decent looking 3D world within three minutes of hitting the site.

I think I'm the only one in this entire thread to list PSO in their top 10.  Why did I?  Well, I haven't played more than 10 MMOs, so right there it makes it.  Also, PSO was the very first online game I played so it gets nostalgia points for that.  I still keep in touch with some friends I made in that game, which is more than I can say about some of the other games I listed.


The funniest thing I've seen on the list is The Matrix Online has only just now finally managed to tie Furcadia in the rankings.  Think about that.  :ye_gods:

Yep. Blizzard's not calling all their analysts or anything over it. But it's indicative of what's possible.

But I only mentioned it because it was a one-man operation. A better example of modern-thinking browser-based MMOs are the Flash/Java ones. Instead of forcing crappy 3D into a browser window like Sherwood or those ActiveWorlds applet things, developers balance the "low tech" with more heavy styling in the art, for things like Adventure Quest or even the much-mentioned Club Penguin (Webkinz too but I don't consider that an MMO). There's also games I consider as browser-viable except they're currently download based, like Ragnarok, Dofus, Maplestory. But they are also pretty asset-intensive, which might explain the upfront download (as well as maybe some DRM/tech stuff). There's only so much data you want to be streaming since the purpose of browser-games is to cast as wide a net as possible, including to schools with five year old PCs and low-end broadband.

Late to the party I know but so the fuck what?

1. SWG-pre NGE (first MMO played, loved loved loved it!  Spent the first three months pissing around without even exploring half the game or doing dungeons or stuff - just exploring and doing stuff and chilling with my fantastic guild.  Then JTL came out and I spent all my time in space.  Miss it a lot.)
2. WOW (surprise?)
3. LOTRO (where my old SWG guild went and I followed.  Don't play it much but pretty much enjoy it when I do.  Very pretty game.)
4. EVE - as much as I didn't want to get involved in this, I did.  Would prefer more JTL twitch style play though.  It just doesn't quite give me what I want as space games go.
5. Guild Wars (for the prettiness)
6. EQ2 - because it's the only other game I played for more than a couple of weeks before I suddenly realised what a fucking timesink it was.  Random quest spawns on a 6 hour timer?  WTF?  Also, every time I went to the Crossroads, I kept thinking "The Barrens is a better place"

Tried but never got into Anarchy Online, DAOC, CoX.

Late you are not!

In fact, everyone has until January 21st (PotBS launch day) to vote. Would be so cute to reach 200, but I doubt it.

My Top 10  List

 1 - Dark Age of Camelot
 2 - Anarchy Online
 3 - Lord of the Rings Online
 4 - EVE Online
 5 - Guild Wars
 6 - Asherons Call2
 7 - World of Warcraft
 8 - City of Heros/Villans
 9 - Neocron
10 - Everquest2

TOP 10  :awesome_for_real:

1 - Dark Age of Camelot
2 - Asheron's Call
3 - Ultima Online
4 - Lineage 2
5 - ShadowBane
6 - Guild Wars
7 - World of Warcraft  :uhrr:
8 - Star Wars Galaxies
9 - Dofus
10 - Eve Online

I'll make a Grand Final Update on January 21st. Stay on your toes. Or not.

1 - Shadowbane
2 - UO
3 - EQ1
4 - AC1
5 - Guild Wars
6 - Socialotron
7 - CoH

Another 3 would be meaningless.

Psycho.

1.Runescape
Agility, farming, Al Kharid, Cooking,the Haunted Mansion, trading are just some of the things that make Runescape a special game. If the game allowed for faster skilling up it would be close to perfect for such a low tech game.

2.World of Warcraft
Ogrimar, Lorderon, Undead storyline, Warrior, Mage, Shadowfang Keep, Arathi Basin are some of the things that make World of Warcraft a great game.

3.Eve Online
SPAAAACCE!, the increasing size of ships, the economy, the music, being able to enjoy Eve when not playing it are some of the things that make Eve standout from the rest for me.

The Above three are games I actually ended up paying for.

4.Planetside
Pop lock. Nothing else needs to be said about what makes Planetside an epic experience.
I was considering on paying for this but decided not to after Sony increased the subscription fee.

The above are my top 4. The rest just fill out the bottom after a big gap.

5. Pending for a better game to come along.
6. Pending for a better game to come along.
7. See above
8. You know the drill

9. 9Dragons (pun not intended)
10. Anarchy Online (sad but 9dragons was better to me because metagaming 9dragons was more amusing than actually playing Anarchy).

First came the ones I played for years and years.

1. World of Warcraft - This game is so tightly wound into my history, and continues to be to current day, I can't say it is any less then the best. Arenas continue to be the most fun activity in that game.
2. EverQuest - Another game that incorporated itself into 5 years of my life, on and off. It doesn't have to be good, it was just the first.
3. Ultima Online - I was so awful at this game. I was too big of a newbie to get into anything meaningful like my friends were, but this game was just a big fun sandbox. Yay sandbox! I think I've made more comebacks to this game then even EverQuest.

Every game beyond these three never managed to hook me for more then a few months at a time.

4. EverQuest 2 - My first time in this game was more fun then my comeback, but regardless, still a great contender. If WoW hadn't come out when it did, I suspect this game would have done a lot better.
5. Shadowbane - I never really played this game very far past beta, aside from a comeback or two when it was free, but I always remember this game as the game where I started to be unafraid to pvp.
6. Dark Age of Camelot - [size=pt]I came back a few times to this game. Always fun, even though I never got to the RvR sections, which supposedly was the whole dang point of it. Even so, crafting was fun, as was low level pvp on my... uh... Albion wizard guy during the latest comeback. One-shotting people at low health was hilarious.[/size]
7. Guiid Wars - Man, I wanted to love this game so much more then I did. I made a few comebacks, and I never really understood the game until my latest comeback, when I actually made it to 20. Fun stuff, I can see the appeal.
8. City of Heroes/Villians - It's the character creator/travel skill game. Other then that, kind of grindy, but y'know. I came back a few times to this.
9. Lord Of The Rings Online - This game was quite a clever and polished game, it's sad I was too entrenched in WoW to really care about it. The whole lorebook thing was sweet.
10. Star Wars Galaxies - Never played this Post-NGE, so it's still not a terrible game in my head. I only made one comeback after launch, and it was kind of lonely. I had a free respec, so I went some dorky melee spec. A quirky game, but was very world-y and fun in that respect.

01) Shadowbane
02) Ultima Online
03) Guild Wars
04) Fury
05) Fung Wan Online

Last day!

You have 24 hous left to cast your vote in stone. Vote, now or never. Go lurkies!

Hope I didn't miss the boat and this thread made me finally to create an account.

1. Everquest
2. Ultima Online (Was my first MMO, but EQ takes the throne)
3. Dark Ages of Camelot
4. Anarchy Online
5. World of Warcraft
6. Everquest 2
7. Asheron's Call
8. Lord of the Rings Online
9. Star Wars Galaxies (The original)
10. The 4th Coming (3rd MMO I ever played)

Cheers,

1) DAoC
2) World of Warcraft
3) Everquest II
4) SWG
5) Lineage II

6) ...Oh no time for  :uhrr:

1. EVE Online
2. DaoC
3. WoW
4. SWG (Pre-NGE, ofc)
5. Asheron's Call

1) Dark Age of Camelot - RvR, that's all (up to 1.47 or so, then devs started "smoking" too much).
2) None
3) None
- (1 minute of silence here due to the gap between DAoC and all of the others) -
4) World of Warcraft - The "perfect" game for the masses (good and easy PvE, stupid PvP).
5) Lord of the Rings Online - The fascinating "easy way" (if You are not playing the "creep side").
6) Ultima Online - No more words about it, I am bored.
7) Star Wars Galaxies - Wookie wannabe. The swg feeling and its music... wow.
N) City of Heroes, Everquest 2, Lineage 2

Have a good day!

1. DAoC
2. WoW
3. ATitD
4. EQ2
5. CoH/CoV
6. EQ
7. UO
8. Anarchy Online
9.

Are people just applying their own rules for making these lists?  Because this is the most whack one yet.  He's got 8 titles and is only awarding 5 of them points with a 2-space gap in the middle of his list.

I mean, shit.  Your second favorite is your SECOND FAVORITE, not "Sure I'll pick it second but that's only until something comes along that is a second, and let's fucking say third favorite for me."

This is the only place I've seen Top Ten lists where there are actually gaps in the list.  Can you imagine if major sites did this? That'd be hilarious!

(http://www.nerdsonsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/calvinball_small.jpg)

Who cares.

1. Buddhism
2. Fish
7. Ten
3. Fourteen and Four Score
10. Seventy Eleven
53. Ultima Online
9. Hi Mom

Hmm, we need some sort of committee of heavy hitters to adjudicate...

We were following the rules. There's nothing that says we can't have gaps. There is a rule that say we rate things based on our analysis. In our analysis there are things that clearly don't deserve their spot.

Can't wait for this to be updated. Would like to see something like this done again in other sizeable messageboards like Foh or mmorpg.

How the hell can you leave off Pez??

He's obviously a moron...

Nobody forgets Pez.

It doesn't matter since every incremental vote for the last few weeks hasn't been enough to move the list significantly. The consensus spoke as of a month ago and now it is just noise.

Sorry for being late. Finland does horrible things to internet presence.

Here is the final update of this chart. Didn't make it to 200 votes but still a nice result.
Thanks to everyone for patience and participation.

And oh, DAoC's final 2nd place and Shadowbane's 11th are two impressive results to me.


Here is the FINAL chart:

Based on 187 votes.

----- The top 10 -----

1263 pts. - World of Warcraft
758 pts. - Dark Age of Camelot   
722 pts. - City of Heroes/Villains
696 pts. - Ultima Online
614 pts. - EverQuest
589 pts. - Eve Online
539 pts. - EverQuest 2
489 pts. - Star Wars Galaxies
466 pts. - Lord of the Rings Online
318 Pts. - Asheron's Call

----- 11th to 20th -----

288 pts. - Shadowbane
286 pts. - Anarchy Online
269 pts. - Planetside
254 pts. - Guild Wars
145 pts. - A Tale in the Desert
131 pts. - Final Fantasy XI
119 pts. - Puzzle Pirates
98 pts. - Dungeons & Dragons Online   
93 pts. - Lineage 2
89 pts. - Tabula Rasa   

----- 21th to 30th -----

68 pts. - Asheron's Call 2
67 pts. - Vanguard 
65 pts. - WWII Online
56 pts. - Horizons
46 pts. - Toontown
35 pts. - Earth & Beyond
32 pts. - Shadow of Yserbius
32 pts. - Saga of Ryzom
28 pts. - Neocron
26 pts. - Meridian 59 

----- 31th up -----

23 pts. - Air Warrior
20 pts. - 10six
19 pts. - Jumpgate
15 pts. - Runescape     
14 pts. - Auto Assault   
13 pts. - Maple Story
12 pts. - Motor City Online
12 pts. - Subspace
12 pts. - Dungeon Runners
11 pts. - Phantasy Star Universe
9 pts. - Endless Ages
9 pts. - FlyFF   
8 pts. - Neverwinter Nights (AOL)   
8 pts. - Voyage Century Online   
8 pts. - Minions of Mirth
7 pts. - Ashen Empires (was: Dransik)
7 pts. - EverQuest Online Adventures
7 pts. - Shattered Galaxies
7 pts. - Lineage
7 pts. - Rappelz 
7 pts. - Fury
6 pts. - Underlight
6 pts. - Test Drive Unlimited
6 pts. - Fung Wan Online
5 pts. - Mankind
5 pts. - Phantasy Star Online
5 pts. - Furcadia
5 pts. - Astonia
5 pts. - 9Dragons
5 pts. - The Matrix Online
4 pts. - Darnk 'n Light
2 pts. - Legend of Mir 3
2 pts. - Dofus
1 pts. - The 4th Coming
1 pts. - Face of Mankind




FINAL UPDATE: The last EDIT is up to Lanc, reply #403.


By the way: It has been fun.

*snort*

4 great tastes that taste great together.

We could name a cocktail after it. Or a hamburger. Lé Big Wreck.

I'm amazed Fury got 7 points. 

Vanguard got 67.

What's your point?

If you compare development budget versus ranking, I think ATitD wins. 

Vanguard had more fanbois.

Impressive that the "Big 3" (UO, AC, EQ) all stayed in the top 10 after all these years. Strong nostalgia or just solid MMOGs? You decide(d)!

I think it's tough to fault those that blaze the trail.  I'd say that WoW is held to a much higher standard and still rises to the challenge.  As a game, Vanguard has many better components than the original EQ, but it suffers strongly from the fact that it had history to learn from... and didn't.

I'm just surprised that Fury didn'ty get a sperate thread complaining about the lack of threads discussing how Fury got seven points.

There's been a lot of garbage released since then and some of the good stuff released has been very niche.  Very not surprised. 

These games also represent some very different facets of MMO player: UO for sandboxer, AC for PVPer (Darktide), and EQ for raider.  For many I'd imagine these games were the foot in the door or the be-all-end-all.  I don't think anyone's done UO better, Darktide players can't stop talking about Darktide, and people run to EQ's defense if anyone tries to besmirch its name.

So, I guess it's a lot of both.

Someone try, damnit. Would Eve's 1.0-0.0 system work in a land-based MMORPG?

Sure it would.  But combat and game mechanics have to be good first. 

That is the best and most diplomatic assessment of Darktide evar.

Nostalgia about MMOG's, especially one's first MMOG, cannot be detached from the MMOG itself. One's first MMOG is like one's childhood, only with grind and pixelated boobies.

That was redundant.

(http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/games/xbox/adventure/leisure_suit_larry_magna_lsl.jpg)

If they'd allow me to schedule my guy to work rather than actually WORKING, the game would have been an interactive version of Travian but *shit tons* better.

Crafting and all is fun until you have to start mass-producing.

A number of people appeared to pad their posts with titles in order to reach a total of 5 or 10 names.

I didn't play because the distance between my favourite MMO and anything I'd consider to be second is just too big. My top 5 will be titles I enjoyed, not just titles I played. Nyah, or something.

Better late then never I suppose.  My list is sorted by time played.  I have a fetish for video game music, think I value sound/music more then graphics  :oh_i_see:

1)  WoW - Just seems to have gotten alot of stuff right and not too much stuff wrong, certainly helps that it's what all my friends are playing.  Also my first MMO, and I've probably been spoiled by it.  WoW's music for the most part is good though if you spend too long in the same place it keeps playing the same song and that's annoying.  Graphics are ok, sounds are great.

2) DDO - I didn't mind the forced grouping.  I got a cleric to lvl 3, people in my groups were always running off and killing things or doing stuff then coming back demanding to be healed.  Usually I didn't know what was going on, just follow and heal.  Boring!  So I rolled a ranger.  Was having fun, got to lvl 5-6, realized I'd totally messed up my character, like REALLY bad.  Didn't want to reroll again so I quit.  Sound didn't seem that great, I don't even remember music.  Character models seemed pretty good but the dungeons I saw were butt ugly and plain.

3) EVE - I was attracted to the meta-game here.  The market, the politics, the guild relations and warfare.  It all sounded so cool!  Once you got into the actual game it wasn't that cool.  Very much disliked the skill system.  Something about leveling while you are offline (either legit or with farming macros) seems really wrong to me.  I really liked the ambient music in the game though and sound was alright. 

4) EQ2 - I don't really have any complaints about EQ2 at all.  Nice atmosphere, music was original, graphics were great, sound was alright.  I played after an expansion or two so most of the horrid shit from launch was ironed out by then... I rolled a Fae Cleric so whatever expansion Faries was added.  I never did find a group though, I don't like soloing too much so I found it tedious to get out of the rookie levels.  I should probably give this game another go sometime and roll something other then cleric.

5) Vanguard - Yea... I got vanguard.  I got suckerd by the hype.  Plus some of my WoW friends are ex-hardcore EQ1 junkies.  I get speils about how they had to walk uphill both ways barefoot through kneedeep snow to recover their corpses and stuff.  I thought VG would sorta recreate their experience for me.  Unfortunately.... the UI was clunky, the preformance was garbage, the character animations WERE FUCKING AWEFUL.  Music seemed ok tho... but christ that's not going to keep me playing and the sound effects were bad.  I think I got a lvl 8 ranger and a lvl 4 desciple or something and managed to get randolph the flying reindeer (lol).  Also the world was completely empty, not a soul for miles.

6) Tabula Rasa - I think I played this game for a single evening.  Maybe two.  There was nothing overtly wrong with it, atmosphere was alright, graphics good, sound and music I don't really remember I think they were ok.  However after a few hours of ... run here, shoot stuff, come back, run there, shoot stuff, come back all I could think was "meh".  Having your map tell you exactly where to go to complete your quest is... well... nice in some ways, but it almost seems to easy.  All I did was run from point to point, hardly even looked around.  As soon as I was given talents (or whatever they call them) I instantly thought, "shit, now I get to gimp my character".  Grew very weary of the sound of my gun firing, over, and over, and over, and over.....

I think that's all the MMO's I've tried.  Hardly got into most of them because WoW has spoiled me so badly.

My Gemstone was not on the list, boooo. :uhrr:

1.EQ
2.FFXI
3.DaOC
4.Earth and Beyond

rest idk. just picked up Hellgate recently and its a lot of fun.

Talk about being late to the party.

Just got released, wtf you want.

Release from what?

Grunk was in an 'institution' don't you remember the epic thread?

Geeez.  :grin:

I don't actually. That must have been the 85 days difference between your and my logged in time :)

Oh man, grunk's out of meth rehab and posting in every vaguely MMO related thread on f13.  I detect incoming awesome.

(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/913/13signit1.jpg)

It's true. His IP address is in a different state from before. Unless he's using a proxy, which isn't ilkely, he did indeed get either "released" or "transferred."

Just noticed this thread.  Thought I'd add my ten with brief comments.

1)World of Warcraft - How could anyone not call it #1?
2)EverQuest - Did so much for the industry.
3)Vanguard - I worked on it, ok? :)
4)Ultima Online - MMOs start to get big. :)
5)Guild Wars - Ahead of its time.  Impressing streaming / asset management.
6)The Realm - My first (and one of the first) MMOs.
7)Shadow of Yserbius - Well, except I guess this should be considered my first. :)
8)EverQuest 2 - Good, but too many flaws killed it's launch vs WoW.
9)Planetside - MMOFPS
10)City of Heroes/Villains - Can we get more in this genre? :)

Or escaped.   :ye_gods:

Do you WANT us to hate you or something?

Don't be silly. Vanguard has given most people here more entertainment than almost any other mmog ever.

> How could anyone not call it #1?
Because the goal is to identify what was number for you not what is number one in the market.

No, just trying to avoid the "OMG how can you rate Vanguard so high" replies. :)  Oh, and eldaec has an amusing point. :)


I guess that's fair.  I didn't play much WoW compared to other MMOs, but really respect what it's done in the industry.  I guess if someone's top 10 was solely based on playtime, and they didn't play much WoW, it could reasonably not show up.  Lots of other variations on this. :) 

1- Puzzle Pirates
2- NavyField
3- Realms of Rivalry (not necessarily "massive" but still, a stand-alone multiplayer) (if not applicable, skip)
4-Last Chaos
5-Shattered Galaxy
6-Kal Online

  Well since its been Risen  :drill:
1)AC
2)EvE
3)DAoC
4)Shadowbane
5)Jumpgate
 
I like pie...

 

PILE ON!

Whatch-u-talkin-about willi5?

[Sorry, slow day at work]

1 - World of Warcraft
2 - Earth&Beyond - I absolutely loved this :heart:
3 - EVE
4 - EQ2
5 - Hello Kitty Online

1. Everquest
2. Dark Age of Camelot
3. Guild Wars
4. Everquest 2
5. World of Warcraft
6. Lineage 2 - Okay...it wasn't *so* bad, but I still say bending over at the waist is annoying and again, ran the radio station so feel somewhat morally obligated to put it in here somewhere.
7. Vanguard - When it was in beta.
8. Dungeons and Dragons Online - I worked at the damn radio station, I feel morally obligated to at least put it in the last three. If I hadn't played that game I probably wouldn't have met some of my bestest friends in the entire world, and had some amazingly fun times on air.
9. Earth and Beyond - Much love for this game whilst it was in it's infancy.
10. Shadowbane - If it weren't for the camera angles and bad polygons I'd still play it.