Anarchy Online was my first MMORPG - What's yours?
When a guy came into the university computer lab that I worked in asking if he could install this game with an ominous looking box that said Anarchy Online I was at first apprehensive because it sounded like some sort of hacking something or other. Once he explained it was a game that can be played with people all over the world not only did we let him install it, we were excited to see it as well.
Today, when I think about AO, my memories are that of an extremely repetitive game filled with "camping" (sitting in the same spot with a group waiting for some monsters to respawn and killing them over and over for the sake of XP or item drops) and also extremely repetitive missions and dungeons. However, that is not what we thought at the time. I, and many other people had never played something like this before and as mundane and stupid as it seems today, this was our first experience of this sort so we played it endlessly.
We loved the acquisition of new items and the occasional rare item drop and the "DING" of gaining a level was one of the best things of all because you got to up your stats and sometimes claim a new spell or ability because of it.
It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though. Anarchy Online was plagued with problems when it first launched and this was an incredibly frustrating situation
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I don't know how many times I went link dead and then tried to log back in only to be told that I am already logged in. The server side crashes were so frequent and problematic that sometimes, when you FINALLY would be able to log back in, you would see that your, and everyone else's stats had been "rolled back." In one extreme case something crazy like 2 days of grinding levels had been erased.
Funcom, the company that made AO often didn't have explanations for this situation and obviously this ticked off a lot of their user base. They game's problem were identified by magazines and professional critics with many of them calling the game "unplayable," "deeply flawed," and "an unfinished product."
It took 6 months for Funcom to sort the issues out, but by that time their subscriber base had diminished to less than 100,000 users (WoW had at it's peak, 9.5 million subs.) The company began giving away the game for free and including a free trial in an effort to get some users back.
I suppose you could say that at least to some degree that their plan worked because believe it or not, Anarchy Online is still alive today thereby making it the longest-running MMO of all time. They introduced a new 3D engine some years ago, and this made the graphics dramatically better. However, the problem most people are going to face is that the gameplay is pretty poor compared to other options such as WoW, GuildWars 2, and even that horrible Final Fantasy game.
If you want to see the first MMO that really brought online gaming to the forefront (and yes, i know that Everquest and Ultima Online came first - but were not very widespread) you can download Anarchy Online and play it for free, here
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I played AO for a couple years. From launch. I remember all the bugs. OMG the Rollbacks were the worst. Nothing worse than losing progress. Sometimes days worth of leveling, ROLLED BACK.
I still stuck it out though lol... Had a few level 200s.
My first MMORPG was Meridian 59.
I got rolled back something nuts like 6 levels one day after camping some truly stupid place near a "zone" where we could safely run away from a mob that was much more powerful than our group but offered great xp if you did it correctly. I spent several tedious days on those levels and when I logged back in to see that all that time had been for nothing, i don't think I ever played it again.
Never heard of Meridian 59... :)
Yeah, it was pretty annoying. I remember being in certain areas and there would always be some character running endlessly in a corner because whoever that person was got "booted" from the server but their toon just kept running in a straight line. It was funny and we would screen shot "the running man" until it became obvious that these dudes on a permanent treadmill were a great indicator that the crash was about to extend to us soon as well.
My 1st MMO was Guild Wars. While WOW has been out for few years i wanted to play a game that looked more realistic and not too cartoony like wow. And the idea of not worrying about subbing to play was a huge plus! Micro transactions really helped fund that game and it shows. Guild Wars 2 came out and i love how dynamic the game is. There are countless stories and interactivity between all the races where in wow it just seems to be just Alliance vs Horde with races that seem to be overused in other games. I could go on but you just wanted to know what other peoples 1st MMO was and this could turn into a WOW vs GW argument.
I never played GW1 but GW2 was incredible for me due to the lack of monthly fees. I purchased 2 of the expansions and they were actually very worthwhile.
I stopped playing GW2 about 6 months ago because no matter how much the devs try to force people to use all the content, there are always certain areas that become popular and people will do those things over and over and over rather than actually explore the full world.
I do like the fact that I can return any time i feel like it and the toons will still be there waiting for me though.
I have to admit that although i was never a fan of micro transactions, i did buy "gems" on several occasions. I think my total expenditures was something like $150 over the years. I knew guys that spent that much (or more) on the game every single month.
Oh, GW2 eliminated the "holy trinity" and in my mind, I missed it pretty quick. I liked being a support class such as a healer and for the most part, those classes don't exist in a pure sense in Guild Wars 2.
My first MMO was kind of AO, but the bugs scared me away pretty quick. My first true addiction as far as MMO's were concerned was Dark Age of Camelot and I absolutely loved the fact that there were these massive areas where PvP became World v World (WvW) including siege weaponry and controlling of various castles.
Unfortunately, the servers couldn't even come close to handling the processing when these events that were meant to be small skirmishes involving a few dozen people would turn into several hundred against several hundred. Although I don't recall a single time that the servers crashed, I do recall a frame-rate so god awful that the screen was basically flashing, you had no idea what was going on, and then you were dead.
I think I skipped many a college class and lost at least one relationship due to wanting to do nothing more than sit in my room and camp for something crazy like 12 hours straight. Night became day and nothing else mattered to me.
I have fallen out with MMO's lately, because after many years of trying to get involved I always end up in the same place: It's years later, i'm truly sick of the game, and I think about how if I had invested my time into literally ANYTHING else, my life would have been better for it.