Exciting MMO story. The history of the development of the MMORPG genre

Online games are a very common way to spend your free time. Their popularity has risen sharply with the advent of high-speed Internet and modern graphics technologies that make it possible to achieve mind-boggling beauties (albeit very rarely used, due to the outdated and limited resources of most users).

The first network shooter

The first online shooter was developed by John Daleske in 1973 year under the first system for e-learning "PLATO", and received a rather meaningful name - "Empire". In total, there were four races in the game, and the main task facing each player was the conquest of a galaxy consisting of 25 planets. And, of course, it was possible to do this only by defeating all their rivals.

It was a simple-looking, but rather complex shooter-style strategy with support for up to eight participants. Speaking of complexity, I do not mean intricate possibilities in the game, but complexity in control: all commands were entered by the players using the keyboard (and this despite the fact that this is a shooter!), The direction of the shot was set in degrees, and if you think that everything happened slowly - you are deeply mistaken: in fights experienced player performed 20 clicks per second, and only because the PLATO system could not process more.

However, Empire was not a full-fledged online game, in the modern sense of the word, because in those not so distant, but infinitely distant from us, times there was no Internet yet.

First online game

Since at that time the Internet was a big local network, which exists mainly only at strategically important facilities and in the institutions that were involved in its development of a network for these same facilities, it is not surprising that the first network games we owe to American students.

AT 1975 Will Crowther creates the first text-based game built according to the rules of the very first and popular Dungeons & Dragons universe (which is alive in modern projects, the last of which is).

Inspired by this, MIT students in 1977 create their own version of this game, and give it the name "Zork", which, when transferred to FORTRAN, was changed to "Dungeon".

AT 1979 European students Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw create a multiplayer version of this game and give it the name Multi-User Dungeon, create the world's first online game in the multiplayer world (MUD) genre. This genre can rightly be considered the progenitor of MMORPG, since it is an MMORPG, but only in text form. When transferred to FORTRAN, it was called "Dungeon".

AT 1980 In the same year, Dungeons of Kesmai was developed by two fellow students, John Taylor and Kelton Flynn. It was similar game but with a great future. Up to six people could play at the same time.

AT 1985 , when the first PC appeared and the TCP \ IP protocol was developed, John and Kelton decided to go further, and founded their own company, released an extended commercial version called "Dungeons of Kesmai, Island of Kesmai", thereby giving rise to a new era of the world industry and earning title of creators of the world's first commercial online game.

But, technology did not stand still, as did the competitors of the newly minted company, and in the same year, Island of Kesmai had a serious competitor from Lucasfilm Games - an online game "Habitat" with full graphics and user-friendly graphical interface.

AT 1988 Club Caribe was created, the world's first game with a subscription fee of $12 an hour (and you complain that you have to pay), and at the same time it was not much different from Habitat.

In the same year, the protocol for modern Internet chats was developed, which, of course, had a significant impact on the online gaming industry in the future.

In the 1990s with appearance modern internet - WWW - began to develop rapidly and Online Games. Now that a browser and a graphical interface of operating systems appeared, everyone could use the Internet - thousands of people joined the communities of gamers, and dozens of new game projects entering the market every month began to fight for them ... and this process continues to this day.

AT 1991 appears first graphical online role-playing game- Neverwinter Nights. The game screen is divided into two parts: text and graphics.

AT 1998 appeared the first online game with 3-D graphics called "Everquest". Then the real boom of 3-D MMORPG began.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and all this time technologies have been improving, which ultimately led to a split in the gaming industry into two segments: classic client-side and new browser-based ones, while these are no longer the same online games, thanks to which, at one time, the word "browser" has become a dirty word. See for yourself by trying it out free games online at igrogid.com, the flash games website, where you can easily find something suitable for you.

, sword and magic, or crime novels. Also, MMORPGs can borrow material for the universe from American comics. (English), occult and other genres. In games, these aspects are often rethought and presented in the form of such typical tasks and situations as quests, monsters, and player loot. (English).

Development

Practically in all computer games ah the main goal of the player is to develop his character. For this, a development system is almost always used by accumulating experience points and using them to increase the “level” of the character, which has a positive effect on all his abilities. Traditionally, the main way to gain experience points is to hunt monsters and complete quests from NPCs. Characters can participate in these actions both in a group and alone. The accumulation of wealth (including items useful in battle) is also an element of development in MMORPG itself and is also often best achieved in battles. The game cycle defined by these principles (battles that open up new items, open up new battles, etc. without significant gameplay changes) is sometimes compared in a negative light to a rodent racing wheel, and is known among players as grind. The role-playing game Progress Quest was created as a parody of this situation. In EVE Online, the character learns skills depending on real time, experience points in it are not a measure of development.

In some MMORPGs, the maximum level of the character is not limited, which allows players to accumulate experience points indefinitely. In these MMORPGs, the most advanced characters are often glorified on the respective game's website, their names and stats are listed on the game's top achievement pages, etc. Another common practice is to set maximum level a playable character often referred to as the "ceiling". After reaching it, the character development strategy changes. Instead of rewards in the form of experience points, the character will receive game currency or equipment after completing tasks and completing dungeons, which allows the player to keep the motivation to continue the game.

Often, with the development of a character, an increasing amount of equipment becomes available in front of the character, which allows you to give it a more aesthetic look, as well as highlight the achievements of a particular character. These sets of weapons and armor, known in the gaming community as "high-level", significantly add to the competitiveness of the character in both typical boss battles and in battles between players. The motivation of the players comes from the desire to be ahead of others in the possession of similar items, which are the determining factor in the success of all events related to battles.

Also typical of the genre is the emerging need to organize players into groups to ensure optimal development speed. Sometimes this leads to a change in the priorities of the player, who begins to avoid certain events. real world to "keep up" with the events of the virtual world. A good example in this case is the need to exchange items to achieve some goal or team battles against powerful enemies.

social interaction

MMORPGs necessarily contain certain methods to facilitate communication between players. Many MMORPGs have a custom guild or clan system. If the game mechanics does not provide for such, players can independently form such associations, using, among other things, out-of-game means of communication. As a rule, such communities interact exclusively via the Internet, but sometimes cellular communications are also used, usually as an "emergency" way to urgently call clan members online. There are also gaming communities organized on a territorial basis or based on non-virtual social connections - friends (sometimes relatives), dormitory neighbors, students of some educational institution, etc.

In most MMORPGs, access to certain parts of the game requires playing in a fairly well-played community. In such cases, each player must fulfill the role assigned to him, for example, to protect other players from damage (so-called "tanking"), to "heal" the damage taken by team members, or to deal damage to enemies.

As a rule, in MMORPGs there are Game Moderators (eng. Game moderators) or Game Masters (eng. Gamemaster), often called "GM" players (ge-ems, eng. GMs). They can be either employees of the game publisher or volunteers whose task is to oversee the game world. Some GMs may, however, have access to tools and information not intended or available to other players and roles. Relationships between players in MMORPGs can be as strong as those between friends or partners in real life, often with elements of cooperation and trust between players.

Role-playing game

Most MMORPGs offer the player a choice of different types of game classes. Among all players, only a small part practices acting out the role of their character, and, as a rule, the game has the necessary functions and content for this. To support RPG fans, there are community-created resources such as forums and guides.

culture

Over time, the once united community of MMOPRG fans has split into subcultures with their own slang and figures of speech, as well as unspoken lists of social rules and taboos. Players often complain about "grind" or talk about "buffs" and "nerfs" (strengthening or weakening certain elements game mechanics respectively). Separate social rules apply to the player's entry into a traveling party, the correct division of loot, and the expected behavior of a player in a group.

There are discussions in various gaming media about the long-term impact of game abuse. The forums of the non-profit organization On-Line Gamers Anonymous are full of stories about gamers who have abandoned social and family responsibilities, who have lost their jobs for the sake of their "virtual life".

Architectural features

Most modern MMORPGs use a client-server network architecture. A permanently existing virtual world is maintained on the server, and players can connect to it through client programs. Through the client program, the player can access either the entire game world without restrictions, or only the basic part of the game, while access to some areas of the "extensions" of the game may require additional payment for this content. Examples of games using the second model are EverQuest and Guild Wars. Typically, players must purchase the client program once, but a growing trend for MMORPGs is to use a pre-available "thin client" like a browser.

Some MMORPGs require a monthly subscription to play. By definition, all "massively multiplayer" games take place online and require some form of ongoing income (selling a monthly subscription or showing users promotional materials) to support and further develop them. Games such as Guild Wars do not use a monthly subscription system, instead the user must purchase not only the game itself, but subsequent expansions for it. Another payment model is the micropayment system, whereby the main content of the game is provided for free, and players are encouraged to purchase optional add-ons such as character equipment, decorative items, animals. Games based on this model are often developed in Korea, such as FlyFF or MapleStory. This business model is also called pay for perks(rus. "pay for the benefits") or freemium, and the games themselves that work according to this model are promoted and described as free-to-play(rus. "play for free").

Depending on the number of players and architecture features, MMORPGs can run on multiple servers, each of which represents a separate independent game world, while players on different servers cannot interact with each other. A prime example here is World of Warcraft, where each server can accommodate several thousand playable characters. As a rule, in MMORPG the number of characters simultaneously present in gaming world, limited to a few thousand. A good example of the reverse concept is EVE Online, where the server is capable of hosting several tens of thousands of players at times (over 60,000 in June 2010). In some games, once a character is created, it can freely move between worlds, but at any given time it can only be present on one server (for example, Seal Online: Evolution), in other games, the character can only be in the world where it was created. World of Warcraft features "inter-kingdom" (that is, server-to-server) PvP interactions on dedicated battlegrounds, using server clusters and "battlegroups" to assist and coordinate players who wish to engage in structured PvP content such as, for example, Warsong Gulch or Alterac Valley battlefields. Additionally, Patch 3.3, released on December 8, 2009, introduced a cross-server "group search" system that helps players create a group to access instance content (i.e. quests that are not available in the open world) from a larger number of players than "home" can offer character server. Subsequently, the interaction of characters from different servers went beyond instances and PvP content, and now players from different servers can intersect at many points in the game world.

Story

The authorship of the term "MMORPG" is attributed to Richard Garriott, the author of the game Ultima Online, who needed it to describe MMORPGs and the social communities built around them. Its authorship is confirmed by several authors, and the term itself dates back to 1997. Before the advent of this and similar neologisms similar games were commonly referred to as " graphic MUDs", and the history of the MMORPG genre itself can be traced back to games of the MUD genre. Thus, some key elements of the MMORPG genre can be found in such early multiplayer worlds as Maze War (1974) and MUD1. (English)(1978). In 1985, the MUD roguelike game Island of Kesmai was released for CompuServe, as well as Lucasfilm's graphical MUD Habitat. The first fully graphical multiplayer RPG - Neverwinter Nights- has been distributed through AOL since 1991 with the personal approval of AOL President Steve Case (Steve Case). Another early example of multiplayer RPGs are three games for The Sierra Network: The Shadow of Yserbius (1992), The Fates of Twinion (1993) and The Ruins of Cawdor (1995).

An important event for the genre was the lifting of restrictions on the commercial use of NSFNet in 1995, which opened up wide expanses of the Internet for developers, thanks to which the first truly mass-oriented games could appear. According to modern ideas, the first MMORPG proper was Meridian 59 (1996), the main innovations of which were the scale and three-dimensional graphic view"in the first person". Came out almost at the same time The game Realm Online. Ultima Online (1997) is considered the first MMORPG to gain significant attention in the genre, however, EverQuest (1999) and Asheron's Call (1999) gained great popularity among Western audiences, and Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (1996) among Korean audiences.

Thanks to the financial success of the early MMORPGs, the genre has become and remains highly competitive. Now games of the MMORPG genre are also available on game consoles, and the quality of the gameplay has also increased. The modern market has been dominated by World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment, which is the largest MMORPG. It is followed by Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2, followed by a variety of free-to-play MMORPGs supported by ads and in-game item sales. The free-to-play system is widespread among South Korean games, such as MapleStory, Rohan: Blood Feud and Atlantica Online. There are also free-to-play variations where the game itself is offered for free, and you only pay for an optional monthly subscription to additional features, such as RuneScape and Tibia. The exceptions are Guild Wars and its successor Guild Wars 2. To access these games, you do not need to buy anything more than the initial payment, which is done to increase the competitiveness against games with other payment systems.

Psychology

Despite the fact that game universes are virtual, the relationships between people in them are quite real, so MMORPGs are a good tool for psychological and sociological research. Clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle conducted surveys of computer users, including computer gamers. She found that many of these people have a broader emotional realm as she explored the many different roles (including gender identity) that many MMORPGs offer.

Nick Yee has interviewed over 35,000 MMORPG players over several years, focusing on the psychological and sociological aspects of games. The latest figures show that around 15% of players can become guild leaders from time to time, but most rate this role as difficult and thankless. These players, in their leadership role, spent a significant portion of their time allotted to the game performing tasks that were not directly related to the game, but were part of the metagaming (English) .

Many players noted that they experience very strong emotions while playing MMORPGs, for example, according to statistics, among the players, about 8.7% of men and 23.2% of women performed a game marriage. Other researchers have found that the enjoyment of a game depends on its social elaboration, from infrequent skirmishes between players to highly organized play in structured groups.

In their work, Zaheer Hussain and Mark Griffiths note that about one-fifth of gamers (21%) said they prefer online social relationships to real ones. Significantly more male players than women responded that they found online communication easier than in real life. More than 57% of players play as characters of the opposite sex, noting that a female character has a number of positive social traits.

Richard Bartle, author of the well-known work Designing Virtual Worlds (rus. development of virtual worlds), divides multiplayer RPG players into four main psychological types. Its classification was extended by Erwin Andreasen, who developed the concept into thirty questions on the Bartle test. (English), used to help determine which category a player belongs to. As of 2011, over 600,000 people have been surveyed, which likely makes this test one of the largest currently ongoing. Based on the research of Yi and Bartle, Jon Radoff published new model player motivation built around passion, competition and achievement. These features are present not only in MMORPGs, but also in many other games, forming the so-called. "field of gamification".

Economy

Many MMORPGs have an emerging economy. Virtual items and currency accumulate over the course of the game and have a definite value for the players. It is possible to study such a virtual economy by analyzing the log of the game's backend software, which is of value in economics research. More importantly, virtual economies can influence the real economy. A number of large consulting companies use multi-user economic games, such as Second Life and Virtonomics, to analyze the behavioral patterns of their virtual markets in order to model and predict scenarios for the behavior of real consumer and financial markets.

One of the first researchers of this phenomenon was Edward Castronova, who showed that in virtual economies there is a supply and demand market that intersects with that in the real world. For this intersection to exist, the game must provide the following features:

The idea of ​​valuing game items with real-world currencies has had a profound effect on gamers, the gaming industry, and even the judiciary. One of the pioneers of the sale of virtual currency, IGE, received a lawsuit from a World of Warcraft player for introducing into the game economy due to the intention of using the game to sell game gold. In her first work, Kastranova notes the existence of a market (possibly illegal) for highly liquid in-game currencies, with the price of the Everquest game currency surpassing the market rate of the Japanese yen at the time. Some people make their living by exploiting virtual economies. These people are usually associated with farmers and may be employed in the relevant semi - legal organizations .

As a rule, publishers officially prohibit the exchange of game values ​​for real world money, although there are games in which the ideas of such exchanges (with the publisher making a profit) are widely promoted. For example, in the games Second Life and Entropia Universe, there is a direct connection between the real and game economies. This means that the game currency can be freely exchanged for real and vice versa. So, real-world items can be traded for Entropia Universe currency; there is also a known case when a Second Life player earned quite real US$ 100,000 in the virtual world.

However, virtual economies have a number of problems, the most acute of which are:

However, the merging of the real and game economies rarely occurs in MMORPGs, as it is considered to be detrimental to gameplay. If the wealth of the real world allows you to gain more and faster than skillful play, this leads to a decrease in interest in a complex role-playing game and a decrease in the "immersion" of users in the game. It also leads to an unfair gaming hierarchy where players who are richer in real life get better game items, which allows them to outperform stronger competitors and gain levels faster than other less well-to-do but more dedicated players.

Development

As early as 2003, the cost of developing a competitive commercial MMORPG often exceeded US$10 million. These games require the involvement of developers from different specialties, such as artists, 3D modelers, client-server subsystem developers, database specialists and network infrastructure specialists.

The front-ends (i.e. client program) of modern commercial MMORPGs use 3D graphics. As with other modern 3D games, the front-end requires experience with 3D engines, skillful real-time shaders, and physics simulation. The concept of graphical content (zones, creatures, characters, weapons, etc.) of the game is developed by artists in traditional 2D sketches, after which it is transferred to animated 3D scenes, models and texture maps.

When developing an MMORPG, specialists in the areas of client-server architecture, network protocols and security, and databases are needed. MMORPGs must include robust support systems for mission-critical functions. The server must be able to accept and verify several thousand connections, prevent cheating, and support changes to the game (fixing bugs and adding content). Also an important role is played by the system of saving game data at specified intervals without interruption. gameplay.

Support of the game requires a sufficient server park, Internet connection bandwidth, as well as special technical staff. Lack of resources leads to lag and user frustration, which can negatively affect the reputation of the game, which is especially critical during the launch period. Staff should also monitor server occupancy, keeping it within a range acceptable for gameplay by increasing or decreasing the number of game servers. Theoretically, when using peer-to-peer technology in an MMORPG, it is possible to regulate server load cheaply and effectively, but the problems encountered in practice (asymmetric connection speeds, resource-intensive game engines, unreliability of individual nodes, inherent security problems that open up wide opportunities for cheaters) make them implementation is extremely difficult. A commercial MMORPG host infrastructure can include hundreds (or even thousands) of servers. Creating a financially acceptable infrastructure for online gaming requires a minimum investment in equipment and networks that can serve a large number of players.

In addition, the creators of online games must be experts in fundamental areas such as world creation, mythology, game mechanics, and other game features that bring pleasure to users.

Independent development

Despite the fact that the bulk of all MMORPGs are developed by companies, small teams or individual authors also contribute to the development of the genre. As noted above, development is a significant investment and time-consuming effort, and game support is a long-term responsibility. As a result, the development of an independent (or "indie") MMORPG is not as common as other genres. However, there are a significant number of independent MMORPGs made in different genres, offering different types of gameplay and payment systems.

Some independent MMORPGs follow the principles of open source entirely, others use proprietary content and open game engines. Around the WorldForge project, opened in 1998, a community of independent developers has formed, aimed at creating a system basis for a number of open-source MMORPGs. Multiverse Network is also developing a network platform that takes into account the features of independent MMOGs.

Trends

Due to the existence of a large number of significantly different MMORPGs, as well as the rapid development of the genre, it is quite difficult to determine the prevailing general trends. However, some developments are quite obvious. As one of these, you can call the performance of tasks by a raid group (or simply - "raid"), which is a quest designed for large groups of players (often twenty or more).

Dedicated zones on demand

Dedicated zones on demand (eng. instance dungeon, slang "instances") - game areas, "copied" at the request of individual players or groups, in which game interaction with the rest of the game world is impossible. This reduces the level of gaming competition, and also reduces the amount of data sent over the network, which reduces the lag. The first game where some semblance of such zones appeared was The Realm Online. In Anarchy Online, this technology has been significantly developed, becoming one of the key elements gameplay. Starting with this game, dedicated zones in MMORPGs have become commonplace. In the "raids" mentioned above, this technology is often used. Examples of games using dedicated zones are World of Warcraft, The Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Aion, Guild Wars, RuneScape, Star Trek Online, and DC Universe Online.

User Content

Licensing

In addition to this, there are a number of MMORPGs based on TV product licenses, such as Star Trek Online and the canceled Stargate Worlds.

MMORPG for game consoles

The first MMORPG designed specifically for a game console was Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast. The first MMORPG for game consoles with open world became Final Fantasy XI for the PlayStation 2. EverQuest Online Adventures for PlayStation 2 was the first MMORPG for game consoles to be released in the US. Since the development of an MMORPG for a game console is considered to be of increased complexity, each such project attracts increased attention.

Browser MMORPGs

The first browser-based MMORPG was Tale, launched in 1999. and still working (its continuation is the Legend game) [ ] . The game was conceived as a new kind of MUD that works in the browser and is more convenient for the player. Tale game marked the beginning of the development of a certain genre of browser games (where the game is combined with a chat) from which such famous games, like "Fight Club" and its multiple clones. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the main emphasis of the gameplay in Tale is on traveling around the vast world and PvE battles, while the entire Fight Club is built on PvP battles. Therefore, it is impossible to call these games similar, although they are united by a similar appearance at first glance. And yet, when you hear the word “browser”, it is often these games that are meant. At first, such browser games were completely free, but subsequently began to use the Free-to-play model.

With the widespread popularity of social networks such as Facebook, a second wave of browser-based MMORPGs based on Adobe Flash and HTML5 technologies appeared. The beginning of this second wave was laid by browser games already known at that time, which were integrated into social networks in order to attract new players.

MMORPG for smartphones

In 2007, when smartphones and app stores hit the market, games underwent another rapid evolution. It has not only changed the way people play games, but it has also made the gaming industry a mainstay of pop culture. In 2008, Russian developers were the first to create a full-fledged MMORPG Warspear Online (English) for smartphones running Symbian and Windows Mobile. Then these Operating Systems were leading and occupied respectively 65% ​​and 12% of the market. The game is an example of a classic cross-platform fantasy MMORPG with pixel art and is now ported to all popular platforms: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows and Linux. The next attempt to enter smartphones with MMORPG was the Chinese Anrufen Online. Its first release on Symbian took place in 2009 . The rapid development of mobile technology over the past decade has led to an explosion in the mobile gaming market. For example, in 2017, Google Play has 250+ games in the MMORPG genre: with 2D and 3D graphics, various gameplay features, in a fantastic and fantasy style. However, games with classic gameplay and following the canons of the genre, shaped by games such as Ultima Online and World of Warcraft, are still relatively few.

AMMORPG

The name stands for "action-MMORPG" (eng. Action massively multiplayer online role-playing game). In this kind of RPG, you need a fast reaction time to dodge enemy attacks.

Notes

1. Parks Associates. Online Gaming Revenues to Triple by 2009 (indefinite) (2005).
2. Harding-Rolls, Piers. Western World MMOG Market: 2006 Review and Forecasts to 2011. - London, UK: Screen Digest, 2006.
3. Harding-Rolls, Piers. Subscription MMOGs: Life Beyond World of Warcraft (English) . - London, UK: Screen Digest, 2009.
4. Reilly, Luke World of Warcraft Subscriptions Back Over 10 Million (indefinite) . IGN(November 19, 2014). Retrieved September 9, 2019.
5. Star Wars: The Old Republic Jumps to Light Speed ​​(NASDAQ:EA) (indefinite) . Investor.ea.com (December 23, 2011).
6. Rundle, Michael Star Wars: The Old Republic Is "Fastest-Growing MMO Ever" With 1m Users (indefinite) . Huffington Post (December 27, 2011).
7. Mulligan, Jessica. Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide / Jessica Mulligan, Bridgette Patrovsky. - New Riders, 2003. - P. 474, 477. - " experience points A point value that is accumulated by gameplay activity such as leveling and is used as a measure of a character's power. Popularized by the classic dice version of TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1970s and carried over to online gaming by designers. level A rank or rating of a character"s power. [...] leveling Activity in-game dedicated to increasing a character's experience, level, and/or skills. Leveling usually consists of killing mobs.". - ISBN 1-59273-000-0.
8. Nicholas, Munn J. "The Reality of Friendship Within Immersive Virtual Worlds." Springer Science+Business Media (2011): 1-10. Web. Oct 24 2013.
9. R. Schroeder & A. Axelsson. The Psychology of MMORPGs: Emotional Investment, Motivations, Relationship Formation, and Problematic Usage// Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments . - London: Springer-Verlag, 2006. - P. 187-207. - ISBN 1-4020-3883-6.
10. Jøn, A. Asbjørn. The Development of MMORPG Culture and The Guild (neopr.) // Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies. - 2010. - T. 25. - pp. 97-112., p.97
11. This Weekend: The Alliance Tournament Finals! (indefinite) (unavailable link). Date of treatment January 25, 2014. Archived from the original on February 18, 2015.
12. World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Basics -> Battlegroups
13. World of Warcraft Europe -> Patch Notes - Patch 4.0.1 - 4.0.3a
14. Safko, Lon. The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success / Lon Safko, David Brake. - Wiley, 2009. - "Richard Garriott first coined the term MMORPG in 1997.". - ISBN 0-470-41155-4.
15. Castronova, Edward. Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. - University Of Chicago Press, 2006. - P. 10, 291. - « The ancestors of MMORPGS were text-based multiuser domains (MUDs) [...] Indeed, MUDs generate perhaps the one historical connection between game-based VR and the traditional program [...]". - ISBN 0-226-09626-2.
16. Bainbridge, William Sims. Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. - Berkshire Publishing Group, 2004. - Vol. 2. - P. 474. - “Developers had long considered writing a graphical MUD. [...] the last major 2D virtual environment in the West marked the true beginning of the fifth age of MUDs: Origin Systems" 1997 Ultima Online (UO).". - ISBN 0-9743091-2-5 .
17. Mulligan, Jessica. Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide / Jessica Mulligan, Bridgette Patrovsky. - New Riders, 2003. - P. 447. - "1985 [...] "My memory says that Island of Kesmai went live on CompuServe on December 15, 1985, after a very long internal test. The price was actually $6 an hour for 300 baud, $12 for 1200 baud. Serious players paid the bucks." -Kelton Flynn". - ISBN 1-59273-000-0.
18. Coster, Raph Online World Timeline (indefinite) . Raph Koster's Website(February 20, 2002).
19. Snow, Blake World of Warcraft addicts 10 million subscribers (indefinite) . GamePro.com (January 23, 2008).
20. Turkle, Sherry (English)Russian. Life on the Screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (English) . - Simon & Schuster, 1997. - ISBN 0-684-83348-4.
21. Yee, Nick. Life as a Guild Leader (indefinite) . The Daedalus Project(March 20, 2006).

Why do computer games always attract people so much? What does a person think about and imagine while playing on a computer? You can come up with many answers to these questions, but the most commonplace will probably be the opportunity to plunge into another world with other laws and rules, as well as to feel real power and superiority over other players. This article will focus primarily on the so-called MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) games. This type of game appeared a long time ago, in 1978 Richard Bartley and Roy Trubshaw created the game Multi User Dungeon or MUD for short.

MUD

The first players were university students, playing it secretly from the computer lab administrators. MUD had a text interface and all movement, control and battles were made by entering text commands. Time passed, and with it the genre developed and gained popularity. Games like MUD came out more and more often, and finally, in 1984, the first commercial game appeared. MMORPG game Islands of Kesmai by Kelton Flynn and John Taylor. She also had a text interface and forced the player to lay out decent money for those times - from 6 to 12 dollars for one hour of play. Neverwinter Nights was the first MMORPG to feature a true GUI. It was released in 1991 and just made the owners of the then personal computers happy. Then, over the course of 6 years, about 5 more games appeared until in 1997, the developer company Origin Systems launched the Ultima Online project. Very soon the rights to the game were bought by Electronic Arts. The popularity of the game simply shocked the whole world and left a major mark in the history of game development. None of the games existing at that time could compete with the world of Ultima Online, the player's freedom of action was simply amazing, whole clans began to form, formed according to various common interests. Addicted players literally moved to virtual world found friends there, fought wars and even got married! Many emulators of the original Ultima Online server appeared on the network, further increasing the number of players. Surely many of the readers, if not personally acquainted, then at least heard about this wonderful game. The 21st century has drastically affected every aspect of released games. The latest graphic technologies for game development, the worldwide increase in the number of Internet users, as well as the improvement in the speed and cost of access, have a positive impact on the quality of newly released games. The wave of global commercialization of the global network has also covered the segment of MMORPG games. The developers realized that this genre could become just a gold mine, compared to the usual single-player games that bring the main income only in a small period of their popularity. In May 2003, CCP games released the games EVE Online, which amazed the world with its vast universe. All actions of the game take place in outer space, containing about five thousand different star systems, each with its own unique structure, 30 thousand players simultaneously located in it, and all this on one single server serving this entire universe. Giant space cruisers, armadas and fleets, resource extraction and much more have made this game hugely popular. There were even cases of sale of virtual spaceships for several thousand real dollars! In October of the same year, Lineage II games were introduced to the world.

The project, developed by Asian programmers, gained immense popularity and attracted a record number of players into its world, according to various sources, from 3 to 4 million registered accounts. By analogy with Ultima Online, illegal servers began to appear on the Internet, emulating the original, and allowing you to play using the official client. The Lineage II project still lives and develops, replenishing with new features, graphics and game additions. The modern world of MMORPG games was simply shocked by the sensational popularity released in 2004 world game of Warcraft. There is hardly a single person on the planet who is somehow connected with computer world not heard of this name. By universal recognition, World of Warcraft still ranks first in all respects among games of this genre. It is distinguished by excellent graphics, sound, a huge world, superbly thought out quest chains and a balance among various races and character classes. The whole world of the game is divided into two warring parties, the alliance and the horde. Each side has its own unique races of heroes. For whom and by whom to play, the user can decide for himself when creating a character.
Another type of MMORPG games are the so-called browser-based or clientless games. In order to start playing, the user just needs to open their favorite browser and go to the game website. All graphics and characters are presented using dynamic web pages displayed in a browser window. Most of these games are free, but the developers here have found a way to get their piece of the pie. Almost all browser games offer the player for a certain amount of real money to purchase additional features, be it weapons, equipment, resources or virtual money, which allows you to gain a significant advantage over your competitors in the game world. These games bring a good income to their creators and inspire developers to create new games of this kind.
It is quite difficult to say what tomorrow has in store for us, given the speed of development of the modern technical and information sphere. Only one thing can be said for sure - the MMORPG world is huge and continues to expand, involving an increasing number of the world's population, which means that we should expect even more realistic graphics, sound, plot and even deeper immersion in virtual reality, given to us by computer games.

MMORPG is one of the most popular genres in the gaming industry market. There are a lot of large projects in which more and more people register every day. We decided to go back to the origins of the genre and find the very first online MMORPG game. As a separate genre, the role-playing multiplayer online game began to be called in 1997. It was then that the Ultima Online is the very first online MMORPG game.

Richard Garriott is an American computer game developer who did a lot to develop this genre. He has worked not only in the Ultima Online project, but also in Lineage, one of the most popular role-playing games. Ultima Online came out in 1997 and is still afloat. For 17 years, Ultima Online continues to delight its players.

For all the time of its existence, ten global additions have been released. Ultima is one of the most diverse role-playing games out there right now. You can build own houses, light fires, use pets as mounts, kill other players and mobs. The action of the game takes place on a fragment of a fictional planet where the life of the Middle Ages reigns. Each player has a choice of several types of weapons, professions and their purpose in life.

If you are interested and want to know more information about the game Ultima Online, then these pictures and videos are especially for you.

Getting started in Ultima Online, interface overview and tutorials for beginners.