MMORPGs and MMOs have been with us for many years. But what was actually the first game that really established this genre? There are quite a few answers to that.
What are MMOs and MMORPGs anyway? Basically, one can say that an MMO is an online multiplayer game in which a very large number of players can participate and interact with each other online – irrespective of the genre, such as role-playing or shooter.
MMORPGs refer to massive online role-playing games. Normally, you act together with hundreds or thousands of players in the virtual worlds. That’s why the abbreviation MMORPG stands for “Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game”.
The first MMOs were based on text
When did MMOs emerge? The development of massively multiplayer games goes back to the 1960s when students
used the teaching and learning system “PLATO” at the University of Illinois to pass the time with the communication tool via chat.
In 1973, the multiplayer game Maze War was released, created by programmers at NASA. Players chased each other through a maze that was created from vector graphics. Essentially, you only saw lines that defined the corridors, and players were represented as “eyes”.
In 1978, the game MUD (Multi User Dungeon) followed, programmed by Roy Trubshaw, a student at the Essex University in England. The idea was to shift the then-popular text adventures like Zork into a multiplayer environment. Instead of seeing graphics, players navigated through the dungeon by text. Many more games built upon this.
More about the nostalgia of old-school MMORPGs can be found here:
The genre is older than you think
Here were the first commercial multiplayer RPGs: In 1985, the online game Island of Kesmai was released. It utilized the MUD principle and introduced rudimentary graphics based on ASCII characters. Six players could experience a D&D-like adventure together. The game cost $6 per hour over the CompuServe service.
A “real graphic” was to be introduced by LucasArts online adventure Habitat. However, the title was never really released. In 1986 there was only a first beta test. Habitat offered social gameplay, represented by a 2D graphic that was modeled after the LucasArts adventures of the 1980s, such as Maniac Mansion.
In 1991, Neverwinter Nights was released. An online role-playing game based on the then-popular RPGs of the SSI Gold Box games (Pool of Radiance). For Neverwinter Nights, $6 per hour had to be paid over AOL. A similar vein was struck by The Shadow of Yserbius, also released in 1991.
In 1996, Meridian 59 was released, an MMORPG that already had all the essential features of today’s online role-playing games, but was not yet referred to as an MMORPG. It placed players in a 3D world populated by 2D characters.
In January 1997, the online role-playing game Tibia was released. The RPG developed by students Stephan Börzsönyi, Guido Lübke, Ulrich Schlott, and Stephan Vogler is still playable today and has a very active community.
Where the term MMORPG comes from
This is the first MMORPG that was also referred to as such: In 1997, Ultima Online was released. For the first time, the term MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) was used, coined by Ultima developer Richard “Lord British” Garriott. By the way, this term also derived the word MMO, which is used for massively multiplayer games outside of role-playing games.
Ultima Online offered the opportunity to experience free role-playing in a graphical environment. Players developed their heroes based on skills, explored a vast land, and could learn professions such as crafting or fishing.
From here, the genre evolved through Everquest and World of Warcraft to today.
So what was the first MMO and MMORPG? The question is not easy to answer as many factors played a role in the development.
- If you really go back, you would have to call Maze War the beginning of the MMOs.
- If you take the first commercial role-playing game for “larger” player numbers and look for the first “in principle MMORPG”, then this would probably be Island of Kesmai.
- However, if you refer to the term MMORPG, then it was Ultima Online since no other online game was referred to as such before.
As you can see, it was a development that stretched over several decades and in which each subsequent “generation” built upon the previous one. Thus, the MMORPGs we know today developed.
Although there were already role-playing games that could be played online before Ultima Online, such as Meridian59 and Tibia, these were officially not called MMORPGs at that time. This term was only applied to them later.
