I guess for a really evolutionary title i'd have to go waaay back. IMO evolution and innovation lies rather back in the beginnings of videogaming, before clones and decades of "more of the same" became the norm.
Back then there was a first title for everything..first time 2D, first time 3D, eventually levels became worlds, a joystick with a single button got replaced by a gamepad because games required more input...and games as software constantly required better hardware. I think that is where evolution happened. When was the last time a game did something for the first time? I mean in terms of "evolution". In recent years, not so much i think -and software is for long limping behind what the hardware is capable of.
I actually did a research project and wrote an article about the origin of various concepts in pet-related games. A few of the games mentioned by other posters earlier in the thread show up here (e.g. EVO the search for eden)
A HISTORY OF PET-RELATED GAMES by sunandshadow
Pet games, both online and off, have a long history that may surprise
people who have only played more recent games. It surprised me! In fact,
pet games are almost as old as personal computers and handheld computer
devices.
PART 1: PET GAMES ON ATARI, COMMODORE, AND APPLE/APPLE II (1982-1989)
Evolution (1982 Sydney Development Corp.) was an arcade game where you
played a creature climbing the evolutionary ladder: amoeba, frog, mouse,
monkey, human. Gameplay consisted of eating some animal-appropriate
type of food while avoiding predators. This game could be considered a
direct ancestor of EVO and Spore.
Dino Eggs (1983 MicroFun) While not a pet game in pretty much any sense,
Dino Eggs did contain a related dynamic of the main character finding
and collecting dinosaur eggs, and the eggs hatching into baby dinosaurs,
which the main character was rescuing because they were suffering from
sickness.
Savage Pond (1983 Starcade/BugByte) was a C64 arcade game where the
player's goal was to build up a colony of frogs, starting with a single
tadpole who needed to eat different kinds of food while avoiding
dangers. This game could be considered a conceptual forerunner of
SimAnt, although the actual gameplay was a different genre.
Oh Deer (1983 MECC) was a decisionmaking simulator with the goal of
managing a heard of whitetail deer near a city. It's debatable whether
this kind of thing is a "game", but I suppose it could be considered
either a turn-based strategy game or an interactive story game. There
are currently some free online decision-making simulators like this,
including one about breeding chinchillas, and some dating-sims and
Princess Maker-type games.
Fishies (Cognetics 1984) A fish tank screensaver. It had minor
interactivity: food could be added to the tank and the fish would
swim to the top and eat it, though they did not actually have hunger
meters or stats of any kind. This is a conceptual predecessor of desktop
pets in general and fish tank sims such as the Aquazone series.
ChipWits (1984 BrainPower) ChipWits was a robot simulation game where
the player designed programs for the computers' behavior; the robots
acted as pets, and could easily be substituted for with animal pets in a
similar concept. A simplified game of the same concept was included in
the Tour Of The Apple IIGS program which was designed to teach new
computers how to use their computer.
T.Rex (1984 Keron) The playable character was a T-Rex hunting
herbivorous dinos. The tyrannosaurus had food, health, and energy
meters. There were dozens of similar games where the player controlled
an animal. I chose T.Rex to represent this category because it was
the most sim-like. I'll mention a few others though: Frogger is the most
famous; I probably don't even have to tell you that this was a game
about hopping your frog across highways and rivers without getting
squished, getting eaten, or drowning. Crush, Crumble & Chomp!
Allowed the player to be a movie monster attacking a city. Fish! was a
text adventure game where (most of the time) the player character was a
fish, investigating a mystery in a cartoony undersea world. There were
also several games where the player controlled a human character riding a
dragon or other mount, including Dragon Breed, Joust, and Dragonhawk.
Little Computer People (Activision 1985) Tied with the following entry
for the title of "first true pet game", even though the pets are humans,
not animals. For anyone familiar with The Sims, Little Computer People
was the same type of game, though much more primitive: the player could
act with a single "little computer person" living in a premade house. It
contained two of the features found in many pet games today: the player
could play a minigame (poker) with their little computer person, and
the computer person could get hungry or sick requiring the player to
feed or heal them. In the mid 1990s Steve Grand, the designer of the
Creatures game series, originally pitched the game that would later be
known as Creatures as "Little Computer Ewoks", explicitly referencing
the game Little Computer People as one of the inspirations. Will Wright,
designer of The Sims, has stated that he played Little Computer People
and in the late 1990s he received valuable feedback on his design of The
Sims from the designer of Little Computer People, Rich Gold.
Mail Order Monsters (1985 Electronic Arts) Tied with Little Computer
People for earliest pet game is EA's first entry into the field: a
game where players could create monsters with 5 base stats, a few extra
traits like additional tentacles or a stinger, and purchased equipment,
food, and other supplies such as ammo rounds. This game allowed two
players to battle their monsters or play capture the flag.
Odell Lake (1986 MECC) (sequel: Odell Down Under) was game with a "food
web" theme where the game assigned you to play one of 6 types of fish,
and then you encountered items such as food and predators and had to
decide whether to try to eat them, ignore them, or run away; different
responses were appropriate depending on which type of fish you were
playing.
Invisible Bugs (1989 MECC) I consider this the first breeding sim.
Invisible Bugs was an educational game explicitly intended to teach Mendelian genetics. This is the first game I found record of with such a
breeding system, especially in that the genetics were expressed in the
appearances of bugs owned and protected by the player. The player was
given two bugs to start with, and a target pattern against which the
final population of bugs would need to be camouflaged to avoid being
eaten by a spider. The same company had produced an earlier piece of
software (1986) called Ties: Elementary Genetics which contained an
insect genetic simulator called Chromy Bug, but it wasn't actually a
game.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
Of all the games you've played in your life - which game would you pick as the one that took gaming forward the most, whether within the genre or overall?
This question assumes an intimate knowledge of the industry, technology, and a historical grasp of the social landscape. This is the type of question that shouldn't even be approached without multiple advanced degrees across broad fields.
...ask it on an anonymous internet web forum?
...sure... why not...
Honorable mentions first:
Vendetta Online, for being the first truly PC-based multiplatform experience available on mobile. We're talking a twitch-combat MMORPG coming to Android in 2010-2011. At the time, this was unheard of. Logging in to a virtual world I had spent years and years in on my Mac, on my phone, was a 2001: Space Odyssey Monolith-moment. Now, I could log on to a persistent experience, complete with a history, relationships to other players, etc., from literally anywhere. It was (and still is) a game changer.
Super Mario Brothers (1985); one of the earliest video games that included a video game character and expansive world that met with broad success, available on home consoles. Whimsical, but also pushed the envelope of what video games could be. Here was a hero (Mario) on a quest (save the princess) within a landscape that went on and on across multiple environments (water, "tree-tops", underground) with ambient music to match the scene, and detailed rendering. Compare this to, say, Donkey Kong or Galaga; excellent games in their own rights with places assured in history, but with scopes that don't come close. Other "adventure games" of the previous generation might be titles like Sword Quest for the Atari 2600; ambitious in scope, but without the fidelity.
But the one that took gaming forward the most... for me and in my own subjective experience, was...
Super Mario 64 (1996); One of the first games I ever played that matched an arcade-level of responsiveness with an expansive 3D world. Never mind that it belongs to a genre known as the "platformer"; this redefined what a video game could be, for me. It was not only fun to play, it was a technological marvel. The camera was intuitive and followed Mario around (rather than remaining in a fixed position) with some basic level of AI. Exploring the world was a delight. The music was excellent and did a lot to enhance the mood. Not only was it a very good game, it made me realize that video games had the capacity to render worlds as polygons including physics, and it was an experience that stayed with me for a long time, sparking my imagination for what was to come in future years.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
It's gotta be the classic WoW. Did it invent it, no, as many people point out, there were games out before with similar capabilities. However, WoW put out a product that put these elements into such a package that it propelled it and the genre to unparalleled success.
This is the type of question that shouldn't even be approached without multiple advanced degrees across broad fields.
I see no reason to say that. No disaster will happen if 'wrong' answers are given. It's interesting to see other people's answers, knowing that they are subjective personal impressions.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
This is the type of question that shouldn't even be approached without multiple advanced degrees across broad fields.
I see no reason to say that. No disaster will happen if 'wrong' answers are given. It's interesting to see other people's answers, knowing that they are subjective personal impressions.
I agree.
I just think it's kind of comical to ask "[what game] took gaming forward the most". It's a sort of 'intellectual Everest' in disguise.
This is not to say that questions like these shouldn't be approached, or can't have some lighthearted discussions surrounding them that are also productive, but if I were to seriously try and answer this, for a multi-billion-dollar industry, it would take years and years of research.
I agree that it's interesting to see other people's answers.
edit: if I were going to broach the topic, I would have asked something like "what game changed your perspective on gaming the most"? I guess there's a camouflaged fallacy in the way the question is phrased, but it could be a facet of first vs second languages: there is the assumption in the question that a game respondents have played took the genre forward more than any other title.
In order to answer this, one would have to have total knowledge of any given title's effect on the overall industry: technologically, socially, historically...
Even if I could pick out one game from my subjective experience, and compare it to all other games I've played, how could I be sure that I have the appropriate background to hold it up and say 'yes, this gameevolved gaming more than any other title I've played'. How can I be sure any other poster here has the background? And yet, the question is posed. It's a Kafkian epistemological comedy-horror.
I find it on this site a lot; perhaps it's due to the nature of MMORPGs, but we are often talking about "the best", "the most", "the first" or even "the only", as though having comprehensive knowledge on a truly expansive field.
I guess the point of all this is to take things with a grain of salt, which perhaps is assumed, anyway...
Post edited by Phaserlight on
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
I'm going to go way off here. Not my favourites but what I think affected things going forward
Offline: Ultima IV - typing responses and having to follow dialogue and make moral choices.
Online: The Realm - Sierra took an online game and made it an online social game that actually worked without freezing the game to take turns (like the original Neverwinter and Darksun Onilne) I left it for UO
As far as more current games
Offline: Deus Ex (original)
Online: Fallen Earth - character development, skill points assigned at levels, huge open world and proof for me that ONE DAY. . a western MMO could work.
This is the type of question that shouldn't even be approached without multiple advanced degrees across broad fields.
I see no reason to say that. No disaster will happen if 'wrong' answers are given. It's interesting to see other people's answers, knowing that they are subjective personal impressions.
I agree.
I just think it's kind of comical to ask "[what game] took gaming forward the most". It's a sort of 'intellectual Everest' in disguise.
This is not to say that questions like these shouldn't be approached, or can't have some lighthearted discussions surrounding them that are also productive, but if I were to seriously try and answer this, for a multi-billion-dollar industry, it would take years and years of research.
I agree that it's interesting to see other people's answers.
edit: if I were going to broach the topic, I would have asked something like "what game changed your perspective on gaming the most"? I guess there's a camouflaged fallacy in the way the question is phrased, but it could be a facet of first vs second languages. I find it on this site a lot; perhaps it's due to the nature of MMORPGs, but we are often talking about "the best", "the most", "the first" or even "the only", as though having comprehensive knowledge on a truly expansive field.
I guess the point of all this is to take things with a grain of salt, which perhaps is assumed, anyway...
It does specify "that you have ever played". I don't consider MMORPG.com to be my source of brain food For me the value in the thread is maybe finding a game to try out that I missed at some point.
I do agree with the click-bait titles though. Sadly I see those now in major news story headlines and then the actual content does not reflect the title. I think, in this case, it does inspire a bit more discussion though.
Each one of those games managed to keep me immersed for many, many hours. They also gave me a lot of freedom to express myself with the types of gameplay mechanics that matter to me most. Also they each brought something evolutionary to the table as far as I am concerned. Such as:
1) SWG bringing a living, breathing Star Wars game to life with a lot of freedom in a scale I haven't seen before then. 2) Planetside for bringing massive, persistent, three way, sci-fi, combined arms warefare. Which to me was head and shoulders above the current deathmatch fps's at the time. 3) Morrowind for showing me a singleplayer game can have a massive 3D world 4) RDR for putting the GTA formula to a spaghetti western themed game. Who would have thunk it?
That's exactly why this thread is so successful; there's an added layer of subtlety, but the fallacy is still there. I tried to address this in the edit to my post after you quoted me:
Even if I picked out a game from my subjective experience and compared it to all other games that I, subjectively, experienced, the question still asks what is the "most evolutionary game", which assumes complete knowledge of the medium as it relates to any given title. It could be a language thing, for some reason it just tickles my funny bone, partially because this is the type of question I would like to see answered in a post-grad classroom, I believe it can be answered, and there are probably some here that hold a certain level of qualification for approaching this question, but there isn't really any way of knowing on an open web forum.
I guess it's due to having a philosophy major for a dad combined with an avid love of video games as an art form (see what I did there?).
The way the question is phrased subtly primes the resulting discussion for existential comedy, in my opinion.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
WoW - without a shadow of a doubt. The period 2004 - 2009 was a golden age. WoW was in the mainstream news regularly.
Some people on this thread say EVE. I totally disagree with this. If EVE had maintained its 2004 vision, i.e.- to be the ultimate sci-fi MMORPG, I might agree: maybe EVE might have gained enough popularity to no longer be considered 'niche'. However, CCP changed this vision in 2009 (after failing to implement 'Walking in Stations') to something far more mundane.
Elite Dangerous, and maybe Star Citizen, are taking EVE's original vision forward, but it's very early days. Sci-fi MMORPGs are still relatively 'niche'.
Most people have heard about WoW and have an opinion about it.
After thinking for a few minutes, I guess I would say Grand Theft Auto 3. Everyone at the time was just amazed with the gameplay and world. Hell, GTA5 is basically the same game.
Originally posted by laokoko "if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Everquest pre luclin, without it nothing that has came since would exist MMoRPG wise, but I also believe that the games that have come since using the EQ format have all missed what made it so good.
1.
pertaining to evolution or development; developmental:
Probably Darkfall because it was the first game to do several things for me.. and they added a bunch of content while I was playing that drastically changed everything too and it always felt like it was in development.
Biggest seamless world
Largest PVP battlegrounds
Mobs were able to level up and become stronger and could be controlled by a GM
Mounted combat
Naval combat
More skills/spells than my keyboard could handle, and a huge grind which made developing a character quite evolutionary
Hardest game that I have ever played (well the original one at least)
Adrenaline rush like no other game has ever provided because of no safe zones, the FPS combat and full-loot PVP
NEWS FLASH!"A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore gamer and knew just what to do!" Download my music for free! I release several albums per month as part of project "Thee Untitled" . .. some video game music remixes and cover songs done with instruments in there as well! http://theeuntitled.bandcamp.com/Check out my roleplaying blog, collection of fictional short stories, and fantasy series... updated on a blog for now until I am finished!https://childrenfromtheheavensbelow.blogspot.com/Watch me game on occasion or make music... https://www.twitch.tv/spoontheeuntitled and subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvqULn678VrF3OasgnbsyA
Half-Life for introducing narrative driven gameplay to the FPS genre. The Realm and Meridian59 for creating the first real MMOs Dune II for creating the framework for the next 3 decades of RTS games
Comments
IMO evolution and innovation lies rather back in the beginnings of videogaming, before clones and decades of "more of the same" became the norm.
Back then there was a first title for everything..first time 2D, first time 3D, eventually levels became worlds, a joystick with a single button got replaced by a gamepad because games required more input...and games as software constantly required better hardware. I think that is where evolution happened.
When was the last time a game did something for the first time? I mean in terms of "evolution". In recent years, not so much i think -and software is for long limping behind what the hardware is capable of.
That's at least how i look at it.
I'd probably have to go way back to GTA3 or Shenmue, as games that led to a evolution in design.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Joined - July 2004
...ask it on an anonymous internet web forum?
...sure... why not...
Honorable mentions first:
Vendetta Online, for being the first truly PC-based multiplatform experience available on mobile. We're talking a twitch-combat MMORPG coming to Android in 2010-2011. At the time, this was unheard of. Logging in to a virtual world I had spent years and years in on my Mac, on my phone, was a 2001: Space Odyssey Monolith-moment. Now, I could log on to a persistent experience, complete with a history, relationships to other players, etc., from literally anywhere. It was (and still is) a game changer.
Super Mario Brothers (1985); one of the earliest video games that included a video game character and expansive world that met with broad success, available on home consoles. Whimsical, but also pushed the envelope of what video games could be. Here was a hero (Mario) on a quest (save the princess) within a landscape that went on and on across multiple environments (water, "tree-tops", underground) with ambient music to match the scene, and detailed rendering. Compare this to, say, Donkey Kong or Galaga; excellent games in their own rights with places assured in history, but with scopes that don't come close. Other "adventure games" of the previous generation might be titles like Sword Quest for the Atari 2600; ambitious in scope, but without the fidelity.
But the one that took gaming forward the most... for me and in my own subjective experience, was...
Super Mario 64 (1996); One of the first games I ever played that matched an arcade-level of responsiveness with an expansive 3D world. Never mind that it belongs to a genre known as the "platformer"; this redefined what a video game could be, for me. It was not only fun to play, it was a technological marvel. The camera was intuitive and followed Mario around (rather than remaining in a fixed position) with some basic level of AI. Exploring the world was a delight. The music was excellent and did a lot to enhance the mood. Not only was it a very good game, it made me realize that video games had the capacity to render worlds as polygons including physics, and it was an experience that stayed with me for a long time, sparking my imagination for what was to come in future years.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I self identify as a monkey.
I just think it's kind of comical to ask "[what game] took gaming forward the most". It's a sort of 'intellectual Everest' in disguise.
This is not to say that questions like these shouldn't be approached, or can't have some lighthearted discussions surrounding them that are also productive, but if I were to seriously try and answer this, for a multi-billion-dollar industry, it would take years and years of research.
I agree that it's interesting to see other people's answers.
edit: if I were going to broach the topic, I would have asked something like "what game changed your perspective on gaming the most"? I guess there's a camouflaged fallacy in the way the question is phrased, but it could be a facet of first vs second languages: there is the assumption in the question that a game respondents have played took the genre forward more than any other title.
In order to answer this, one would have to have total knowledge of any given title's effect on the overall industry: technologically, socially, historically...
Even if I could pick out one game from my subjective experience, and compare it to all other games I've played, how could I be sure that I have the appropriate background to hold it up and say 'yes, this game evolved gaming more than any other title I've played'. How can I be sure any other poster here has the background? And yet, the question is posed. It's a Kafkian epistemological comedy-horror.
I find it on this site a lot; perhaps it's due to the nature of MMORPGs, but we are often talking about "the best", "the most", "the first" or even "the only", as though having comprehensive knowledge on a truly expansive field.
I guess the point of all this is to take things with a grain of salt, which perhaps is assumed, anyway...
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Offline: Ultima IV - typing responses and having to follow dialogue and make moral choices.
Online: The Realm - Sierra took an online game and made it an online social game that actually worked without freezing the game to take turns (like the original Neverwinter and Darksun Onilne) I left it for UO
As far as more current games
Offline: Deus Ex (original)
Online: Fallen Earth - character development, skill points assigned at levels, huge open world and proof for me that ONE DAY. . a western MMO could work.
I do agree mostly with everyone else as well.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I do agree with the click-bait titles though. Sadly I see those now in major news story headlines and then the actual content does not reflect the title. I think, in this case, it does inspire a bit more discussion though.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Planetside
Morrowind
Red Dead Redemption
Each one of those games managed to keep me immersed for many, many hours. They also gave me a lot of freedom to express myself with the types of gameplay mechanics that matter to me most. Also they each brought something evolutionary to the table as far as I am concerned. Such as:
1) SWG bringing a living, breathing Star Wars game to life with a lot of freedom in a scale I haven't seen before then.
2) Planetside for bringing massive, persistent, three way, sci-fi, combined arms warefare. Which to me was head and shoulders above the current deathmatch fps's at the time.
3) Morrowind for showing me a singleplayer game can have a massive 3D world
4) RDR for putting the GTA formula to a spaghetti western themed game. Who would have thunk it?
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Even if I picked out a game from my subjective experience and compared it to all other games that I, subjectively, experienced, the question still asks what is the "most evolutionary game", which assumes complete knowledge of the medium as it relates to any given title. It could be a language thing, for some reason it just tickles my funny bone, partially because this is the type of question I would like to see answered in a post-grad classroom, I believe it can be answered, and there are probably some here that hold a certain level of qualification for approaching this question, but there isn't really any way of knowing on an open web forum.
I guess it's due to having a philosophy major for a dad combined with an avid love of video games as an art form (see what I did there?).
The way the question is phrased subtly primes the resulting discussion for existential comedy, in my opinion.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Some people on this thread say EVE. I totally disagree with this. If EVE had maintained its 2004 vision, i.e.- to be the ultimate sci-fi MMORPG, I might agree: maybe EVE might have gained enough popularity to no longer be considered 'niche'. However, CCP changed this vision in 2009 (after failing to implement 'Walking in Stations') to something far more mundane.
Elite Dangerous, and maybe Star Citizen, are taking EVE's original vision forward, but it's very early days. Sci-fi MMORPGs are still relatively 'niche'.
Most people have heard about WoW and have an opinion about it.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Godz of War I call Thee
Probably Darkfall because it was the first game to do several things for me.. and they added a bunch of content while I was playing that drastically changed everything too and it always felt like it was in development.
Biggest seamless world
Largest PVP battlegrounds
Mobs were able to level up and become stronger and could be controlled by a GM
Mounted combat
Naval combat
More skills/spells than my keyboard could handle, and a huge grind which made developing a character quite evolutionary
Hardest game that I have ever played (well the original one at least)
Adrenaline rush like no other game has ever provided because of no safe zones, the FPS combat and full-loot PVP
NEWS FLASH! "A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore gamer and knew just what to do!" Download my music for free! I release several albums per month as part of project "Thee Untitled" . .. some video game music remixes and cover songs done with instruments in there as well! http://theeuntitled.bandcamp.com/ Check out my roleplaying blog, collection of fictional short stories, and fantasy series... updated on a blog for now until I am finished! https://childrenfromtheheavensbelow.blogspot.com/ Watch me game on occasion or make music... https://www.twitch.tv/spoontheeuntitled and subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvqULn678VrF3OasgnbsyA
Honorable mentions:
Half-Life for introducing narrative driven gameplay to the FPS genre.
The Realm and Meridian59 for creating the first real MMOs
Dune II for creating the framework for the next 3 decades of RTS games