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The Realm Online is still alive with a small close knit community. This game is so rich in history in the MMORPG any avid MMORPG player should play The Realm Online atleast once. This mid 90's game was owned by AOL and Sierra.
You will still find people chatting 24-7 on the realm, people still hunt and trade. Since the mid 1990's there hasnt been a time when the Realms heart wasnt ticking.
Anyone who can handle less graphics for sheer enjoyment will still like the realm. Build a reputation as a merchant or battle your way into a equipment seller.
I would love to see some older players come back and new ones too. It would really boost the community.
check out the free trial guys,
-Indestructible.
Comments
Sorry, it's not the first mmorpg as has been pointed out in your other thread.
Neverwinter Nights AOL ran from 1991 to 1997
Meridian 59 First launched online in an early form on December 15, 1995 and released commercially in September 1996 with a flat-rate monthly subscription
Furcadia December 16, 1996
The Realm Online December 31 1996
Ultima Online September 25, 1997
There ya go.
Realm Online is #4 on the totem pole. Might wanna change the thread totle so it's accurate.
Great early "MUD".
Toons-
Rage, OscarTheGrouch, Rudger, Sin
Played as Devvon. Good times for all.
It's gotten to the point where some MMOs have been reduced to little more than success dispensers. Don't think. Don't challenge yourself. Do as little as possible... but still be rewarded for it. Yeah.. *that's* fun.
-- WSIMike
Even if the person was right about "The Realm Online" being the fourth online game released. I would bet it was the First for a great many more people than the others PLUS it will always be first in my mind.
Knoiro
I beta tested all of those games. . including Furcadia sadly (no combat. . Whaaaat?). The Realm was the first one to open its doors as far as playable beta I beleive. NeverWinter Nights was more of the gold box games from SSI with a multiplayer component. I would agree that it was the first MMO though in a sense.
Also you missed Darksun Online 1995. . but that is more like NWN. . a single player game adapted for multiplayer.
The Realm and Meridian were the first games created to be MMOs that were available to the public without joining a network and I believe if you include betas The Realm was the first playable one. . even if it was only about 7 screens.
EDIT: Realm opened 1995 (beta) just before Meridian. . not sure where you got your stats from "deleted user"
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
yeah, NWN was the first graphical MMORPG.
The Realm was not fist out in December of 1996 like some people have claimed.
It was Released in march of 1995, even though it wasn't the first ever It's still active even now.
I started playing it in 1996 it was Realm 2.0 then, this game got me started in my online adventures.
Lets get a thousand people together and form a huge guild , who'se with me
Necrolicious!
The real first MUD as they where called before mmorpg's was Mazewar in 1974 .
I Just resigned back up with realm, dling it now, been gone awhile.
I miss this game. I remember playing realm 2.x when I was about 14, and I didn't have a credit card obviously so I was Demo3214 (random) until 3.x came out, and I convinced my older brother to get addicted to it so he could pay for the account. I remember the community part of it was awesome. I would hang out 1s in monmouth for a whole gaming session just BSing with people that were always there. TheKeeblerElf, Xanthe, Treefort.....man if all these people were still there I would go back in a heartbeat. I loved the SDM system, and the MDM system, and the fact that you could learn EVERY skill in the game, but your int actually had an effect on the speed at which you learned, and the power of the spells. They need to remake this game with 3d graphics. No ruleset changes....just graphics.....even keep the instanced combat (similar to final fantasy type games).
The Realm Online was my first MMORPG, I played it shortly before Planetside and SWG came out. I had read about MMORPGs because of these newer games and I was determined to try one while waiting for them to be released so I tried the Realm Online trial. It was really fun!! The graphics arent even that bad honestly.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Meridian 59 was really the first true MMORPG, it is the first game that used so many of the basic MMO mechanics that someone playing Rift (the latest released MMO) would recognize himself/herself.
MUDs were not really MMOs as such and have very little in coomon with modern MMOs. NWN is closer though, but it have very little in common with what we call MMOs today.
Still, M59 is also up and running so the title of the tread is true.
so I guess rift is a m59 clone, and not a wow clone then......that makes me hate m59 lol.
That would make it the oldest mmorpg that still exists, yes?
** edit **
Doh! Meridian 59 still exists apparently.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Again, The Realm first came out in march of 1995 and It is still going.
It did not first come out in December of 1996 like people keep saying, It was March of 1995.
Since most early Multi-User Dungeon weren’t exactly ‘massive’, they can’t be called MMORPGs. So which game was truly the first MMORPG ever? The answer is Neverwinter Nights (1991), which was also the first graphical MMORPG ever. The first text based MMORPG was a game called Legends of Future Past (1992), which was a surprisingly in depth game (crafting, events, skill based progression) for a text based title. Neverwinter Nights, like Island of Kesmai was an expensive game to play. Since the internet was still in its early form, Neverwinter Nights as well as all MMORPGs during the time, had to be distributed through proprietary networks like AOL and Compuserve. Neverwinter Nights was distributed through AOL and cost gamers a cool $6.00 per hour to play (That’s nearly $10 an hour adjusted for inflation)! Neverwinter Nights was a very successful MMORPG during its run. The game ran from 1991 to 1997 and boasted 115,000 players towards the end of its life cycle. The actually shut down due to disagreements between AOL and one of the game’s original developers TSR over future rights to the title. It’s worth mentioning though in its last year of service, the game became ‘free to play’ as bandwidth costs came down significantly since its original release.
Aside from Never Winter Nights, there are numerous other MMORPGs that were released before both Meridian59 and Ultima Online. Numerous other graphical MMORPGs came out after Neverwinter Nights trying to capture some of the success it had. The Shadow of Yserbius ran from 1992 to 1996 and was one of the more popular ones. Games like Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds (1996) and The Realm Online (1996) were in public beta before Ultima and Meridian. It’s also worth mentioning that Richard Gariott, the man behind Ultima Online and the Ultima Franchise, was the first person to actually ‘coin’ the term “MMORPG”. Both Ultima Online and Meridian59 have survived the test of time, as they’re both still running. On a side note the first few free to play MMORPGs were Tibia, RuneScape and MapleStory. Tibia was actually released before in Ultima Online in 1997, yet Ultima and Meridian59 usually get the credit for being the first MMORPGs.
I remember Treefort and Xanthe as well as Sin mentioned earlier in the thread. I also had fun playing with Desire, Stella, and Jumperr (and his whole clan). Good times!
You should add The Shadows of Yserbius if you are going to put AOL's NWN. You might as well add [url=http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html]Lucas Films Habitat[/url] in there long before AOL NWN
The problem is that those games existed before the term MMORPG came about. Where they could be called graphical muds back in the day.
Also, it could be argued that term MMORPG was originally discuss (Richad Garriott) as MASSIVE by having 500+ simultaneous connections to the game (single shard/world).
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I Remember Stella and Jumperr, and in Realm 2.x I remember Firelord to, I Remember pvping the Guild MoB as I was the leader of CoP, I remember KoP and LoR guilds to, fun times.
Awesome post.
LOK and Air Warrior were some of the popuilar ones that existed around the CServe/AOL/Genie era. Air Warrior had one of the coolest ads in online gaming.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Wow. Someone remembers. This was my favorite way back then....sniffle.
I just remembered the name of the "guild" I hated in The Realm.....MECH....you bastards.
MECH Guild is still in realm to LOL