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What MMO (either old, new, closed) had/has the most unique world?
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
As title says...what MMO has or had the most unique world? A world not seen in movies, nor seen in any games. A world filled with things not found in other games...dragons...orcs...elves...nearly every fantasy game and books have those.
My list (no particular order)
1. Asheron's Call. Not a single thing was taken from fantasy (well no fantasy I know of)...all unique. Every monster in the game was found (and still is not) in any other game, MMO or singleplayer. No dragons, orcs, elves or any of that typical fantasy.
2. Ryzom. Like Asheron's Call...and maybe even more so...this world is very unique. And it isn't just because the animals and races and lore are unique. But the world itself is...the inhabitants live on a giant plant...on top of that...it has very unique environment mechanics . Herbivores go up to you, examine you, pee on you, cower before you...carnivores attack the herbivores...herbivores gather into groups and defend themselves against said carnivores...and animals migrate. Never seen any other MMO do that.
Now, I never played Anarchy Online...and while it was the first MMO to do an actual sci-fi world...I'm not sure if it truly is unique in the game world (mmo or not). I never got into it (was still into AC). However, I'll put it down...since a sci-fi alien world, is rather unique in the MMO world. And sci-fi games in general, tend to be really unique.
I'm sure there are more...but a quick scan through the game forums list, and nothing pops out at me. So, feel free to share your experiences with unique MMO game worlds. 
That being, ones not found in any other game. Bonus points if the game doesn't take everything from a book...which isn't very unique really. Still, if it does come from a book...no harm in that...unless it has dragons, orcs, elves and all that jazz, since that definitely makes it not unique :P
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https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Comments
My other would be tsw
Technically it is not an mmo because the explorable areas were all instanced... but it is on the game list of mmorpg so my pick is:
"Tyria" of "Guild Wars" that is one of the most diverse game worlds that I have ever seen, every expansion had many, exotic locations to explore.
Here is a site that has screenshots and descriptions of every area in the game.
Asheron's Call was amazinly unique. Just about all of it was foreign from traditional fantasy.
Dark Age of Camelot was slightly unique, in that almost all of its mobs, characters, and flavor came from obscure real world mythology. Albion had a lot of extremely obscure Welsh myths, as well as little known Green and Roman stories about England.
Finally, while not the most unique game world out there, Vanguard deserves a mention because it is the most fully realized game world in an MMO to date. It was very clearly made by master craftsmen, I don't think we'll ever see a game world like it in an MMO again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmw9IEw0hU0
Grid and Fixer Grid are quite unique stuff,and something that everybody should visit atleast once in a lifetime.
Let's internet
I'm gonna throw out Aion for the walking mushrooms and plant mobs, the aerial combat and harvesting nodes in the sky, and the many strange and colorful creatures.
And a shout-out for TSW for NOT being sci-fi/fantasy.
Probably have to agree with Ryzom. To be honest, it was unique enough to irritate me, I felt like I didn't have a frame of reference when it came to the flora and fauna.
TSW by a long shot.
Also Firefall beta. Amazing.
I'll go with Asheron's Call as well. Both Ryzom and Chronicles of Spellborn have/had very unique settings and creatures, but AC and AC2 really went all-out for a fantasy world with a completely new set of mobs and backstory. AC2 also had some very original classes back in the day, like the Hivekeeper.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I would go with Ryzom as well.
Unique fantasy/sci-fi mix, a planet made out of organic materials. In fact that game was too unique to draw a large population (and had the bad fate to release close to WoW and EQ2 and thus was completely overshadowed by these two big-budget games).
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I automatically thought Ryzom too.
"most unique" .. that is a oxymoron.
You know what "unique" means, right? Every MMO world is unique.
Final Fantasy 11
played M59,UO,lineage,EQ,Daoc,Entropia,SWG,Horizons,Lineage2.EQ2,Vangaurd,Irth online, DarkFall,Star Trek
and many others that did not make the cut or i just plain forgetting about.
yeah i know what he means. Just can't resist playing word police this once.
Just want to say that on a technical level Minecraft wins this hands down with millions of seeds and every seed being 9.3 million times the surface of the Earth.
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/World
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
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