1988-1998 Offline to Online
My early PC gaming was mainly roguelikes, I played Moria which was a freeware game made in the 80s using ASCII and later stolen by Blizzard Entertainment when they made Diablo 1 and 2 (which is somehow considered an MMO). I also played other sci-fi/fantasy RPGs such as D&D games made by SSI and sci-fi games made by Interplay. Though it was Id games that would eventually put me online. They made Wolfenstein-3D, Doom, and Quake most notably. Quake was the game that really became popular online entertainment. Though it was not massively-multiplayer, services like Quakespy (later Gamespy, a massive gaming community) connected thousands upon thousands of players, inspired guilds, and the communities I was a part of in the mid/late nineties.
1998-2008 Online
Ultima Online (1999/2000). A friend of mine sold me on UO because of its fantasy role-playing and open-ended player interaction. I wanted a place to grief, but I found that by the time I got to it, UO had restricted it's PvP system immensely and the community was deteriorating.
Graal Online (2000/2001). I don't know how I found it, but I played it because I could grief, it was a knock-off of the SNES Zelda series, and had a unique community. Graal had a scripting system that allowed players to create any item, weapon, room feature, or building they could imagine; the developers did this because they needed new content fast before Nintendo sued them for stealing sprites, and the player-base created nearly all of the Graal world. This created a strong community of tech-savvy users but shortly after I arrived the administration made moves to make money that restricted players' access to the game. This created a revolt of tech-savvy Graalians and the Anti-Graal movement which became notorious for protest, hacking, stealing programs, and inspiring the management to embarrass themselves while arguing with teenagers. The movement culminated with one user gaining control of the web/game servers stealing a copy of the server and inducing panic, some time later the movement dissolved after a period of inactivity and the release of an opensource server made from a dissassembled copy of the stolen Graal server.
Realms of Kaos (2001)
I played this briefly, it was GMUD and like clockwork the administration decided to charge for certain game activities that wrecked the game's balance and never amounted to enough money to revamp the inadequate servers. Then my IP range was blocked for reasons I can only imagine mean that someone in my range did something bad.
Nightmist (2001-present).
Nightmist was another GMUD that was created in response to Realms of Kaos' failings. Since I joined at the ground-floor, I enjoyed the success of the game and a growing community until prolonged decline set in. After that, I kept active in the game, but my focus became more related to studying the effects of the decisions and possible remedies. At its zenith, it boasted an average of 100-150 players (good for an obscure MUD competing against 3D MMOs), but the population and economy was left untended while interaction was restricted and it now averages much less.
Period of wandering (2003-2008).
The last five years I've been playing different MMOs as time allows, but run against the usual pitfalls. MU Online, a korean hack-n-slash was fun but the grind was immense and there was little else to do. Goonzu Online was another korean beta I played which had an impressive market and crafting system but little else (aside from a terrible grind). ShadowBane was not terribly different although it did have an interesting PvP system. I tried Project Entropia (now Entropia Universe I believe), and quickly realized it was a glorified slot machine. Overall I tried a dozen or more MMOs but found problems more than anything else, but all the while tried to study them and assess why they were popular at the time and why they all became unpopular later on.
It doesn't have to be that long, just as long as it takes to get the ideas across. Since this idea just happened this week and I won't have a planning meeting until I have responders and information to plan with I can't predict what will come of this but I decided that this community was best for me to ask because I still know a good many of you guys and feel that you have more contribute in terms of diversity than an open-call at gaming sections of mega-forums or something like that. You can either email them to me at fted@bgsu.edu or post them in this thread along with your email as a contact.
To summarize: please help me! I need to do something that might impress the MIT Comparative Media Studies dept. before I graduate in May!
