Aion: The Tower of Eternity

PvPvEvMe?

Source // MobyGames

I don't have the biggest history with MMORPGs, another genre that I run screaming from, come to think of it. These days though, MMORPGs that have found a spot in the 1001 list have likely been refined to the point where I'm not tearing my hair out trying to play them, and probably have free-to-play entry points for us newcomers to dive into.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is the next challenger to try and show the world that you don't have to play World of Warcraft like everybody else, and it's still going a decade later, so let's find the download button and get going.

Guild Wars

"Prove your worth in a world where skill decides victory"

Source // MobyGames

All the social interaction we learned from Façade can already be put to use in MMORPG Guild Wars, where players go through a fantasy world, slaying monsters and levelling up and all that cool stuff without endless queues of random strangers with weird names turning in the same quests to the same NPC.

Wait, what? So where's the interaction then?

World of Warcraft

I take all candles.

The time has come. How do I tackle World of Warcraft, the biggest MMORPG on the planet, a genre I don't really care for and can't see myself playing?

I guess we dive right in? It has a free-to-play offering up to level twenty. Shall I actually give it the time to get to level twenty, instead of dipping my toes in and running away to more familiar waters at the slightest hint of unease? I suppose it is World of Warcraft. Like, the World of Warcraft. I can't just sweep that aside, can I?

EverQuest II

Neverending quest, perhaps?

There must be something to be said for MMORPGs that still have a presence more than fifteen years on after the initial release. To maintain a fanbase with a constant flow of patches and updates and content to keep players engaged year after year requires quite a lot of effort, I'm sure.

But for all the Free to Play incentives to draw new players in, can you even get into MMORPGs that are this old? Does the gameplay still hold up? Is it even the same gameplay as it was a decade and a half ago? What does an old title offer that a newer title doesn't?

As usual, I've no idea how to answer any of that, but we'll be asking it of the next must-play according to the 1001 list, EverQuest II.

EVE Online

You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.

Space. The final frontier. It has been tackled in gaming since the birth of video games. You've been able to fly spacecraft and shoot down your enemies in dogfights for decades. You've even been able to take a much more peaceful route through the galaxy, trading to and from resource-rich planets to further your galactic goals.

Elite was released in the mid-1980s and allowed players to do what they wanted in their galaxy. Twenty years later, EVE Online expanded the horizon quite a bit, allowing players to utterly destroy hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of ships in battles so significant that the entire in-game economy, and perhaps even the political landscape of the user-created factions, is forever altered as a result.

There are single-player games, there are massively multiplayer online games, and then there is EVE Online, and I am most definitely in awe of what I'm seeing.

RuneScape

Just a few seconds...

The MMORPG. Will I ever be interested in this genre? The next title to see if it can wow me is RuneScape. The only thing I know about RuneScape is that you ought to run and escape it. Thanks, Internet. Real helpful.

You are whoever you want to be in a simple, graphical, multi-user dungeon. The text adventures of the past are now the graphical adventures of the future in this free to play, no download needed, world of questing with your friends and a whole load of strangers too.

It's been some 18 years since its release at the time of writing, so playing it is a little different nowadays. RuneScape Classic was available until around this time last year, before being shut down for good, which leaves me with the closest playable version of the original game, Old School RuneScape, recreating the game from around 2007. It'll do. After all, I don't expect to be spending ten years in this game catching up with the community...

Phantasy Star Online

"We all play games, why don't we play together?"

Online titles are a tricky one for me and this blog. Trying to play versions as close to the original release as possible is one thing, but to try and play online titles in a world where twenty years has since past, the servers are long gone and only the most dedicated of players have set up some kind of alternative to keep their memories alive is another thing entirely.

I read that Phantasy Star Online is still, depending on where and how hard you look, online. That should be what I aim for, but I want instead to fire up that Dreamcast original, which has an offline mode, because its the Dreamcast that this game was built for.

Online games existed. MMORPGs existed. But they didn't exist in a manner that console players could get to grips with on an actual console, and this is where action RPG Phantasy Star Online comes in.

Will I miss the networked nature of this tale?

EverQuest

Don't forget: You're here forever.

If you're thinking 'isn't it a little late to be playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game first released in 1999?', know that you're correct. It is a little late to be playing EverQuest so long after it's launch, but this game is still up and running and free to play for new players going back through the history of video games to see what the must-play titles are.

Because there is literally no other reason to play it.

Ultima Online

A Muhmorpuhger, you say?

Ever since playing Dungeons & Dragons with a group of school friends a long time ago, I've enjoyed role-playing games. They come in many, many forms, of course, and there are highlights of this gargantuan genre in both physical and digital media. But of all the many ways you can play roles in games, I've never gotten into the MMORPG.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. It's a mouthful, and it was a term used to describe Ultima Online, the next step for the already pretty damn big Ultima series.

Now, I didn't have the best of times with the previous Ultima entries on this 1001 list, and I'm not expecting anything different here, but I have to say up front that it must be doing something right to still have players twenty years after its initial release, and credit to whoever deserves credit here, but you can play a trial version with your choice of client, including the original.

All I need now is dial-up internet.