Massively^™

I think as a defining moment for MMO's and my long tenure with them was the Kunark expansion for EQ. It was the first (of many) expansions for the game and it was a great expansion at that. It really opened up the EQ world and, to me, was the first time I became really into MMOS

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I have to toss in the Asheron's appearance in Asheron's Call as a defining moment. It's not often that a "god" appears in a game and fights the enemy.

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I would say the Crystal Wars in Asheron's Call. They made everyone decide if they wanted to defend or destroy the crystal and 1 server (out of 8) actually defended it night and day for the entire event (about a month) then the devs pulled some story characters out and called for the help of one of the only people with the dark shard (basically someone who swore allegiance to the enemy for power) to help destroy the crystal. There is a video of it I saw a while ago but AC is always overlooked because it only had about 13,000 subscribers at its peak. Everyone I know through out my MMO careers who have played AC agree in it's prime it was the most engaging MMO to date. It had a ongoing story...Things could change every month. I'm disapointed in all the MMO sites that don't acknowledge it. Just because you missed it doesn't mean it didn't exist. No offense intended.

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My first MMO (and only to this date unfortunately) was SWG. I definately agree with your addition. It turned a complex, interesting system of play into a game that 3 year olds would enjoy. Overnight. Right after they released a major expansion. /sigh

I loved that game so much...

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Nice list. Loved UO, was absolutely hilarious when Lord British was murdered. Was also sad to see Earth and Beyond go away, I enjoyed the actual gameplay more than the majority of MMOGs of its time.

Other defining moments of MMOG for me: Playing one of the first 3D MMORPGs, Meridian 59. It was a lesson in how a company can kill off its own subscription-based MMO: daily play charges. When they changed the pricing structure, this game cost $30/month if you were to play every day.

Also, the first time I learned I could escape the tyranny of "official servers" with private emulated servers.

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My own personal MMO defining moments was: DAoC Server, Gawaine, First Relic cap. We, Albion, captured all relics from Midgard and Hibernia at 3o'clock in the morning :D, only to come back next day in the afternoon to see we had a double front attack by hibs on the power relic, and mids on the str relic. So within in 24 hours being the strongest with all 6 relics to weakest with 0 relics :D

Those were the days :)

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My most influential MMOG moment was the Shard of the Herald event on Asheron's Call. The devs wanted to move the story forward with the unleashing of an imprisoned demon, but our server decided it would be best to keep that demon chained up! Partly because of lore reasons, but I think mostly because we could!

I think the devs intended there to be a battle for and against it, but I don't think they anticipated an entire month of us successfully protecting that crystal prison.

Before the patch that was scheduled to move the story forward, the developers logged in with several storyline characters and some uber-outfitted and buffed-up rebel players who had earlier pledged allegiance to this demon. The funniest part was a dev who had buffed himself up so much that the stat numbers had actually reset. I would have loved to seen his face when he died as soon as porting into that space. The attackers and devs eventually won, releasing the demon and paving the way for the new patch.

I remember some folks staying up all night in that cavern - random people would attack at odd times trying to throw a wrench in the plans. Other players would bring supplies so that it was manned 24/7. It was just an inspirational event - something totally unexpected and created by the players. The devs did what they had to do, and went about it the right way with using the ingame lore to justify the events rather than just shutting the server down for the patch and pretending everything was set.

That gets my vote.

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