Massively

Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (1996)

Today, the MMO genre is even bigger in Asia than it is in North America or Europe. Many of the most colossal Asian MMO hits have come from companies in the small but financially and technologically formidable country of South Korea. A Korean company called Nexon pioneered in the Asian MMO frontier in 1996 with a game called Baramue Nara, on which the North American game Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds was closely based.

Nexus was (and is) a 2D game with an Anime-like art style and a Korean mythology motif. Players can level up to level 99, but they don't stop gaining experience; they can trade post-level-cap experience for specific attribute boosts. Players can also assume significant community roles ranging from judges to guides.

Nexus administrators began to use a strategy of sharing the hosting load between several servers -- something which is essential in today's huge MMORPGs. Nexus even set a record for simultaneous-logged-in-users in a single world at just over 12,000 in 1999. Think of it as the first EVE Online in that regard, if you want!

gamasutra.com

31/03/08