The Internet has changed drastically over the past 20 years, and that has affected how we experience online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the genre has lost some of its fascination over the decades. MeinMMO editor Karsten remembers his beginnings.
The world is changing. I feel it on the internet, I feel it in MMORPGs. Much of what once was is lost. Fortunately, one or two people who remember are still alive. And with this well-known quote from Leipzig, for a long time also known as Middle Earth (“cough”), my nostalgic trip into the past begins. Our target: the late 1990s.
Close your eyes and imagine a time when most people on the planet have never or only very rarely been online – according to the State Media Center, in 1997 just 6.5 percent of Germans aged 14 and over regularly used any online services.
No wonder: There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no TikTok, no MeinMMO. Good PCs were expensive. The same applied to the internet itself due to the lack of flat-rate offers. Every minute online drove up the monthly telephone bill. No fun with a slow telephone modem from back then (DSL or even fiber optics were still pure fiction).
Analogue multiplayer at your fingertips
Of course, back then I still played games on a wide variety of platforms and at every opportunity, together or against my friends. In my case, however, a multiplayer game was equivalent to couch or desktop co-op at the time: we sat together in front of a screen and shared the often sparse joysticks and controllers.
Later, we regularly hosted small Lan parties in a friend’s basement on weekends to play Diablo 2, Command & Conquer: Generals or Warcraft 3 up and down. But even then we were always offline.
My first online experience with games was probably sometime after 2002, with the sometimes great content that players had created in the powerful Warcraft 3 editor and made available via the Battlenet. Defense of the Ancients, anyone?!
The first online worlds are tempting
The genre of online role-playing games took off here in the West with classics like Meridian 59, The Realm Online (both 1996) or Ultima Online (1997) (and exotics like the roguelike Island of Kesmai from 1985 or Don Daglow’s Neverwinter Nights I’ll certainly go into 1991 and the various hits from Asia in more detail elsewhere).
Other important milestones followed, such as EverQuest, Asheron’s Call (both 1999), Dark Age of Camelot (for us 2002) or EVE Online and Star Wars Galaxies (both 2003). What do all of these games have in common? Well, they were gradually played by more and more players, but due to the framework conditions just described, they continued to only appeal to a very narrow target group.
The spread of fast and affordable Internet access in German private households only grew nationwide in the mid-2000s, from which World of Warcraft in particular, but also subsequent MMORPGs such as Lord of the Rings Online or Guild Wars, were to benefit. A corresponding number of fans of the genre experienced their personal “first time” with this generation.
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A magical moment that stays with you
Entering the world of an online role-playing game for the first time in these pioneering times was unforgettable. Sure, because you were online and could meet other player characters everywhere to go out together, fight each other or just chat (MMORPG chats were basically the predecessors of today’s social networks). In which other games was this possible back then?
But also because there was often a huge, persistent world waiting to be explored by the adventurers, in a time when games with large, open worlds were something special across genres (and if there was such a thing, it was often like Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, in randomly generated form).
My first time there was another component: As a big fan of Warcraft 3, it was eye-opening to see the universe known from the real-time strategy series – with all its races, classes and spells – in World of Warcraft from the third-person perspective for the first time experience. My jaw didn’t want to drop anymore.
By the way, I didn’t have a flat rate at that time. Instead, a tool called Smartsurfer found the cheapest internet tariff for me around the clock. This meant that the new, time-consuming hobby was affordable even for a poorly paid trainee with a small apartment.
Jump to the present
Follow me back to the 2020s. Today the Internet is significantly faster, cheaper and omnipresent. Kids grow up with smartphones and tablets, and with online games like Roblox, Minecraft, Pokémon Go or Fortnite.
In addition, there are now huge, open worlds across almost all genres. The same applies to the interaction between character progression typical of role-playing games, social features such as chats or guilds and group challenges such as dungeons and raids.
Just take any modern service game and you will find various elements in it that were only available in combination in online role-playing games for several years.
The fascination is fading
MMORPGs still potentially offer a unique gaming experience today, for example through the feeling of being part of a large community that can develop a wonderful social dynamic of its own on its home server and thereby create numerous memorable moments.
But you have to invest a lot of time to get to this point. Time that could also be spent playing other multiplayer games that unleash their pull much more quickly. If my sons try out their first MMORPGs in a few years, their “first time” will probably be very different than mine. Without the magic of back then.
In a way, that makes me a little sad because I like to think back to that time – and I know that the same goes for many other MMORPG fans who started with DaoC, UO, LOTRO and Co. back then. At the same time, of course, it is also clear to me that the young generation is experiencing their own first times, which are special and magical for them (and which I frown upon as an old man).
Memories of the golden era
As a nostalgic kicker, I have another humorous post for you on Reddit in which an MMORPG fan published a picture with numerous original packaging of old classics. Everquest appears, but also Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Final Fantasy XI, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars Galaxies and various more.
There are all sorts of exciting anecdotes in the comments under the post. A player remembers his time in the first Everquest: Quests were sometimes triggered by typing the correct sentence in the chat to NPC characters. Sounds absurd from today’s perspective, right?
Another Reddit user raves: “Star Wars Galaxies is, to this day, the most immersive game I’ve ever played. I immediately feel nostalgic. The game deserves a remake.” Hey, I’ll be there right away!
How do you view the golden era of online role-playing games and the MMORPG experience today? Do you also miss the magic of back then? Which online role-playing game did you have your first time with? Tell me in the comments. By the way, colleague Jasmin had problems at school thanks to her first MMORPG, but she has no regrets