What was the first raid in MMORPG history?

MMORPGs have been around for several decades. But which online role-playing game actually had the very first raid challenge? MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz went looking for clues for you.

You probably remember exactly which MMORPG you took part in your first raid in and what the challenge is called. For me it was the Molten Core from World of Warcraft sometime in spring 2005, and among the 39 fellow combatants there were a few Azeroth newcomers who had not yet reached the maximum level 60. “Happy wiping” was the credo of the first evening.

But which MMORPG had the first raid? Who did pioneering work and who was just clever? In order to find an answer to these questions, I went looking for clues again for you. By the way, my last trivia article was about the question of why certain game characters are actually called Twink, Toon or Alt?

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Where does the term “raid” come from and what does it mean?

If you search for “Raid” in the MeinMMO lexicon, you will find the following:

“A raid in PvE means tackling a special instance, a raid instance, that requires more than just a group of players. In PvP, a raid is usually an attack on a particularly well-protected enemy target that requires the concerted cooperation of several groups. As a rule, you can say: Raid means everything for which you need more than around 8 players and which requires greater coordination.”

The term “raid” comes from the military or police sector, where the term is used to describe a sudden attack (e.g. on a drug ring) or the capture of an enemy target (via dictionary.com).

When was the first “raid” in an MMORPG?

The first part of the report on the history of MMORPGs was about the multi-user dungeon (MUD for short) from the late 1970s, the 80s and early 90s, which are considered the forerunners of the first 3D MMORPGs.

One of the later MUDs was the text-based role-playing game DikuMUD by some students from Copenhagen, which appeared in 1991 and established many elements that were later used by various well-known MMORPGs.

For example, on his website, veteran developer Raph Koster (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest II) describes (via raphkoster.com) that DikuMUD already has it

Who was first inspired by DikuMUD? When the first EverQuest was released in March 1999, it didn’t offer raid content in addition to the huge game world, 14 classes, twelve races, guilds and much more, but that was to follow in October 2002 – a first for the still young 3D MMORPG -Story. A coincidence?

Nope! There was even almost a lawsuit because there was an accusation that the EverQuest developers were a little too inspired by DikuMUD (and even copied some of the code). A final statement can still be found on the official DikuMUD website:

“The DIKU Group is proud that the DIKU feeling has found its way into such an entertaining and award-winning game like EverQuest.”

What kind of raid was that in EverQuest? In October 2002, “The Planes of Tower”, the fourth expansion of the MMORPG, was released. It was aimed at high-level players and, among other things, brought the raid challenge “Plane of Time” to Norrath, in which a whopping 72 players had to work together to be successful.

The participants expected six time-critical phases, with five different tests having to be mastered in the first phase (with a maximum of 18 characters being allowed to take part in one test). In phase 2, several waves of enemies should be defeated in three areas.

Phase 3 then combined all areas to send eight more waves at players, including some bosses. Then came the “first big challenge”, at least according to this guide on raspersrealm.com. With Saryn, Terris Thule, Vallon Zek and Tallon Zek, the raid had to overcome several bosses – fortunately not at the same time, but in any order.

After the lower gods, phase 5 saw the encounter with the higher gods Bertoxxulous, Innoruuk, Cazic Thule and Rallos Ze. The final was then crowned by the fight against Obermotz Quarm. The EverQuest developers made an impressive statement with their first raid. You can find more trivia here: Why is the loot always white, green, blue, purple and gold?