Most significant online/multiplayer games?

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Roxianna

I dunno if you would really tolerate those long corpse run and travel difficulties these days--they didn't go over so well with Vanguard.

I thought you like the travel in VG?

[MaeveAlleine]

1.) Ultima Online: the game that defines the genre

2.) Everquest: the game that brought 3-D to the genre

3.) Second Life: demonstrates how popular user-created content in an uncensored world can be

4.) Star Wars Galaxies: the first to build in-game roles for pure socializers as well as set the bar for crafting and game economy (of course before they fucked it all up)

5.) Dark Age of Camelot: Brought realm vs realm PVP that allowed care bears and pvp'ers to exist together in harmony.

[tekhedd]

If you say "significant", you eliminate a lot of the games I like.

I keep thinking "dikumud". And then I think "Ew". But, hey, you asked. The hard coded warts in that code base established the conventions of a thousand quickly-hacked-together little worlds.

The hard coded stuff in early MUDS brought us my pet peeve of all RPG features: the level cap.

[edit] Let me also cast my vote for Diablo II

[DorlasEdrahil]

UO, EQ, DAOC, Starcraft, CS, Doom/Quake/UT and WoW ofc. Awww...blast it, what Hysteria said....

EDIT: erm , maybe Diablo/2 or Battle.Net in general...

[jimmakos]

1)Unreal tournament-my best ever online adrenaline boost,still does.endless nights of sweating & drinking beers
2)Quake2-3 full addicted 10 years ago.2nd beloved fps after Unreal
3)Rainbow 6 Rogue Spear & Vegas-best co-op online.i spent thousands hours testing with friends many many new maps.endless game
4)WoW-everyone knows how addicted you become with this 'drug' game.finally stopped it after 2 years of play ......to continue with:
5)LOTRO-this game rules.amazing story to tell us,amazing graphics.i think its the new king

[Cliver]

Mmo Games I had been are

1) Ultima Online*
2) Anarchy Online
3) Starwars Galaxies*
4) Ragnarok Online
5) World of warcraft*
6) D&d Online

Uo&Wow are the best so far, Swg was fine till they destroyed it, AO's creator was a disaster game was a bug heaven from beginning till to the end, Ro is fun but repeating game =P, D&d was fun but there wasnt many things to do.

Beside these,
Diablo1-2
Starcraft
Starwars Battlefront
Nwn1-2

[Ripper]

I believe that Shadowrun should be included somewhere in the list for letting gamers play together on different platforms.

[Abdo]

It is very hard to do a list of top 10 influential multiplayer games, and I think it may be better to make a list for MMORPG, and a list for FPS because each genre is so unique and had so many influential games, you could also include one for RTS games, but it would be comprised of Blizzard games and the C&C series.
MMORPG's:
UO: really is the father of MMORPGs
MUD's in general: the Grandfather of MMORPGs
Everquest: come on it used to be called evercrack, that says something
WOW: made MMORPGs really financially successful
Guildwars: popular without a monthly fee, wow
Diablo/Diablo 2: people loved this game an it really introduced a lot of people to online gaming.
I haven't played DAOC or Starwars galaxies so I can't say how influential they were.
FPS:
Doom most influential FPS period,without it the genre may never have become popular
Counterstrike: come on it has to be on here
Battlefield series/ Unreal series: revolutionized large sized FPS battles
not as big a fan of FPS so I can't contribute as much

I agree that Shadowrun may prove to be influential it is too early to tell, it is also highly probable that one of the MMORPGs coming out this year will prove to massivly influential, my moneys on AoC but it could be any of them.

[TheHedgeWizard]

Well, I won't go into much detail, but here goes... (no specific order)

-Counterstrike
-Diablo I and II
-Starcraft
-Halo
-Warcraft 1,2, and 3
-Ultima Online
-Everquest
-LotRO (I have a gut feeling this will be huge, after all it will evolve).
-Many more, but those are some good ones...

[Grimjakk]

1. FighterDuel: Zero vs. Corsair - An Amiga game... extremely realistic flight and damage models. Multiplayer was done via dialup (9600 baud, baby!), and Jaegersoft ran a ladder tournement via email. One of the first serious competition flight sims.

2. AirWarrior - I cringe remembering the amount of cash (hourly fee!) I forked out to GEnie and Kesmai playing this one...

3. Quake/Quakeworld - the first large scale FPS community. And no hourly fee! (best mention Quakespy and the CTF mods too.)

4. Quake2 - brought new levels of polish to the whole experience.
(3WCTF and Loki's Minion CTF were my two favorite mods...)

5. UO - the rockiest launch I'd ever witnessed... of course we didn't have a lot to compare it to, but I'm afraid they really lowered the bar for MMORPG launches going forward.

6. Team Fortress - practically created the "team FPS" genre whole cloth. Tribes and Counterstrike both owe a lot to this community created mod.

7. Everquest - some might say it was just DikuMud with a 3D front end... but it was the first mass market MMORPG. (And TeamPvP ruled... until Kunark came out, anyway.)

8. Warcraft/Starcraft/Battlenet - Set the standard for online RTS communities.

9. DAOC - In some ways, for me, it was "Everquest Done Right". RvR was a unique approach to the "endgame" dilemma that causes so much mud-flation in Online RPG's. (It was also one of the smoothest MMORPG launches to date, and raised the bar back to an acceptable level.)

10. SWG - Succeded (mostly) in creating the type of "sandbox" game that UO wanted to be when it grew up. With the WoW inspired "New Game Experience", it might no longer deserve a place here, except that it provides a poignant example of how Devs can lose control of their own world... to the point of wiping the slate clean and starting over. One word: Jedi.

11. World of Warcraft - although I find the game boring and simplistic, no one can deny the impact of Blizzard's creation on the market.