|
When they say "Warcraft series", are they counting World of Warcraft? Because I do consider that to be an extremely important game, although it is not the first MMORPG to come out. Every MMO I have played since WoW came out has been very influenced by WoW (LotRO, Vanguard, Auto Assault), and it's a safe guess to assume that many MMO's to come out in the future will be based around the same style of gaming WoW is-- casual gaming with greater rewards for hardcore players.
But honestly, I can consider Zork to be one of the main games responsible for the creation of MMOs. It was a single player game, but it influenced MUDs to be created, and eventually MUDs spawned MMO's. Everquest was so similar to the DikuMUD lib that there were rumors that Everquest stole code from Diku MUDs, which was a pretty absurd notion at the time (and especially now). I also think that persistent worlds are going to become a lot more common over the years, and while all being pay-to-play, there will be a huge selection of game ato play. This mainly has to do with how common the MMO market has become, and the fact that PC developers are focusing more on online based games on PC because they get more sales. (You have to have a CD-key to play online)
|