The Gamebook Writers Who Nearly Invented the MMO

mr_sifter writes "In the 1980s, gamebooks were all the rage, and most geeks have read through a Fighting Fantasy novel or two. You might even have heard of Fabled Lands, arguably the most ambitious gamebooks ever — it was planned as a series of 12 books, each representing a different area of the world, and players could roam freely from book to book. It was completely non-linear, and unless you died, there was no way to finish. In 1996, the authors, Dave Morris and Jamie Thompson, hooked up with game developer Eidos and started work on what would have been a ground-breaking computer game version of their books — an MMO, in other words. Unfortunately, development hell awaited. This article tells the story of the game that could have been WoW before Warcraft."

Comments

WoW was not the first MMO.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article tells the story of the game that could have been WoW before Warcraft.

Gee, was WoW the first MMO? I think not.

Re:WoW was not the first MMO.

[rainmouse]

It is always annoying that people regard World of Warcraft as the first MMORPG, considering it was basically Blizzards own version of Everquest which was out years before and Everquest was just a 3d version of Ultima Online with added group mechanics (tank, DPS, healing and crowd control). I guess what is ever remembered is not who did it first, but who first did it right.

Re:WoW was not the first MMO.

[axjms]

Exactly! I always thought of MUD's as the very first MMOs with UO and Everquest simply being graphical MUD's. But perhaps there was something even before the MUD's and MOO's that I am unaware of.

I use to have a serious addiction to a MUD called Phantazm. I still remember the sound of my modem connecting in and then connecting to Phantazm via telnet. I swear to god it was like a rush of heroin. Those were the days.

First MMOs

[Reason58]

So they started to talk about an MMO in 1996? They already had MMOs on the market by then. Meridian 59.

Which aspect would they have been first for?

[HungryHobo]

MUDS and other games that involve everyone playing in the same massive persistent world at the same time have been around since the 80's.

There were some graphical games with large persistent games with lots of players in the same world before 1996.

I'm not so sure about 3d games if that's the specific title they're talking about.

misleading /. title, and astoundingly good timing

[sammyF70]

The author actually says in the article that Everquest and Asheron's Call were about or were already released (and by that measure, Meridian and Ultima Online must have been out already). He also says that he wrote this article because he was curious what happened to the game, which makes him a very gifted journalist for becoming curious just as 'An iPhone and iPad version of the Fabled Lands books is set for release this Summer" (picture caption on the 3rd page). Slashvertisement much?