[4] In the summer of 1994, representatives of AT&T's Interchange network pitched the idea of an advanced Dungeons & Dragons online game to Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI).

[5] Development was troubled; Andrew Park of GameSpot noted that Dark Sun Online "suffered from a lack of funds and time from the beginning".

The team modified the codebase of Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager to serve as a multiplayer client, which complicated software development during the process.

[citation needed] It was also vulnerable to hacking and cheating, with the code proving "ripe for manipulation" by users within weeks of its launch.

[3] In April 1997, Strategic Simulations released a major update for Dark Sun Online that separated the game into "Law" and "Chaos" regions, in reaction to trends of player behavior.

The former favored player-versus-environment collaboration, with light player-versus-player elements; TEN characterized the latter as "a hostile world in which trusted allies are extremely valuable and equally scarce".

[11] In July 1998, TEN "completed" Dark Sun Online with the release of version 2.5, which the game's producer said would be a "stable, consistent environment, free of troublemakers and full of events".

According to Total Entertainment Network, Dark Sun Online was the service's second-most-played title of 1997, and had garnered "close to one million player hours" from 1996 through December 1997.

[2] In 2000, Brett Robinson of PC PowerPlay characterized Dark Sun Online as part of "the first generation of MMORPGs", alongside titles such as The Realm and Meridian 59.

He argued, "with overly simple graphics and gameplay mechanics, these died quickly, and paved the way to the more successful second generation", which included games like Ultima Online and EverQuest.