History of online games
Additionally, the wide area network ARPANET further developed from its 1969 roots, led to the creation of the Internet on January 1, 1983.
In 1972, PLATO IV terminals with new graphics capabilities were introduced, and students started using this system to create multiplayer games.
One of the most important of these was MUD (1978), a program that spawned a genre and had significant input into the development of concepts of shared world design, having a formative impact on the evolution of MMORPGs.
In 1984, networking capabilities were added by connecting two machines using serial cables just as had been done with the IMLACs for Mazewar at NASA eleven years earlier.
Next, XNS support was added, allowing multiple stations to play over an Ethernet, just as with the Xerox version of Mazewar.
In 1986, UDP support was added (port 5130), making SGI Dogfight the first game to ever use the Internet protocol suite.
It was the first online arcade game to be demonstrated, with two separate OutRunner four-player cabinets connected in Tokyo and Osaka via an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) operated by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).
[9] In 1986, MIT and DEC released the X Window System, which provided two important capabilities in terms of game development.
A number of workstation graphics systems existed, including Bell Labs' BLIT, SGI's IRIS GL, Carnegie Mellon's Andrew Project, and Sun's NeWS, but X managed over time to secure cross-platform dominance, becoming available for systems from nearly all workstation manufacturers, and coming from MIT, had particular strength in the academic arena.
[10] By 1989 Simson Garfinkel reported that on MIT's Project Athena, "Games like 'X-tank' and 'X-trek' let students at different workstations command tanks and starships, fire missiles at each other as fast as they can hit the buttons on their mice, and watch the results on their graphics displays".
Service bureaus such as Tymshare (founded 1966) dedicated to selling time on a single computer to multiple customers sprang up.
In 1979, two time-sharing companies, The Source and CompuServe, began selling access to their systems to individual consumers and small business; this was the beginning of the era of online service providers.
While an initial focus of service offerings was the ability for users to run their own programs, over time applications including online chat, electronic mail and BBSs and games became the dominant uses of the systems.
For many people, these, rather than the academic and commercial systems available only at universities and technical corporations, were their first exposure to online gaming.
[citation needed] In 1984, CompuServe debuted Islands of Kesmai, the first commercial multiplayer online role playing game.
Islands of Kesmai used scrolling text (ASCII graphics) on the screen to draw maps of player location, depict movement, and so on; the interface is considered Roguelike.
It featured several graphical multiplayer online games, including T&E Soft's Daiva Dr. Amandora and Super Laydock, Telenet Japan's Girly Block, and Bothtec's Dires.
It is considered a forerunner of the modern MMORPGs and was quite unlike other online communities (i.e. MUDs and MOOs with text-based interfaces) of the time.
Five network-enabled games were developed for the system, including a graphical, competitive online multiplayer version of Yamauchi's favorite classic, Go.
Players work their way up a series of ranks, each of which has a slightly more rewarding and interesting but difficult job attached, which culminates in the ownership of one's own "duchy", a small solar system.
[15] In 1995, Nintendo released the Satellaview, a satellite modem for the Super Famicom in Japan only after partnering up with St.GIGA, that gave the console online multiplayer gaming.
[16] The late 1990s saw an explosion of MMORPGs, including Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds (1996), Ultima Online (1997), Lineage (1998), and EverQuest (1999).
It, however, came dead last in competing with the likes of the upcoming Xbox and the now icon of modern gaming, the PlayStation 2, both in sales and online impact.
