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Massive multiplayers added two new aspects that make the form distinct and separate from its predecessors: graphics and size. In terms of size, massive multiplayers multiplied the access to MUDs. Parties ballooned in size to take on much larger challenges that can include upwards of ten players attacking a foe at once. It also meant worlds were subjected to considerably more volume, from the communication channels to the monsters, from treasure to the exchange system. This would prove problematic for MUDs scaling up. The one MMORPG that carried many MUD traits forward into the new format, EverQuest, did extremely well.

Graphics also changed gameplay. Combat had a graphical element over which players wanted more control because they could see the weapon swings and spell casting. It didn’t always work that way, of course, and it would take some time before massive multiplayers could provide that sort of interaction.

The environments were another design challenge. When water was rendered, players wanted to learn how to swim. Horses, a staple of role-playing games, led to mounts and pack animals. Better graphics especially affected spells; different forms of spell casting could have different visible effects.

Perhaps most affected by the graphics were the avatars themselves. Players wanted control over their height and weight, tattoos and clothing. This became most prevalent amongst female characters who were highly fetishized in appearance. How a character walked, jumped, bowed, and sat suddenly mattered in a way that had never been visualized before.

Combined, these two factors of graphics and size rocked the very foundation of the game servers they were built on. MUDs, which were so powerful on college servers, were sharply curtailed in scope precisely because networking power wasn’t up to the task of handling all the variables. Massive multiplayers have to contend with a multitude of calculations, from the weather to the terrain to the damage condition of every nonplayer character on screen. It’s a lot of load, and only recently have distributed servers over the Internet been up to the task.

Chris Perkins explained in Worlds and Monsters (Wilkes 2008:87) how the fourth edition was influenced by MMORPGs. According to Perkins, talent trees were a natural evolution of all fantasy game design. D&D was simply following the same path that other game developers had already trod. He does admit, however, that the D&D design team “learned a few things” from MMOs.

History

Perhaps the first first-person shooter was Maze War in 1974, created for the Imlac PDS-1 by Dave Lebling and Greg Thompson (Glenday 2008:184). Supporting up to eight players, this three-dimensional first-person game allowed characters to shoot one another in a vector-drawn maze.

In 1977, Moria was one of the first graphical MMORPGs. It offered a first-person, three-dimensional wireframe view of dungeons. Characters could work together in groups, but a large group could also be run by one player. There were only four stats in Moria: cunning, piety, valor, and wizardry. Each statistic was tied to the four guilds the player characters could join: thieves, brotherhood, knights, and wizards. Instead of hit points, Moria featured vitality, used in combat as well as other actions, and which was recharged only if the character had food and water on hand. Moria was noteworthy for its graphics at a time when MUDs were spreading, but it was confined to PLATO due to its proprietary programs (Barton 2008:33).

In 1979, Avatar was released by Bruce Maggs, Andrew Shapira, and David Sides at the University of Illinois. Avatar allowed up to ten different races and was modeled more closely on Dungeons & Dragons, including the standard six attributes. Avatar was noteworthy for allowing allowed up to 15 players to form parties and fight monsters as a team (Barton 2008:34).

In 1985, Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar of Lucasfilm created Habitat for the Commodore 64. It supported over 16 players at once. Habitat would coin the