It's still relatively early in the year, but the 2013 inductees for "The 2013 MMO Hall of Fame" have already been chosen. A total of five new games have been inducted today, joining the 20 games that have already entered the MMO pantheon.
The 2013 MMO Hall of Fame inductees are:
- RuneScape
- Asheron's Call
- Dark Age of Camelot
- City of Heroes
- Meridian 59
According to Doug Kale, director of the MMO Hall of Fame, each of theses games "set their mark in their respected area of massively multiplayer online games." It's hard to think of some of these games as "hall of famers" in the general sense, though, especially when many player may not have of say a game like Meridian 59. Much like Dune is to RTS games, Meridian 59, released in 1996, is credited as the first 3D graphical MMO game. Ever. Though it's now older than a fair bit of today's gaming audience, like Dune, the game has also experienced a bit of a resurgence in recent years since the game is now free to play.
On the flipside, City of Heroes' induction is easier to understand. After developer Paragon Studios was accquired by NCSoft, who promptly announced plans to shut both the game and the developer down, gamers took a cue from their online alter egos, and started a massive undertaking to save the game. Clearly, there's more than one way for a game to "set the standard in the gaming field."
The Hall of Fame's newest inductees join the substansial list of games below:
- Toontown Online (2003)
- Guild Wars (2005)
- MapleStory (2004)
- Planetside (2003)
- Second Life (2003)
- EverQuest II (2004)
- Anarchy Online (2001)
- Puzzle Pirates (2003)
- Club Penguin (2005)
- Dungeons & Dragons (2006)
- Lord of the Rings Online (2007)
- The Realm Online (1996)
- Nexus (1996)
- Habbo (2000)
- Lineage 2 (2004)
- Travian (2004)
- Ragnarok Online (2002)
- Shadcowbane (2003)
- City of Villains (2005)
- Dofus (2005)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (2007)