The Most Important Multiplayer Games Ever

Gamasutra's 'Quantum Leap' awards roll on, with game developers voting in the titles they see as the most important multiplayer titles ever made. These are non-massive multiplayer games that significantly advanced the pastime of playing videogames with other people. Some of the listed games are gimmes (Goldeneye, Tribes), but I thought an Anonymous submitter's comment about humble Pokémon was interesting: "Tajiri-san's introduction of the collect and trade concept opened the eyes of every developer, all of whom previously believed multiplayer was either head-to-head or cooperative. What Pokémon created with this breakthrough concept was a true sense of community centered about a game - a kinship among people which transcended the immediate game environment. With the inclusion of real-world Pokémon merchandise, and a constant flow of new, wicked-cute characters, it was easy for anyone to embrace the Pokémon lifestyle...not that I would ever admit to it." Any multiplayer classics you'd add to the list?

Re:How about Pong?

[pl1ght]

I think that list is fine, as long as they remembered to include Quake and Quake 3, i wouldnt argue about any other titles missing. While i know the Quake series really didnt attract everyone, quake 1 at least was really the first p2p via the internet fps to really just blow up the community. Quake 3 then brought legitmacy to professional gamers and the hard work that goes into becoming the best. While there may be "better" games not listed, few influenced the community as a whole as quake 1 and quake 3 did.

Re:Here we go...

[Richard Steiner]

Sure it did, both via modem, and directly using a nullmodem cable.

My own uninformed opinions

[ReverendLoki]

I have a few that I don't see on the list...

• StarCraft - Not much needs to be said here. It took a lot of what already existed in RTS gaming and gave it multiplayer. Also of note is the fact that it managed to decently balance non-identical sides. As for overall impact, just look at what it's added to the multiplayer lexicon. Paired with Battle.net gave it a distinct leg up for finding other players over C&C or AoE or the like.
• Team Fortress Classic - There are many many great HL mods out there, a number of which you could pick out for this list, including the infamous favorite Counter-Strike and one of my favorites, Natural Selection (balanced disparate teams, and probably the first to combine FPS and RTS wel). But I really like TFC, so I'm gonna talk about it instead. It had the kit system like Tribes, but without the learning curve. I could join a game of TFC for a quick half-hour of enjoyment - in some other games, a half hour is about what it takes to get to your enemy. It balanced simplicity and strategy well.
• Dungeons and Dragons - OK, not necessarily a computer game, but still. It's influence on computer games has been incredible. A major inspiration behind nethack, almost all of the MUDS in the world, and who knows how many other dungeon crawling games.

But that's just my opinions. Not like I'm pulling down that high "games journalist"kind of scratch here...

Re:Here we go...

[PingSpike]

It also had native IPX network support, and later on...it could be played with a TCP/IP wrapper on the internets! I used to play those dos games on kali over my 14.4 modem back in the day!

Re:Here we go...

[jandrese]

There was also a hack that allowed you to get up to 4 people in a deathmatch over the serial ports (and maybe a modem), by daisy chaining the computers together with null modem cables. It required that two of the computers have two serial ports (not a given in those days), but it worked quite well.

Of course there was always the jerk who wanted to join the game with his 486SX25 and kill everybody's frame rates. :(

Re:How about Pong?

[Grey Ninja]

I always thought that Spacewar [wikipedia.org] was the first, made in 1961. But it appears that the oscilloscope Pong [wikipedia.org] predates it, being made in 1958. OXO would be the first game, but Pong would be the first multiplayer game. But the first consumer multiplayer game... would be Computer Space [wikipedia.org]

Re:How about Pong?

[WhodoVoodoo]

I tend to agree, though the difference is that the original Quake spawned a huge online, multiplayer, and modding community by virtue of being timely, expandable, and versatile as hell as well as eventually giving to the greater community through the release of the source code. Also 3 years before Unreal. The article is referring to that aspect of the game. CTF, and RA are the big ones, but even a veeeery early Counterstrike relative was created on Quake, called Gooseman's Guns/Navy Seals. Refer to this interview here [firingsquad.com]

Quake definitely ignited the online FPS phenomenon, even though UT certainly refined it quite significantly, quake is responsible for countless mods, still played in some form to this day, the half-life franchise was built on the engine (as well as countless other games on Id engines) and who can forget The Adventures of Dank and Scud [pk.edu.pl]?

I'm uncertain about this, but I believe Quake was also the first game able to take advantage of consumer video cards for hardware acceleration.

Re:TA

[Richard Steiner]

Nah... Infinite movement/build/order queueing, semi-autonomous air units that are smart enough to repair themselves when they reach a certain damage threshold, open map and unit formats that make it easy for third parties to create new resources, and a rock-paper-scissors approach that makes typical swarm/rush attacks ineffective against a good opponent.

It's very different in feel and gameplay from C&C.

Check out TA Spring [clan-sy.com] sometime, BTW...

The very first MUD

[Wrataxas]

This is a true groundbreaker. It is still alive here [british-legends.com]. Developed at Essex University in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle [wikipedia.org].