1. UNIT 01 AO1
INVESTIGATE AND EXPLAIN HOW DIFFERENT GENRES HAVE DEVELOPED
FOR CONTRASTING MEDIA PRODUCTS
History of RPG’s & MMORPG’s
RPG stands for Role Playing Games, and MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Games.
In the 70's, the first modern MMORPG's came around, for example Mazewar was released
on Imlac PDS-1 in 1974, and was one of the earliest examples of a First-Person Shooter.
The players move in tile-based movement, turning right of left in 90-digrees.
In the 1996, Meridian
59 was released as the
first 3D MMORPG
ever. It was one of the
worst games where you
paid a flat monthly
payment to play online.
It was developed by
Archetype Interactive
and published by 3DO.
Soon after many other RPG producing companies brought
their own games live to the internet. Soon second generation
MMORPG's were introduced and gaming was revolutionised
by insanely addictive games which were far more advanced that any other online games.
Anarchy online is an example of a
large grossing MMORPG, it was
released in 2001 for PC and was
favoured mostly for its PVP (Player
Versus Player) game style. Games
such as Anarchy online had many
issues with handling the huge player
base. Upon the release of Anarchy,
other games such as EverQuest and
Lineage II were released and
competing against each other in the
market MMORPG market.
Lewis Moran

2. EverQuest II was released in 2004 by
Sony Entertainment and was expected to
dominate the market because of its
original EverQuest games popularity. But
Blizzard Entertainment soon after released
their new hit game, World of Warcraft
which soon became the most subscribed
MMORPG to be made, at one point it had
over 13 million subscribers and no game
could compete with it, World of Warcraft
is still played today, almost 8 years on and
its reputation is still stampeding the
market, due to its consistency, given by its Expansions and updates.
Lewis Moran