[marginalia_nu]

I remember about 20 years ago there was a (IIRC) Java Applet-based multiplayer clone of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was sort of a forerunner the to MMORPGs we see today. It changed names to Graal Online because of the lawyers.

Thinking back to it, it was really ahead of its time, not only because it was massively multiplayer, but it had a great level editor and was doing user-created content in the late '90s.

--edit--

Oldest I could find on the wayback machine is from 1999, but that's a later version that was a standalone exe. http://web.archive.org/web/19991012175711/http://graalonline...

--edit 2--

Here's a nice writeup: https://graal.in/t/graal-zelda-online-historical-thread/1420...

[chriswright1664]

I’m Chris Wright, mentioned in the 2nd link. I had the original idea, as the article says I commissioned Stefan to write it for me as I had next to no coding skills back then (apart from HTML and PHP). I ran a fairly successful SNES emulation site (I knew the teams behind Snes9x and Zsnes well) and was looking for a gimmick to boost traffic. Stefan took things off in his own direction with the Graal makeover (we never actually got threatened by Nintendo legal) and we lost touch. There was a house in the game that was ‘mine’ and credited me with the idea.

Half related fun fact: I was also behind the very first leak of the SNES Starfox 2 ROM onto the web. One of the devs, which I prob shouldn’t name (though I think it is common knowledge now) was a fan of the site. He got in touch and we did an exclusive interview and ROM release.

[electriclizard]

Hey man. Graal was an intimate part of my life growing up. I had thousands of hours logged on Valikorlia and a few hundred on other playerworlds. It was a good idea. It's where I first started programming; graalscript was my first language.

It's sad to see it go. I really wish we could have a game experience that had the community graal did. There's not much with that level of involvement for players anymore; it's all now downstream of ivory towers and extremely restricted.

[kidfiji]

Likewise! I played a ton of Graal Online during my adolescence and owe my programming career to its level editor (NPC scripting). I was able to learn how to program without reading much documentation outside of reading its command sidebar and inferring from others' NPC scripts. Thinking about it now, they did an outstanding job making it very straightforward to learn and use.

[Lorin]

If you remember Konidias he's been working on a game in a similar art style named Cloudscape, details can be found on Steam!

[and0]

Seconding graal being hugely formative for me, and I still think of it often.

It was my first real social experience online, and inspired in part the hobby projects that led me into software as a career. Thanks so much :)

[marginalia_nu]

I think it's pretty sad how a lot of these projects, that not only had a lot of effort put into them, but also had an impact on a lot of people's lives, they just sort of unceremoniously fade away into obscurity.

Graal Online doesn't even have a Wikipedia article. Like there ought to be a tomb stone.

[andai]

There is a German Wikipedia article[0] and it's mostly readable through Google Translate[1] (I made a static snapshot).

[0] - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graal_Online

[1] - https://archive.ph/77B1o

[ant6n]

In typical wiki and also typical German fashion, the article is very technical, focuses on things like technical requirements rather than the story, descriptions or definitions.

[mikeknoop]

Similar story to others here, Graal was hugely formative in 98-99 era. Learned how to script in part to create interactive levels and became a Game Coordinator for a period. Thank you in part for creating it!

Random memory: using infinite gold hacks and the suicide dagger (which would the drop gold for other players) over and over hour hours inside the throne room or the castle west of Burger Refuge.

[djangelic]

Loved Graal growing up! Thank you!

[rzzzt]

I had Graal on a shovelware CD, but back then we didn't have Internet access at home. I could start the client and walk around on some of the maps that were included, occasionally interacting with scripted characters, but mostly just picking up jars and throwing them around. I didn't know any of the back story and no documentation was on the disc, so it turned out to be quite boring after a while :)

Also when you went to sleep in a bed, your body disappeared and only your head remained visible, floating above the pillow. I found it pretty funny for some reason.

Edit: this was the Java version's homepage: http://web.archive.org/web/19990423103617/http://www.cyberjo...

[xwdv]

I remember Graal, but where I really sank time in was Era, a modern day mod of Graal. It was so cool, like if Zelda and GTA had a baby. You could get an assortment of weapons, join gangs, get in violent shootouts, I even remember getting blown at a beach house by someone playing a hooker. I think they eventually introduced cars or something. For a middle school kid it was super cool, even though the city was kind of small there was tons of role playing opportunity and emergent gameplay.

Although I’d probably get bored of such a game these days, I’d probably have a lot of fun building it out and watching a community grow from playing it.

I sometimes wondered about the developers who built this game. Maybe they were the age I am now when they wrote it. Is it my turn now to build a game like this for some new younger generation? A circle of life? Eh, I don’t know, I feel like kids these days just don’t play these kind of games anymore on a PC.

[the_lonely_road]

Unfortunately most of the families in my circle that are not in tech don’t own computers anymore. They literally just turned the PC off one day and then a few years later unplugged it and put it in a closet to collect dust, with zero chance of ever purchasing another thousand dollar replacement. Their toddlers are amazing at driving tablets/phones though. Who is going to crack the SmartPhone native WoW 2.0?

[marginalia_nu]

In the '90s, PCs weren't everywhere either. It was very much still a middle class thing. I honestly think it's a trap going for the biggest market. You don't need another Minecraft-success to win. Graal certainly wasn't.

[jwdunne]

Wow lots of people here who played Graal. I spent 10 years of my life on that game and I can credit it with giving me my start in development. Learning to script for the game became my first step towards programming in general.

In fact, developing new content for the game became the fun itself.

Codein here btw (ignore the icky nickname - is what it is).

[Lorin]

Godspeed here, I worked on G2K/Kingdoms :D

[Arrath]

>Here's a nice writeup: link

OP of the writeup: "Goatse" Ah that takes me back.

[marginalia_nu]

Our generation's Herodetus will be some random account named xXxPoopFeast420xXx

[na85]

Yeah and historians will pore over the annals of /u/PM_ME_UR_BUTT

[dotancohen]

I still load the homepage every now and then. I'll open one article, look at the comments, and close the tab.

I guess it's like looking up your ex every now and then. You insensitive clod.

[electriclizard]

I played Graal for 10+ years, mostly on Valikorlia, but I tossed around Era and Maloria too; I started some time between 2002 and 2005.

But I didn't realize its main website had been taken down, as I was literally on it a few months ago. Did it die completely? I am no longer able to login with the client.

That's too bad. It really was ahead of its time technologically; it's where my programming life got started and I was intimately familiar with graalscript and GS2.

[jwdunne]

This was my experience too :) Was a bit more promiscuous with where I helped out, including UN, Graal Kingdoms and Zone, but also spent a lot of time building my own playerworlds.

I owe my career to that game!

[airstrike]

Sounds like that story is worth a submission of its own!

[marginalia_nu]

There's probably enough material to write a whole article about it. I just thought it was funny how history repeats itself.

[w-ll]

There were MUDs and Roguelikes way back. I personally consider Ultima Online is the genesis of modern MMO's

[hoten]

Funny you should mention UO. I've been working forever to recreate the UO experience (it's called Gridia, you can find links to it on my website). Not too far from being ready, but still a lot of work to be done. Now that I've wrapped up this Zelda Classic project I'll return my focus to Gridia soon.

[marginalia_nu]

UO is actually roughly the same generation as Graal. There were several of these fairly creative stabs at the problem before WoW came along and really defined what a MMO is.

I think in many way Neverwinter Nights' persistent worlds is another noteworthy entry. They weren't massively multiplayer, but I think more like a cross between Baldur's Gate and a MUD.

[kbenson]

> WoW came along and really defined what a MMO is.

I wouldn't call WoW the first that defined it, or even the first wildly successful one that did. I never played any of them, but EverQuest was huge back in the day. If we are willing to lower the bar of success, there's predecessors to EverQuest as well.

Then again, maybe there's something very different than WoW and EverQuest that I'm not aware of? They seemed pretty similar from the outside.

[marginalia_nu]

I don't think WoW did anything particularly new, what it did was completely suck the air out of the room with its runaway success (which also ended up turning a lot of its competition into ghost towns).

Before WoW, there were a lot of different multiplayer games. After WoW, there was almost only WoW and WoW-clones (often down to mimicking the art style).

[wincy]

EVE online is a wholly different experience than either of these. It came out back in 2003 and is still going. I enjoyed it a lot, some fun memories of getting bored then creating havoc by ripping off my rich corp mates and committing in game insurance fraud, then losing most of my ill gotten gains at the casino. Truly I felt like a space cowboy.

[random-human]

> I wouldn't call WoW the first that defined it, or even the first wildly successful one that did

> Then again, maybe there's something very different than WoW and EverQuest that I'm not aware of?

Agreed that WoW did not define what an MMO was, a lot of the perception has to do with timing. More people had access to a decent computer and reliable internet when WoW came out than in the mid-late 90's. I think of BBS door games and MUDs I played as a teenager as what defined MMOs (personally, not generally). To me those were huge, playing games with random people I would never meet at a time when the other options were 1.) passing a controller around or 2.) literally carrying computer equipment to random LAN parties.

But it was UO that made the big commercial splash, the marketing was on point. It was this new thing called a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. This new world where you could be someone else. A place you could just log in to go fishing, or save up to buy a boat to find better places to fish, hunt and mine ore. And placing your first home, which was probably the smallest most useless building in the game, was yours. Your little safe haven in this new crazy virtual wild west that didn't stop evolving just because you had to go do homework. I was obsessed with MMO's after that, and obsessed with being one of the first to play. Luckily I ended up in one of the first areas to offer cable internet in the late 90's as these MMO's were doing beta test sign ups - having cable internet usually got you in early.

EverQuest was the game changer (for the more mainstream gamers, Meridian 59 was the first 3D MMO and it came out before UO). I remember the first day in EQ, standing outside in the noob area and the chat was full of people in complete awe. There was nothing even close. I ran around with a couple other people trying to see as many locations we could get to without dying and not even trying to level.

Shortly after EQ, was AC - Asheron's Call, which gave us the beautiful 3D world without the annoying (loading)zones of EQ and others, freedom atleast. I probably played AC the most while mixing in others I had missed or got beta invites. When WoW came out I refused to play it (still haven't), I was a big fan of Warcraft. I thought what they did to it was sacrilege and viewed it as the place for the new gamer-generation to pick up their participation trophy cause they couldn't handle the grind of a real MMO. They should suffer as I suffered.

As for MMO's that I found different, EVE for sure.

Project Entropia - was/is? the only one I know of that used real money for the in-game economy. You could literally play for free and make money from selling stuff from hunting, crafting, mining. I had about $200 I never cashed out (earned, not deposited) and I think my account got purged from not logging in for 2+ years at one point, or so an old email said would happen.

World War II Online - this game was def for people who would do cosplay US Civil war reenactments, but for WWII. Was a little much for me, but it was the foundation of my love of Battlefield games.

A Tale in the Desert - this one was fun when I played, I loved the concept. Its played in 1+ year long episodes where society has to pass test and challenges and work together or not. If you like crafting with a large side of real social politics that will determine if this years episode is "won", this is the game for you.

Hattrick Football Manager - browser MMO that is unlike any browser game I have played since (I played in the early aughts), if you like manager type games it was addicting. So much so I am right now trying to not make a new team and get sucked down that rabbit-hole again: https://www.hattrick.org/en-us/

Mortal Online - this was the last one I was actively engaged with, as I was trying to re-live the first days of UO, I went back to UO many times and nothing else ever felt the same. MO was trying to re-live it as well. No levels, huge crafting, hunting, exploring taking over cities. You could collect other people heads as trophies. It was ambitious and promising during beta - then completely unplayable after launch. MO2 came out recently, not sure how it is.

[outworlder]

Ultima Online was actually ahead of its time in many aspects (it sort of still is).

The concept of 'shards' which many MMO games embraced (sometimes not even supporting as many players). Only Eve Online really rejected the idea.

The in-game 'economy', by having player craftable items, done in a way that IMHO was way better than what WoW came up with. It wasn't restricted to crafting. Mages could charge for portals, ditto for healers. There was robbery - you could either demand money or pickpocket people.

Law enforcement was limited to cities and had to be called.

Housing! That was actually in world, not another instance. There was actually a real state market. And scouting for empty spots was a viable 'profession', even if informal.

Full PVP - in fact, I'd say that the non-PVP servers actually caused its demise.

One concept that was not embraced by later MMO games was 'no levels'. Only had skills and attributes. And items were not a big deal. Sure, you could yield a very rare magical sword, but are you really going to risk losing it? Most people would fight with cheap weapons and armor and only take out the special stuff in limited circumstances.

I could go on.

I think there's a modern 'Ultima' game that could be birthed from what Origin came up with decades ago.

[hunterb123]

Tibia is basically the successor to UO, it's art and many gameplay elements are inspired by it.

[evandale]

I don't think WoW was anywhere close to the first MMO. RuneScape came before it and Tibia came before that.

[harph]

I did some scripts for a NWN RP persistent world back when I was a teenager. Great memories

[mattw2121]

Yes, let's not forget Legends of Kesmai and its predecessor Island of Kesmai.

[w-ll]

UO had a persistent world. It even had real estate, and later fully customizable houses. And the custom server scene had some really crazy stuff as well.

[micheljansen]

Amazingly I had never heard of this! A link to the past was one of the first (and only) first party games I owned on the SNES and I played it until it almost fell apart. A multiplayer version would have been amazing!

[Lorin]

Oh hey I worked on this! Mostly Graal2K and a bit of Kingdoms, I used to go by "GodSpeed" and had a sparring area :)

Stefan Knorr inspired me to get into development and is a legend in my mind, I recall staying up at 4am walking around in early builds of Graal2K with him and seeing the infancy of "GANIs" (Graal Animations). Unixmad on the other hand...

If anyone knows what happened to Birdbird let me know, he was the most naturally talented level designer ever!

[tomweingarten]

I was a high schooler developing a web-based multiplayer RPG game around this time and remember being so impressed and intimidated by Graal.

[Mizza]

I have been tinkering on something similar - I had no idea this already existed, and so long ago. Absolutely amazing.

[anyfoo]

Sorry, nobody likes to be reminded, but by now that was around 25 years ago, not 20! (I got a little confused when reading because around 2002 the landscape was very different already.)

[marginalia_nu]

Well, 20-25 is perhaps a good compromise. It had its glory days around 2000-2001 I think.