Justin Olivetti is Massively Overpowered’s resident Game Archaeologist; he never lets a good old game stay buried. [Follow this column’s RSS feed]
the game archaeologist
The Game Archaeologist: A look back at proto-MMOs through the 1980s
Today I want to try something a little different as we look at MMORPG history. Rather than focus in on a single title or...
The Game Archaeologist: World of Warcraft in the 1990s
MMORPGs don't pop out of nowhere, ex nihilo, to suddenly be enjoyed by players across the globe. Good ones take several years, dozens of...
The Game Archaeologist: Runes of Magic, an MMO that made millions disappear
In more ways than one, the year 2004 was a pivotal one for the MMORPG community. Even as games like City of Heroes, EverQuest...
The Game Archaeologist: Dragon Ball Online, the MMO that never made it to the west
It was back in 1986 that Toei Animation, a Japanese company, brought a new series called Dragon Ball into the world. The initial run...
Tamriel Infinium: The history of Elder Scrolls games (before and after Elder Scrolls Online)
There's nothing quite like that feeling when you first dip your toes into a particular game only to discover that it's part of a...
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v7.0
Once again we put a wrap on another year of MMORPG news, opinions, and -- most pertinent to this column -- history. In a...
The Game Archaeologist: The Sims Bustin’ Out, the online Sims game nobody remembers
Many gamers who complete that Venn diagram of being fans of both MMOs and The Sims no doubt will be familiar with the tragically...
The Game Archaeologist: Firefall, an MMO tragedy about more than just a bus
Back when I first started writing for Massively and was energetic enough to go on trips to trade shows, I hit up a PAX...
The Game Archaeologist: Gameline, the Atari 2600 digital storefront
Modern MMO gamers are blessed with plenty of conveniences that we take for granted. One such convenience is the ability to simply download any...
The Game Archaeologist: EverQuest Mac, the O.G. classic server
In 2003, Sony Online Entertainment tried an experiment to reach out to the (then) small-but-growing community of Mac users. The company released EverQuest Macintosh...
The Game Archaeologist: Coca-Cola’s crazy virtual hangout
Part of the sheer joy and fun of the early online world of the late '90s and early 2000s was the experimentation that took...
The Game Archaeologist: Pirates of the Caribbean Online
In 1967, Disneyland opened one of its most iconic attractions: a dark boat ride called Pirates of the Caribbean. A large fandom surrounding the...
The Game Archaeologist: PlaneShift, the poster child of open-source MMOs
As the character creation screen fades out, a dark vista fades into being. The fledgling adventurer looks around at dim shapes and sinister movements...
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v6.0
And that's a wrap on this year in history! While everyone says farewell to 2022, here at TGA we're always looking way back at...
The Game Archaeologist: Wizardry Online, the short-lived permadeath MMO
While the Wizardry series may not have the cultural cache that Ultima or Final Fantasy ended up with, nevertheless the dungeon crawling RPG series...
The Game Archaeologist: The radically different design of early EverQuest II
Sometimes it's all about timing -- both good and bad -- when it comes to MMORPG releases. EverQuest II may go down as the...
The Game Archaeologist: Dark Ages, the weird lovechild of Celtic lore and Lovecraftian legends
While the online world was fascinated by "the Big Three" Western MMOs in 1999 -- that would be EverQuest, Ultima Online, and Asheron's Call...
The Game Archaeologist: The legacy of Ultima Online
Last week in The Game Archaeologist, we traced the history of Ultima Online’s origin, development, and testing -- not to mention one pesky in-game...
The Game Archaeologist: How Ultima Online got made
You know how there’s that yokel in every global chat channel that likes to troll players by claiming that World of Warcraft was the...
The Game Archaeologist: MegaWars, the Star Trek online sim from the ’70s
When we look at the early days of online computer gaming, it shouldn't be a surprise that the geeky crowd that was working on...
