I was chatting with a friend and fellow MMO player the other day about old MMO zones or features that made you think “Wow this game is amazing/massive”.
That’s right not the World of Warcraft abbreviation, but simply the first time we were amazed by something in an MMO.
For me my first MMO was Everquest and I remember clearly my first foray from Freeport as a Dwarven Paladin named Bruenark. The East Commons was my first out of city area and I wandered around whacking the odd skelly for a bit. Now the East Commons was a nice zone but it’s large tree’s and many huts and other features didn’t give it the large open feel of my next zone.
After wandering around East Commons for a good few levels I decided to explore, probably out of my depth but I was new and just wanted to see what was out there.
I headed west past the zone line and into West Commons. Now to me a new MMO player, this zone was massive! It was open and expansive and I wandered around for what seemed like miles, until I was killed by something a good few levels above me. 
This was my first taste of just how big MMO’s and in particular Everquest was.
It was only later I realised that actually West Commons wasn’t that big in comparison to some other zones, but it certainly felt like it at the time. After seeing my first couple of zones, doing a few quests and dying a few times, I was hooked.
Some say that you never get the first MMO feeling again, which of course is natural as the first will always be the one that sticks in your mind the most. The MMO that gave you the Wow factor in fact.
That said there are many occasions on MMO’s since where I have been astounded by a zone, a feature or even an in game creature.
My most recent Wow factor was in Everquest 2, the first time I ventured into the Moors of Ykesha and took a blimp ride from the first area to Firmroot Moot. This zone really is massive and there are some great views to be had as you travel around the Moors. The image to the right is from Ogrebear.com as I didn’t have one to hand to show you all, hope you don’t mind Ogrebear if your reading this.
This shows that there are still Wow moments to be had in MMO’s even if your a seasoned MMO gamer. Moments like this are one of the things that make MMO’s great and you find yourself tipping your hat to the game dev’s for their work.
So readers, what were your first and most recent MMO Wow factor moments?
Related posts:
My first wow factor on Everquest Classic was the wooden bridge in North Karana, when the music started and the bridge appeared out of the mist, it looked pretty cool.
North Karana Wooden Bridge
My first MMO-experience was very much like Yetians; even in the same game
I remember hastily rolling my first ever avatar, a dwarven paladin, and then loading up my only real MMO-home: The proud dwarven city of Kaladim! Kaladim looked a bit like many other RPG’s out there, so the feeling of being in a “massive multiplayer”-game hadn’t yet settled in me. That quickly changed when I zoned out of the narrow halls of Kaladim and into the glorious (to me)huuuge zone of Butcherblock Mountains. Right there and then I was completely hooked! Large groups of trees, hills, mountainsides, caves and…loads of nasty goblins.
*sniff* Damn those were great days! *sniff, sniff*
My mind tells me, that I will never have the same experience again, but my heart is still full of hope everytime I install a fresh new MMO…a hope that so far has been /flip’ed by many a less-than-creative MMO-launches.
My first wow factor was WoW itself, my first ‘proper’ mmo. I found the tiny noob village exciting enough, watching all the other noobs running around killing wild boar. But when I eventually reached Thunderbluff and took the lift up to the plateau, was when i had the ‘woah, awesome!’ feeling. I liked that the feeling presented itself throughout the game right through to the high level zones. My particular favourite was the snowy hills of Winterspring, they always looked cool in the sunset.
It never really had the feeling of vastness that came with Everquest 2 though. EQ2 manages to create expansive zones without making them barren. Theres always something cool nearby, even if you have no idea what it is supposed to be!
As Magnu, my Wow factor was in WoW, as that was the first MMO I played.
Still having no clue whatsoever what it was about, as I almost by random picked up the game and never heard much of MMOs before that (yes I DO live on the Northpole), I was running the hills of Dun Morogh with my newly rolled dwarf pally. I entered Ironforge and was very impressed with it all to say the least. That was when I realized it might be a tad different from Starcraft
I think my first WOW factor was actually during SWG.
I bought the game when it first came out, and I remember going to this small city on Naboo. As I came around the corner, there was a Creature Handler, and above him was one of the most massive flying creatures I’ve ever seen in a game. To this day, I think that it was either bugged or a rare spawn. But I remember taking a million pictures and jumping up in my seat, really amazed.
After that, I knew I wanted to be a Creature Handler, and eventually got to see awesomely huge animals like Tortons and Kimolgas (spelling?)
It was a real WOW factor, I was amazed.