After two years of exploration and development in 2001 and 2002, China's online game market broke out in full swing in 2003. A large number of internationally renowned games have entered the country, and many classic domestic online games have emerged. People's understanding of online games has also changed, from "playthings" to "new entertainment methods", NetEase's Ding Lei has become the top of the "Hurun Edition 2003 Chinese mainland Rich List" with its games, Chen Tianqiao ranked 10th, and Zhang Chaoyang was also listed in the 20th place. The three major domestic portals have a comprehensive layout of online games.
Today we will take a look at the year of 2003, which online games were launched in the domestic public beta!
Endless Quest: The originator of many classic online games
Beta: January 2003
Endless Quest describes a world of swords and magic based on the core gameplay of MUD, and the richness of this world was amazing in its time, with custom character appearances, more than twelve race choices and more than fourteen class classes, more than five hundred accessible areas, and countless missions, equipment, monsters, and various contingencies.
As a 3D MMORPG game born at the end of the last century, EverQuest was a great success as soon as it came out, and directly or indirectly influenced the development of MMORPG games in the future. The development concept of World of Warcraft, which is now familiar, has also borrowed from Endless Quest, such as hate system, instance zones, and team activity (RAID).
"Endless Quest" quickly became the shoulder handle of MMORPG at that time with many epoch-making gameplay and design concepts after it was launched, operating abroad for several years, the charm of the game was not reduced, but also increased, and the awards won were countless.
Of course, some people who want to represent such a popular game in China, Ubisoft Eye has quickly obtained the agency right of this game in China! In January 2003, "Endless Quest" was officially launched in China, although it was four years later than abroad, but there were still more than 400,000 Chinese players playing, and the situation was very good.
Unfortunately, the overly hardcore gameplay, extremely high computer configuration, and clash of Eastern and Western cultures eventually led to The EverQuest being seriously dissatisfied in China, and after only 2 years of operation, the game was discontinued on January 31, 2005.
"Paradise": South Korea's first online game of the year
Paradise is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the style of medieval fantasy. The developer is NCsoft in South Korea. The world view of "Paradise" is adapted from Shin Yi-sook's comic book "Lineage", many elements such as maps, buildings, characters and so on are based on medieval historical documents, with deep cultural heritage, 2D screen processing, game music and other external parts are also very good.
First in operation in South Korea in September 1998, Paradise was the first online game to use a siege warfare system, and Heaven combines the competition of strategy games with the character growth of role-playing games, embodying immersive virtual reality.
Heaven supports player interaction, including the Blood Covenant system, which provides members of the same Blood Covenant with independent sharing spaces, a messaging system, and auxiliary magic. In addition, in addition to cooperation, competition, and combat, each player can also experience politics, economy, culture, etc. Among them, the fierce offensive and defensive battles around the castle are the unique features of "Paradise".
The game has a sophisticated role-playing design, knights, magicians, goblins and royals have their own positioning, and the royals, although the weakest fighting power, can create blood covenants. The interaction and operation of the Blood Covenant is the biggest highlight of the game, the Blood Covenant can launch a large-scale siege battle, and the occupation of the castle can be used for employment, taxation and other internal affairs.
However, it is regrettable that at the beginning of 2003, "Legend" has fully established itself in the Chinese market, and the number of online users has exceeded 500,000, and the market share has reached 40%. After experiencing the baptism of such a simple, brainless and refreshing game as "Legend", most players in China have been unable to accept the game of "Paradise", which is full of connotation and complex gameplay.
According to the data, the highest online line in the first 3 months of "Paradise" was only about 10,000, and the follow-up reached about 20,000 with promotion and word-of-mouth, and then fell back and stabilized at about 10,000 for a long time, and finally could only exist in the core players' computers as a niche boutique.
"Bubble Hall": Opening a precedent for Online Leisure Games in China
Beta: April 2003
Bubble Hall is a Casual Game developed by the South Korean game company Nexon, which was launched in Chinese mainland in 2003 and operated by Shanda Agency at the time.
The game tells the story of villagers in a village in the Haba Forest who use magical blisters to hunt and collect gems, and the story begins to save the villagers and retrieve gems that were stolen by pirates. The game features 8 base characters, 2 hidden characters, and new characters that advance on base characters. Cartoon characters, a variety of props, accessories and funny emoticons, is a casual online game suitable for any age.
"Bubble Hall" began to operate in 2003, and the number of online users exceeded 250,000 in the three months after the game was launched, becoming the first game to reach such a high degree of popularity after the shanda continuation legend. The following year, the number of people online at the same time exceeded 700,000!
With green casual, cartoon cute, competitive fun and other features, the game swept the domestic game circle as soon as it was launched, becoming the most popular online game in 2003. In August 2004, the number of people online at the same time exceeded 700,000, creating a new record for online games, creating a fantastic casual game world, becoming the first game to reach such a high level of popularity after shanda's sequel.
In the 2005 ChinaJoy Exhibition Excellent Game Competition, Bubble Hall also won the title of "Player's Favorite Top Ten Online Games".
As the originator of leisure online games, the success of "Bubble Hall" has also opened up the domestic leisure online game market for the first time, and discovered the player group that has been ignored before - female players. Since then, the potential of female players in the network has been fully realized. Later, women's casual games such as "Jin Orchestra" and "Audition" also showed the huge spending power of female players.
"Conquest": a timeless domestic veteran end game
For many young players of the new generation, the name Conquest is unfamiliar. But 19 years ago, in 2003, Conquest was born in an era when all Chinese online gamers were captured by MMORPGs. In just one year, "Conquest" has become the king of domestic PK online games, and has brought martial arts online games to a new height.
"Conquest" is a fantasy martial arts theme large-scale MMOPRG online game independently developed by NetDragon, and the game takes the smooth PK experience as the main selling point. "Conquest" adopts 3D character structure and 2D scene production method, the story of "Conquest" is an alternate history, drawing on various types of Chinese martial arts stories and legends of demons and demons and absorbing foreign cultures, the world of "Conquest" is a monster-infested world, players plunge into the rivers and lakes, in order to defend the peace here, defend their homeland and the story of protracted wars with various monsters.
After the great success in China, "Conquest" set its sights on overseas markets and has been successfully operating overseas in 2004. The six language versions cover more than 100 countries around the world, the brand recognition is higher than in China, and in North America, there was once a super giant "Conquest" billboard hanging on the highway. "Conquest" players love the game's PK, and like to be able to contact friends in different countries and regions in this game, of which the Egyptian players are the most enthusiastic.
In the eyes of many players, "Conquest" and "Red Moon", "Dragon Clan" and even "Blood Legend", are "daddy level" games, such as the old generation of domestic MMORPG online games The life cycle is generally very short, about 5 years will disappear. Conquest, however, is timeless.
Today, this old game is already in operation, and has launched dozens of expansion films such as The World of Storms, Double Treasure Plot, Hidden Patience Crisis, Dragon Warrior Monk, Pirate Attack, King of Kung Fu and so on. Surrounded by today's many cinematic graphic games, the fact that this old 2003 game can still operate is enough to explain the overall quality of this game.
"Tianjiao - Qin Yan World": Target Online's first online game masterpiece
Among the domestic game manufacturers, there is such a game company founded in 1995, it took only three years to launch the country's first RTS game "Iron Armor Storm", and at the same time, with the super efficiency of every two years, it has successively launched the first domestic strategy game "Proud Three Kingdoms" that appeared at the E3 game exhibition, and became the only domestic game at the E3 exhibition that year, known as the "historical version" of Diablo's "Qin Yan".
At that time, it was the era of the outbreak of the online game market, coupled with the rampant piracy at that time, making stand-alone games had a reputation but could not make money. So the target made the decision to make an online game, launched the "Tianjiao - Qin Yan World", because "Qin Yan" itself has a battle net function, "Tianjiao - Qin Yan World" is almost a copy of the "Qin Yan" battle network. In fact, not long after the launch of "Tianjiao - Qin Yan World", the official battle network of "Qin Yan" was discontinued.
In 2003, the online game market exploded, but the decision to make online games still failed to save the target software. The decision to make online games seemed to be correct in the social environment at that time, but it violated the original intention of the target software, so it directly led to the departure of the main creators of "Proud Three Kingdoms" and "Qin Yan", and the entire development department of the target software was equivalent to the direct disappearance.
Later, Zhang Chun took the possibility of the rise of target software as a betting condition to attract British capital, and finally because he failed to produce satisfactory results for investors, the target software became the pocket of capitalists. However, it is interesting that although the target software is weakened, the server of "Tianjiao - Qin Yan World" is still in operation, and interested players can go to the official website to experience it.
"Magic Sword": The first time the boss of the Chinese game industry ran away
Magic Sword is a game developed by Wolfpacack Studios in the United States, the game is set in ancient mythology, depicting the story of the father of the gods when he leaves the world, the land is plunged into darkness.
The game has set up 4 basic classes of warrior, ronin, doctor, and mage, and players can advance to 18 main jobs and 26 kinds of side jobs through these 4 classes. These professions of the game genre have their own backgrounds, some from life, some from the army, some from faith, some from mythology... By choosing different classes, players can experience different skills.
Of course, compared to the traditional MMORPG gameplay, a major feature of "Magic Sword" is the war system, and the game at that time could support the gameplay of 3 or 400 people's legion wars, which was not difficult to imagine the attraction of players. In fact, even today's online games, if they can support a scuffle of hundreds of people, it is also a huge selling point.
On April 26, 2003, Beijing Tianren Interactive Software Technology Co., Ltd. announced that it would act as the agent for the national costume of "Magic Sword". Unfortunately, due to the large number of bugs in "Magic Sword" and the extreme instability of the server, a large number of problems broke out during the operation, and the national service represented by Tianren Interactive was only operated for 8 months before it was announced to be out of service.
Later, a game company called Han Tang Culture tried to restart operations, but ultimately did not obtain agency rights. As the player's last base, The European and American costumes also officially ended in 2009, and the Wolf Pack Studio, which was responsible for developing The Magic Sword, was actually disbanded by Ubisoft as early as 2006.
Wonderland: Childhood memories of countless people
Beta: May 2003
Since the inventory of the 2003 online game, there is a game that must not be missed, that is, the development of "Legend of Wonderland" by the Korean GRAVITY, in which players will create their own personality characters and adventures in the vast world with friends from nine classes: swordsman, magician, archer, servant, merchant, thief, taekwondo, ninja, and sharpshooter.
The game is based on the manga of the same name by Korean manga artist Lee Myeong-jin, based on Norse mythology. Its original title, Ragnarok (RO for short), originated in Norse mythology, the most famous allusion to the "Twilight of the Gods," to the effect of "the last battle of the gods."
For now, Wonderland was undoubtedly a huge success, but in the early days of the game's development, the development team was quite unconfident about the game. It is said that when developers develop this game, they often ask themselves, do they really want to develop this kind of game?
Because, the overall style of online games at that time was all kinds of PVP, dark and heavy background settings, and these "Wonderland Legends" did not have, but planned to promote interaction between players based on a bright and cute style. But unexpectedly, after the game was launched, these characteristics actually became an important reason for the fire of "Wonderland Legend".
At that time, there were many players who did not like the predatory MMORPG on the market, who were attracted by the cute and peaceful atmosphere of "Wonderland Legends" and entered the game. As a result, by July 2002, the number of people online at the same time in Korea reached 45,000. Moreover, even in September 2002, after the monthly fee was introduced, the number of people online remained above 20,000.
Unfortunately, "Legend of Wonderland" also encountered the headache of all games at that time, private servers and plug-ins. In 2003, the Taiwanese costume "Wonderland" was hacked, resulting in the "Wonderland" server source code being leaked. Since then, a large number of private servers have begun to emerge in an endless stream, and a large number of plug-in scripts have also completely collapsed the game's economic system. Although the development team has also tried to save the game again, due to the inaction of the company's senior management, the final result of the development team's efforts is not satisfactory.
Although the game faces many problems, thankfully, Wonderland still has a large number of fan players. The game has also been stumbling through operation until now. The national service is also working hard to operate, from the Beijing Zhiguan and the game shinkansen in 2002 to the current Qiquan network agent, although it has changed agents 5 times, but the game is still operating
Legend 3: A short-lived sequel to Legends
In advance of the word "legend", I believe that many people will first think of Sheng Qu's "Legend of Blood", but there should also be some players who think of the "Legend 3" that was once short-lived and represented by Guangtong.
The success of "Legend" in China does not need to be repeated, but I believe that players who have learned the details also know that "Legend" in China can only be regarded as a second-rate product in South Korea. One of the biggest problems was that the graphics of the game were too rough, so the developer Yude developed a new version of Legend of Mir3 with better graphics.
According to common sense, the agency right of "Legend 3" should also be given to Shanda, after all, at that time, "Legend" was in the sky, and Shanda himself would not be willing to give up the agency right of "Legend 3". However, for many reasons, Shanda at that time had completely fallen out with the Korean side, and even developed a "Legend World" itself, intending to transfer "Legends" users in case of emergency.
After various negotiations and tugs, Yu Virtue suddenly announced that the unknown Guangtong had obtained the agency rights Chinese mainland "Legend 3" and Hong Kong and Macao. Entertainment virtue also released harsh words at the same time, "Legend 3" is the legendary orthodoxy, the grand "Legend" is plagiarism, and Shanda dares to go online he dares to sue.
Of course, neither the harsh words of entertainment nor the ambition of Guangtong could stop Shanda's footsteps. Although "Legend 3" has gained 300,000 users in the 4 months of its launch, and the server has reached 134 groups, the results can be said to be quite good. However, with the launch of Shanda's "Legendary World", the already rich and powerful Grand's publicity has been overwhelming, and the highest online of "Legendary World" in September has risen to 300,000, which is the same as "Legend 3".
In the decades since, Shanda has been in a lawsuit with the South Korean side over the copyright issue of "Legend". But whoever laughed at the end believed that all the players already knew.
"Sword Man Love Online Edition": The pioneering work of Xishanju's transformation from a stand-alone computer to an online game
Beta: July 2002
Now if you mention the four words of "swordsman love", I believe that many players first think of "Sword Net 3", which is also the starting point of many new players' jianghu dreams. In fact, for many elderly players, the original "Sword Man Romance Online Edition" is an unforgettable classic.
19 years ago, when the concept of "domestic light" was not yet born, Xishanju relied on the self-developed "Sword Man Love Online Edition" (hereinafter referred to as": "Sword Net 1"), which not only set off a national martial arts boom in China, but also went overseas to open up millions of markets, achieving a generation of common martial arts memories.
The game of "Sword Man Romance Online Edition" takes place in the Southern Song Dynasty. The real "Shan He ShejiTu" was reported on the rivers and lakes to reappear in the world, and the rivers and lakes were once again in a chaotic situation, at this time, the gold lord Yan Liang personally led a large army to the south. At this moment when the people were not happy and their lives were ruined, everyone put aside their personal grievances and conflicts of interest, spontaneously united together, and countless Sons and Daughters of China threw themselves into this magnificent Song-Jin war without hesitation.
As one of the three domestic swords, the "Sword Man Love" series has a huge user base in China. After the launch of the "Swordsman Love Online Edition", it quickly gained the love of domestic players. After the great success of the domestic market, Xishanju hit the iron while it was hot and began to export to the Southeast Asian market.
It turned out that Xishanju's decision was quite correct. Southeast Asia, which is deeply influenced by oriental culture, has a very high degree of acceptance of the martial arts background of "Sword Man Romance Online Edition", and "Sword Man Love Online Edition" poured in 120,000 players on the first day of public beta in Vietnam, and in just three months, the number of online people exceeded the million mark, setting off a martial arts boom in the entire Southeast Asian region. For many Vietnamese players, the status of "Sword Man Love Online Edition" is like the domestic "World of Warcraft".
"Legendary World": Shanda's own self-developed "legend"
Beta: July 2003
In 2001, Shanda's "Legend of Blood" swept the country and dominated the domestic game circle at that time. However, there were many disputes between Shanda and the Korean government for commercial reasons, so that Shanda did not obtain the agency right to "Legend 3". In addition, with the passage of time, the picture quality of "Legend of Blood" has also become backward, so in 2003, Shanda developed "Legendary World" with better picture quality based on "Legend of Blood".
With the huge user base of "Blood Legend", "Legend World", which has a more exquisite screen and the gameplay is consistent with "Blood Legend", can be quickly started, and has quickly gained the love of players after its launch. Another interesting thing is that due to the fact that there were too many private servers in "Legend of Blood" at that time, coupled with the slow circulation of information on the underdeveloped network, many players at that time thought that "Legend World" was a legendary private server, and did not know that this was a grandly produced official uniform game.
Like Legends of Blood, World of Legends has a lasting vitality! Since its launch in 2003, the registered users of "Legend world" have accumulated more than 100 million, and under the long-term operation of Sheng Qu Games, its gameplay and core gameplay are still evolving, and it has long become the top game brand in China. In 2018, it even launched a new professional "spirit gun" after six years, and in 2019, it also won the 2019 China Super Potential IP Award.
"World of Legends" is still operated by Sheng Qu, and still has a stable player base, which can be said to be enduring.
Triumph: Tencent's first online game
Beta: August 2003
As we all know, today's Penguin is already the world's most profitable game company, but few people know that Tencent more than a decade ago also suffered a "fiasco", once fiercely shutting down the server of the first online game in the company's history!
The game, called Triumph, was Tencent's first online game to enter the online game industry, and when it first went online 16 years ago, it became the hottest 3D online game in China at that time (two years before "World of Warcraft"). However, at that time, Tencent, as a novice in the game industry, obviously did not have the strength today, and after experiencing the initial popularity of the launch, the popularity of "Triumph" quickly declined until it was completely cool.
In May 2003, "Triumph" began to test in China, in order to promote its first online game, Tencent also took pains to use two killing moves as soon as it came up.
The first trick "kill move" is to register the game and send a QQ number. At that time, QQ registration was charged, although it was not explicitly charged, but the cost of dialing 168 voice station was 8 cents per minute, the SMS fee for mobile phone registration was 5 cents, and the end user needed to pay an additional 1 yuan to get a QQ number. Another trick "killing move" is to give "Triumph" an incomparably bright "VIP position", the only "large online game" in the QQ game lobby, which is particularly card-like.
However, this game, which was given high hopes by Tencent, ultimately failed quite thoroughly. First of all, because of the vertigo problem caused by 3D graphics, many players who are accustomed to 2D and 2.5D pictures have no choice but to give up. After that, the plug-ins that all the games faced at that time also made Tencent anxious.
Because of the sluggish operation of the agent "Triumph", Tencent was discouraged by the agent game, from 2004 to 2007, Tencent did not represent a game, all of which were "developed" by itself and named "QQXX"! Interestingly, these "self-developed" games of Tencent have actually caught fire, and for a time domestic players have flocked to games with the prefix "QQ".
Beta: December 2003
Hardcore and real have always been the selling points used by many games for publicity, but many times in order to attract more players, the so-called hardcore and real will also make some compromises. Of course, there is no shortage of real hardcore games in many games, so hardcore that people suspect that the official does not even want players to play, "Sea Battle 2" is such a game.
Sea Battle II is a war strategy online game. The game's naval guns, torpedoes, shells, and ship-related equipment are all based on real history and have their own characteristics. In the game, players can find their own place in the vast sea, and players need not only a strong physique, a courageous heart, but also skilled technology and knowledge as a backing.
As the world's first military-themed and the first World War II naval battle-themed online game, Sea Battle 2's hardcore level is definitely one of the best today. The warships in the game are not represented by today's "World of Warships", and the weapons of the ships in the game are based on historical facts. In the game, all the main guns, secondary guns and even radar, anti-aircraft guns, and even torpedoes of the ship you get need to be equipped by the player himself.
On the other hand, the game is very demanding on the players themselves. The operation of the game itself is very complicated and extremely difficult to get started. Almost all of the main guns require the player to operate manually, set the gun line intersection, and so on. Many players can be said to be busy in the process of experience, and even once their brains were confused and overwhelmed...
Although the start and advancement of "Sea Battle 2" are very difficult, this classic game constitutes the sea battle dream of the first generation of "naval combat players" in China, which satisfies the dreams of many naval battle fans.
However, unfortunately, the game's national service operation is slightly unbearable.
In 2002, Beijing Wanxiang Communications obtained the right to operate the game agent, and then the game changed the agent 5 times, and by 2017, the server had basically become a ghost suit. However, in 2017, Coolpad Sky bought out all the copyright and source code, returned to the furnace to optimize and repair various legacy bugs and officially renamed it "Fleet Mission", and since then officially revived the game and landed on the Steam platform. On May 1, 2018, the NAVYFIELD US server was officially integrated into the international service, and a number of international routes allowed Chinese players to fight with foreign players.
Journey to the West: The pinnacle of domestic turn-based games
For "Fantasy Journey to the West", I believe that everyone will not be unfamiliar, as the most popular game under NetEase, "Fantasy Journey to the West" appeared earlier than "World of Warcraft". Launched in 2003, "Journey to the West" has gone 16 years now, but I am afraid that many people will not know that "Journey to the West" is actually adapted from a game that has failed to operate, that is, "Journey to the West 1".
In August 2002, "Journey to the West 1" was already facing the crisis of suspension, and Ding Lei could not bear that "Journey to the West 1" would end like this. So after more than a year of redevelopment, "Journey to the West" based on the remake of "Journey to the West" turned out to be a new one. Q version of the cute style of painting and new gameplay, so that "Fantasy Journey to the West" as soon as it was launched attracted a large number of players, the server was once full, in just a few days the project team urgently opened eight new services to slightly alleviate the situation of server emergency.
Today, Fantasy Journey to the West has been in operation for more than nineteen years, but it is still on the list of the world's most profitable PC games. In the past ten years, "Fantasy Journey to the West" has launched more than twenty classic expansion packs, and with stable updates, "Fantasy Journey to the West" has maintained a very active user base.
Write at the end:
As a year of domestic online games blooming with flowers, in 2003 there are more games that cannot be mentioned in space, such as the "Knight Online" that was entered by the three major portals at the same time, "Brave World" endorsed by SHE, the grand anime fighting online game "Hot Blood Heroes", the earliest online game adapted from the novel "Search god record Online", as well as "Breaking the Sky and a Sword", "Heavenly Fire", "Journey to the West Voldemort", "Mercenary Legend", "Tears of God" and so on. I don't know which old online games in 2003 do you remember?