Many years ago, I played a great game called Meridian 59, the real first MMORPG for PC. M59 had many features you just don't see anymore in MMOs. One of those things was called the graveyard. It was in the town of Tos, across from the public bar where everyone hung out to socialize.

The graveyard was a very special place because it was it's own phased zone. If you went there during the day, it was a field of green, semi pleasant place. There were a few hedge stones and one mausoleum. The mausoleum is it's own zone, sort of a small dungeon, but is supposed to be extremely deadly. During the day, the graveyard would actually be a nice place to have a picnic.

However, you would never want to be there at night.

Well, one afternoon me and a buddy of mine named Randar were bragging how we were not afraid of the graveyard and could spend the night there all night, just the two of us. There was a huge round of wagers made as to whether or not we could survive the night. So after a few more rounds of drinking, off the two of us went to prove we were manly men. (Just FYI the night lasted about 2 hours real time)

The crowd followed us across the street to the graveyard at dusk. We bravely entered. We looked around expecting undead to appear soon. We quickly see the sun go away and almostly instantly, the place looks much creepier. Then Randar yells out that there is a zombie crawling out of his grave in the SW corner! We rush to it and kill it almost instantly. Then we see two skeletons, then three, then we start to see waves and waves of undead coming from all directions. We were surrounded! There must have been over 50 undead all over us!

We are fighting them off as fast as possible, but they start to be too much for us! That is when Randar yells to make a break for the mausoleum! I thought he was crazy, but yelled back, "Sure, why not!"

So, we rush in, not knowing what to expect. We appear on a short staircase that leads down to a 40 by 40 foot room with 8 coffins filling the center. There were no monsters anywhere. We started to laugh. This would be too easy. Then all 8 coffins opened up and 8 vampires emerged. We both said "CRAP!" at the same time. Not only were there 8 vampires in the room, but they started to summon a lot of lesser undead to kill us!

Randar shouted to get in a corner, so we could at least fight them a few at a time. However, I had an ability to detect secret doors and noticed one in the back of the room! I shouted for him to follow me. The secret door turned out to just be an illusion wall that was hiding a very thin hallway that could only fit one person at a time. We rushed in! Bad side to this was, it was a dead end!

So, Randar, being a paladin, said he would tank the mobs one at a a time and I would heal. This was actually working! We fought and fought for what seemed like forever! The problem was I was slowly running out of mana, and he was taking a lot of damage. After a while I shouted that I was out of mana and he needed to drink any healing potions he had. He was drinking potions, I was using up healing wands...we were really going all out to survive. In a short amount of time, I let him know I was all out of healing devices and mana. It was at this time he informs me he is out of potions.... He dies.

The monsters rush forward to end me! But then I notice there were just two zombies left. There is no other monsters behind them. I manage to kill the last two zombies and resurrect Randar. We were both kind of stunned. We go to the staircase and leave the tomb. It was morning! We were physically and mentally exhausted.

We left the graveyard and there were cheers from the crowd! We survived the night and became local heroes!

I would love a quest like this or place like this to challenge players.

What do you guys think?

Cool story, bro.

Sorry, channeling Axton there for a minute.

Technically any instance that spawned waves would fulfill the requirements. Though I would love to see one that changes etc and had local lore to it.

I like the idea of a survival mode it would be pretty cool

Sounds fun. It'd fit in great with High Rock (seriously, have you ever noticed how many stories about High Rock include vampires, necromancers, and werewolves?), but I think local variants could be cooked up for the Pact and Dominion. I thiink draugr would work best for the Pact (ash vampires shouldn't be running around mainland Morrowind), no idea for something Dominion specific, except maybe running afoul of The Great Hunt.

Nostalgia overload.

The first MMORPG for PC was also heavily inspired by Daggerfall. And it was first person with real-time combat (well, as real-time as you could expect in those days). Merdian 59 was pretty amazing for its time, pre-Ultima. All told there wasn't much content to "do" but it was more about adventure and exploration with friends and strangers. You can still actually play it today though it is hard to get used to the controls and interface.

Quite a story. I was getting Vampire: The Masquerade flashbacks whilst reading that. That damn well annoying quest in the graveyard to cull the undead population and make sure they don't break out of the cemetery, my god was that frustrating!