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The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: The highlights
To many veteran MMO players, the opening horns of EverQuest's score are enough to trigger vivid memories, violent hallucinations, and an unstoppable desire to leap through the computer screen to return to Norrath. It all depends, of course, on which MMO you first cut your teeth, and while many gamers would claim titles like World of Warcraft as their first, there is a large contingent who will confess that EQ was their first MMO lover. In fact, before WoW came on the scene in 2004, EverQuest was the gold standard of MMOs for a half-decade -- it was insanely popular, perfectly addictive, and absolutely revolutionary. It was a giant that roamed the virtual lands of those days, a giant that continues to forge new grounds well over a decade from its inception. It was 1995 when John Smedley realized the potential for online gaming and roped in Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover to start putting together an online RPG for SOE. What began as a small project ballooned into a crazy endeavor as the growing team created a monster RPG the likes the world had never seen before -- a game that would forever shape the MMO genre. This month, the Game Archaeologist is going after one of the biggest treasures of recorded history as we unearth the secrets to EverQuest's popularity, legacy, and longevity. The first step on our journey is to look at some of the highlights that made EQ what it is today.
The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: Player sagas
It's an odd thing to realize how far MMOs have come right in front of our eyes in a relatively short span of time. After all, 1999 wasn't that long ago, despite what Prince and Y2K would have you believe. One day we'll be telling our children -- if we aren't already -- about the primitive MMOs that didn't feature RealGore™, motion sensor-linked emotes, and mostly nude elves dancing for tips on mailboxes. They may gasp and sputter in disbelief, but you'll assert that it is true: You experienced an era when polygons were blockier than LEGO pieces, people logged in over dial-up connections, and the community was small enough for GMs to host personal live events. There's been a lot of love flowing into my email inbox and Twitter since posting the first Game Archaeologist on Asheron's Call, enough to tell me that this title is a dear old friend to many a seasoned gamer out there (including a few on the Massively staff who won't stop writing epic haikus about AC in its honor this month). As a result, I got in touch with two die-hard fans of the game, and they agreed to scribe their memories of this MMO for future generations to discover, generations who will undoubtedly marvel at the hardship and perserverence that such scrappy gamers showed in being part of the first wave of MMO players. Without further ado, please give a warm round of applause to Amanda and Jon. No, nobody can hear you clap over the internet, but it's the thought that counts.
Make your travel plans to visit Rift's majestic Meridian city!
If your tastes run more to the technological terrors of Rift: Planes of Telera's Defiant, then prepare to get to know Meridian, the faction's capital, quite well. Spitting in the eye of the old gods, Meridian is a cutting-edge metropolis full of harnessed magics, steampunk wonders and rogue water elementals. Although it is on the front lines of the great world war, Meridian still prides itself on its beauty and elegance, as evidenced by soaring towers and technomagic constructs. The city will offer players a quick travel system via portals, which allows a character to instantly zip to any portal he or she has already discovered. There are secret places to uncover, colorful characters such as Sparky the potion-mixing automaton to meet, and plenty of places to drop your coin in exchange for goods and services. You can read a guided tour of the city and watch the quick one-minute flyby of Meridian after the jump.
The Game Archaeologist and the Ultima Prize: Richard Garriott
Before he was Tabula Rasa's General British, Richard Garriott was simply -- and most famously -- known as Lord British, the absolute ruler and creator of the Ultima franchise. From 1980's Ultima I through 1999's Ultima IX, Lord British guided the development of one of the most popular RPG series of all time, including 1997's Ultima Online. Through it, Garriott and his Lord British persona became the de facto face of the series, a video game celebrity before such a thing really existed. After the floundering of Tabula Rasa and his subsequent falling-out with NCSoft, Garriot took a little R&R time to blast into outer space, returning to Earth to get involved with a social media games company called Portalarium. Because of his stature as one of the founding giants of not only MMORPGs, but video game RPGs as well, the Game Archaeologist stopped at nothing to procure his wise words for an interview. This quest took us to far-off, dangeous places -- including the world's most famous haunted house, Britannia Manor -- at which point we promptly purchased a return ticket and pleaded with our editor to do our dirty work for us. So bow, mere mortal! For you are now in the presence of LORD BRITISH! (cue wild applause)
Meridian 59 dev Near Death Studios reaches death
We don't blame you if you can't remember Near Death Studios, which today announced it will be closing its doors after nine years spent trying (and failing) to make money from its early generation MMO, Meridian 59. The now-ironically named developer was started in 2001 by two of the staffers responsible for the game -- Rob Ellis and Brian Green -- who cite (among other things) a loss of players to World of Warcraft as reasons for its poor performance. Admitting that Near Death Studios has "been on life support" for several years (again, the irony is palpable), Green wrote on his blog that the "killing blow" came when the company lost its billing provider and was no longer able to process subscribers' credit card payments. Negotiations with another provider had been ongoing, Green said, but ultimately fell through, prompting the closure. We can't help but wonder if changing the company name might have helped "Near Death" earn more confidence from prospective financial partners. [Via Gamasutra]
The Daily Grind: Can you look backwards with games?
Take a look at the screenshot above from Meridian 59. It probably doesn't look like much to most of you. But for some of our readers, that screenshot represents a game that was one of the first graphical and three-dimensional MMOs ever, and it might well bring back fond memories. It all depends on whether or not you were gaming at the time and interested in the genre, and even then you might not have enjoyed the game or had a chance to pick it up and play regularly. (Cable internet was not exactly a foregone conclusion in 1996, after all.) Games are on an ever-increasing ramp of graphical complexity and depth of play, and so games that were revolutionary at one point have become much less so with time. But can you look past that and see why they were important in the first place? Do you play EverQuest and see dated graphics and gameplay models, or do you see a game that inspired interest in the genre enough to make the current market possible? Do you look back when you play a game, or do you find yourself hung up with the latest and greatest features instead?
Near Death Studios closes down
If 2009 hadn't claimed quite enough lives for your tastes quite yet -- in terms of companies, jobs, and games -- you might have a bit of a morbid approach to things. We're just over the border into the new year, but it looks like there was one last item on the chopping block. Near Death Studios, the team behind Meridian 59, is no longer simply "near" death, but over the line into pining for the fjords. Brian 'Psychochild' Green broke the news on his blog yesterday, announcing that while the game wouldn't be going anywhere, it would no longer be a commercial venture run by the now-defunct company. So what went wrong? As Green puts it, while Near Death Studios was able to raise the money and the operational talent to get the game running and keep it in maintenance mode, the game never really grew -- the one shot it might have had at attracting new players was unfortunately timed right around the launch of World of Warcraft. He's not bitter about the experience, however, and he's glad that he had the chance to keep Meridian 59 running for such a long time and help shape something people really enjoyed. It's a sad announcement for a venerable game, though, and we can only hope that this is the last of the fallout we see from the closing-filled year.
The gaming renaissance
In the early 70's, some clever chap programmed a pile of circuits to create a primitive game we all know as Pong. Fast-forward some forty years down the line and we're now battling Orcs in Azeroth and flying spaceships in the far-reaches of another galaxy. An entire games industry has erupted from those first simple arcade systems, with people designing and programming games for kids and adults alike. In the 90's, the first generation of kids that grew up with those early game systems became the ones making them and a virtual renaissance in game design ensued. Those kids that grew up wishing they could make their own games started to realise their dreams and the games industry as we know it came forth. More recently, the people that grew up with early MMOs have begun to hit the games industry and we're seeing a rebirth of the genre.In this article, I look at the games industry explosion and how it relates to the generations growing up with games. I ask whether the MMO genre is headed for its own great gaming renaissance and take a speculative look ahead at the future for MMOs and the games industry as a whole.
The gaming renaissance, part 2
Unlike the fledgling gaming industry of the 1980's, the industry today is a robust creature with a huge consumer-base and long-established development houses. MMOs are no longer seen as the risky ventures they once were and some have even secured eight-figure investment deals. Jobs working on a next gen MMO are possibly the most prized in the entire games industry and there is more competition for those spots than ever.
Meet the Team: Samuel Axon
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.What do you do for Massively.com? I'm a core blogger. That means I'm one of a handful of writers who keep the regular flow of content going, hit news when it comes up, and sometimes do featured articles. What's your favorite MMO? My all-time favorite is Meridian 59. I still haven't played a game I liked half as much as that one. It was a completely different kind of game, and there hasn't been anything even remotely like it since. It was horribly flawed in many ways, but I'm sad no one -- except maybe CCP with EVE Online -- has refined what it tried to do.%Gallery-33889%
How will factions and PvP work in Star Wars: The Old Republic?
Since BioWare and LucasArts' Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced, we've learned that there will be two factions in the game -- the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. We've also learned that players will be able to embrace either the Dark or Light Side of the Force. But there's something surprising in all this: there's no direct correlation between the two distinctions. You could, for example, play as a Jedi working within the Empire -- "a good guy in a bad place," as BioWare put it.We're big fans of the idea -- more moral complexity is welcome (especially in the Star Wars setting, which tends to quite literally be black and white), but it raises some interesting gameplay questions, particularly with regards to PvP -- questions we're eager to raise!%Gallery-35033%
Today the MUD and the MMO turn 30
Today marks the 30th birthday of the original MUD, created at Essex University by Roy Trubshaw in 1978. We recommend you check out what Richard Bartle -- who worked on later iterations of the project -- has to say about this event, as well as Raph Koster's words on the subject. The question at hand, as presented by Bartle, seems to be: does this matter?While he is skeptical, we would like to posit that it does matter a great deal -- or at least that it should. Graphics alone shouldn't lead to a strong distinction when the fundamentals are the same, so let's consider the modern MMO to be part of the same tradition as the MUD -- let's say that this is the MMO's 30th birthday too.
The Daily Grind: The best MMO music
Here's a story for you: a certain blogger is playing The Lord of the Rings Online. He's in the Trollshaws, and he notices the music -- oft-ignored in MMOs -- is actually really good. It's classy and it's beautiful. Then he starts to think about the music in other games -- the gorgeous and mournful guild hall ballad of Meridian 59, the beautiful and muted arpeggios of EverQuest's Kelethin theme, and the dark and foreboding ancient instrumentation of Age of Conan's various Stygian pieces.Music is not usually the focus of a lot of discussion or attention in MMOs. A lot of people probably just turn it off and listen to terrible terrible pop rock in the background. But for those of you who actually pay attention: do any particular musical compositions in MMOs stand out to you? What's the best track yet featured in an MMO?
The Daily Grind: Are the stakes too low in modern PvP?
Player vs. Player gameplay has undergone a drastic change in recent years. Games like Meridian 59 and Ultima Online didn't pull any punches. Anyone could kill anyone anywhere, and the penalties could be quite severe. When you died In Meridian or UO, you dropped all of your gear. The person who killed you could steal whatever he or she pleased.Of course, in games like that, gear wasn't quite such a big deal. In Meridian a sword would wear out after a few of hours of use anyway. But combined with stat and skill losses, death in the games of the 90s was comparatively harsh. Now, in World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online, the stakes are lower. You have absolutely nothing to lose by dying in PvP in WoW, and AoC and WAR's designs aren't much more aggressive.But here's a question from a veteran of the oldschool: with stakes this low, does PvP really matter? Will it really get you sweating? Will you really care that much about winning or losing? Some oldschool folks will argue that PvP is boring and meaningless now that death has been de-clawed. Maybe we should go back to the barbarism of the old days. What do you think?
Take a visual tour of EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey's new dungeons
EverQuest II's The Shadow Odyssey expansion is set to launch this November. In addition to heritage quests and the shard reward system, the expansion will add an EverQuest classic -- the dungeon of Guk. And in the days leading up to the launch, EQ2 players will get to start exploring another dungeon: Veksar.To build up anticipation, SOE is rolling out articles, screenshots, and concept art related to the two new dungeons. For Guk it put together a series of lore-oriented postcards and images explaining what the place is all about, culminating in some concept art wallpapers. The Veksar article is a little more traditional in its presentation, but the substance is all there. We've put together in a gallery all the images from both of those tours.SOE also released concept art for guild halls, which will be implemented soon. Guild halls date back to Meridian 59 and text MUDs before it, but for some reason they've been out of vogue in the 21st century.%Gallery-30866% Well met, fellow Norrathian! Make sure to check out all of our coverage of the next EverQuest II expansion, The Shadow Odyssey as well as Seeds of Destruction, the next expansion to EverQuest!
The Digital Continuum: Player abuse, redemption and revolution
Lets go back about ten years or so to the original EverQuest. Now it isn't my intention to pick on any one game, I just happen to be more familiar with it than Ultima Online or Meridian 59. For the sake of immersion let me assume the role of a 1999 copy of EverQuest that you happen to be playing on your gaming machine back in the last year of the last century.You just died in EverQuest. How dare you die! Since you had the nerve to be defeated in combat, you'll now be required to run from your binding point -- which could potentially be very far away -- to your dead body, which contains all of your equipment and bags that just happen to hold all of your inventory. If you fail to do this, then you lose all of these items. Oh but you've already lost some experience and possibly de-leveled if you happened to have recently leveled up.Hey! Why are you logging out? So what if you think you'd rather play Half-Life right now, this is the game you're paying for monthly. Don't you think you'd better get the most out of it? Hah! See? I knew you were only bluffing. All right, now get to running, noob.
Vigilante Meridian 59 players wage war against pirate servers
Meridian 59 is a game with a pirate problem. A while back, the server source code leaked onto the internet and seedy players began hosting their own servers without subscription fees. Pirate servers are a problem for many MMOs, but because of M59's comparatively small scale, it has a lot more to lose to the trend.Amidst these troubles, some M59 players can be quite loyal. Case in point: the blog of game developer Patrick Rogers tells the story of two former M59 players hacking into a pirate server and mass-killing all its residents with powerful admin commands. The vigilantes hoped to make life (and death) on the pirate servers as unpleasant as possible so as to encourage the residents to migrate to the legitimate servers hosted by Near Death Studios. That's not the most amazing bit, though.
Massively's Visual History of MMORPGs, Part I
The MMORPG genre has come so far in these past few decades, it's almost difficult to believe. The journey from text MUDs to America Online-based dungeon crawlers, and all the way up to Age of Conan and Warhammer Online has been a truly impressive one. We here at Massively would like to invite you to step into the time machine with us and take a visual tour of that journey. We're taking a close look at the most important titles in online role-playing game history!What was the first MUD? Howabout the first 3D MMO? When did these games transition from niche curiosities to global, cultural phenomenons, and who's responsible? In this series, we'll tackle all those questions and more. Plus, we'll see just how far these fancy graphics have come over the years! Sound like fun? Jump into the gallery!%Gallery-19479%
Damion Schubert seeks a different kind of grind
MMO developers and publishers try to provide game-play that keeps you coming back again and again so you won't stop their money flow by canceling your subscription. The easiest way for them to do this is to make their games an addictive grind. You feel compelled to level up. You can't help yourself.Just because something's addictive, though, doesn't mean it's fun. But is there another way? Damion Schubert (of Meridian 59 and Ultima Online fame, and one of a certain blogger's personal heroes) posed that question on his Zen of Design blog. MMOs must be centered around highly repeatable activities, Schubert said. Combat, for example, works well because developers can put in a lot of changeable variables to make the experience different every time. On the other hand, he uses puzzle/mystery games like Myst as examples of games not based on a repeatable activity. Once a puzzle is solved, it's solved, and that's the end of it. So, if not that, then what? What other games have mechanics that can be used as a model for MMO game-play that sticks?That discussion is going on right now at Zen of Design.
Podcast looks back at Meridian 59 history
Want to work on your old-school cred? Check out Virgin Worlds' "Online Gamer's Anthology" podcast episode #5 and learn a bit about the history of arguably the first graphical MMO ever, Meridian 59.The podcast starts out with a somewhat awkward skit which pays homage to Meridian 59's gameplay, but if you skip ahead about 30 minutes you'll get straight to the meat of it -- an in-depth, tell-all interview with developer Brian "Psychochild" Green, who has worked on the game since 1998. He talks about what makes the game unique and relevant, its demise at the hands of 3DO, and its resurrection by his own company, Near Death Studios. Here's a highlight from the interview -- Green explaining why re-launching Meridian 59 was important to him:If you don't have a good sense of history it's really hard to move forward. Looking at more modern games, you have the level and class based system of EverQuest or World of Warcraft. I think a lot of times people look at only the most recent things and think, "Oh, that's the way it's always been, and that's what we have to follow." I think having a wider range of history -- the Meridian 59s, the Ultima Onlines, even those older games back into the proprietary systems -- knowing more about those can kind of give you a wider perspective.
