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The Game Archaeologist crosses Meridian 59: An interview with Brian Green (part 1)
Last week we began to examine one of the most significant MMOs in history: Meridian 59. While it never rose to the level of fame and subscriber numbers as its successors did, Meridian 59 was a daring pioneer that paved the way for all that followed. Its story is almost like a movie, with the title born from the fruits of two amateur programmers, surviving studio shutdowns and huge competition, and persevering from 1996 through today. As I'll recount over the next two episodes of The Game Archaeologist, I sat down with Brian Green, a blogger and game developer who oversaw the resurrection of Meridian 59 in the early 2000s and ran it for the better part of a decade. Green graciously agreed to participate, saying that he always loves talking about games -- and this one in particular. The Game Archaeologist: Hi! Please introduce yourself and your current position and project. Brian Green: I'm Brian "Psychochild" Green, a long-time MMO designer and programmer. I'm known for my professional blog and my work on Meridian 59. I'm currently working on the Storybricks project as the MMO Wizard. We're a startup, so that means I do whatever needs to be done at the moment.
The Game Archaeologist plays with MUDs: Your journeys, part 1
What a long, strange trip it's been back through the heyday of multi-user dungeons and the many, many spin-offs and variations thereof. We've looked at the history, talked with Richard Bartle, and promoted a few of the best titles out there -- but we're not done yet! The Game Archaeologist will not hang up his hat and call it a day well-lived until your stories are entered into the history books. Throughout this month, MUD and MU* players have deluged the inbox of the Game Archaeologist Institute for Text-Based Virtual Worlds, impressing us with hefty paragraphs of passionate experiences. These stories are so good, in fact, that we have little desire to choose between them, which is why we're going to annex the first week of May so that we can share all of them. May won't mind -- May's cool like that. So hit the jump and read the testimonies of the word warriors who were there on the front line of parser combat and grammatically correct roleplaying. These are their stories. This is your lunch break.
