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Stanford STS 145 - Lecture Notes

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First 3D Massively Multiplayer Online RPGHistoryWhy will players come back?Fig 5: Old Screen Shot of Original Meridian 59 interface (18, http://www.gamespy.com/asp/image.asp?/20q/october00/schubert/59a.jpg)BibliographyArticles:Meridian 59: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the First 3D Massively Multiplayer Online RPG Zachary Wyatt STS 145 3/18/2002In the summer of 1996 I spent most of my waking hours slaying Baby Spiders and Giant Rats inside the virtual world of Meridian 59. Generally considered the first 3D Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Game (MMORPG), Meridian 59 bridged the gap between casual graphical game players and intense role-playing enthusiasts of online text-based Multi-User-Dungeons (MUDs). Although I only played for one summer, tens of thousands of others would go on to invest years leading guilds, fighting faction wars, and essentially living a completely different life online. Meridian 59’s unique position as the first MMORPG meant that the it would also be the first to face problems later associated with the genre such as the technical challenges of large multiplayer interactions, social issues like player killing, and financial difficulties of continued profitability. With regard to profitability, Meridian 59’s publisher 3DO decided in June of 2000, after roughly four years, that the game no longer provided a significant return on investment and announced that the servers would be shut down on August 31st, 2000. The results of millions of hours of player time to build characters – all data stored on 3DO’s servers – were lost. Further, without Meridian servers running, no one would ever be able to play Meridian 59 again… …Until March 15th, 2002, when two devoted Meridian developers released and began running the aptly titled Meridian 59: Resurrection under their new company, Near Death Studios. After a six-year absence I was once again – for several hours this afternoon, in fact – slaying Baby Spiders and Giant Rats in Meridian 59. Theunprecedented efforts of Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green and Rob ‘Q’ Ellis to buy the rights from 3DO, fix bugs, and re-release the game are just one chapter of the storied history of Meridian 59’s rise and fall and rise…and…well, only time will tell…. History The founders of Near Death Studios are bringing Meridian back to its roots: two guys working out of their houses with little cash and a big dream. The original development began with two brothers, Chris and Andrew Kirmse. (30) A newsgroup post by Andrew to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games in late 1993 entitled “Multi-user dialup game info” asks a few questions regarding a multiplayer role-playing game and is probably the first public document regarding what would eventually become Meridian 59.1 (35) The brothers, then college students at MIT and Virginia Tech, were accomplished programmers that “knew basically nothing about the game industry” except that they wanted to be in it. (23) Joined by designer and business leaders Michael Sellers (and his brother Chris) from the Bay Area, the Meridian team soon grew to include now well-known and traveled game developers including Damion Schubert (and later his brother Chris), Rob Ellis II, and others.2 (30) As text-based Multi-User-Dungeon (MUD) addicts, each member of the early team believed that graphical 3D MUDs were the next generation of the genre. 1 See Appendix A for the original Meridian inspiring posts by Andrew 2 The original Meridian team has continued to be a powerful force in the gaming industry. The Kirmse brothers are credited with an article about “Security in Online Games” at GamaSutra (24) while Andrew works at LucasArts and Chris with Yahoo! Games. (24) Kevin O’Hara, who worked on the first two Meridian releases, now works at LucasArts on the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxies. (44) Damion Schubert and Rob Ellis moved from Meridian to work as designer for the popular Ultima Online series. (30)Computer role-playing, and in fact online role-playing, had been around for years – but Meridian 59 was the first 3D fully navigable world. The original Neverwinter Nights (NWN), released in 1991 by SSI for the America Online network, was the first well-known online graphical role-playing game – but NWN was not held in a large persistent world and still used turn-based combat. In fact, Neverwinter Nights utilized the same engine as the popular Gold Box series of AD&D games. (3) Meridian 59 battles, however, were real-time – and further, the perspective shifted from 3rd person isometric to 1st person. It was as if you were really looking through the eyes of your character: you were in the game. The announcement of the upcoming shutdown of AOL’s Neverwinter Nights in 1996 suddenly made Meridian 59 one of the only graphical MUD projects in production. (30, 38) Being on the edge of a new medium, the Meridian 593 team quickly expanded during the summer of 1995 from the original (sets of) brothers to include over 20 online collaborators joined under the name of Archetype Studios. The group worked intensely to build the 3D engine, client/server architecture, level designs, game art, and overall story in just over a year. (23) The original alpha test,4 started on December 14th, 1995 held 35 people in 7 rooms with 3 monsters, 2 spells, and 1 quest – all without any player-killing control. (25) As a result the spawn point for new players quickly became “a sea of bodies.” When the Archetype, “running on fumes,” demonstrated its technology to 3DO in early 1996, 3DO bought in hoping to take on the upcoming Ultima Online and Dark Sun Online head on. (30) 3 The name Meridian 59 originated from one of the developer’s own online names, Meridian – but realizing that ‘Meridian’ was already trademarked the team added ‘59’ to it and figured they could make a back story to explain it later. (30) 4 See Appendix B for the original newsgroup announcement by Michael Sellers3DO, founded by Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts fame, was leaving behind the failed console hardware business (3DO’s 32-bit Real Player) and utilized Meridian 59 as a feature of the company’s new ‘Studio 3DO’ software publishing business. On May 16, 1996 an official announcement of the Archetype purchase was released: Marking its entrance into the Internet area, The 3DO Company (NASDAQ: THDO) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the Archetype


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