WEBVTT - The MMORPG Story 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:17.239 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Well, hello 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.640 again everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. My name is 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.720 Chris Polette, and I am an editor at how stuff 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.840 works dot com. Sitting across from me, as he typically 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.520 does when we record podcasts, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.160 You enter a dark room that smells of mold. One 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.839 sputtering torch is the only light source. A rough hewn 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.360 oak table sits at the center of the floor, surrounded 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.640 by overturned chairs. On the table is a spoiled banquet 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.760 left untouched for at least several days. As you glance around, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.080 you hear a quiet click, the sound of a trap 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:55.280 going off. Quick roll, you're saving brow'd do you're you're 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.680 you haven't. You took an arrow to the knee, so 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.520 you will now be a guards So I can no 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.000 longer be an adventurer, not like me. So we are 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.240 today going to talk about the history of massively multiplayer 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.440 online role playing games, and it all actually stems back 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.440 to what I was just alluding to, and all of 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.520 you guys out there who are big D n D 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.880 fans picked up on it. I'm sure immediately we're talking 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.640 about dudgeons and dragons, and it's important to talk about 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.080 dungeons and dragons first to understand why m m O 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:33.240 RPGs exist at all. Yeah, now, there were some computer 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.680 role playing games, but they weren't like what we think 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.000 of today and then and really they came around right 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.399 about the same time as D and D took off. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.120 So let's let's start with um, let's start with D 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.520 n D first of all to kind of explain what's 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:49.440 going on. So we're not we're not even talking about 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.360 D n D online. We're actually talking about specifically about 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.080 the pencil and paper and dice and all that jazz 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.760 game screens, etcetera. So back in nineteen uh, there were 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.520 some some some guys who had created a war game, 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.360 a miniature's war game called chain Mail. All right, now, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.040 war games are they've been around for a while, right, Yeah. 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.320 It's where you essentially have figures that represent military units, 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.280 or you might even have what they used to call chits, 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.959 those little pieces of cardboard that had the little number. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.200 It kind of looked like, Um, if you haven't seen 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.040 these old style things. They actually sort of look like 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.280 the periodic table. They have the picture of your unit 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.720 and how many hit points it has and all that stuff. Right, 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.399 So the ideas that you would try and uh out 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.840 strategicize your opponent playing on a map, and the map 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.040 might have even topographical elements that would indicate how you 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.720 might have an advantage or disadvantage in a given situation, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.079 depending upon your unit and where your enemy is located. 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.640 And anyway, the whole game was this idea of you know, 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.440 matching wits against an opponent. Well, chain mailind of brought 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.320 that down a little bit. Chain Mail was an idea 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:07.040 of using smaller units in very specific circumstances, like say 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.040 in castle or a dungeon. But then the game creators, 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.640 among them a certain Gary Gygax, I feel like I've 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.480 heard that name before, UH, decided that what if we 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.480 were to to to change this. So instead of playing, 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:27.320 you know, controlling units, you control a specific character, someone 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:33.119 who has a personality of background, UH, goals, motivations. UH. 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.640 They have their own abilities and their own disadvantages, and 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.600 you were to take on this role within an adventure. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.080 And that was that where the whole role playing game 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.320 idea kind of spawned out of You would have someone 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.720 who is in charge of explaining all the environments and 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.040 taking care of all the game mechanics on the back end. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.320 That would be the dungeon master or game master. And 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.280 then the players would each control a character and would 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.920 try and pursue certain goals dependent upon the game itself 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.320 and that character's personality. And this was kind of a 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.160 radical idea at the time, back in nineteen seventy four, 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:13.680 and uh it called I could I guess you could 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.919 say it was a popular idea, particularly among high school 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.320 and college students. Now, your characters when when you first 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.479 started there, there are some elements of chance involved here. Um. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.960 When you first create your character, uh, you roll the 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:36.920 dice to to determine what the character's characteristics are. Their attributes. Yeah, like, um, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.880 for example, of strength, how strong that person is, or 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.960 or how much dexterity that person has the ability to 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.680 get out of the way when somebody's swinging an axe 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.400 at their head. Um. Now, I haven't played D and 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.359 D for about twenty years, but I remember that it 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.600 used to range between three and eighteen for normal characters. Yes, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:59.440 because you roll, Um, the thing is um with the uh. 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.880 You know that that's one aspect of it too. But 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.800 the dungeon master or game master would use a screen 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.080 to hide the dungeon or whatever it is that you 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.480 were going and venturing in, so you didn't really know. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.560 Unlike those other games where you could see there were 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:14.760 mountains ahead of your characters, you could go around the 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:19.760 mountains when you came, Um, you'll be riding six white horses. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.080 But meanwhile, um, in a dungeon and in D and D, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.719 you didn't necessarily know. And this is the difference in 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:28.720 a role playing game and those other games. You are 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.240 actually pretending to be, you know, this character. So uh. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:35.200 One of the first things I had to learn and 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:36.800 I when I started playing dn D, I was I 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.240 think eight years old or nine years old. Um, you 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.320 had to learn that you can't see what's going on, 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.920 so you have to remember to ask what do I see? 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.800 What do I hear? You know, and the dungeon master 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.520 might not necessarily tell you you hear the click of 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.320 a trap unless you ask, like, well, you just heard 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:57.160 a clicking noise? Oh right, that clicking noises and D 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.680 n D were never a good thing. But you also 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.839 you also had different play styles. Right. You had people 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:08.200 who would play very achievement oriented, Right. They wanted to 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.880 they wanted to get whatever the goal was, and it 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.480 was less about the experience of being a character. Uh. 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.520 And then you had people who really kind of embraced 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.720 the idea of role playing being someone else and to 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:26.160 really kind of try and drive that aspect more than 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.200 the rules necessarily. So you you kind of had these 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:35.400 two types subcategories of players rule rule players that were 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.239 all about the statistics and and getting the good roles 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.200 and getting the best equipment for their character because it 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.680 would guarantee their success that kind of thing, and role 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.360 players who are more interested in the personality aspects. Most 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.800 most players fall somewhere within that spectrum. Between those two. 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:52.520 The same thing holds true by the way of m 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.840 m O RPGs. So the only reason I even mentioned 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.240 all of that is so that we have the foundation 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.360 to build upon, so that we understand once we get 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.599 into m m O RPGs why they're a big deal. Well, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.280 computer role playing games have been around, like I said, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:11.280 about as long as uh Dungeons and Dragons have, because 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.880 that was they sort of went around at um. The 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.360 rise of personal computers on the desktop. Uh right, right 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.040 about the same time that the mid to late seventies, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.560 and they got popular in high schools and colleges, which 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.560 were breeding grounds not just for role playing games, but 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.800 for computer sciences. Yes, yes, that's true. Uh. The thing is, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.320 one of the reasons that that Dungeons and Dragons and 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.840 other role playing games took off was because it gave 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.160 you an opportunity to play a game with your friends. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.160 You weren't sitting at home on one machine interacting with 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:46.720 the game on the machine. I mean that was fun too. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.720 I like playing uh those games by myself. Also, we 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.200 usually call those c RPGs computer role playing games. They 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.800 don't necessarily have a multiplayer element to them, right, but 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:04.240 but the multiplayer games, both on paper and and computers, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.000 give you an opportunity to uh go through the experience 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.600 with other people and uh, which which can be fun 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.760 because you never know what those other people are are 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:14.720 going to do. And it also gives you this feeling 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.880 of camaraderie es pre decor if you will, and and 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.240 depending upon the game, it may allow certain players to 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.880 band together and oppose other players. So you can even 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.480 have elements within the game where you've got a struggle 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.400 between two groups of players, and if the game is 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.480 designed properly, meaning that it's you know, a dynamic element 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.240 to it, you might even be able to have players 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:44.599 actually influence the course of the game's world, which is 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.240 pretty tricky because you know, that's a very delicate balance 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.720 to to create when you are a developer. You don't 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.199 want to make it so easy to affect the game's 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.800 world that it is UH that that one group of 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.480 players essentially dominates and makes all the determine nations of 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.720 where the game's world is going. At the same time, 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:04.800 you don't want it to be so static that it 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.920 feels like no matter what you do, you don't influence 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.080 the outcome. It's a really tricky balance. Well, I would UH. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.400 I would argue that one of the things that makes 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.800 UH online role playing games so much fun UH is 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:24.880 not necessarily the high graphics elements. I think the the 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.120 the element of play is most important. That's one of 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.360 the things. I mean, you don't see these things, these 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.200 fantastic UH animations of spells and and UH sword play 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.720 and whatever else that you might happen to be engaged 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.200 in when you're playing a tabletop role playing game because 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.080 imagine what imagine it. It's this thing that we used 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.480 to do before there was the internet. Well, I I 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.080 do love looking at the amazing graphics work of some 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:54.079 of these game studios now, but um, you know, the 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.480 very first online role playing games were text based. Yeah, 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.120 in fact, we can talk a little about them. First 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.440 of all, I wanna define a couple of terms for 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.960 the very earliest games. Some of them were built on 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:12.720 something called PLATO, which is an acronym for Programmed Logic 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:17.480 for Automated Teaching Operations. Here's the funny thing, this sucker 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.320 pre dates pretty much all of this stuff that we're talking. 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:24.360 PLATO actually came out before D and D the tabletop 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.440 game came out early sixties actually. But but PLATO was 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.760 all about. It was supposed to be an educational platform, 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.560 which of course meant that students immediately figured out ways 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.199 to play games on it, and uh like almost immediately. 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.040 This is for education. I want to kill stuff. So, um, 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:46.000 the University of Illinois built programmed Logic for automated teaching operations. 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.480 So it's a platform that could run on network to computers. Now, 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.960 these computers are networked to one another, they are not 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.560 networked into a larger network. Think land Party, not the Internet, right, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.839 and uh, immediately you had students start to figure out 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.240 ways to create games because it meant that they could 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.960 link it to other students and have a social experience 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.600 on a computer, which just shows you that, you know, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.280 we are very social creatures. The you know, the first 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.480 thing we start looking at is how can we use 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.400 this machine to connect to other people? So that's one 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.520 acronym you need to know. Another one is MUD, which 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:27.400 stands for multi user dungeons, not not what happens when 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.120 you add water to earth um, which just makes me 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.200 almost go off on a brack tangent. But I'm not 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:40.240 going to what happened to the water. Uh So Also 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.920 with mud come a couple of other um uh topics 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.840 or a couple other acronyms, MoU and mush. Have you 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.520 heard about those? So a move is a move is 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.439 an acronym that has an acronym in it because move 0:11:53.559 --> 0:12:00.440 stands for mud object oriented, MUSH stands for mud users. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:06.120 Shared hallucination or shared hack or shared habitat or shared holiday. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.760 It really depends on who you ask. They're all pretty similar. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:13.440 But but these are basically the frameworks within which people 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:18.040 built games. Now back in there was a game that 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:22.760 came out called Colossal Cave Adventure sometimes just called Adventure 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.319 by William Crowther and it was a single player text 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:31.400 based game, but it was what created the foundation for 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.200 some of the multi user games that came after it. 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.520 UH In ninety seven and published in seventy eight, a 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.040 game called Maria came out, and now Maria was built 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.080 on top of Plato. There were other games that came 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.160 out before Maria, but Maria is one of the more 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.680 famous ones, and it allowed up to ten players to 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.760 get together in a party and go on a dungeon 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:59.080 crawling adventure UH. And it was created with these these 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.120 very simple vector graphics like a UM. You know, you 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.840 see like the green wall with a green door outline 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:08.440 on it, and you would push a command that would 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.559 knock the door open and then you might have an 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.520 encounter afterward, you might find treasure, that kind of stuff. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.920 The interesting thing about it was not only did it 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.560 allow up to tend people to play that that itself 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.440 was interesting, but it also created the dungeons um every 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.000 time you played, so the dungeons were not pre generated, 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.400 they generated dynamically when you would play the game, so 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.840 you would never necessarily have the same experience twice because 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.839 the dungeon would be randomly created when you started. UM 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.720 and UH. So that that was sort of an early 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.520 example of how people were trying to kind of port 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.800 the experience of playing Dungeons and Dragons or a game 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.480 like D and D to a computer environment and not 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.400 have it be a single player playing with computer generated characters, 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.920 although there are plenty of examples of that as well. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.920 UM and then in nineteen seventy eight, a fellow named 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.320 Roy Trubshaw created the very first multi user dungeon and 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.280 it was called Mud. That's why we call the MUDs 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.840 because he made it. It was he was in Essex University, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.839 and so Mud became the generic term for games that 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.680 were built in this way. UM and it became very 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.760 very popular. And then eventually again these were on network computers. 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.960 There was no Internet yet, but Trubshaw connected his game 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.920 to the ARPA net in nineteen eighty, so suddenly you 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:42.560 had essentially the ancestor too massively multiplayer online role playing games. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.440 Because it made it gave access to people beyond just 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:51.479 folks who had uh the access to those specific computers 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.320 within Essex University to play. Yeah, my my notes have 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.040 the game down as being called Dungeon d U N 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.480 G E N. Yeah, I have it as it was 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:07.520 called multi User Dungeon. So yeah, yeah, but by the 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.040 same same thing. I mean, that's that is where mud 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.200 came from. They probably, I'm sure it was called dungeon, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.600 just as uh for shorthand the next one I have 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.080 doesn't pop up til do you have anything you wanted 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.200 to mention before I go to that? Okay. So in 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.600 the University of Virginia there were a couple of classmates, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.280 John Taylor and Kelton Flynn, and they created a game 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.480 called The Dungeons of Kezm, which was a six player game, 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.160 and it was also inspired by duchess and dragons, and 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:43.880 it used as key graphics to represent elements of the game. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.720 it's making me think of some of the old games 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.200 I used to play. And they also founded a company 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.640 in eight two called the Kezmi Company. A few years later, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.840 they I'll mention it when it happens, but they would 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.040 come up with another game that would be uh kind 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.080 of a big influence on online role playing games in 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.840 the future. UH. In any four, you had a fellow 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.800 named Mark Peterson who wrote The Realm of ang Mar 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.760 and Uh. It was originally a kind of an offshoot 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.440 of another game called The Scepter of Goth and Uh. 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:21.600 In ninety four Peterson rewrote it and adapted it for 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.000 MS DOSS, which I don't know how many of you 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.840 guys remember MS DOSS. That's pre windows UM, but that 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.520 was the that formed the basis of a game that 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.680 ended up being found on a lot of bulletin board systems. So, 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.400 if you guys heard our episode about bbs IS, you 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.000 know that there used to be these communities. Still aren't 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.160 in many cases, but there were these communities that were 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:50.600 housed on individual, private individuals computers, although you could also 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.120 have companies that do this too, but you could have 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.840 a private individual who would open up their computer to 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.640 allow other people to dial into their computer to access 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.680 files and play games. This is one of the games 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.840 that was found on a lot of bbs is. And 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.280 if the BBS would allow multiple people to call in 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.080 at once, if they had multiple lines that would allow 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:17.200 for that, then you can have people play this game simultaneously. UM. 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:21.000 And in eight five you had the introduction of Mirror World, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.000 which was a multi user dungeon that could be run 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.240 on a home computer as opposed to some you know, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:32.200 research institution or university's computer. Yeah, I remember the modem 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:37.360 speeds back then. That was. Yeah. Yeah, I've got an 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.600 interesting thing to mentioned in one about that. Five was 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.119 also the year that the Kezmi Corporation came out with 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.680 Island of Kezmi, which again Kelton Flynn and John Taylor, 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.639 and this ran on compu Serve. Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:57.320 So it was the first commercial multiplayer online role playing game. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.160 I don't think you could call it massive. Big has 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.000 had a limit to how many players could play one, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.440 no more than one. Compared compared to the earlier games, 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.880 that's pretty massive. Yeah, compared to you know, the old 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.240 the Older Kids My game where six people could play, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:18.000 or even the the the ten player Maria game, it's 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.440 you know, it's I think it's almost ten times that. Wow. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:28.040 So I'm not that stupid people, almost but not quite. 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.760 An interesting game comes out interesting for a couple of 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.240 reasons because, for one thing, you can confuse it with 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.000 another game by the same name. Never Winter Nights by 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.840 Don Daglo and Catherine Mattega comes out has no connection 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:43.639 at all to the Never Winter Nights game that came 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:48.080 out by BioWare. But this game ran on A O L. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.920 And I've heard of it. I used that joke already. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:57.080 They and A O L used an interesting pricing mechanism. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.080 So this is a commercial game. You had to pay 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.359 to play. And the way it worked was that you 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.160 would pay six dollars an hour to play this game 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:09.960 at three hundred bawd. And when we were talking hours, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.600 that's about how long it would take to load to 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.600 make a move. Uh. For twelve dollars an hour, you 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:21.280 could play at Hey, that's just screaming fast, right, It's 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.600 it's screaming all right. I don't know if it's screaming fast. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:29.640 And this was the first graphics based M M O RPG. Uh, Now, 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.919 do you have any you want to mention at all 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.639 before we get to ninety, because then I've got the biggie. Well. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.639 I figured that we were going to talk about the 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.719 the Ultimate series of games because they were important for 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.640 the role playing game world, but they weren't massively multiplayer, right, 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.480 and that yes, that will definitely lead into a very 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.760 important discussion so Ultima. While while we've got this development 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.720 over here with the multi user games, there's still quite 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.560 a bit of work being done in single player computer 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.360 role play games. Oh absolutely, they were huge and one 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.399 of the one of the people who was really spearheading 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.399 this movement. We've actually we did an entire episode on him, 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:14.399 Richard Garriott, the Lord British of the Ultimate series. He 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.639 founded the Ultimate series. First game was Al Kalabeth, which 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.399 then eventually of which he was in college at the time. Yeah. Yeah, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.679 and uh, he actually chopped out of college because his 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.080 computer game business took off so well. His dad, by 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.520 the way, astronaut. Yes, dad's an astronaut. He jumps out 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.000 of college, makes millions of dollars. But yeah, they were 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.640 he was working with. Don't take that as a lesson, kids, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.719 I'm not saying drop out of college. Your mileage may 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:49.160 very yes. Um. Yeah, he was talking in one about 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.560 the possibility of an online version of Ultima. Yeah. Now, 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.679 Ultima was a series that he created after his first 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.800 success in computer role playing games and then Ultimate. Uh. 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.560 The original Ultimate games were kind of your standard hack 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.639 and slash RPG type games where you took on the 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.480 role of a character and tried to defeat some sort 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:16.840 of massively evil villain. But after Ultimate three UH, Richard 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.479 Garriott took an interesting turn. He really began to do 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.199 something new with computer role playing games. He created the 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.600 concept of UH. Well, it didn't create the concept, but 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.600 he incorporated the concept of morality and how your choices 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:37.000 can affect gameplay and UH. In Ultima four, you took 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.119 on the role of a character called the Avatar, who 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.439 was supposed to be the exemplification of all the best 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.920 traits in the world. He was supposed to be the 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.119 the paragon of virtue. And if you, um, if you 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.800 played like a nasty person and you stole stuff and 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.960 you killed innocence, you could not win the game. It 0:21:58.040 --> 0:21:59.720 was impossible to win the game because in order to 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.080 win the and you had to make lots of sacrifices 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:07.760 and and be virtuous. And then this sort of gave 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:10.080 a real shot in the arm to his series. I mean, 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:14.600 it was already popular, but then it became crazy popular, 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:20.080 and so he continued to develop the games, and as 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:27.720 the multi user craze continued, with fairly primitive games compared 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:32.440 to some of the standalone games on computers, he began 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.920 to turn his eye towards developing an online version of 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:40.120 this Ultima world now in the meantime, just before he this, 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:43.760 while while this this whole plan for an online version 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:48.080 of Ultima was in the earliest development phases, another game 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.960 in ninety six came out called Meridian fifty nine, and 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.159 that was developed by a company called three d O 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.160 which no longer exists. Um they were, They were something 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:00.840 of an innovator for their time. Yes, um but if 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.320 you've never heard of them, and it's because they've been 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:05.760 closed for for quite a while. It's one of the 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:10.199 first massively multiplayer online role playing games ever released by 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.200 a major publisher, and and a lot of the things 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:17.080 that we associate with m m O RPGs began with 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.119 this game. For one, it had a monthly subscription for 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.960 a flat rate, so you would pay us a flat 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.359 rate each month to play. It had a three D 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.280 first person view of the world in a fantasy setting, 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.159 and uh not all. In fact, a lot of m 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:34.720 m O RPGs do not take the first person views. 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:36.920 Several of them take a third person view, where you're 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:42.240 either behind or or over the character you're playing. Um 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.840 but U three d O ran this game, but then 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.680 it shut down. The three d O shutdown in two 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:52.359 thousand three, it ceased to be Actually, they closed the 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:56.200