WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The MMORPG Story 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.120 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.120 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.160 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.840 at how Stuff Works in a love all things tech, 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.200 and it's time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.960 The episode you are about to hear originally published on 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.440 June six, two thousand twelve. A two thousand and twelve. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.440 Do you remember how bride eyed and innocent we were 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.239 back then? Well, this particular classic episode is called the 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.479 m m O RPG Story, the massively multiplayer online role 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.760 playing game story, which granted has changed a lot since 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.040 two thousand twelve. There were games that have come out 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.040 since then that we don't go into in this episode 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.360 because we weren't able to look into the future. But 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.280 we do look at the origins of the m m 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.680 O RPG. Where did it come from and how did 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.280 it volve? And when I say we, I mean me 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.680 and my original co host Chris Pallette. So sit back, relax, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.880 and enjoy this classic episode. So we are today going 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.600 to talk about the history of massively multiplayer online role 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.720 playing games, and it all actually stems back to what 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.480 I was just alluding to and all of you guys 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.759 out there who are big D n D fans picked 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.840 up on it. I'm sure immediately we're talking about dudgeons 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.360 and dragons, and it's important to talk about dungeons and 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.480 dragons first to understand why M m O RPGs exist 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.039 at all. Yeah, and now there were some computer role 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.080 playing games, but they weren't like what we think of 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.560 today and then and really they came around right about 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.280 the same time as D and D took off. So 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.520 let's let's start with um, let's start with D and 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.120 D first of all to kind of explain what's going on. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.440 So we're not we're not even talking about D n 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:01.080 D online. We're actually talking about specifically about the pencil 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:06.040 and paper and dice and all that jazz game screens, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.480 et cetera. So back in nineteen uh, there were some 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.919 some some guys who had created a war game, a 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.200 miniature's war game called chain Mail. All right, now, war 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.240 games are they've been around for a while, right, Yeah. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.600 It's where you essentially have uh, figures that represent military units, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.519 or you might even have what they used to call chits, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.200 those little pieces of cardboard they had the little number 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.480 they kind of look like, Um, if you haven't seen 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.320 these old style things, they actually sort of look like 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.520 the periodic table. They have the picture of your unit 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.960 and how many hit points it has and all that stuff. Right, 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.680 So the ideas that you would try and uh out 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:49.080 strategicize your opponent playing on a map, and the map 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.280 might have even topographical elements that would indicate how you 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.959 might have an advantage or disadvantage in a given situation, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.680 depending upon your unit and where your enemy is located. Right, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.880 And anyway, the whole game was this idea of you know, 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.360 matching wits against an opponent. Well, chain Mail kind of 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:08.280 brought that down a little bit. Chain Mail was an 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.560 idea of using smaller units in very specific circumstances, like 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:18.000 say in castle or a dungeon. But then the game creators, 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.880 among them a certain Gary Gygax, I feel like I've 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.720 heard that name before, uh, decided that what if we 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.720 were to to to change this So instead of playing 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.600 you know, controlling units, you control a specific character, someone 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.360 who has a personality of background, UH, goals, motivations. UH. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.880 They have their own abilities and their own disadvantages, and 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.840 you were to take on this role within an adventure, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.320 and that was the where the whole role playing game 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.560 idea kind of spawned out of. You would have someone 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.960 who was in charge of explaining all the environments and 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.280 taking care of all the game mechanics on the back end. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.560 That would be the dungeon master or a master. And 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.600 then the players would each control a character and would 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.160 try and pursue certain goals dependent upon the game itself 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.520 and that character's personality. And this was kind of a 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.560 radical idea at the time, back in nineteen seventy four, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.960 and uh it called I could I guess you could 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:25.159 say it was a popular idea, particularly among high school 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.279 and college students. Now, your characters when you when you 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.720 first started there, there are some elements of chance involved here. Um. 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.240 When you first create your character, uh, you roll the 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:43.000 dice to determine what the character's characteristics are. Their attributes. Yeah, like, um, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.120 for example, of strength, how strong that person is, or 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.200 or how much dexterity that person has the ability to 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:50.960 get out of the way when somebody's swinging an axe 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.680 at their head. Um. Now, I haven't played D and 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.599 D for about twenty years, but I remember that it 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.880 used to range between three and eighteen for normal characters. Yes, 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.919 because you roll three see six sided die. Um, the 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.240 thing is um with the uh uh you know that 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.000 that's one aspect of it too. But the the dungeon 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.120 master or game master would use a screen to hide 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.840 the dungeon or whatever it is that you were going 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.400 and venturing in, so you didn't really know. Unlike those 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.479 other games where you could see there were mountains ahead 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.760 of your characters, you could go around the mountains when 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.720 you came, Um, you'll be riding six white horses. But meanwhile, UM, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.240 in a dungeon and in D and D, you didn't 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.320 necessarily know. And this is the difference in a role 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.120 playing game and those other games. You are actually pretending 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.080 to be you know this character, so U one of 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:41.760 the first things I had to learn, and I when 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.200 I started playing D n D, I was I think 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.640 eight years old or nine years old. Um, you had 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.680 to learn that you can't see what's going on, so 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.200 you have to remember to ask what do I see? 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.039 What do I hear? You know, and the dungeon master 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.880 might not necessarily tell you hear the click of a 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.640 trap unless you ask, like, well, you just heard a 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.520 clicking noise? Oh right, that clicking noises in D and 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.920 D were never a good thing. Um. But you also 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.080 you also had different play styles, right. You had people 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.440 who would play very achievement oriented, right. They wanted to 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.120 they wanted to get whatever the goal was, and it 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.760 was less about the experience of being a character. Uh. 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.760 And then you had people who really kind of embraced 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:28.000 the idea of role playing being someone else and to 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.440 really kind of try and drive that aspect more than 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.440 the rules necessarily. So you you kind of had these 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:41.640 two types subcategories of players rule rule players that were 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.480 all about the statistics and and getting the good roles 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.479 and getting the best equipment for their character because it 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.920 would guarantee their success that kind of thing, and role 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.600 players who are more interested in the personality aspects. Most 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.040 most players fall somewhere within that spectrum between those two. 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:58.920 Same thing holds true by the way of m m 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.279 O RPGs. So the only reason I even mentioned all 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:04.680 of that is so that we have the foundation to 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.839 build upon, so that we understand once we get into 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.840 m m O RPGs why they're a big deal. Well, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.559 computer role playing games have been around, like I said, 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.520 about as long as uh, Dungeons and Dragons have because 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.000 that was they sort of went around at um and 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.360 the rise of personal computers on the desktop, uh right, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.280 right about the same time that the mid to late seventies, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.800 and they got popular in high schools and colleges, which 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.800 were breeding grounds not just for role playing games but 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.040 for computer sciences. Yes, yes, that's true. Uh. The thing is, 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.560 one of the reasons that that Dungeons and Dragons and 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.080 other role playing games took off was because it gave 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.400 you an opportunity to play a game with your friends. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.400 You weren't sitting at home on one machine interacting with 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:52.960 the game on the machine. I mean that was fun too. 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.960 I like playing uh those games by myself. Also, we 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.400 usually call those c RPGs computer role playing games that 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:05.040 don't necessarily have a multiplayer element to them, right, but 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:10.480 but the multiplayer games, both on paper and and computers, 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.280 give you an opportunity to uh go through the experience 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.240 with other people and which which can be fun because 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.360 you never know what those other people are are going 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.120 to do. And it also gives you this feeling of camaraderie. 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.880 It's pre decor if you will, and and depending upon 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.280 the game, it may allow certain players to band together 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.200 and oppose other players, So you can even have elements 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.560 within the game where you've got a struggle between two 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.560 groups of players. And if the game is designed properly, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.280 meaning that it's you know, a dynamic element to it, 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.079 you might even be able to have players actually influence 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.480 the course of the game's world, which is pretty tricky 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.960 because you know, that's a very delicate balance to to 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.240 create when you are a developer. You don't want to 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.480 make it so easy to affect the game's world that 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.400 it is uh uh that that one group of players 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.040 essentially dominates and makes all the determinations of where the 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.240 game's world is going. At the same time, you don't 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.560 want it to be so static that it feels like 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.760 no matter what you do, you don't influence the outcome. 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.720 It's a really tricky balance. Well, I would I would 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.720 argue that one of the things that makes UH online 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.080 role playing games so much fun UH is not necessarily 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.680 the high graphics elements. I think the the the element 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.720 of play is most important. That's one of the things. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.960 I mean, you don't see these things, these fantastic UH 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.960 animations of spells and and UH sword play and whatever 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.079 else that you might happen to be engaged in when 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.080 you're playing a tabletop role playing game, because imagine it. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.440 What imagine it? It's this thing that we used to 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.000 do before there was the internet. Well, I I do 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.480 love looking at the amazing graphics work of some of 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.640 these game studios now. But um, you know, the very 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.199 first online role playing games were text based. Yeah, in fact, 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.680 we can talk a little bit about them. First of all, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.120 I wanna define a couple of terms for the very 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:16.000 earliest games. Some of them were built on something called PLATO, 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:21.199 which is an acronym for Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations. 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.360 Here's the funny thing, bit Sucker pre dates pretty much 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.520 all of this stuff that we're talking. Plato actually came 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.400 out before D and D the tabletop game came out 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.920 early sixties actually. But but PLATO was all about It 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.120 was supposed to be an educational platform, which of course 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.360 meant that students immediately figured out ways to play games 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:44.920 on it, and uh like almost immediately. This is for education. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.760 I want to kill stuff. So, um, the University of 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.560 Illinois built programmed Logic for Automated Teaching operations. So it's 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.880 a platform that could run on networked computers. Now these 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.000 computers are networked to one another, they are not networked 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.839 into a large your network think land Party, not the Internet, right, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.120 and uh, immediately you had students start to figure out 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.520 ways to create games because it meant that they could 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.199 link it to other students and have a social experience 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.840 on a computer, which just shows you that, you know, 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.520 we are very social creatures. The you know, the first 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:21.719 thing we start looking at is how can we use 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.680 this machine to connect to other people? So that's one 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.760 acronym you need to know. Another one is MUD, which 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:33.640 stands for multi user dungeons, not not what happens when 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.360 you add water to earth um which just makes me 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.480 almost go off on a brack tangent. But I'm not 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:46.480 going to what happened to the water? Uh? So, Also 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.160 with mud come a couple of other um uh topics, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.080 or a couple other acronyms, move and mush. Have you 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.760 heard about those? So a move is a move is 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.760 an acronym that has an acronym in it because moves 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:06.679 to is for mud object oriented. MUSH stands for mud users, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:12.400 Shared hallucination or shared hack or shared habitat or shared holiday. 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.080 It really depends on who you ask. They're all pretty similar. 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.720 But but these are basically the frameworks within which people 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.160 built games. Now, back in n there was a game 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.560 that came out called Colossal Cave Adventure sometimes just called 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.240 Adventure by William Crowther and it was a single player 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.520 text based game, but it was what created the foundation 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.440 for some of the multi user games that came after it. 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.760 UH In ninety seven and published in seventy eight, a 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.280 game called Maria came out, and now Maria was built 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.360 on top of Plato. There were other games that came 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.400 out before Maria, but Maria is one of the more 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.920 famous ones, and it allowed up to ten players to 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.000 get together in a party and go on a dungeon 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.320 crawling adventure UH. And it was created with these these 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:10.360 very simple vector graphics like a um. You know, you 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.120 see like the green wall with a green door outline 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:14.680 on it, and you would push a command that would 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.800 knock the door open and then you might have an 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.760 encounter afterward, you might find treasure, that kind of stuff. 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.199 The interesting thing about it was not only did it 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.800 allow up to tend people to play that that itself 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.680 was interesting but it also created the dungeons um every 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.280 time you played, so the dungeons were not pre generated. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.640 They generated dynamically when you would play the game, so 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.080 you would never necessarily have the same experience twice because 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.080 the dungeon would be randomly created when you started. UM 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.959 and uh. So that that was sort of an early 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.800 example of how people were trying to kind of port 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.080 the experience of playing Dungeons and Dragons or a game 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.760 like D and D to a computer environment and not 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.640 have it be a single player playing with computer generated characters, 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.200 although there are plenty of examples of that as well. 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.160 UM and Then in nineteen seventy eight, a fellow named 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:14.040 Roy trub Shaw created the very first multi user dungeon 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.800 and it was called Mud. That's why we call them 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.360 MUDs because he made it. It was he was in 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.640 Essex University, and so mud became the generic term for 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.400 games that were built in this way. UM and it 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.880 became very very popular. And then eventually again these were 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.680 on network computers. There was no Internet yet, but Trubshaw 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.680 connected his game to the ARPA net in nineteen eighty, 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:47.560 so suddenly you had essentially the ancestor to massively multiplayer 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.640 online role playing games because it made it gave access 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:56.240 to people beyond just folks who had uh the access 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.560 to those specific computers within Essex University to play. Yeah. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.200 My my notes have the game down as being called 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.960 Dungeon d U N G E N. Yeah, I have 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:12.360 it as it was called multi user Dungeon. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.360 but by the same same thing. I mean, that's that 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.680 is where mud came from. They probably, I'm sure it 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:22.200 was called dungeon, just as uh for shorthand the next 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.680 one I have doesn't pop up till do you have 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.000 anything you wanted to mention before I go to that? Okay, 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.120 So in the University of Virginia there were a couple 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:36.160 of classmates, John Taylor and Kelton Flynn, and they created 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.680 a game called The Dungeons of Kezm which was a 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.840 six player game and it was also inspired by duchess 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.440 and dragons and it used as key graphics to represent 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.960 elements of the game. Yeah. Yeah, it's making me think 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:52.800 of some of the old games I used to play. 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.720 And they also founded a company in eighty two called 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.880 the Kezmi Company. A few years later they I'll mention 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:00.520 it when it happens, but they would come up with 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.640 another game that would be UH kind of a big 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:09.360 influence on online role playing games in the future. UH. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.359 In any four, you had a fellow named Mark Peterson 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:17.560 who wrote The Realm of ang Mar and UH. It 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.680 was originally a kind of an offshoot of another game 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.920 called The Scepter of Goth and UH. In ninety four 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.680 Peterson rewrote it and adapted it for MS DOSS, which 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.400 I don't know how many of you guys remember MS DOSS. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.840 That's pre windows Um, but that was the that formed 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.920 the basis of a game that ended up being found 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.200 on a lot of Bolton Board systems. So if you 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.120 guys heard our episode about bbs is, you know that 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.960 there used to be these communities. Still aren't in many cases, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.840 but there were these communities that were housed on individual, 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.560 private individuals computers, although you could also have companies that 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:59.920 do this too, But you could have a private end 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.760 visual who would open up their computer to allow other 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.560 people to dial into their computer to access files and 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.320 play games. This is one of the games that was 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.399 found on a lot of bbs is. And if the 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.040 bbs would allow multiple people to call in at once, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.720 if they had multiple lines that would allow for that. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:23.440 Then you can have people play this game simultaneously. Um. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:27.240 And in eight five you had the introduction of Mirror World, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.240 which was a multi user dungeon that could be run 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.520 on a home computer as opposed to some you know, 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:38.439 research institution or university's computer. Yeah. I remember the modem 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:43.600 speeds back then. That was yeah, yeah, I've got an 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:48.120 interesting thing to mentioned in about that. Five was also 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.080 the year that the Kezmi Corporation came out with Island 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.439 of Kezmi, which again Kelton Flynn and John Taylor, and 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.879 this ran on compu Serve. Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah. 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.600 So it was the first commercial multiplayer online role playing game. 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.440 I don't think you could call it massive because it 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.240 had a limit to how many players could play one, 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.680 no more than one. Compared compared to the earlier games, 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.120 that's pretty massive. Yeah, compared to you know, the old 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.480 the older Kids My game where six people could play, 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:24.520 or even the the ten player Maria game, it's you know, 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.359 it's I think it's almost ten times that. Wow. So 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:35.000 I'm not that stupid people, almost but not quite. An 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.920 interesting game comes out interesting for a couple of reasons, because, 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.120 for one thing, you can confuse it with another game 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.160 by the same name, Never Winter Nights by Don Daglo 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.359 and Catherine Mattega comes out has no connection at all 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.720 to the Never Winter Nights game that came out by BioWare. 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.960 But this game ran on A O L. And I've 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.680 heard of it. I used that joke already. They and 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.600 A O L used a an interesting pricing mechanism. So 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.320 this is a commercial game. You had to pay to play, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.120 and the way it worked was that you would pay 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.880 six dollars an hour to play this game at three 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:17.200 hundred bawd. And when we were talking hours, that's about 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.000 how long it would take to loads to make a move. Uh. 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.600 For twelve dollars an hour, you can play at twelve bad. Hey, 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.600 that's just screaming fast, right, good, it's screaming all right. 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.280 I don't know if it's streaming fast. And this was 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:35.880 the first graphics based M M O RPG. Uh. Now, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.159 do you have any you want to mention at all 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.800 before we get to ninety, because then I've got the biggie. Well. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.919 I figured that we were going to talk about the 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.000 the Ultimate series of games because they were important for 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.520 the role playing game world. But they weren't massively multiplayer, 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.480 right and that yes, that will definitely lead into a 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.399 very important discussion. So Ultima. While while we've got this 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.640 development over here with the multi user games, there's still 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.359 quite a bit of work being done in single player 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.320 computer role playing games. Oh absolutely, they were huge and 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.080 one of the one of the people who was really 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.120 spiritheading this movement. We've actually we did an entire episode 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:20.480 on him, Richard Garriott, the Lord British of the Ultimate Series. 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.000 He founded the Ultimate Series. First game was Al Kalabeth, 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.520 which then eventually of which he was in college at 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.840 the time. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, he actually dropped out 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.520 of college because his computer game business took off so well. 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:39.760 His dad, by the way, astronaut. Yes, dad's an astronaut. 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.920 He jumps out of college, makes millions of dollars. But yeah, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.160 they were he was working with. Don't take that as 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.119 a lesson, kids, I'm not saying drop out of college. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.080 Your mileage may very Yes. Um, yeah, he was talking 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:59.760 in one about the possibility of an online version of Ultima. Yeah. Now, 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.520 all Tima was a series that he created after his 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.040 first success in computer role playing games, and then Ultima UH. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.800 The original Ultimate games were kind of your standard hack 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.879 and slash RPG type games where you took on the 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:17.760 role of a character and tried to defeat some sort 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:23.040 of massively evil villain. But after Ultima three UH, Richard 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.719 Garriott took an interesting turn. He really began to do 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.439 something new with computer role playing games. He created the 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.840 concept of UH. Well it didn't create the concept, but 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.840 he incorporated the concept of morality and how your choices 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:43.240 can affect gameplay and UH. In Ultima four, you took 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.359 on the role of a character called the Avatar, who 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.679 was supposed to be the exemplification of all the best 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:54.160 traits in the world. He was supposed to be the 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.359 the paragon of virtue. And if you, um, if you 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.959 played like a nasty person and you know, stule stuff, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.720 and you killed innocence, you could not win the game. 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:05.920 It was impossible to win the game because in order 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.399 to win the game you had to make lots of 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:12.880 sacrifices and and be virtuous UH. And then this sort 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.119 of gave a real shot in the arm to his series. 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.800 I mean, it was already popular, but then it became 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:24.400 crazy popular, and so he continued to develop the games, 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:32.920 and as the multi user craze continued with fairly primitive 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.639 games compared to some of the the standalone games on computers, 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.400 he began to turn his eye towards developing an online 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.360 version of This Ultimate World. Now. In the meantime, just 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:49.439 before this, well while this, this whole plan for an 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.200 online version of Ultima was in the earliest development phases, 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.359 another game in nineties six came out called Meridian fifty nine, 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.119 and that was developed by a company called Radio, which 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.520 no longer exists. Um, they were, They were something of 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.280 an innovator for their time. Yes, um, but if you've 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.000 never heard of them, and it's because they've been closed 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.399 for for quite a while. It's one of the first 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.520 massively multiplayer online role playing games ever released by a 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.560 major publisher, and and a lot of the things that 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:24.200 we associate with m m O RPGs began with this game. 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.120 For one, it had a monthly subscription for a flat rate, 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:29.880 so you would pay us a flat rate each month 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:32.760 to play. It had a three D first person view 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:36.880 of the world in a fantasy setting, and uh not all. 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:39.359 In fact, a lot of m m O RPGs do 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:41.919 not take the first person views. Several of them take 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.000 a third person view where you're either behind or or 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:49.840