Meridian 59 free trial

[Psychochild]

Heya, all.  Figured the group around here might be interested in some news on the Meridian 59 front.  It's also an explanation of why I don't get to posting much anymore.

We've been working on the game for the past few years.  After buying Meridian 59 from 3DO, we cleaned it up and relaunched it.  We've recently written a rendering engine that uses 3D hardware acceleration, added rebindable keys and mouselook, and given the game a new named update.

Now we're offering a free trial.  During November everyone can go play on a special trial server to check out the changes.  I think they're cool, but I'm obviously biased. :)

Most of you know that I harp on the issue of indie game development.  Well, here's your chance to see wha I've worked on it.  No, it's not a graphical tour-de-force of WoW or EQ2, but the game also won't force you to treadmill for hours, or give you an imbalanced PvP system that's determined almost entirely by levels.  Gameplay instead of graphics, you know, a very novel concept.

Anyway, you can check out the free trial and sign up for a trial account at http://www.meridian59.com/M59-Trial-Signup.php

Have fun,

[WayAbvPar]

If this is still running when I get back from Arizona, I will probably take a look. Thanks!

[MrHat]

Glad to see your still alive bro.

I'm downloading it now, have yet to try it out, and I've hit a couple day game drought.

[Signe]

Thanks, Brian!  I'll give it a go too,  but only if you promise to come back more often to argue about stuff.

[Psychochild]

If this is still running when I get back from Arizona, I will probably take a look. Thanks!.

It'll run all month of November.  It's a temporary server, separated from the "real" servers so griefers can't ruin the experience of paying customers.  Hopefully they won't ruin the experience of people trying the game. :P

Thanks, Brian!  I'll give it a go too,  but only if you promise to come back more often to argue about stuff.

I'll do what I can. :)  I've been busy with M59, lots of work has gone into this.  That's why I've been a bit scarce in these types of forums lately.

Feel free to send me gmail (in-game mail) if you sign up.  Just type "mail", click the "Write" button and send the mail to "Psychochild".  Make sure to spell the name right. :)

Have fun,

[Psychochild]

Well, response has been pretty good, but no gmails harassming me yet!

You guys are slacking. ;)

Have fun,

[Soukyan]

Nice promo, Brian. I think everyone should at least try it out. You guys have done a hell of a good job on M59. Keep up the good work!

[Signe]

I think you charged me!

[Signe]

Play this game!  Sure, it's naff looking but the Gods are kind.  They feed you bizarre shrooms and get you drunk.  I don't know what happened after that... I woke up, naked, in a dung field!

The game is very sweet.  It's like a blast from the past and reminds me of my old mud days.  I think those of you who worked on or played muds in your past life will appreciate some of the touches such as a decent bulletin board system (why don't modern MMOGs use this?) and a good mail client.  I probably won't play very much... WoW is beckoning me... but it's the sort of game, much like muds, I could sink my teeth into if I were on the creating end.  It made me miss my mud developing days.  You can do many, many clever things with this sort of game.  If it were not commercial, I could see it as a very interesting cooperative sort of game in regards to coding.  The co-op aspect is one of the things I enjoyed about developing the MudOS engine and Discworld MUD years ago.