Near Death Studios closes; Meridan 59 continues

[UnSub]

Psychochild makes the announcement.

Not quite sure how the operator closes while the game continues...

[schild]

Psychochild makes the announcement.

Not quite sure how the operator closes while the game continues...

I can think of a lot of ways this could happen. We're not talking about a bleeding edge MMOG here. It's like asking how one or two people can run a UO shard.

[sinij]

Lets hope Psychochild did not take off to clone WoW somewhere in Korea.

[NiX]

When was the last time we heard from him?

[Merusk]

Last active: march 2009. Last post here in Feb 2007.

[Numtini]

When Underlight closed, someone just rez'd it as a free game. It's Doom era, can probably run the entire game at its peak on a low end desktop these days.

[Mrbloodworth]

When Underlight closed, someone just rez'd it as a free game. It's Doom era, can probably run the entire game at its peak on a low end desktop these days.

Its a shame the second never materialized. I worked rather hard on my zones for that one, and sadly, that was many machines ago, and I don't have any screen shots anymore.

[Numtini]

Its a shame the second never materialized. I worked rather hard on my zones for that one, and sadly, that was many machines ago, and I don't have any screen shots anymore.

The sequel? Yeah, I think it was probably too little too late, but I really enjoyed my time in the world. It had a real solid concept, even if it was limited to a group of nerdly philosopher types.

I've been some what surprised that nobody recreated Underlight in Second Life or something.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its a shame the second never materialized. I worked rather hard on my zones for that one, and sadly, that was many machines ago, and I don't have any screen shots anymore.

The sequel? Yeah, I think it was probably too little too late, but I really enjoyed my time in the world. It had a real solid concept, even if it was limited to a group of nerdly philosopher types.

I've been some what surprised that nobody recreated Underlight in Second Life or something.

It was in development for quite a bit using money gained from the licensing of the network tech (See original face of mankind), but just before the end, all communication stopped from the art director, and then the announcement. It was using quake 3 engine IIRCC. Reclamation was the name.

[Slyfeind]

Sad. I appreciated what Brian was doing, but I just couldn't see much appeal to it.

[Psychochild]

Not quite sure how the operator closes while the game continues...

The game is not the company.  The game can survive the company, and someone will own it and it can continue to run.  There's just not any legal structure behind it in the form of a corporation.

When was the last time we heard from him?

I still visit from time to time, even if I don't log on.  One of the reasons I started my blog was to stop repeating the same damned posts on every community forum, especially as they kept splintering into smaller and smaller groups. :)

Stop by my blog, say "hi".  Hell, you can even drop me an email if you're feeling really chatty.

[raydeen]

Here's a hopefully non-stupid question: How difficult would it be to repackage M59 as an MMO construction kit and sell the client and server components (or give away the client and sell the server part)? It was sort of done before with Shattered Light/MMORPG Construction Kit which blew up mostly I think due to legal issues between Past Tree and Ensign Games. I think most of us have been looking for our own little sandboxes where we can DM the world. Would it be too technical in it's current form for this to be feasible?

I would like to say that M59 has a bit of a special place in my heart as it was the first official MMO that I ever dipped my tootsies in.  I didn't subscribe at the time as my old 486 was just barely able to run it for more than 5 minutes at a time without being disconnected but that's pretty much what got me hungering for EQ when it came out.

[Mrbloodworth]

I believe, the duke/doom/Hexen era engine it uses levels can be edited with notepad.

[Psychochild]

Here's a hopefully non-stupid question: How difficult would it be to repackage M59 as an MMO construction kit and sell the client and server components[...]?

Rather difficult.  One option discussed was to open source the code, which I think would be cleaner than trying to package things up commercially.  The Kirmse brothers, the originally programmers for the project, didn't want that if there was any possibility of keeping the game running.

One of the main problems is that the game is ancient.  Trying to package it up pretty, even just to put the source out there, would be a tremendous amount of effort.  For example, the level editor is a modified version of a freeware DOOM editor.  The main reason it's "modified" is because the game has sloped floors/ceilings in it, which wasn't a feature of the original DOOM.  But, that tool is notoriously cranky, prone to crashes, and any changes can only be compiled with a specific version of Borland Turbo Pascal, if I remember right.

I hear what you're saying, but this probably isn't the best solution, unfortunately.

Have fun,