[MUD-Dev] quickie CGDC report

[Mike Sellers]

Hey all,

Here's a terribly incomplete and quick muddish update from CGDC.

Sony's Everquest looks pretty good -- about a hundred times better than it
did last year at this time.  They're still in alpha. :-)  Full 3D engine,
etc.  They claim they'll have "thousands" of quests and such.  We'll see. =
=20

Turbine/M'soft's Asheron's Call looks even better, and should be out sooner.

UO is of course the 500 lb gorilla in the MMPOG space -- but due to legal
issues, no one from OSI is saying much here.  I'm on a panel tomorrow with
guys from Turbine and Sony, which was also supposed to include Rich Vogel
from OSI (and with whom I worked at 3DO on M59), but alas he won't be there.=
 =20

Oh, believe it or not VR-1 has apparently put a lot of money into a text
mud with 3D sound.  They said end of the year for release, but not very
decisively. =20

There are a few other 3D vworlds kinds of things kicking around, but pretty
much everyone seems to think that UO has sucked up most of the free people
in this sector of the market.  I think that's a bit overblown, but the fact
that (from a commercial point of view) mud customers are pretty expensive
has become pretty clear.  I think this is good news for high quality
*hobbyist* muds; we'll see what it means for commercial ventures. =20

Two more days left at the conference, of course. :-)=20

Oh, I haven't seen AJ here yet, but when I do, I'll prod her for an
unexpurgated copy of her article to post here. :-)



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