[MUD-Dev] Meridian 59 re-launched!

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

So, after 3 months of hard work, Near Death Studios has made
Meridian 59 available for paying customers!  We opened the server up
yesterday (Friday) afternoon.

I'm sitting here after working all day on a launch then playing a
character on my own game for a few hours.  Seeing so many old fans
come back and play the game as well as newer fans from other games
deciding to give an old game about which their guildmates rave
chance.  It's also intersting to hear people talking about how they
enjoy returning to a game they started playing when they were 12 and
how they are now 18; it's a bit humbling to think how a game has
influenced people for so much of their life.

It's almost mind boggling to think about.  For the "Pre-Launch"
period we are entering now, we took a client and server in a state
of disrepair, cleaned it up with the help of some very generious
former developers, ran a Beta, got CDs manufactured, got a simple
billing system running, and shipped hundreds of CDs to eager
players.  Truly amazing, in my no-so-humble opinion, when you
consider that Near Death Studios is 2 co-founders, two to three
(family member) helpers, and a number of very enthusiastic fans that
lent us a hand.

Now that I am not spending every waking hour on the game, I hope to
put together a few posts dealing with Meridian 59 for the enjoyment
of the members of this list.  Of particular interest are notes on a
post-mortem discussed by various team members near the end of
Meridian 59's life at 3DO.

As a side note, it seems that quite a few people have approached us
after getting into a similar situation as we have.  They have
contacted former owners of an online game and obtained the rights
for a price. It it interesting to see how these games are remaining
alive despite almost certain death sentences handed down by previous
owners.  I hope this is the future of many games that might
otherwise pass from knowledge as some great previous games are
threatening to.

Anyway, I thought I'd post something for everyone's benefit.
Meridian 59 has a lot of former developers and serious fans out in
the industry that I figured would love to hear about this.

Time for some well-deserved sleep.

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
       Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
      |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_               Meridian 59
     |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)    Welcome back to your favorite online game.
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