[MUD-Dev] Dragon Empires is cancelled

[Alex Arnon]

On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 10:23:45 +0100, OWEN, Matt, FM <matt.owen at rbos.com> wrote:
> dienw wrote:

>> Another one is falling down:

>>   http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=dragon+empires

> Is the cancellation of this, and all the other previous hi-profile
> MMORPG cancellation, money related? or is there something else ?

> I'm hoping it's mainly money related, and not other technical
> hurdles. The beauty of the hobbyist side of MUDs and MMOGs is that
> money is rarely a factor (well it is to a degree, but a lot of us
> just choose to ignore it over our passion for the craft ;) ).

> What I'm saying, in my usual bumbling way, is that I hope all
> these aborted professional projects don't put off the legions of
> bedroom-mud-designers who are now starting to turn their skills to
> making home-brew MMORPGs. I'd like to see in a few years time,
> hundreds of at least half-decent amateur projects up and running
> that people can actually play, offering a greater freedom of
> choice, unlike the current crop of professional games that are
> basically the same game in new clothing. To some extent the Game
> Design world is becoming Hollywood in it's fear of innovation.

Well, I'm certain that the homebrew MMO scene is as alive and
kicking as it can afford to, considering the technical
challenges. In my mind, homebrew MMO means not-quite-massive: up to
200-300 players online at a time per server, which should be quite
attainable using any half-decent engine an amateur group could cook
up in their bedroom.  Consider bandwidth and hosting costs as well -
that might be a great hurdle if the technical one is overcome
(either by building a very simple game or tuning the engine
particularly well for the specific game the group is building).
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