What happens when two old veterans of game design at a game conference in Bloomington, Indiana go into a local game shop? (as told by Richard Bartle):
Lad: You play World of Warcraft?
Randy: Well, I have a level 65, but I've never been to MC as I'm not in a raid guild.
Me: I've pugged it a few times. I have three 70s, a 60 and a 20-something.
Lad: I have two 70s. Hey, I think it's really great that people of all ages play WoW.
Me: Well, we have been playing this kind of game for a while...
(Randy glances at me with an "are you going to do it?" look).
Me: What was World of Warcraft based on? What game did the developers look at and think, "we can do that, only better"?
Lad: Er, was it called EverQuest?
Me: That's right. Do you know what EverQuest was based on?
Lad: No, but I think there was some guy at IU who gave a talk...
Me: EverQuest was based on DikuMUD, which was a textual world developed at the Datalogisk Institut Kobenhavns Universitet in Denmark. DikuMUD was based on AberMUD, written at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. AberMUD was based on MUD, written at the University of Essex in England. MUD wasn't based on anything. I co-wrote it.
Lad: You wrote it?
Me: The first graphical virtual world was Habitat, written in 1985 by -- who wrote Habitat, Randy?
Randy: Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar.
Me: We've been writing and playing these games since before you were born.
Leave a comment