Meridian 59 - Old Gods, Nearly Dead

Thanks to GameZone for their interview with Brian 'Psychochild' Green of Near Death Studios, talking about their resurrection of the 3D graphical MMORPG for PC, Meridian 59, which first launched in 1996, a year before even Ultima Online. Some of the original developers bought the property back from 3DO in 2001, and are "unveiling a new graphics engine" at this year's GenCon. According to Brian, "We think that Meridian 59 still has a lot to offer online RPG fans with it's innovative gameplay, interesting character advancement, well-balanced PvP, and great communication tools. Unfortunately, the graphical presentation gets in the way of people appreciating the game."

Re:Look, ma, I'm on Slashdot!

[casio282]

I wanted to second Brian's rallying call to support independent developers -- these people are doing it out of love, and it tends to show. Another independently produced game is A Tale in the Desert [atitd.com], an incredibly innovative MMOG which has one of the most sophisticated and complex world-models I've ever seen in a game...Moreover, it's the only RPG-style game I've seen in which people become truly skilled at doing what they choose to do (gemcutting? gear-box design? pyrotechnics?) by doing it, and performing the complex machinations involved. So players actually become skilled, rather than characters just advancing a skill number! There's at lot more -- check out the website [atitd.com] if you are at all interested. Only in an independent game like ATITD would the lead developer give out his cellphone number in case the server goes down!

No, I don't work for them -- I'm just really impressed by the game and want to spread the word.

Another independent game I'm keeping my eyes on is They Came From Hollywood! [theycamefr...lywood.com], which looks to be a great update on the old "Crush, Crumble, and Chomp!" [arcor.de] concept...