Posts tagged meridian-59 
The gaming renaissance
In the early 70's, some clever chap programmed a pile of circuits to create a primitive game we all know as Pong. Fast-forward some forty years down the line and we're now battling Orcs in Azeroth and flying spaceships in the far-reaches of another galaxy. An entire games industry has erupted from ...
Meet the Team: Samuel Axon
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team. What do you do for Massively.com? I'm a core blogger. That means I'm one of a handful of writers who keep the regular ...
How will factions and PvP work in Star Wars: The Old Republic?
Since BioWare and LucasArts' Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced, we've learned that there will be two factions in the game -- the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. We've also learned that players will be able to embrace either the Dark or Light Side of the Force. But there's something ...
Today the MUD and the MMO turn 30
Today marks the 30th birthday of the original MUD, created at Essex University by Roy Trubshaw in 1978. We recommend you check out what Richard Bartle -- who worked on later iterations of the project -- has to say about this event, as well as Raph Koster's words on the subject. The question at ...
The Daily Grind: The best MMO music
Here's a story for you: a certain blogger is playing The Lord of the Rings Online. He's in the Trollshaws, and he notices the music -- oft-ignored in MMOs -- is actually really good. It's classy and it's beautiful. Then he starts to think about the music in other games -- the gorgeous and mournful ...
The Daily Grind: Are the stakes too low in modern PvP?
Player vs. Player gameplay has undergone a drastic change in recent years. Games like Meridian 59 and Ultima Online didn't pull any punches. Anyone could kill anyone anywhere, and the penalties could be quite severe. When you died In Meridian or UO, you dropped all of your gear. The person who ...
Take a visual tour of EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey's new dungeons
EverQuest II's The Shadow Odyssey expansion is set to launch this November. In addition to heritage quests and the shard reward system, the expansion will add an EverQuest classic -- the dungeon of Guk. And in the days leading up to the launch, EQ2 players will get to start exploring another ...
The Digital Continuum: Player abuse, redemption and revolution
Lets go back about ten years or so to the original EverQuest. Now it isn't my intention to pick on any one game, I just happen to be more familiar with it than Ultima Online or Meridian 59. For the sake of immersion let me assume the role of a 1999 copy of EverQuest that you happen to be playing on ...
Vigilante Meridian 59 players wage war against pirate servers
Meridian 59 is a game with a pirate problem. A while back, the server source code leaked onto the internet and seedy players began hosting their own servers without subscription fees. Pirate servers are a problem for many MMOs, but because of M59's comparatively small scale, it has a lot more to ...
