WEBVTT

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(shimmering)

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(birds chirping)

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(funky electronic music)

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(upbeat music)

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- [Derek] PvP, or player
versus player combat

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can be a touchy subject.

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Some online games discourage
it or disallow it entirely.

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Some allow it as a high-risk,
high-reward pursuit.

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And some thrive on the bloodshed.

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In 1996, a small team with scant resources

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threw together one of the first graphical,

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massively multiplayer
online RPGs, Meridian 59.

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The technology and the
market had only just reached

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the point that such a
game could be viable.

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So they had few prior models to work from.

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Without the staff and capital

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to build up epic fantasy quests,

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or stables of monsters to fight,

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they instead pulled from their memories

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of old playground games,
creating conditions

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that encouraged all the
scheming, backstabbing,

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and intrigue of a
never-ending 3rd grade recess.

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Though Meridian 59 became quite popular,

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a series of boneheaded
decisions from its publisher

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led to its demise only four
years after its launch.

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Ownership of the game
passed through several hands

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until 2012 when a couple
of its original developers

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acquired it and open sourced it.

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Releasing its code so anyone
could run their own servers

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and alter the game as they saw fit.

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Opening the game up in
this way gave it new life.

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Dozens of fan servers popped up,

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each running their own variant of the game

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to suit different styles of play.

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We spoke with Gar, an administrator

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of the first of these fan
servers, Open Meridian.

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(ethereal music)

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- [Matt] I am Matt Dymerski, AKA Gar.

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I have been working on
open source for Meridian 59

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for almost a decade now.

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And I was a player for
15 years before that.

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So, it has been quite the ride.

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- [Derek] When you warped,

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I noticed you left your robe behind.

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- [Matt] Oh, I made
those robes if you guys

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wanna grab them because your characters

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are standing around naked.

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We are currently in the
bar known as Familiars,

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which has been a classic staple
for 25 years in Meridian.

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This is where everyone
always comes to hang out,

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shout at each other, and
outside on the streets

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of the city of Tos, they have battles.

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This is the main place

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I think any Meridianite will recognize.

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The way that I got
started with Meridian 59,

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I was very young.

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The internet was very new.

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This was 1996, 1997-ish.

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I went online, I found, I guess,

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the first link that there was.

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Nobody told me about this.

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I was just a kid.

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This was the era where
I think everyone else

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was still playing text MUDs.

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But as a kid, I\'m not gonna
just play a text game.

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So, I found the first
graphical thing that came up

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and it was Meridian 59.

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I logged into the guest area of this game,

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because at the time
there was this guest area

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where you could only run
around on a low level character

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and if you logged off, it got deleted.

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So we made a culture among
all of us other guests

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of staying online as long as possible.

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Leaving your computer on overnight.

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And I got scammed the
first day that I was there.

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This was my first time on the internet

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and I had found a ruby item.

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And this character named Willy offered

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to take it and assess
it and sell it for me.

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And he took my ruby
and he never came back.

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That was my first harsh lesson, you know,

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joining the internet.

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And that\'s Meridian 59 in a nutshell.

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It was incredibly novel.

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We didn\'t understand anything about all

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of the modern systems
people play with these days.

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So, I would see a character
zooming through the sky

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like over buildings.

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And I kept asking myself, how do I jump?

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How do I fly?

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It turns out it\'s just lag.

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And the systems to handle lag and latency

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were very poor at the time.

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So you would often see
people going through walls

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and as a kid I just wondered,
how do I get the power?

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I didn\'t realize it was
actually bugs and mistakes.

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The social interaction was completely raw

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because they didn\'t have any
idea how to manage players,

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what rules they should set.

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So, especially early in
the days of Meridian,

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you could just attack anyone, anywhere.

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To the point where the Underworld,

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where you go when you die, was piled up

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with corpses because
you could attack people

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who had just died in the Underworld.

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I was so floored by this total madness.

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Didn\'t anybody think about this?

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But no, this is the first time anyone

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had ever done this on this scale.

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So it led to lots of hilarious situations

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and a culture of absolute conflict,

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because there was no real endgame.

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This was basically a test engine

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that these two brothers built.

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And the company 3DO built on top of it,

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but they never really evolved it

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to that full MMO status.

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You know, like World
of Warcraft has content

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all the way from beginning
to the end of your character,

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but in Meridian 59 when
you finish your character

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the only thing left to do is to turn

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on your fellow players
and slowly go insane

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as you all just conflict forever.

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Which is what we\'re
still doing to this day.

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You had your builders,
who were new people,

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they were still leveling up,

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they didn\'t know anything about the game

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other than what they had just learned.

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So they were easy prey for player killers.

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And we probably had the
most player killers,

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the most dedicated player
killers of all time

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in any game because there
was nothing stopping them.

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No rules, no safe places,
at least early on.

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And they would come down

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and they would fight you relentlessly.

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It led to a cultural
thing that we called KOS,

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kill on sight.

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Where if this person sees you,

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they\'re gonna attack you, mercilessly.

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And they we had that
evolve into KOS-til-reroll.

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Where this person was
going to attack you until

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you died so many times that you literally

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destroyed your character and started over

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with a new name just to
escape their harassment.

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To fight back against that,

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all of the good-minded
players became hunters

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and allied in giant guilds

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to try to chase down the player killers.

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Those guilds filled up with socializers

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who didn\'t do as much hunting,

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but loved to hang around
and chat and see the drama.

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And that essentially became the four types

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of players we hosted for decades.

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Any of these doors will take you outside

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into the city of Tos.

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It\'s actually snowing right now

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because it\'s winter in Meridian 59.

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This was definitely the place
where people fought and died.

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Streets of Tos are the bloodiest
battleground in the game.

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There\'s four other cities
and then an island city

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which is far away.

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And often combat can happen
around those places, too.

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But Tos was definitely the main heyday.

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I think people at the very start in beta

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used to just start in the city of Tos

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and be instantly attacked.

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So imagine you log into this online game,

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you\'ve just created your character,

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it loads, and someone kills you

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the instant you appear.

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- [Derek] Oh no, spawn camping in an MMO.

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- [Matt] Yeah, unbelievable.

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A lot of this is hearsay,
but the company 3DO,

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did not run Meridian well at all.

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They were a team of
essentially intern levels,

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new programmers and such,
given one of the first MMOs

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with no instruction, no
idea what they were doing

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and they did the best they
could with a limited budget.

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And at one point, I
believe they were working

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in the loading dock for whatever reason,

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all their computers had been
moved out to the loading dock.

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And so you can imagine the
total mess that all was.

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Eventually resulted in 3DO
shutting down Meridian 59

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because it wasn\'t profitable.

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And it was gone for awhile until in 2001,

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one of those people that had
worked for 3DO on this game,

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Psychochild, put I believe
$150,000 on his credit card

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to buy the rights from
3DO and reopen the game.

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And that was actually probably

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the best time for all of us.

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We had the entire community all united,

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all excited to be part of this.

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There was a whole beta
process where we got

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to debate on the forums about what changes

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we wanted to see.

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It re-released and it was great

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for a good solid couple of years.

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Until I believe there was
differences in control

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and creativity between the two people

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that had bought that game.

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Psychochild and an administrator named Q.

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They had some sort of falling out

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and so the game just
kind of sat un-added to

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until 2011 is my guess, around that time,

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when Zaphod, the original
creator the game,

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with his brother Zandermus
rebought the game, relaunched it

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and put it out on open source.

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Which was an amazing, amazing development

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that none of us expected.

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That was pretty much how that happened

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is a changing hands between
very passionate people

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after 3DO horribly mismanaged the game.

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It\'s been free ever since
Zaphod bought the game

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and to be honest, people were using

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an exploit with the billing company

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to get free accounts anyway.

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I do remember that.

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So, that was, fun.

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Quote unquote.

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The Open Meridian Project was
the first open source project.

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I was on this website called Gilroy\'s

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which is a famous forum that everyone

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in Meridian used to be on all the time,

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and probably still are.

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And I said, \"Hey, let\'s all get together.\"

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\"Let\'s all do this.\"

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And this guy named Daenks,

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who is still the host of this server,

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said, \"I can host, let\'s do this.\"

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So we got all the people
who were interested.

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We all combined our forces
and we launched this thing.

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And that\'s the server we\'re on right now

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is this 10-year-old server
that had many evolutions

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throughout its history.

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But we were definitely the first

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and we\'re still the longest

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of the open source servers themselves.

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What we became is a skills lab,

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happy to try any idea,
help people learn to code.

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We actually helped people
develop their careers

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and one person got into NASA now,

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working on programs for them.

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And I\'m in actual game development

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at a real company because of
my work on here, I assume,

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helped me get that job.

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We communicate with the administrators

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of the original game as well.

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And while we don\'t work for them,

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we often send some of our
code and changes up to them.

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What open source became was, for 15 years,

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players debated and argued
about changes for the game

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that we would never get
because first, 3DO went under,

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and then Near Death Studios,
they had a year or two

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of productivity but then, of course,

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they kind of disappeared as well.

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So most of Meridian\'s history has involved

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the players with no hope, no new content,

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no administrators coming to save the day,

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just debating endlessly about
how they would fix the game.

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So when the original creator Zaphod

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bought the game and made it open source,

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we took the opportunity to
finally implement all of that.

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And so the last 10 years or so,

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we figured out what ideas did work,

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and which ideas didn\'t work.

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And we had a couple golden ages,

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and here we are 25 years later total.

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My role is essentially
the person who dumps

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the energy of his soul into this game

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to keep it alive, at least
this little aspect of it.

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I\'ve been lead at times.

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I\'ve been banned from
my own server at times.

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I\'ve been recruiting
people and training them

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and helping them learn.

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But also doing the best I can

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to help the game as a whole.

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Just a massively long odyssey,

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full of all the drama you might expect.

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\"Game of Thrones\" style.

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(light music)

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We can go east here to the Arena.

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This is where a lot of Meridian\'s
dramatic events happened.

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We would have tournaments, duels,

00:11:55.410 --> 00:11:57.750
last man standings, all
sorts of events here

00:11:57.750 --> 00:11:59.610
and they were always this big thing.

00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:01.147
An administrator would
come by and he\'d say,

00:12:01.147 --> 00:12:03.810
\"All right in one month we\'re
gonna have a tournament.\"

00:12:03.810 --> 00:12:05.460
And this is the only way, usually,

00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:08.640
that you can get this item
called a Magic Spirit Helmet.

00:12:08.640 --> 00:12:10.800
Let me see if I can make one.

00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:12.480
And this Magic Spirit Helmet was always

00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:14.040
the most coveted item.

00:12:14.040 --> 00:12:15.720
It\'s the best helmet in the game.

00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:17.040
It looks cool compared to all

00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.953
of our other terrible graphics.

00:12:18.953 --> 00:12:20.880
But to get it, you have
to prepare your character.

00:12:20.880 --> 00:12:21.930
You have to get all your skills ready.

00:12:21.930 --> 00:12:23.490
You got all your items ready.

00:12:23.490 --> 00:12:24.960
All your reagents for your spells,

00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:26.760
and you gotta fight to
the death in this arena.

00:12:26.760 --> 00:12:28.590
And it was always so much drama.

00:12:28.590 --> 00:12:30.240
Guildmates would fall out.

00:12:30.240 --> 00:12:31.500
Enemies would become friends.

00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:33.510
All sorts of things,
like shifting alliances.

00:12:33.510 --> 00:12:36.090
And most of it was observed
by like hundreds of people

00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:39.003
sitting in these stands and
watching that happen live.

00:12:41.310 --> 00:12:43.980
I participated in the Arena
as much as I possibly could

00:12:43.980 --> 00:12:46.710
because I absolutely love
that kind of gameplay.

00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:48.510
I played for the tournaments,
I played for the dueling,

00:12:48.510 --> 00:12:49.980
because it was very controlled.

00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:50.970
This was the only place

00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:53.280
where you could get controlled combat.

00:12:53.280 --> 00:12:54.630
Because out in the world,

00:12:54.630 --> 00:12:56.160
no matter what you were trying to do,

00:12:56.160 --> 00:12:58.050
like 10 other people were gonna show up

00:12:58.050 --> 00:13:00.000
and pursue their own agenda.

00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.250
So if you\'re gonna try to
attack someone you don\'t like,

00:13:02.250 --> 00:13:03.450
well two of his buddies show up,

00:13:03.450 --> 00:13:04.830
and then three of your buddies show up,

00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:06.450
and then five unrelated people show up

00:13:06.450 --> 00:13:07.980
to attack you for no reason.

00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:09.480
So, this was the only place where

00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:11.723
you could actually control
what was happening.

00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:16.470
We would have hundreds of
people in these stands,

00:13:16.470 --> 00:13:18.960
which would, of course,
sometimes lag the combat.

00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:20.850
But that\'s just something
you had to deal with.

00:13:20.850 --> 00:13:23.340
And the absolute best events were here

00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:26.460
back when the code was
still a bit spaghetti code.

00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:29.190
So, maybe an administrator
would spawn a monster

00:13:29.190 --> 00:13:30.810
or something for fun.

00:13:30.810 --> 00:13:32.610
And it would go on a rampage

00:13:32.610 --> 00:13:34.050
and start killing people in the stands.

00:13:34.050 --> 00:13:35.970
And the administrator\'s like, \"Oops.\"

00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:37.770
We\'re laughing the whole time,

00:13:37.770 --> 00:13:40.133
stealing loot off the
ground, that kind of thing.

00:13:42.930 --> 00:13:44.760
Yeah, the administrators of Meridian 59

00:13:44.760 --> 00:13:46.230
are both a blessing and a curse.

00:13:46.230 --> 00:13:49.590
Invariably, every single one goes insane

00:13:49.590 --> 00:13:51.540
and does something ridiculous.

00:13:51.540 --> 00:13:54.360
Many are famous for
summoning all the players

00:13:54.360 --> 00:13:56.730
in the game to a single
room and surrounding them

00:13:56.730 --> 00:13:58.260
with the highest level
monsters in the game

00:13:58.260 --> 00:14:00.150
to suddenly be murdered for no reason.

00:14:00.150 --> 00:14:04.290
Or selling in game shillings
for real life money,

00:14:04.290 --> 00:14:05.520
that kind of thing.

00:14:05.520 --> 00:14:07.770
The only administrators I have ever seen

00:14:07.770 --> 00:14:09.780
that didn\'t go insane are myself

00:14:09.780 --> 00:14:11.230
and the current admin of 101.

00:14:12.782 --> 00:14:14.940
And you know, that\'s arguable
whether we\'re actually

00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:15.903
still sane or not.

00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.090
It\'s all part of the social drama here.

00:14:21.090 --> 00:14:24.780
Because the only endgame
is social conflict.

00:14:24.780 --> 00:14:26.820
And so what better way to get a leg up

00:14:26.820 --> 00:14:28.500
in the social conflict then send

00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:31.380
the administrator a message
and start befriending him?

00:14:31.380 --> 00:14:33.510
And you know, he has a
great time talking to you

00:14:33.510 --> 00:14:34.343
and he\'s like,

00:14:34.343 --> 00:14:35.467
\"Wow, you know it\'s really
hard being an administrator.\"

00:14:35.467 --> 00:14:36.997
\"I can\'t play like the other people can.\"

00:14:36.997 --> 00:14:38.430
\"I\'m glad you\'re talking to me.\"

00:14:38.430 --> 00:14:40.050
You know, a couple months
into this friendship

00:14:40.050 --> 00:14:40.897
that new friend is like,

00:14:40.897 --> 00:14:43.380
\"Well, what if you just made me an item?\"

00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:44.213
And the administrators like,

00:14:44.213 --> 00:14:45.046
\"Oh, I don\'t know.\"

00:14:45.046 --> 00:14:45.879
\"I probably shouldn\'t.\"

00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:47.370
\"But you know, okay.\"

00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:49.140
And it evolves from there until

00:14:49.140 --> 00:14:51.960
the whole server\'s angry
because this administrator

00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:54.450
is favoring one of the
guilds and making them items.

00:14:54.450 --> 00:14:57.360
And it\'s a whole dramatic situation.

00:14:57.360 --> 00:14:59.520
In one instance somebody
had a relationship

00:14:59.520 --> 00:15:01.920
they\'d started with one of
the girls playing the game.

00:15:01.920 --> 00:15:04.350
And that resulted in him smiting,

00:15:04.350 --> 00:15:07.473
instantly killing players that
were trying to hit on her.

00:15:08.760 --> 00:15:10.470
That is actually the
number one rule we made

00:15:10.470 --> 00:15:11.850
for this server is that there would be

00:15:11.850 --> 00:15:14.610
no administrators whatsoever.

00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:16.260
Which has actually helped it avoid

00:15:16.260 --> 00:15:18.690
much of that total madness.

00:15:18.690 --> 00:15:20.400
This administrator
character I\'m on right now

00:15:20.400 --> 00:15:21.900
is called MiniAdmini.

00:15:21.900 --> 00:15:23.400
So that it doesn\'t have a person\'s name.

00:15:23.400 --> 00:15:25.200
And we only use it sparingly.

00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:26.460
You notice it\'s not called Gar,

00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:28.170
even though that\'s my username.

00:15:28.170 --> 00:15:29.880
Because it\'s the only way to have people

00:15:29.880 --> 00:15:32.430
actually trust your server
and your administration.

00:15:34.302 --> 00:15:36.802
(light music)

00:15:42.510 --> 00:15:44.040
Give you a rundown on Meridian servers.

00:15:44.040 --> 00:15:47.730
There are about 20, I believe.

00:15:47.730 --> 00:15:50.820
The biggest are probably 101 and 102.

00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:52.800
Those are the official main servers owned

00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:54.240
by the original creator.

00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:56.220
They will be up forever,
as far as I can tell.

00:15:56.220 --> 00:15:57.720
They are his baby.

00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:00.240
He made this game with his brother.

00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:02.400
They implement bug fixes
and stuff like that,

00:16:02.400 --> 00:16:03.270
and little advancements.

00:16:03.270 --> 00:16:04.920
But their aim is to preserve

00:16:04.920 --> 00:16:06.780
the artistic integrity
of the original game,

00:16:06.780 --> 00:16:08.760
which I totally respect.

00:16:08.760 --> 00:16:12.480
103 here is the first open source server.

00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.240
We had a bunch of different
philosophies over the years,

00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:18.360
but the main thing was to
try to create new content,

00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:20.640
because Meridian is content starved.

00:16:20.640 --> 00:16:23.760
That content came in the
form of entirely new schools

00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:26.550
of spells and skills, new ways to boost

00:16:26.550 --> 00:16:28.110
your character stats and powers.

00:16:28.110 --> 00:16:30.630
New areas and new lands that we made.

00:16:30.630 --> 00:16:33.150
The people that play here
ended up being mainly people

00:16:33.150 --> 00:16:34.620
who wanted to play for new content.

00:16:34.620 --> 00:16:36.510
You know, PvE type folk
who wanted to fight

00:16:36.510 --> 00:16:39.360
against monsters and
improve their characters.

00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:42.090
The PvP players who wanted
to fight against each other

00:16:42.090 --> 00:16:45.709
went to a pair of servers
numbered 105 and 112.

00:16:45.709 --> 00:16:48.930
And one 112 is pure German,
a German language server.

00:16:48.930 --> 00:16:50.940
And they are still over there today

00:16:50.940 --> 00:16:52.800
fighting each other with
the same old grudges

00:16:52.800 --> 00:16:54.123
from 20 years ago.

00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:58.740
After that there\'s server 420.

00:16:58.740 --> 00:17:00.270
That server was split off

00:17:00.270 --> 00:17:02.250
of the 105 code base.

00:17:02.250 --> 00:17:03.750
The people that are running 420 wanted

00:17:03.750 --> 00:17:05.580
to make changes to the game that the owner

00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:06.990
of that server didn\'t agree with.

00:17:06.990 --> 00:17:09.180
Because he\'s not making dramatic changes.

00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:12.150
He\'s keeping it mainly
the same to his vision.

00:17:12.150 --> 00:17:14.490
And I believe there\'s yet
another new server coming out

00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:16.230
and splitting off of that code base.

00:17:16.230 --> 00:17:19.380
There\'s like 15 different
servers I know of

00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:23.550
that are all private,
run by family, friends,

00:17:23.550 --> 00:17:26.220
just for each other, just
for nostalgia purposes.

00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:28.530
There\'s a Korean server
somewhere that I think

00:17:28.530 --> 00:17:29.970
has like 40 players.

00:17:29.970 --> 00:17:33.273
And I think that\'s my understanding
of the full situation.

00:17:34.590 --> 00:17:38.100
I would say that the
main draw of Meridian 59

00:17:38.100 --> 00:17:39.870
was the melting pot that we had

00:17:39.870 --> 00:17:41.850
in the late \'90s and early 2000s.

00:17:41.850 --> 00:17:44.190
And once open source
allowed the different types

00:17:44.190 --> 00:17:45.690
of players to go their separate ways,

00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:47.580
it was never quite the same.

00:17:47.580 --> 00:17:50.280
All the PvP players went to
go fight each other forever.

00:17:50.280 --> 00:17:52.800
And all of the PvE players played here,

00:17:52.800 --> 00:17:56.040
and all the nostalgia
players are on 101 and 102.

00:17:56.040 --> 00:18:00.570
And so it just lost that
insane magic that it had

00:18:00.570 --> 00:18:02.400
where you were stuck on this game

00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:03.810
with these people that you loved

00:18:03.810 --> 00:18:04.980
and that you hated.

00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:07.890
And there was nothing you
could do but interact with them

00:18:07.890 --> 00:18:09.990
and figure out a way to
coexist and have fun.

00:18:09.990 --> 00:18:12.000
And now they all went their separate ways

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:13.020
with different rule sets,

00:18:13.020 --> 00:18:15.060
and they\'re customizing their
servers the way they like.

00:18:15.060 --> 00:18:17.760
And I don\'t know, it\'s just
never been the same since.

00:18:22.397 --> 00:18:24.897
(light music)

00:18:32.490 --> 00:18:35.760
This is the center of the
desert continent that we added.

00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:38.700
I essentially built this
whole continent myself.

00:18:38.700 --> 00:18:41.430
That\'s not so much a brag, it\'s just like,

00:18:41.430 --> 00:18:43.530
holy crap, I\'ve put so
much time into this game.

00:18:43.530 --> 00:18:46.680
But we built this to
give the game something

00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:49.023
to do once you\'re actually
a built character.

00:18:49.023 --> 00:18:51.420
It\'s the center of an elemental desert

00:18:51.420 --> 00:18:54.030
that switches phases throughout the day.

00:18:54.030 --> 00:18:55.320
The entire continent will be blasted

00:18:55.320 --> 00:18:57.300
by lightning hazards in the morning,

00:18:57.300 --> 00:19:00.630
acid hazards in the evening,
fire hazards during the day,

00:19:00.630 --> 00:19:02.340
and cold hazards at night.

00:19:02.340 --> 00:19:04.800
It\'s got multiple dungeons called Prisms

00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:07.203
that you can enter to
seal the elemental planes.

00:19:12.510 --> 00:19:14.420
The most difficult part
about art for this game

00:19:14.420 --> 00:19:16.950
is actually finding things
that look bad enough

00:19:16.950 --> 00:19:19.050
to fit the old style.

00:19:19.050 --> 00:19:20.430
Because there\'s plenty of art out there,

00:19:20.430 --> 00:19:21.450
especially free art.

00:19:21.450 --> 00:19:23.130
But it looks too good.

00:19:23.130 --> 00:19:24.153
It\'s too high res.

00:19:28.170 --> 00:19:31.020
We\'re at the top of a
giant volcanic crater

00:19:31.020 --> 00:19:33.630
that you can actually angle
your camera down and see.

00:19:33.630 --> 00:19:35.980
If you fall down there,
you will die instantly.

00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:40.530
This is the entrance to the Prism of Fire

00:19:40.530 --> 00:19:42.720
where you can go in an
fight rock elementals

00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:44.547
from the Plane of Fire and seal that.

00:19:44.547 --> 00:19:47.250
And if you do seal that, this whole thing

00:19:47.250 --> 00:19:49.530
will fill up with water and you\'ll be able

00:19:49.530 --> 00:19:52.080
to cross to the other side
to that other waterfall.

00:19:53.700 --> 00:19:57.240
This is one of the fist
dungeons that we made.

00:19:57.240 --> 00:19:59.610
It\'s like a raid, so
everyone can gather here

00:19:59.610 --> 00:20:02.070
for like 60 seconds and that it descends

00:20:02.070 --> 00:20:03.393
into the Plane of Fire.

00:20:04.260 --> 00:20:07.260
I\'m wondering if there\'s a
way I can keep you guys alive.

00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:08.640
Let\'s see here.

00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:11.123
I\'m just gonna give you like
a million hit points, I think.

00:20:12.420 --> 00:20:14.220
All of this technology here,

00:20:14.220 --> 00:20:16.350
in terms of the advancing, opening room,

00:20:16.350 --> 00:20:18.420
and more of the stuff,
and the monsters here,

00:20:18.420 --> 00:20:19.920
we had to create all of this.

00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.250
Because the game wasn\'t
really capable of it before.

00:20:23.250 --> 00:20:24.720
- [Derek] Are you uh...

00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:26.430
Kissing them to death right now?

00:20:26.430 --> 00:20:28.950
- [Matt] Oh, the
administrator insta-kill spell

00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:32.460
has like a blowing a kiss kind of thing.

00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:33.423
It\'s ridiculous.

00:20:35.610 --> 00:20:37.310
So, players got a huge kick out of this.

00:20:37.310 --> 00:20:39.860
It was the first real raid
dungeon we\'ve ever made.

00:20:40.890 --> 00:20:42.630
Before this we only just had rooms

00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:44.330
where monsters would slowly spawn.

00:20:46.140 --> 00:20:49.560
Now we can actually see
the water here is rising,

00:20:49.560 --> 00:20:51.210
as I described before.

00:20:51.210 --> 00:20:52.170
So it\'s safe here.

00:20:52.170 --> 00:20:53.520
There\'s no more periodic damage.

00:20:53.520 --> 00:20:55.020
And this whole thing fills up.

00:20:55.980 --> 00:20:57.510
I don\'t think any game I\'ve ever played

00:20:57.510 --> 00:21:00.540
has approached the depth of
relationships this game has.

00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:04.410
Because you have a server
with 100 people or less on it.

00:21:04.410 --> 00:21:07.050
Every single person knows
every single other person

00:21:07.050 --> 00:21:10.890
to the point where if a
new character logs on,

00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:13.440
we can try to guess who
it is from their behavior

00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:15.210
or the way they talk,
or what they\'re doing.

00:21:15.210 --> 00:21:18.270
So all of the rivalries are very bitter.

00:21:18.270 --> 00:21:19.980
All of the friendships are very deep.

00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:21.780
Everyone knows each other.

00:21:21.780 --> 00:21:25.743
To the point where we\'ve all
been fighting for 20 years.

00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:27.570
I try to avoid it.

00:21:27.570 --> 00:21:28.887
Like, I love playing for PvP,

00:21:28.887 --> 00:21:30.810
but I try to avoid the
drama and the shouting.

00:21:30.810 --> 00:21:33.150
But I still have
rivalries even at my level

00:21:33.150 --> 00:21:33.983
as an administrator.

00:21:33.983 --> 00:21:36.750
You know, fellow administrators
and stuff like that.

00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:38.400
I would say many of the relationships

00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:39.540
are frenemy relationships.

00:21:39.540 --> 00:21:41.430
Especially on the PvP servers where people

00:21:41.430 --> 00:21:44.520
change allegiances and
change guilds constantly.

00:21:44.520 --> 00:21:45.990
Like, they\'ll be on your team one day

00:21:45.990 --> 00:21:47.250
and on the other the next.

00:21:47.250 --> 00:21:50.190
But then, there are some that
you just really hate that guy.

00:21:50.190 --> 00:21:52.530
You would never work with
them, never play with them.

00:21:52.530 --> 00:21:54.933
So there are some serious rivalries, yeah.

00:21:56.010 --> 00:21:57.720
One thing that is nice about the community

00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:00.120
is they don\'t get personal in that way.

00:22:00.120 --> 00:22:01.470
So they might hate your character

00:22:01.470 --> 00:22:03.060
and they might try to
kill you in the game,

00:22:03.060 --> 00:22:05.610
but it\'s very frowned on to comment

00:22:05.610 --> 00:22:07.320
on someone\'s real life.

00:22:07.320 --> 00:22:09.150
We have been starting to lose players

00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:11.460
and even one of the developers
I mentioned, Psychochild,

00:22:11.460 --> 00:22:13.170
who bought the game in 2001,

00:22:13.170 --> 00:22:15.030
he died recently and we all showed up

00:22:15.030 --> 00:22:16.800
for a funeral on the main servers.

00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:18.720
There was 150 people there.

00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:20.490
No insults, no conflict,

00:22:20.490 --> 00:22:23.340
because as much as its part of the game,

00:22:23.340 --> 00:22:24.780
real lives have been left out of it.

00:22:24.780 --> 00:22:26.910
I think that\'s one
amazing thing about this.

00:22:26.910 --> 00:22:29.700
Because if it transcended
outside the game,

00:22:29.700 --> 00:22:31.750
it would be a huge problem for everybody.

00:22:35.730 --> 00:22:37.620
I think it would be great to see this area

00:22:37.620 --> 00:22:38.490
that\'s just to the east.

00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:41.520
Because this is probably the
coolest thing we\'ve ever done.

00:22:41.520 --> 00:22:45.033
And it stretched the engine
here to its absolute limits.

00:22:46.290 --> 00:22:48.330
This is the destroyed city of Biskalane,

00:22:48.330 --> 00:22:50.670
heart of this desert
continent\'s civilization.

00:22:50.670 --> 00:22:52.560
We are in the bottom
of their central canal,

00:22:52.560 --> 00:22:54.460
because there\'s no water here anymore.

00:22:56.370 --> 00:23:00.150
This area actually shows
off the light engine

00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:02.400
that I don\'t think was native to the game.

00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:04.200
A lot of upgrades have
been made over the years.

00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:07.680
So, it\'s like an unusually
good light engine

00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:10.740
suddenly in this terrible,
old graphical game.

00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:12.870
And it plays really well in this maze

00:23:12.870 --> 00:23:14.760
where we turn off the auto-map,

00:23:14.760 --> 00:23:17.250
and we turn off all sources
of light except a torch

00:23:17.250 --> 00:23:19.320
and you just have to make your way

00:23:19.320 --> 00:23:20.733
through all sorts of traps.

00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:25.350
Whenever anyone fully leaves the dungeon,

00:23:25.350 --> 00:23:28.440
if there\'s nobody left in it,
it changes layout completely.

00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:30.990
So all the traps, all the rooms change.

00:23:30.990 --> 00:23:34.260
It\'s deadly and it\'s
trying to kill the player.

00:23:34.260 --> 00:23:37.410
And a lot of the players sort
of figured that out over time.

00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:38.243
And they\'re like,

00:23:38.243 --> 00:23:39.930
\"I feel like you\'re just trying
to kill us with this area.\"

00:23:39.930 --> 00:23:41.317
And I\'m like, \"Yes, absolutely.\"

00:23:41.317 --> 00:23:42.900
\"We are trying to kill you.\"

00:23:42.900 --> 00:23:44.880
Because you gotta give
these endgame characters

00:23:44.880 --> 00:23:46.180
something to do, you know?

00:23:52.530 --> 00:23:54.000
Where you are now in the desert continent,

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:56.610
they have their own afterlife, actually.

00:23:56.610 --> 00:24:00.903
So we\'ll take you back to
the real world\'s afterlife.

00:24:02.460 --> 00:24:05.520
So right about here is where every player

00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:09.000
in Meridian has felt
that horror, that pain.

00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:10.863
I just got killed! I\'m so angry!

00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:13.440
But they would end up here,

00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:14.820
and this is the sight they would see.

00:24:14.820 --> 00:24:18.213
And they\'d be furious, and
they\'d be so ready for revenge.

00:24:20.280 --> 00:24:22.380
If you were very low
health and someone else

00:24:22.380 --> 00:24:24.180
was a very high level character,

00:24:24.180 --> 00:24:25.410
they could kill you in one hit.

00:24:25.410 --> 00:24:26.550
So you\'re just walking along,

00:24:26.550 --> 00:24:28.080
all of a sudden your screen goes red,

00:24:28.080 --> 00:24:29.910
and you\'re in the Underworld.

00:24:29.910 --> 00:24:31.203
It was so infuriating.

00:24:32.430 --> 00:24:33.840
This game\'s also full of loot.

00:24:33.840 --> 00:24:36.900
So when you die, anyone
can take all of your stuff.

00:24:36.900 --> 00:24:39.367
That\'s the best part is
taunting other people.

00:24:39.367 --> 00:24:40.207
\"Hey, I got your loot.\"

00:24:40.207 --> 00:24:41.730
\"I got your armor. I got your weapons.\"

00:24:41.730 --> 00:24:45.344
And they\'re like, so furious
that you stole all their stuff.

00:24:45.344 --> 00:24:47.310
- [Derek] Ha! And then
they have to kill you back.

00:24:47.310 --> 00:24:49.050
- [Matt] Yeah, and then you
drop everything you had.

00:24:49.050 --> 00:24:50.800
It all goes around in a mad circle.

00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:53.730
It did get to the point
that I had memorized

00:24:53.730 --> 00:24:56.220
the presses of the keys
to get up these steps.

00:24:56.220 --> 00:24:57.990
I can still feel it because I died

00:24:57.990 --> 00:24:59.440
so many times over the years.

00:25:01.050 --> 00:25:04.080
Back in the day, you could
actually find the Underworld

00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:05.493
in the crypt in Tos.

00:25:06.390 --> 00:25:07.980
And then they made it a separate area

00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:10.230
that you\'re sort of
teleported to when you die.

00:25:10.230 --> 00:25:12.450
But I did think it was
very interesting how

00:25:12.450 --> 00:25:13.560
they tried that first.

00:25:13.560 --> 00:25:15.900
Because they didn\'t
have any MMO knowledge.

00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:17.340
MMOs just didn\'t exist.

00:25:17.340 --> 00:25:20.040
So imagine the place where
people go when they die

00:25:20.040 --> 00:25:21.870
being actually accessible in the world.

00:25:21.870 --> 00:25:23.193
Like, how weird is that?

00:25:26.940 --> 00:25:28.380
We added the entire desert continent,

00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:30.750
including the new afterlife.

00:25:30.750 --> 00:25:33.000
I think the best way
to get there is to just

00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.133
teleport you guys there and have you die.

00:25:38.760 --> 00:25:41.220
- [Derek] Oh, so it seems like
the geometry didn\'t change,

00:25:41.220 --> 00:25:43.590
but everything went gray scale.

00:25:43.590 --> 00:25:45.840
- [Matt] Right, it took a ton of effort

00:25:45.840 --> 00:25:49.230
to match the geometries,
so that wherever you die

00:25:49.230 --> 00:25:52.290
it looks the same, if that makes sense?

00:25:52.290 --> 00:25:55.710
So, it\'s kind of like
shifting you to another plane.

00:25:55.710 --> 00:25:58.080
And it took way too much
effort to make that happen.

00:25:58.080 --> 00:25:59.403
It was not worth it.

00:26:00.600 --> 00:26:02.820
Interestingly, there\'s actually
some dungeons down here

00:26:02.820 --> 00:26:04.530
that you can do while you\'re dead.

00:26:04.530 --> 00:26:06.840
The Prism of Life and the Prism of Death.

00:26:06.840 --> 00:26:08.490
And if you beat the Prism of Life,

00:26:08.490 --> 00:26:10.440
you can be resurrected
without any penalty.

00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:12.090
Which I think is really fun.

00:26:12.090 --> 00:26:13.620
But the Prism of Death, we don\'t go there.

00:26:13.620 --> 00:26:14.870
That\'s way too dangerous.

00:26:17.231 --> 00:26:19.731
(light music)

00:26:26.220 --> 00:26:29.790
Meridian 59 is different from modern MMOs,

00:26:29.790 --> 00:26:32.730
because of the intimacy of
the servers that you play on.

00:26:32.730 --> 00:26:34.110
You\'ll have relationships with pretty much

00:26:34.110 --> 00:26:35.340
every single player on there.

00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:37.350
And your actions matter greatly.

00:26:37.350 --> 00:26:38.910
One of the things that kept me coming back

00:26:38.910 --> 00:26:40.800
and so many others for so long,

00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:42.690
was if you don\'t come back,

00:26:42.690 --> 00:26:45.030
if you don\'t keep playing, it\'ll die.

00:26:45.030 --> 00:26:46.560
The population will drop to zero

00:26:46.560 --> 00:26:48.033
and it\'ll just be dead.

00:26:48.870 --> 00:26:51.570
It\'ll take a massive update or a new owner

00:26:51.570 --> 00:26:52.650
to bring it back to life.

00:26:52.650 --> 00:26:54.750
And that happened multiple times.

00:26:54.750 --> 00:26:55.890
Until someone else came along

00:26:55.890 --> 00:26:57.360
to revitalize the game.

00:26:57.360 --> 00:27:00.300
So, we have our hearts
and souls tied up in this.

00:27:00.300 --> 00:27:01.680
Other MMOs have hundreds

00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:03.150
or thousands of players who go on there.

00:27:03.150 --> 00:27:05.900
They won\'t even know who you
are if you quit, you know?

00:27:10.770 --> 00:27:11.910
Role playing used to be big

00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:14.220
back in the late 90s, early 2000s.

00:27:14.220 --> 00:27:16.170
It\'s definitely not done at all, anymore.

00:27:16.170 --> 00:27:18.510
Other than, the character
that you play in the game

00:27:18.510 --> 00:27:21.720
can be very different from the
person that you actually are.

00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:23.640
A lot of players log
in here to be a nasty,

00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:26.340
vicious player killer that everyone hates.

00:27:26.340 --> 00:27:28.410
And then we\'re hanging out on
the servers Discord channel

00:27:28.410 --> 00:27:29.490
and they\'re perfectly nice,

00:27:29.490 --> 00:27:31.050
and they\'re lovely human beings.

00:27:31.050 --> 00:27:32.317
And I\'m like, \"This guy?

00:27:32.317 --> 00:27:34.770
\"This is the guy that just
murdered all those newbies?\"

00:27:34.770 --> 00:27:36.813
I mean, to each their own, I guess.

00:27:41.100 --> 00:27:44.010
The guild hall system in this
game is fantastic and amazing.

00:27:44.010 --> 00:27:46.560
Actually, if you come over
here I can show you one.

00:27:47.790 --> 00:27:49.797
Oh actually, I think somebody
owns this guild hall,

00:27:49.797 --> 00:27:51.120
but they\'re not around right now,

00:27:51.120 --> 00:27:53.820
so we\'re gonna open this
door with an admin command.

00:27:53.820 --> 00:27:55.370
We\'re not gonna steal anything.

00:27:56.520 --> 00:27:58.200
These secret doors can only be opened

00:27:58.200 --> 00:27:59.760
by high ranking members of the guild

00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:01.740
to enter the hall, but once they\'re open

00:28:01.740 --> 00:28:03.870
anyone else can follow you inside.

00:28:03.870 --> 00:28:05.310
So what I would like to do,

00:28:05.310 --> 00:28:07.710
when I was a jerk player, long, long ago,

00:28:07.710 --> 00:28:08.910
is hang around invisible.

00:28:08.910 --> 00:28:11.100
And hang around like
morphed into a rat maybe.

00:28:11.100 --> 00:28:12.810
Something small, something
people wouldn\'t see.

00:28:12.810 --> 00:28:13.980
And when someone opened the door,

00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:16.083
I\'d follow them inside and I\'d hide.

00:28:18.660 --> 00:28:21.060
So this is where guild
members might hang out.

00:28:21.060 --> 00:28:21.930
And you might be able to see

00:28:21.930 --> 00:28:23.100
in the upper corner of your screen

00:28:23.100 --> 00:28:24.090
there\'s some enchantments here

00:28:24.090 --> 00:28:26.840
that aid mana regeneration,
health, that kind of stuff.

00:28:27.750 --> 00:28:29.160
You can also drink this water here

00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:30.660
in this particular guild hall.

00:28:32.130 --> 00:28:33.600
So players come here to hang out,

00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:35.790
practice their spells,
build their characters,

00:28:35.790 --> 00:28:37.690
store their gear, and stuff like that.

00:28:38.850 --> 00:28:41.520
Every hall has an even secret-er door

00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:43.110
that can only be opened with a password

00:28:43.110 --> 00:28:46.170
and it has chests behind
it, like full of loot.

00:28:46.170 --> 00:28:47.460
And this is what I played for.

00:28:47.460 --> 00:28:49.023
This and tournaments.

00:28:51.210 --> 00:28:53.400
So what I would do is sneak in here.

00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:54.810
I\'d wait for them to say the password

00:28:54.810 --> 00:28:56.850
and then I\'d follow them in there.

00:28:56.850 --> 00:28:57.750
And maybe this is the point

00:28:57.750 --> 00:28:58.980
where I attack them and kill them.

00:28:58.980 --> 00:29:00.510
Or maybe I just hide.

00:29:00.510 --> 00:29:04.200
But these chests, chock full
of massive amounts of loot.

00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:05.550
This is the collective work

00:29:05.550 --> 00:29:06.960
of dozens of players depending

00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:09.000
on the size of the guild, obviously.

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:11.430
And if you can manage to
steal it without them knowing,

00:29:11.430 --> 00:29:13.890
it\'s just the sweetest
feeling in the world.

00:29:13.890 --> 00:29:15.870
That\'s like the personal thing
that I always played for.

00:29:15.870 --> 00:29:18.270
I was definitely hated
for that for a long time.

00:29:21.060 --> 00:29:23.520
The espionage and subterfuge is great.

00:29:23.520 --> 00:29:25.320
You\'d often have people
join your guild pretending

00:29:25.320 --> 00:29:27.570
to be someone else so that they
could get access to the hall

00:29:27.570 --> 00:29:28.770
and steal all that loot.

00:29:29.850 --> 00:29:31.560
But if you don\'t do that
stealth successfully,

00:29:31.560 --> 00:29:33.570
and the guild members know
that you\'re in the hall,

00:29:33.570 --> 00:29:35.310
that\'s when Guild Hall Combat begins,

00:29:35.310 --> 00:29:36.750
because the guild messages each other,

00:29:36.750 --> 00:29:37.687
they call each other, they\'re like,

00:29:37.687 --> 00:29:38.737
\"Someone\'s in our hall!\"

00:29:38.737 --> 00:29:40.080
\"Come on, man, get online.\"

00:29:40.080 --> 00:29:43.650
Everybody shows up and suddenly
you\'ve got total mayhem.

00:29:43.650 --> 00:29:44.820
Because in these guild halls,

00:29:44.820 --> 00:29:46.710
anyone can attack anyone.

00:29:46.710 --> 00:29:48.270
You\'re not protected by being an innocent

00:29:48.270 --> 00:29:49.890
like you might be in town.

00:29:49.890 --> 00:29:51.480
And so it\'s just absolute mayhem

00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:54.240
as the guild members all come
try to secure their hall.

00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:56.310
And of course, you call
anybody who\'s their enemy.

00:29:56.310 --> 00:29:57.967
You\'re like, \"Hey, I
know we\'re not friends,\"

00:29:57.967 --> 00:29:58.827
\"but I\'m in this guy\'s guild hall.\"

00:29:58.827 --> 00:30:00.480
\"Do you wanna come steal it with me?\"

00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.060
And often they\'re like,
\"Yeah, absolutely.\"

00:30:03.060 --> 00:30:04.710
Every interested faction will show up

00:30:04.710 --> 00:30:06.540
to battle each other to the death.

00:30:06.540 --> 00:30:08.160
And the prize, the stakes are

00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:10.773
that hard work, all that
loot the guild builds up.

00:30:11.760 --> 00:30:13.200
When you successfully
defend your guild hall

00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:14.940
and get all the invaders out,

00:30:14.940 --> 00:30:16.650
such an incredible feeling.

00:30:16.650 --> 00:30:19.300
Almost as good as stealing
someone else\'s guild hall.

00:30:24.930 --> 00:30:27.540
If the hall isn\'t owned
by anyone currently,

00:30:27.540 --> 00:30:31.004
you can go to the Guildmaster
in the city of Barloque

00:30:31.004 --> 00:30:33.986
and you can purchase
that hall for your own.

00:30:33.986 --> 00:30:36.002
And magical defenses will be put in place

00:30:36.002 --> 00:30:36.835
so that only your guild can access it.

00:30:36.835 --> 00:30:38.250
And anyone currently in the hall

00:30:38.250 --> 00:30:39.570
will be kicked out.

00:30:39.570 --> 00:30:43.683
But other than that, you have
to actually flip the switch.

00:30:44.970 --> 00:30:47.550
And if you can keep the
switch down for 10 minutes,

00:30:47.550 --> 00:30:49.290
then the hall will be conquered.

00:30:49.290 --> 00:30:51.090
And for an hour after it\'s conquered,

00:30:51.090 --> 00:30:52.920
only you can buy that hall.

00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:55.170
I can actually show you
the switch in this hall.

00:30:55.170 --> 00:30:57.810
They\'re usually in like a
hidden or defensible location.

00:30:57.810 --> 00:30:58.643
This one\'s great.

00:30:58.643 --> 00:31:01.710
It\'s actually through an illusionary wall.

00:31:01.710 --> 00:31:04.730
This here is the Mystical
Shield Deactivator.

00:31:04.730 --> 00:31:06.720
If you flip it off, then
all the defenses come down

00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:09.090
and anyone can access the
hall for the next 10 minutes

00:31:09.090 --> 00:31:09.923
and then it\'s conquered.

00:31:09.923 --> 00:31:11.970
So, the guilds would
try to fight their way

00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:14.130
to this switch to either
turn it on or back off

00:31:14.130 --> 00:31:15.510
depending on their goal.

00:31:15.510 --> 00:31:17.510
Very king of the hill, capture the flag.

00:31:18.870 --> 00:31:20.160
And you might notice that the map

00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:22.860
doesn\'t show any of this
because this is supposed

00:31:22.860 --> 00:31:24.240
to be stuff that only your guild knows.

00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:26.160
And so, some people made it their business

00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:29.130
to always own a hall for years and years

00:31:29.130 --> 00:31:31.863
so that no one else could
ever figure out its secrets.

00:31:36.900 --> 00:31:39.030
I\'ve just never seen any other modern game

00:31:39.030 --> 00:31:42.420
with the cajones, I guess,
to put this much on the line.

00:31:42.420 --> 00:31:44.490
Because there\'s so much
loot in these chests,

00:31:44.490 --> 00:31:46.230
it\'s months of work.

00:31:46.230 --> 00:31:48.030
Just unbelievable stakes.

00:31:48.030 --> 00:31:49.770
And I don\'t think any
game could let players

00:31:49.770 --> 00:31:51.470
put that much on the line anymore.

00:31:52.410 --> 00:31:54.270
The original game has 13.

00:31:54.270 --> 00:31:55.950
I believe we\'ve added three or four.

00:31:55.950 --> 00:31:58.410
This is one of the new ones,
obviously, because it\'s here.

00:31:58.410 --> 00:32:01.380
But the old ones are quite a bit simpler.

00:32:01.380 --> 00:32:02.930
If you wanna see some of those.

00:32:05.250 --> 00:32:07.320
This was actually the
game\'s first Guild Hall,

00:32:07.320 --> 00:32:08.730
Mercenary Alley.

00:32:08.730 --> 00:32:09.750
If you can see the map there,

00:32:09.750 --> 00:32:11.193
it\'s essentially one room.

00:32:13.050 --> 00:32:14.580
This place has a news globe

00:32:14.580 --> 00:32:16.500
where they post to the guild
and some other features

00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:19.133
that we added later that
the main servers don\'t have.

00:32:20.550 --> 00:32:21.540
This one\'s abandoned.

00:32:21.540 --> 00:32:22.740
There\'s no posts here.

00:32:22.740 --> 00:32:23.573
If you look at the globe.

00:32:23.573 --> 00:32:25.801
But normally it\'s filled with stuff like,

00:32:25.801 --> 00:32:26.850
here\'s the secret password.

00:32:26.850 --> 00:32:28.590
And of course, as a thief, I love that.

00:32:28.590 --> 00:32:31.253
When you just post your
secret password on your globe.

00:32:33.360 --> 00:32:34.530
I\'ll show you the big one

00:32:34.530 --> 00:32:38.070
that everyone just is
absolutely always obsessed with.

00:32:38.070 --> 00:32:39.520
Oh, this one\'s owned as well.

00:32:40.482 --> 00:32:43.324
Well, I hope they don\'t mind
if we sneak in here for a bit.

00:32:43.324 --> 00:32:46.380
This one\'s so big people actually
used to get married there.

00:32:46.380 --> 00:32:50.820
I remember being 12 and
attending a wedding in this area.

00:32:50.820 --> 00:32:53.580
The Wryn\'s Keep is the
one they all fight over.

00:32:53.580 --> 00:32:54.720
It\'s friggin enormous.

00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:55.553
Just so cool.

00:32:56.580 --> 00:32:57.660
And it\'s the most expensive.

00:32:57.660 --> 00:32:59.250
Like, you need a really big guild

00:32:59.250 --> 00:33:00.450
to maintain the rent for this one,

00:33:00.450 --> 00:33:01.770
because players do have to pay rent

00:33:01.770 --> 00:33:03.393
to the NPC to keep these things.

00:33:04.890 --> 00:33:05.850
Sort of like a way to ensure

00:33:05.850 --> 00:33:08.550
they don\'t just buy a hall and disappear.

00:33:08.550 --> 00:33:11.190
I think this one is 12,000
a day or 18,000 a day.

00:33:11.190 --> 00:33:12.093
It really adds up.

00:33:13.050 --> 00:33:14.130
If you don\'t log in for a week,

00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:16.920
you\'re facing like 100,000 shilling rent.

00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:18.540
It\'s definitely a lot.

00:33:18.540 --> 00:33:20.400
Like players, if they
had a million shillings

00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:21.540
they were very rich.

00:33:21.540 --> 00:33:23.940
So one player couldn\'t really
fund this by themselves

00:33:23.940 --> 00:33:25.413
back in the day, not nearly.

00:33:27.960 --> 00:33:29.400
A lot of players often sell shillings

00:33:29.400 --> 00:33:30.750
for real life money.

00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:32.070
There was some drama around that.

00:33:32.070 --> 00:33:33.960
And it was never really allowed.

00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:36.960
But enforcement against that
wasn\'t really possible, either.

00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:40.050
There was always this really
gray market situation.

00:33:40.050 --> 00:33:42.300
The open source servers boosted
money production enough.

00:33:42.300 --> 00:33:44.490
I think it\'s not really a
sought after resource anymore.

00:33:44.490 --> 00:33:46.740
Which I\'m kinda disappointed about.

00:33:46.740 --> 00:33:48.630
But back in the day I
actually sold shillings

00:33:48.630 --> 00:33:50.130
for real life money when I was in college

00:33:50.130 --> 00:33:53.070
to fund some of my college experience.

00:33:53.070 --> 00:33:54.540
It was like 100 real life dollars

00:33:54.540 --> 00:33:56.100
per million in game shillings.

00:33:56.100 --> 00:33:57.300
It paid my rent back at a time

00:33:57.300 --> 00:33:58.980
when I didn\'t have any income, so,

00:33:58.980 --> 00:34:00.333
that was a thing.

00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:07.470
In terms of guild halls and
their tiers and rankings,

00:34:07.470 --> 00:34:09.420
this is the absolute best, for sure.

00:34:09.420 --> 00:34:12.480
But there\'s a whole spread
based on the size of your guild.

00:34:12.480 --> 00:34:15.420
Small ones, like the one
we saw that was just room,

00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:16.253
very cheap.

00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:19.710
Some guild halls, the absolute cheapest,

00:34:19.710 --> 00:34:21.660
are literally in the sewers.

00:34:21.660 --> 00:34:23.610
If you really don\'t have any money.

00:34:23.610 --> 00:34:25.740
So they try to make a good spread.

00:34:25.740 --> 00:34:28.650
And they\'re often hidden around places

00:34:28.650 --> 00:34:31.560
as sort of very different type of draw

00:34:31.560 --> 00:34:33.780
for why you might travel to a place.

00:34:33.780 --> 00:34:34.983
Like how often are you just gonna go

00:34:34.983 --> 00:34:36.750
into the sewers for no reason?

00:34:36.750 --> 00:34:39.420
Well, if you know that your
enemy owns that guild hall,

00:34:39.420 --> 00:34:41.400
you\'re gonna check on it every so often.

00:34:41.400 --> 00:34:42.990
And if you see them in there,

00:34:42.990 --> 00:34:45.510
turns out in that hall,
because it\'s so terrible,

00:34:45.510 --> 00:34:47.100
you can shoot arrows through the gate.

00:34:47.100 --> 00:34:48.120
So if they\'re standing around,

00:34:48.120 --> 00:34:49.740
they\'re AFK, they\'re not at the computer.

00:34:49.740 --> 00:34:50.970
You could literally shoot arrows through

00:34:50.970 --> 00:34:52.020
the gate and kill them while they\'re

00:34:52.020 --> 00:34:53.130
inside their own guild hall.

00:34:53.130 --> 00:34:55.353
So that\'s like, you get what you pay for.

00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:59.340
It helps to have a base of operations

00:34:59.340 --> 00:35:00.510
where all the guild members can go to.

00:35:00.510 --> 00:35:02.130
And the thing that gathers them here

00:35:02.130 --> 00:35:04.440
is that if you use spells like Rescue,

00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:06.960
which teleports you back to safety,

00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:08.790
it\'ll take you to your guild hall first.

00:35:08.790 --> 00:35:10.740
So it\'s an easy place for guilds to gather

00:35:10.740 --> 00:35:12.390
and launch offensives from.

00:35:12.390 --> 00:35:14.550
Or also return if it\'s under attack.

00:35:14.550 --> 00:35:16.470
But they would absolutely hatch schemes

00:35:16.470 --> 00:35:18.090
to try to get the bigger
and better guild halls,

00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:20.610
because when you have a
small one and your guild

00:35:20.610 --> 00:35:23.553
has out grown it, you
really need to move up.

00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:27.270
At the golden age, like
the heyday of the game

00:35:27.270 --> 00:35:29.610
when there were just
like dozens of guilds,

00:35:29.610 --> 00:35:32.070
it was really hard to get a guild hall.

00:35:32.070 --> 00:35:33.000
You just couldn\'t do it.

00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:34.710
Like, they\'re not gonna sell it to you.

00:35:34.710 --> 00:35:35.793
They\'re not even gonna
tell you who owns it.

00:35:35.793 --> 00:35:37.470
They don\'t want you to know who owns it

00:35:37.470 --> 00:35:40.020
because then you could
follow those people inside.

00:35:40.020 --> 00:35:42.300
So you would just walk up
to these owned guild halls.

00:35:42.300 --> 00:35:45.240
You\'d broadcast like,
hey, who owns Wryn\'s Keep?

00:35:45.240 --> 00:35:47.520
And no one would answer you.

00:35:47.520 --> 00:35:49.530
And so you\'d have to do
your own reconnaissance.

00:35:49.530 --> 00:35:52.590
You\'d have to follow
people, see where they go.

00:35:52.590 --> 00:35:54.840
And once you figured out
who actually owned the hall,

00:35:54.840 --> 00:35:57.060
then you\'d start stalking those members.

00:35:57.060 --> 00:35:58.830
And the best part would be if they used

00:35:58.830 --> 00:36:00.900
their teleportation spell like Rescue,

00:36:00.900 --> 00:36:03.090
you\'re watching them Rescue
and you tell a guild member

00:36:03.090 --> 00:36:05.580
waiting by the hall, hey,
I just saw \'em Rescue.

00:36:05.580 --> 00:36:06.540
Be ready.

00:36:06.540 --> 00:36:08.490
So you wait like your 10 seconds

00:36:08.490 --> 00:36:09.450
and you\'re like, \"Okay, go now.\"

00:36:09.450 --> 00:36:11.460
And you enter the hall
the door should be open,

00:36:11.460 --> 00:36:13.050
because the guy rescued back.

00:36:13.050 --> 00:36:15.300
But then you rush in
because you coordinated

00:36:15.300 --> 00:36:16.710
with your guild member.

00:36:16.710 --> 00:36:18.453
And then you launch the attack.

00:36:26.520 --> 00:36:28.200
The experience of switching
from the player side

00:36:28.200 --> 00:36:30.270
to the developer side
was a very strange one.

00:36:30.270 --> 00:36:32.250
But I think I was always
destined for that course

00:36:32.250 --> 00:36:33.900
because as I played the original game

00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:37.153
and came head to head with
its flaws and limitations,

00:36:37.153 --> 00:36:38.557
I would go to the forums and I would post,

00:36:38.557 --> 00:36:39.937
\"Hey, this should change.\"

00:36:39.937 --> 00:36:41.280
\"We should have more content.\"

00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:43.650
Or you know, \"The system
needs refinement.\"

00:36:43.650 --> 00:36:45.060
I was always famous for being

00:36:45.060 --> 00:36:46.653
the original forum warrior.

00:36:47.850 --> 00:36:49.200
I had like 10,000 posts

00:36:49.200 --> 00:36:50.713
on that original website Gilroy\'s.

00:36:50.713 --> 00:36:52.410
I was in every thread.

00:36:52.410 --> 00:36:53.550
I go back and read it and I\'m like,

00:36:53.550 --> 00:36:57.240
oh my god, this 14-year-old
kid had nothing better to do.

00:36:57.240 --> 00:36:58.230
And then I realized that

00:36:58.230 --> 00:36:59.803
no one was gonna change those things.

00:36:59.803 --> 00:37:02.070
I sort of gave up on that
until Zaphod came back

00:37:02.070 --> 00:37:03.360
and made it open sourced.

00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:06.480
And I realized, we can do this ourselves.

00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:07.860
And that was a mind blowing moment where,

00:37:07.860 --> 00:37:09.540
absolutely being the catalyst for this.

00:37:09.540 --> 00:37:10.387
I\'m like, \"Let\'s do this.\"

00:37:10.387 --> 00:37:11.610
\"Let\'s put this together.\"

00:37:11.610 --> 00:37:13.080
Let\'s get this community that has debated

00:37:13.080 --> 00:37:14.100
these changes for decades.

00:37:14.100 --> 00:37:15.660
Let\'s actually make it happen.

00:37:15.660 --> 00:37:16.590
And we did.

00:37:16.590 --> 00:37:18.720
We sparked two or three
golden ages of this game

00:37:18.720 --> 00:37:20.220
with hundreds of players that came back.

00:37:20.220 --> 00:37:21.990
The population was higher than ever.

00:37:21.990 --> 00:37:24.499
We had over 100 people at one point.

00:37:24.499 --> 00:37:26.948
I\'ve never seen it like that.

00:37:26.948 --> 00:37:28.620
I didn\'t actually get to play through

00:37:28.620 --> 00:37:30.600
those golden ages because I
was on the developer side,

00:37:30.600 --> 00:37:32.700
but it was almost more rewarding.

00:37:32.700 --> 00:37:36.120
Coming up with ideas, figuring
out ways to implement them.

00:37:36.120 --> 00:37:38.700
I wasn\'t some professional programmer,

00:37:38.700 --> 00:37:40.620
I had to figure this out with
a bunch of other amateurs

00:37:40.620 --> 00:37:43.080
looking at this proprietary
software code thinking,

00:37:43.080 --> 00:37:44.000
how do we do this?

00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:45.270
In this insanely old engine.

00:37:45.270 --> 00:37:47.270
It\'s not supposed to be able to do this.

00:37:48.292 --> 00:37:49.470
And it felt incredibly rewarding to,

00:37:49.470 --> 00:37:51.990
instead of just debating
fruitlessly on a forum forever,

00:37:51.990 --> 00:37:53.670
to actually implement these ideas

00:37:53.670 --> 00:37:56.820
and find out whether or not
our ideas were actually good.

00:37:56.820 --> 00:38:00.120
And the vast majority of the
time, no, they were terrible.

00:38:00.120 --> 00:38:01.350
But in that refinement we found

00:38:01.350 --> 00:38:03.533
some really good stuff
that I\'m really proud of.

00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.380
(light music)

00:38:18.616 --> 00:38:19.980
I think we\'re at the end of this era

00:38:19.980 --> 00:38:21.420
of Meridian 59 where everything

00:38:21.420 --> 00:38:23.160
that could be done with
the current community

00:38:23.160 --> 00:38:25.830
and open source pretty much has been done.

00:38:25.830 --> 00:38:27.600
And I think a lot of attention
is actually returning

00:38:27.600 --> 00:38:29.490
to the main servers as
people who are active

00:38:29.490 --> 00:38:31.740
in the game now are
doing it for nostalgia.

00:38:31.740 --> 00:38:34.467
They wanna play what they played in 2001

00:38:34.467 --> 00:38:38.163
and 2005 and this version, 103
is massively different now.

00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:42.240
We have literally doubled the
number of spells and skills.

00:38:42.240 --> 00:38:44.130
We\'ve doubled the number
of monsters in the game.

00:38:44.130 --> 00:38:46.260
Like tripled the land size.

00:38:46.260 --> 00:38:47.490
So the nostalgia players return

00:38:47.490 --> 00:38:49.410
to find it totally different.

00:38:49.410 --> 00:38:50.910
We\'re just not the right
fit for them anymore.

00:38:50.910 --> 00:38:53.160
Just like we\'re not the
right fit for the PvP group

00:38:53.160 --> 00:38:55.680
that wants to fight
each other for eternity.

00:38:55.680 --> 00:38:56.790
So I think the main servers

00:38:56.790 --> 00:38:59.160
are gonna be Meridian\'s mainstay.

00:38:59.160 --> 00:39:00.630
I think another era of Meridian

00:39:00.630 --> 00:39:03.090
is gonna begin when all the
current open servers die off.

00:39:03.090 --> 00:39:05.397
And in the future, players
out of the main server

00:39:05.397 --> 00:39:07.837
are gonna say, \"Hey, I\'ve got ideas.\"

00:39:07.837 --> 00:39:09.397
\"Let\'s make an open source server.\"

00:39:09.397 --> 00:39:11.460
\"Nobody\'s ever done this before.\"

00:39:11.460 --> 00:39:12.337
And we\'ll be like,

00:39:12.337 --> 00:39:14.490
\"Well, I mean, we have done this before.\"

00:39:14.490 --> 00:39:18.210
But it\'s up to them to
do that now, you know?

00:39:18.210 --> 00:39:20.510
It\'s up to them to have
their own experiences.

00:39:22.365 --> 00:39:24.865
(light music)

00:39:52.419 --> 00:39:55.836
(funky electronic music)

00:40:17.763 --> 00:40:21.096
(funky music continues)