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Here we go with the latest Meridian 59 newsletter:
We've come a long way
This week's newsletter happens on a rather special night. Six years ago tonight, the original Meridian 59 team was frantically putting together the first public Alpha test release. The release went live on December 15, 1995. Read below in our feature "A word from a Kirmse" about Andrew Kirmse's recollection of that magical time in Meridian 59's history. We've also got a development update, a cool announcement, and a little fun. Before you read on to the juicy bits, we want to thank you for your continued support of Near Death Studios and Meridian 59!
A word from a Kirmse
Thanksgiving break, 1994. Three weeks to launch, and Meridian did not have a patching system. Chris and I wrote one over the four day weekend and never modified it again.
Early December. We had no idea how many players the server could support simultaneously. I threw together a version of the client that automatically logged in and walked in circles, and ran 30 of them on my machine. The server could take the load, so we set the login maximum to 35. Chris added an email server to the game so that it could process account creations from the Archetype Web page.
December 14. A machine was set up at an ISP in San Jose, California to run the alpha. We were able to run it for free because the ISP wanted to count the traffic to our Web pages as theirs. The city of Tos and a tiny wilderness area were all that existed of the world. We wanted to add a secret quest for players to find, and thus the quest for the Jewel of Froz was born. I transferred the latest files to Chris at his dorm room and went to bed around 11. Chris and Damion stayed up late finalizing the quest, and early in the morning, Chris copied all the files to San Jose and started the server.
Meridian was alive.
-Andrew Kirmse
Development update
This week we've been able to compile the server and client executables. The code had to be cleaned of some work that was unfinished from before as well as remove the references to 3DO from the code. Chris and Andrew Kirmse were very helpful with their assistance and information about how the code worked. It's really cool to be working with them again.
We also got the development environment up and running for the script files. We can now alter script files and recompile them to change the game. We've already made a few changes on the development server. It's amazing how easily you can get back into something after being away for so long!
We then set up a CVS server for the source code. CVS is a source control system that stores source code. It allows you to save previous versions of the source code, so that if you make a major mistake, you can go back to a previous (hopefully) working version. It also allows multiple people to work on the same pieces of code without disturbing each other. If two people are working on the same code, the second person to check in their changes is required to "merge" their code into the other person's code and avoids unpleasant surprises.
Brian's current focus on the development front is to fix lingering bugs in the game code. For example, He's working on fixing the game unbalancing bugs, such as how powerful Armor of Gort became, and the stat increases gained from cure disease. He's also working on rebalancing some of the spells.
Rob has and will continue to spend a lot of time working out hosting, website, billing, CS, CD replication, shipping, and other issues. He's also been going through the art and choosing pieces that need to be cleaned up. Going with the "bang for your buck" theory we're only going to be making minor fixes that can be done quickly for the initial release. Rob was also able to get the level editor to successfully load, edit, and save a level file and then have that level loaded in game. However, like the art, the levels will probably only receive minor tweaks for the first release. |
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Meridian 59 Newsletter
