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Wow, that took me back.
"When I was twelve, I found a crystal amulet that allowed me to telepathically communicate across vast distances. A telltale glint of quartz had caught my eye as I strode the coastal cliffs of Elanthia. I scaled the rock face and discovered a glowing amulet half-buried in white sand."
Yep, I remember the Coastal Cliffs, farming sea nymphs to stock up on gold rings. The amulets were nice, but the gold rings let you mark a location and teleport back to it by turning the ring. Very convenient for long-distance travel.
If the author was tired of all the calculations and such, it is a shame they didn't try out the "sequel" to Gemstone III, Dragonrealms. Still set in the world of Elanthia, DR's purpose was to provide a game world of description and imagination, and instead of the raw calculations and random rolls it displayed text narratives of what was happening. For example, a critical hit might result in severing a limb or decapitating your foe. There were many other major leaps beyond GSIII and DR was an absolutely amazing game with a passionate community (still is as far as I know). Simutronics also had a few other attempts at gaming experiences with a Hercules and Xena knockoff, a detective game, etc. Never really got into those however.
One of the bigger issues I had with how Simutronics approached things though was their absolutely ridiculous pricing. It made sense back in the day when they were the MUD of choice to play and cutting edge. But the only thing that has changed since then is the prices have gone up. Currently it is $14.95/mo for EACH SEPARATE GAME. And extra character slots are an extra $2.50/mo/slot [1].
I normally am quite polite when I speak with customer service reps. However when I called them last year to consider reactivating my account (after tiring of all the latest MMOs) and asked the price, I slipped when he told me and blurted out "YOU HAVE TO BE SHITTING ME. This an ancient text-based MUD and you are charging HOW MUCH?! And it would cost even more to get access to all my extra characters again?!"
Not the rep's fault of course, but come on...that is an absurd price to charge for a text-based game with gaming where it is today. Yes they had highly-involved GMs, and the community was exceptionally high-quality, but that price is just unrealistic (for me at least).
I'd love to get back in, and would even consider paying $5-10/mo for access to all games with a much higher character slot limit, but there's no way I'm paying this price. Which is a shame, because I spent a large chunk of my youth exploring these lands (and can credit it with teaching me to touch-type at over 100WPM at my peak).
Author here. I tried out Dragonrealms a bit back in the day (c. 1996) but it was too surreal to play a game with almost the same mechanics and descriptions as Gemstone, but with everything slightly different. It was almost like a dream version of what I was used to.
While I was researching this article I looked into the current incarnation of the game, Gemstone IV. Amazingly, I think some of the players of it have been active since c. 1992. I would imagine that's the longest-running internet game community, but maybe I'm wrong. A tiny party of me wanted to re-create my character from when I was 12 (Sylvanon) and start back up again...
I believe Simutronics now has some crazy pricing model where a handful of players pay a ridiculous amount ($100 a month last I checked) for the "Platinum" version of Gemstone, which is essentially a different server with only the elite players. I do sort of miss the austerity of a purely text-based game.
Correct. I'm sure they did some research and realized they had hardcore customers that are willing to pay an absurd premium and milked it for all its worth. The big shame is that if they simply went with more reasonable pricing, they may have been able to make even more.
DR took some getting used to when I made the transition, but overall it was a much more enjoyable experience once all the numbers were taken out of it. At a certain point you stopped trying to min/max things and just enjoy the experience which I think was the entire point. Then you added their visual Stormfront client and it was amazing. I'm sure I still have all my maps somewhere.
I'd LOVE to understand the business factors that caused Simutronics to arrive at their current prices. Such a shame...
Interestingly, Simutronics tried to get on the graphical MMO bandwagon, but their product, Hero's Journey, never got finished.
The engine itself, HeroEngine, was somewhat successful, though. It was licensed for some successful titles (like Star Wars: The Old Republic).
Wow, I had no idea the engine made it into SW:TOR, thanks for that bit of trivia!
I remember eagerly waiting for Hero's Journey and how crushed I was once it was cancelled. Too bad nobody has resurrected the actual vision for that game.
Great memories, I still haven't spent any amount of time on anything in life that passes the amount spent on Gemstone III (not that is a good or bad thing, just fact of my life).
Like the author, I started playing in '96, but I also picked it up again a couple of times over the years. It was amazing how many people I connected with on there and the life lessons learned at a young age. I still don't find anything as engaging as text adventures (though Gemstone III was always more alluring to me than other MUDs). There was real community and imagination in the game in a way that WoW picked up on but I feel never could quite replicate in the same way as graphics always seem to fall short of dreams.
I was reminded of Elanthia again a couple weeks back when Simutronics sent out an email on the latest "Ebon's gate" event. Elanthia is still there and still surviving!
"It's that time of the year again! In the real world, the leaves are turning, the temperatures are dropping, and everyone is reaching for their favorite warm beverages! In Elanthia, chaos and turmoil abounds throughout the realms. In the grand tradition of Ebon Gate, the Merchant Consortium opens Feywrot Mire, the location of the Eve of the Reunion Celebration!"
Great article. I also played from 12 to 15. There must be more of us out there. Great memories from that time spent in such an immersive world. The thrill of the "Lord" title at 20 (and 920/implosion spell) and the "Legend" title (and Hearthstone membership) at 50. Real friends, real connections. To this day I can type >100 wpm and with almost no thought or effort my fingers are tapping out "prep 702" "cast 702" from ancient muscle memories. I've often thought it would be fun to create or join a resurrected MUD similar to GS3 later on in life. There's something about the experience that I haven't found anywhere else.
Played a lot and recognize all the things mentioned. That said, it was just a backup game for me. Both Gemstone III and Neverwinter Nights were multiplayer games available on AOL. Neverwinter Nights had a limited number of people who could play, however, so often if it was full I'd go try Gemstone III.
NWN had better graphics. In the tradition of AD&D gold box games it had a map view and a first person view although you could only move grid square by grid square instead of moving freely. Perhaps on the down side, it was easy to hack too. You just had to flip a bit in memory and you were a GM and could make custom items, teleport, etc..
Gemstone III on the other hand, was more cheat proof since everything was done on the server. I had a script that rerolled a character until it got perfect stats, and many people used advanced mud clients like zMUD that would automatically map areas and could run complex scripts to automate actions, but it was tough to tweak game behavior. I guess it is a good example of good scaling winning over poor too, since it could handle the large amount of players NWN couldn't, and even got some form of graphics later on. It could show an image for each area you went to.
Gemstone III was the first online multiplayer game I was a part of. I must have played 20 hours a week when it was free on AOL!