3 ms·

It's a bit different than this scheme, but I actually read a short story in Dragon magazine about 35 years ago (very likely 1980 or 1981) about an MMO where mos

It's a bit different than this scheme, but I actually read a short story in Dragon magazine about 35 years ago (very likely 1980 or 1981) about an MMO where most people paid a subscription fee to play, but you could exchange in game currency for play time (and could even cash out into real currency -- leading to pro players who would compete for collecting the most in game gold). It is an interesting twist to have the players front the real world cash. As an aside, I always dreamed of playing the game I read about. One of the cool things about the game was that your character continued in the game as an NPC when you were offline. I always thought this would be very interesting way to have player generated content, where they would have to build defences to protect their player/gold while offline. Other players could launch raids to try to steal it. No one has ever built a similar kind of PK system that doesn't piss everyone off, but for me it's a kind of holy grail of MMO functionality. I hope I see it before I die :-)

pavel_lishin 11y ago
> * an MMO where most people paid a subscription fee to play, but you could exchange in game currency for play time (and could even cash out into real currency -- leading to pro players who would compete for collecting the most in game gold).* Reminds me of Stephenson's REAMDE.
- amyjess 11y ago
  Reading OP's article reminded me of REAMDE. I've never really played MMOs outside of a little bit of UO and EQ in the '90s, and everything I'm reading about WoW's gold economy is something that I thought Stephenson just came up with for REAMDE. I'm actually a little bit shocked that all this is real.
jghn 11y ago
"(very likely 1980 or 1981) about an MMO" There was no such thing at the time. There were MU* games around but MMO as a genre was viewed as something greater than that. Games like M59 and UO were where that differentiation really started being made.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > There was no such thing at the time. The fact that they didn't exist doesn't mean people couldn't write short stories (or other fiction) about them. Fictional accounts often precede reality.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  In 1980-81, there wasn't even MU* games around. The original MUD1 was "released" in 1980, if you were on the arpanet at the time. The first commercial MUD didn't come around until 1983 with Scepter of Goth[0]. So it's likely that the story was fiction (or the timeframe is off) [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > So it's likely that the story was fiction The phrase "short story" that was used to describe it is a term for a particular form of fiction writing, so that was obvious from the outset.
EdwardMSmith 11y ago
Was it this one? http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/catacomb-part-1-of-5.html http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/catacomb-part-1-of... This story made a big impression on me when I was a kid.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  You are AWESOME! That's the one. I was off by 5 years too. Thank you so much for finding it. I will enjoy reading it again!
leppr 11y ago
>I always thought this would be very interesting way to have player generated content, where they would have to build defences to protect their player/gold while offline. Other players could launch raids to try to steal it. Not an MMO but the first-person survival/crafting game Rust features that concept, your character sleeps on the ground when you're offline and anybody is free to loot or kill you. It gives a whole other dimension to the game, with players being assigned to defend a clan's base at set hours and calling them in when the base needs defending, I've even seen people skip work early to defend against major raids.

pavel_lishin 11y ago

> * an MMO where most people paid a subscription fee to play, but you could exchange in game currency for play time (and could even cash out into real currency -- leading to pro players who would compete for collecting the most in game gold).* Reminds me of Stephenson's REAMDE.

amyjess 11y ago
Reading OP's article reminded me of REAMDE. I've never really played MMOs outside of a little bit of UO and EQ in the '90s, and everything I'm reading about WoW's gold economy is something that I thought Stephenson just came up with for REAMDE. I'm actually a little bit shocked that all this is real.

jghn 11y ago

"(very likely 1980 or 1981) about an MMO" There was no such thing at the time. There were MU* games around but MMO as a genre was viewed as something greater than that. Games like M59 and UO were where that differentiation really started being made.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> There was no such thing at the time. The fact that they didn't exist doesn't mean people couldn't write short stories (or other fiction) about them. Fictional accounts often precede reality.
dsp1234 11y ago
In 1980-81, there wasn't even MU* games around. The original MUD1 was "released" in 1980, if you were on the arpanet at the time. The first commercial MUD didn't come around until 1983 with Scepter of Goth[0]. So it's likely that the story was fiction (or the timeframe is off) [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scepter_of_Goth
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > So it's likely that the story was fiction The phrase "short story" that was used to describe it is a term for a particular form of fiction writing, so that was obvious from the outset.

EdwardMSmith 11y ago

Was it this one? http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/catacomb-part-1-of-5.html http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/catacomb-part-1-of... This story made a big impression on me when I was a kid.

mikekchar 11y ago
You are AWESOME! That's the one. I was off by 5 years too. Thank you so much for finding it. I will enjoy reading it again!

leppr 11y ago

>I always thought this would be very interesting way to have player generated content, where they would have to build defences to protect their player/gold while offline. Other players could launch raids to try to steal it. Not an MMO but the first-person survival/crafting game Rust features that concept, your character sleeps on the ground when you're offline and anybody is free to loot or kill you. It gives a whole other dimension to the game, with players being assigned to defend a clan's base at set hours and calling them in when the base needs defending, I've even seen people skip work early to defend against major raids.