History of the game of Drakkar?

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Valarc
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History of the game of Drakkar?

Post by Valarc »

Hi everyone,
I've been talking with friends about their addictions to newer MMORPGs like WoW lately, and I always bring up the "good old days" when I was a Drakkar addict, and always try to impress upon them the amazing staying power of this game. However, I'm invariably left without any good references to show them that detail the long (and storied) history of this game. If anyone has any links they can share, great - if not, I'd love to hear what you know about the history of this game. A few specifics I'd like to know...

When was the original, text-based, version first started?
When did it become graphical?
What were all the jumps from one owner to the next?
What was the name of the RPG Brad used to play that inspired him? (I can't believe I don't remember this, and it's REALLY bugging me!)
What year was the Pit, to later become Cob, added?

Thanks a lot for any light you can shed

-Valarc (who misses the days when being big in drak actually meant something)
Valarc___STORM, usually found in #storm on irc, and in the pillar room in cob

**Excerpt from an actual Lobby chat session**

chance: does valarc eva leave game
Brad: valarc is an NPC
Brad: didnt you know that?

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flisk
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Post by flisk »

you can find various bits of information at these links:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C002414/history.html (this one mentions Drakkar in the 1992 and 1993 year slot - and as a side note when it talks about MOSAIC I still have that in it's original shrink wrapped box; how geeky is that?)


There are more links on Google that you can check out, this is what I was able to find in just a few moments.

The history of Drakkar goes back to before 1992, this is just when it went to a graphical interface.

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Post by Stormwind »

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Bah, rumors. Just to clear things up completely:


I am the sole creator of Realm which became Drakkar. Others have written scenarios, and helped maintain the game, but its my insanity.


I wrote the game in college, it was a center screen side scroller MMRPG like rogue. Then a friend turned me onto iok and i adopted the same symbol set as them (close), and moved the display window to the upper right.

The game was developed on a PDP11, and later ported to unix (still called REALM at the time).. There are still a couple original players online ( won't give names ) who played on the DISK BBS (where it ran)

I never worked for kesmai corp, or had even heard of the game until a friend turned me onto it while i was in college. Drakkar is not IOK, never was, never even took a similar development path other than the superficial stuff (think about the game styles, they are light years apart) (though i was heavily influenced by rogue, moria and IOK) (And LUVED iok by the way)

In college, I was contacted by MPGN to license the game, which they did, and produced a graphical frontend for it. There was no internet then.

I accepted, and we made a graphical frontend, put it up on MPGN, and I took a cut of the profits. "ben" was an employee of mpgn at the time, but was working on ANOTHER game mpgn was writing.

MPGN eventually dropped development of their game, and switched to mine. It grew and grew, etc.

MPGN then got a very, very early access line to what was then a newly broken off portion of milinet, called the internet. It was through C$S believe it or not.. So we grabbed it, and got a CLASS B internet address (if you can believe it).. And put drakkar up on it.. (hence it was the original, first, and only graphical MMRPG on the internet).


One day, Ben ("mirror") offered to "RUN" the game for me, and I accepted. He ran it for a couple years, until an unfortunate incident caused a breakup of that relationship.

About 10 years ago, MPGN purchased complete rights to drakkar from me, and took over management. I was a consultant (and programmer on other projects)

Many years later, MPGN merged with IEN, i left the company, drakkar died on the vine, and I swooped in a couple years ago and bought it back.

I sure hope that clears up all the rumors about where this all started
Original link
http://kingdomofdrakkar.com/newforums/v ... php?t=1289


-Stormwind
Heh.. The Good Ole Days ;-)

Another link for nostalgia..

http://web.archive.org/web/199706132145 ... .mpgn.com/


Version Notes going all the way back to the name change from The Realm to The Kingdom of Drakkar.

http://www.wolfguild.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=333

Pretty sure if I dig around I have more stuff squirreled away in logs and files.
Last edited by Stormwind on Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Mars
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Post by Mars »

Though Brad doesn't give an exact date, and I don't have it either,
it was 1988 or earlier

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Post by Brad »

It would be right when my grades started to go downhill in college. I got the copyright back to 1991 i think, but i believe the ascii version is 88/89. Some of the old, old players may remember when they first got online.. if they were on the pdp11 version, its 1989ish if they were first on the unix version its 1991+

Brad

Valarc
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Replying to Topic 'History of the game of Drakkar?'

Post by Valarc »

Awesome info, thanks guys!
Valarc___STORM, usually found in #storm on irc, and in the pillar room in cob

**Excerpt from an actual Lobby chat session**

chance: does valarc eva leave game
Brad: valarc is an NPC
Brad: didnt you know that?

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Frozboz
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Post by Frozboz »

Lots of info on this topic. I started late 1988, though my earliest manual dates to 1989, and this was like Brad said on the pdp11. Sometime thereafter, 1990ish or so, the game was ported to UNIX.

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Post by Longbeard »

I am coming back in 2 years then for grand celebration of the 20 years of drakkar, 10 years of my main character, and guess what i will need to make level 50 then, i am all so close!
Back to the mines for now, rent is high, wages low, plastic oh, so good!

Brad
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Replying to Topic 'History of the game of Drakkar?'

Post by Brad »

Froz do you have an old realm D.I.S.K. manual? The one john sparks wrote? the date on that should be about right.

Like you said, im thinking 88/89.

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Post by Dragonslayer »

I'd like to preface the enxt two sentances with "Holy shit!":
It's Valarc!
This game is roughly as old as me!

And I thought I was hardcore because I played on iEN :P


(For the record, I didn't think i was hardore because i played on iEN)
Last edited by Dragonslayer on Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Rosey
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Post by Rosey »

Ewwww! a Valarc!!
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Post by Athena »

Roooseeeeeyyy!!!!

Come back to Drak! You know you wanna! We miss you! :)
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Post by Drewstr »

Whoah.. Who let Rosey into forums? :P

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Rosey
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Post by Rosey »

Maybe if Brad introduces Drak for Mac! Wow that has a certain ring to it!

Rosey :)
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Post by Drewstr »

I've been begging for that for awhile now Rosey!

Although, if you have the new intel processor, you can download "Boot Camp" for mac and it will allow you to partition your HD and install Windows XP on the other partition. It works pretty nicely on the high end iMac's (thats what I have). Not sure about their other desktops/laptops though.
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Replying to Topic 'History of the game of Drakkar?'

Post by Frozboz »

Originally posted by Brad


Froz do you have an old realm D.I.S.K. manual? The one john sparks wrote? the date on that should be about right.

Like you said, im thinking 88/89.
Yeah I do. Sorry, I rarely ever read these forums anymore. You want the manual? It's (c) 1989 if I recall. Email me if you want it.

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Post by Maximus »

Originally posted by flisk


you can find various bits of information at these links:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C002414/history.html (this one mentions Drakkar in the 1992 and 1993 year slot - and as a side note when it talks about MOSAIC I still have that in it's original shrink wrapped box; how geeky is that?)


There are more links on Google that you can check out, this is what I was able to find in just a few moments.

The history of Drakkar goes back to before 1992, this is just when it went to a graphical interface.

It was graphical before that. I used to play it on an Amiga 500 computer via dialin to NY in 1991. There was no real lobby of any type at that time though but it was one of the best mouse-click games I had found.

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Post by Maximus »

Originally posted by Brad


It would be right when my grades started to go downhill in college. I got the copyright back to 1991 i think, but i believe the ascii version is 88/89. Some of the old, old players may remember when they first got online.. if they were on the pdp11 version, its 1989ish if they were first on the unix version its 1991+

Brad
Yes, and it was nice to meet you as well Brad. We talked for a bit at Comdex in Vegas, along with "Gimli" at the MPGN booth. Wish I knew what ever happened with those T-Shirts that went with a subscription from back then. LOL

Thanks for the fun entertainment over the years.

The "original" Maximus

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Post by Spectrum »

I have played most of the online games EQ, EVE, Earth and Beyond, WOW, etc and NOTHING I mean Nothing is as well designed as drakkar.

The way the whole system works, the IH, Zaps, Skills, Story etc. NOTHING has been designed as well since 1988.

As a programmer I want to say: Brad your initial design was almost perfect.

Spectrum

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Post by Ravaillac »

What I was always most curious about is how he decided upon the equations to use for the XP, Skill and Combat tables.

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Post by Darge »

Originally posted by Ravaillac


What I was always most curious about is how he decided upon the equations to use for the XP, Skill and Combat tables.
Here's how:

"Is creature fire/ice immune?

No=+100% exp/skill

"Is creature melee only?"

Yes=+100% exp/skill

"Is creature's melee subpar?"

Yes=+100% exp/skill
Last edited by Darge on Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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