Previous PostsThe return of "the Rest"
In March 2002, my buddies Randy Varnell (whom I now carpool with to work daily), Brian Huff and I, started on a little community-building project centered around the MMORPG game that was planned to be released by Sony Online Entertainment. The game, Star Wars Galaxies (hereafter known as "SWG") was going to be the backdrop for the utopian-like city of our dreams -- Vagabond's Rest. Randy, being the "feature-driven" meglomaniac that he is, put together a twelve-page requirements document for me and I started coding the website to encompass all of the stuff that we wanted for our city.
Several months and many sleepless nights later, vagabondsrest.com, emerged. It incorporated my own clanky forums software (hand written and based loosely on a number of forums that I liked), business, user and character profiling system, voting and government simulation system, the works. It was a game for us, attempting to guesstimate what SOE would do in-game that was similar to our systems at VR -- or would atleast complement them.
Ultimately, we built a city or better yet, a community, outside a game that we new very little about. Vagabond's Rest was a success months before the release of SWG to the masses. We had ties to a thousand very interested and focused players, a conduit to the developers and a reason to be heard. Plus, we were writing some great fan fiction in the move from our characters in Anarchy Online (AO) to the universe of SWG. When the game released in June 2003, we had already been a community for a year. The game, was lackluster and we quickly learned that the mechanics of the game didn't play well with the mechanics of our "city plan". Turmoil, in-fighting and rivalry insued. The Founders had lost interest in the utopia we had once invisioned. Then the website was hacked from the "inside" and we were forced to shut it down.
VR died abruptly. I didn't look at the code again until today when Brian sent me the last backup copy he had made of the site and its plethora of data. I'm happy to say that I am working to restore the site to its former granduer, mostly as a museum peice, but also to see the amazing work we churned out in a just a few months.
Welcome back baby!
Several months and many sleepless nights later, vagabondsrest.com, emerged. It incorporated my own clanky forums software (hand written and based loosely on a number of forums that I liked), business, user and character profiling system, voting and government simulation system, the works. It was a game for us, attempting to guesstimate what SOE would do in-game that was similar to our systems at VR -- or would atleast complement them.
Ultimately, we built a city or better yet, a community, outside a game that we new very little about. Vagabond's Rest was a success months before the release of SWG to the masses. We had ties to a thousand very interested and focused players, a conduit to the developers and a reason to be heard. Plus, we were writing some great fan fiction in the move from our characters in Anarchy Online (AO) to the universe of SWG. When the game released in June 2003, we had already been a community for a year. The game, was lackluster and we quickly learned that the mechanics of the game didn't play well with the mechanics of our "city plan". Turmoil, in-fighting and rivalry insued. The Founders had lost interest in the utopia we had once invisioned. Then the website was hacked from the "inside" and we were forced to shut it down.
VR died abruptly. I didn't look at the code again until today when Brian sent me the last backup copy he had made of the site and its plethora of data. I'm happy to say that I am working to restore the site to its former granduer, mostly as a museum peice, but also to see the amazing work we churned out in a just a few months.
Welcome back baby!
1 Comments:
I noticed you like to design websites. I could use some help!
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