Comments on: Whatever happened to Middle-Earth Online? (Part 2 - The Bellevue Months)

By: Brent Michael Krupp

Brent Michael Krupp — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:06:12 +0000

My wife and a few friends worked at Sierra in this era. Fortunately, they all quit for better opportunities before it finally spiraled down the drain.

The version of this I heard from one of my friends was that when senior management found out about the incredibly stupid idea of permadeath, they fired everybody. Even at the time, pre-EQ, that seemed like a pretty reasonable explanation — it was a really dumb idea.

By: Darius K.

Darius K. — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:58:10 +0000

Really awesome series of posts so far, Joe. Once the series is finished I’ll be sure to point them out to the sizable number of industry aspirants who read my blog.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:14:49 +0000

My objection to perma-death is mostly from the business side of things. Every time a character is permanently killed is an opportunity for that player to never come back. Having hard-core mode be available for players is a fine thing. It’s making that the ONLY mode that seems like a really bad idea to me.

By: Rich Bryant

Rich Bryant — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:58:54 +0000

Yep, these were real memory shakers. I’ve worked for two studios that folded in the early 90s when the games industry in the UK seemed absolutely doomed.

By the way, i also disagree about permadeath being crazy design - it can work, but the player has to deliberately choose it for their character at creation. This is why Diablo2’s hardcore mode was so popular - people knew exactly what they were getting and chose it over the alternative

By: Psychochild

Psychochild — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:00:26 +0000

I knew most of this story since we started talking at conferences around the time you were laid off, IIRC. It’s interesting to see all the bits and pieces.

I will politely disagree with one assertion you made above that permadeath was a crazy design. Actually, I think it quite fit with the setting. Would LotR be quite so powerful if Boromir would have easily respawned after dying to the orcs? What about the people that died fighting Smaug in The Hobbit? I think permadeath would have added an element that would have made the game seem more true to the books.

Of course, as usual, you couldn’t just made an EQ (or now, WoW) clone and expect that throwing in permadeath would not fuck things up massively. It does take a smart design to do it right, and the only way you could do it is to plan for that at the beginning.

Anyway, loved these posts. Keep up the good work.