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Classic MMOG Raised From the Dead by Past Players
Chromain writes "Back in 1996, the Seattle-based company Starwave created one of the first graphical MMOGs: Castle Infinity. Though it was well received by all who tried it, it quickly sank under bad marketing, extended downtime, and sloppy leadership. Now, nearly 8 years since disappearing off the map, the game has been (quite literally) rescued from a dumpster by a group of past players. It's available for free at their new website."
/., My name is Greg "Devil Dog" Kumparak, and I'm an Architect of Infinity. I hope I'm not doing the rest of the team a disservice by attempting to speak for them. I've been playing Castle Infinity since a very young age, and have volunteered on the game for quite a few years. Castle Infinity was developed around 1995/96 by Starwave. It grew a rather large fan base, which simply wasn't big enough to outweigh the cost of running it. After being transferred from company to company, it was eventually forgotten by all except for the original players. Sure, company after company brought it up for 2-3 months, but it was only a tease. Each and every time, Castle Infinity was closed down. The blow of signing on to see "Sorry, we're closing down until further notice" hit some of us quite a few times. That was until we realized that Castle Infinity had been thrown away. I do quite honestly mean thrown away. In a trash can. With a bit of good timing, and maybe a liiiiittle bit of fast driving, we got our hands on the server and a large portion of important data. (Thanks Kevin!) For the past few years, we've spent a large portion of our free time on rebuilding Castle Infinity. Months of server woes, countless bug fixes, and an unimaginable amount of stress on each and every member of the team.. and it's all lead up to this. We're up, we're running, and we're ready to dump as much cold water on our server as it takes to keep it from melting. Theres a lot of work to be done, but trust me - we're trying as hard as we can. We have quite a lot in the works. We're constantly working on ways to make Castle Infinity feel much more "modern", giving it features to make it compare to the MMOGgs of today's standard. Due to this, we're ALWAYS looking for a talented hand. Think you can help out in any way? Contact us. Don't worry, we're good people. With that, I welcome you. Welcome to the fruition of our noble quest. It's been a long, wild ride. Uncountable heartfelt thanks to all at Slashdot for running this story. Greg Kumparak Architect of Infinity
If only someone would rescue their webserver from the dumpster, so I could see what this is all about.
Wow. How can they expect to host an MMORPG when the site is slashdotted in a few minutes?
Zero comments and the linked site is toast. Perhaps "Castle Not-Quite-Infinity ..."
...that is, if you want any part of your life back ;)
As you can tell, that went ..not so well. Not only did our server just eat itself in less than 2 minutes, but I managed to forget all about line breaks. *Laugh*
It's time for MORE extended downtime!
I figure that a fire hose is the only thing that's gonna keep that server from melting down now that it's on Slashdot's front page.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Twelve years ago the landscape of the Internet was totally different. We had Clevnet, and that could get us anywhere!
BBS games were before my time (or I just missed out on the craze), but I was a big fan of single-person text adventures before they were Interactive Fiction. I was especially fond of a couple of adventure games on some pay-per-minute service, Compuserve or Prodigy maybe. One in particular stands out because it involved a vampire (Dracula?) and it was designed to be incrementally solvable. It's where I learned the maze mapping skills that came so handy in Adventure later (even though it came out earlier).
Does anyone else remember this vampire-themed adventure game that was available on some early ISP? Even a name would be a start...
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
The server got a bit hot - we dumped ice cold water on it. Unfortunately no one told us that water on a server isn't actually a good thing. Yeah. Thats what happened. *cough*.
S etup.exe
.. just kinda limping. And as I typed that, it went back down. We're gonna throw up a static page with a link directly to the registration and download pages.
Anyways, I have good news! There IS a direct link to the download. Unfortunately, the only way to register is on the website itself. So. If you managed to register but didnt get to the download in time, head on over to:
http://www.mediamerlin.com/castle/C8/C8Install/C8
On that note - the site is currently up, it's
My apologies for the mess. If you're interested, please bookmark the link - we're workin hard here.
Many thanks IamLarryBoy. As i mentioned a bit further down, I managed to forget line breaks under the stress of "AHHHHH THE SERVER JUST LIT THE CAT ON FIRE."
Indeed - it is largely a childs game at heart, though the actual fan base seems to be older than originally intended. Too "old" for this type of game? No worries! Show your kids - they'll love it.
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:g67FaBUao30J: www.castleinfinity.com/+castle+infinity&hl=en&star t=1
Who are we? Well, for one thing, we're a public-benefit, not-for-profit, California corporation. We're also all volunteers who were originally players, and who love Castle Infinity and want to see it fulfill its potential. We range in age from 15 to 53, and spend minutes to hours a day working on Castle Infinity.
Kevin Quitt ...
In putative charge is
Rev. Kevin D. Quitt, who came into his position of Benevolent Dictator by virtue of the fact that he went dumpster diving when Castle Infinity's creators (Starwave) decided there was No Commercial Potential for the game, and threw out the baby with the bath (servers and all). He is the game's and the corporation's administrator, but besides that, he designs some algorithms and codes some of the utilities we use.
John Cantu joined the Castle Infinity staff in 2000 and does assorted administrative tasks. (Have you ever noticed you can't hack connect.dat? That's because he did it first.) Outside C8, John is working towards his B.S. in Computer Information Science with a goal of becoming a systems/network administrator, and currently works as an analyst for a multinational media information company.
David Estes
David Estes is possibly insane due to being a mad scientist
David Estes is glad that this intruder chose to invade his wheat field
David Estes is well known throughout the community for his soccer talents
David Estes is the new assistant provost for teaching
David Estes is president of the lutheran child and family services of illinois
David Estes is one of the owners of pacific northwest distributing
Greg Kumparak's been around Castle Infinity longer than he wishes to disclose. He started playing around the same time he began sporting a Power Rangers lunch box. Greg is responsible for the majority of the new art (including this site) and likes to brand himself as "Lead Level Design" when discussing Castle Infinity with others. Children simultaneously adore and fear him.
He still carries around a Power Rangers lunch box.
Edward Marks, unlike the other architects, never had a chance to play Castle Infinity when it was still operated by Starwave. He began playing in 2000 and joined the architect team in 2002. His original job was as an artist, but Greg has taken over most of his former responsibilities. Now he is responsible for the organization and use of original Starwave material (a lot of it was left on those abandoned hard drives) and has created several body parts, items, levels, and ideas. Outside of the game, he attends Thomas Jefferson School, with Andy, but will soon graduate and enroll full time in Stanford University in California.
Andy Matuschak joined the Castle Infinity team in 2001 as a client programmer (he likes to refer to himself as the "Lead Programmer"), but he's served in various capacities since then. His largest projects for the game include the site you're reading now (which he coded), the Infrared update system, the currency system, and the HUD. On a day to day basis, Andy is responsible for new features in the client, web site updates, and most of the levels that require code. Outside of the game, he attends Thomas Jefferson School in St. Louis, MO (graduating in 2006) and spends much of what time remains working with the Open Sword Group on open-source Mac software.
© Castle Infinity, Inc. 1996-2005 (( -- but I hope they don't mind me posting this here. ))
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
hacked together
slashed,
a true hack and slash rpg
>>You have encountered a Slashdotting!
>evade
>>You cannot evade.
>evade!!!
>>You cannot evade.
>exit
geek@computer> nethack
Since you guys are about the game experience rather than money, does this mean some kind of meaningful PvP is in store for downloaders of your game?
Classic MMOG Server Razed From Slashdot by Future Players
Get your Unix fortune now!
A bit off in your math, though close. I'm actually 17, and I'm in no way "the guy" who rescued Castle Infinity. I'm part of a team of guys who each had a huge part in the process, ages ranging from 16-50. On that note, Agism is lame.
Isn't .. er, removing items from peoples trash stealing?
And on that note, do they have the 'right' to use the game code?
I think this raises interesting questions about abandonware...
what's the legality of taking over a project that was aborted? even though the company who owned it literally trashed the project, don't they still own some sort of rights to it?
if it became popular, could they do anything, since they bought the rights from Starwave... or does throwing it in the trash forfeit those rights?
Unfortunately, this is one of the topic's i'm not incredibly well informed about. On that note, and for that same reason, this entire post could be completely wrong. If that's the case, please ignore it and hit me with a stick or something. The main reason we needed the server was for the server/db software that (luckily) was on the hard disc itself. The rest of the server was either trashed, far too out of date to use, or just over all crud. We have upgraded from that server, which actually required quite a bit of work. The software/db stuff that is required for the interconnectivity of the game and the website is rather hateful, and required some INCREDIBLY specific stuff. Of course, we got around all that eventualy. Sadly, the software still hates us. Basically, our hardware rocks - its the software side that's killin us. (And to answer your other question - sorry, to my knowledge we've already given away or tossed any server hardware we didnt need. The original server would be very outdated by now, though.)
Obsolete video technology does not make a game crappy.
The vast majority of today's games suck, it's just that most people haven't realized it 'cause they're shiny and new.
-Jenn
Was one of Redmoon. (http://www.redmoon.co.kr/ Korean version) An english server lasted for at least 5 years, but due to mismanagement, ingame and secuirty, the server software was "obtained", and now countless old players can download it and set up their own, or play on one of the many private servers, I have first hand knowledge of these events because I was a Redmoon player for a long time, I've followed it from the US version, to the Singapore company that bought it, to its home right now as a player created/tinkered operation.
Sure some of the things done to obtain the software were ethically questionable, but when you really love a game a lot, its hard to see it completely given up on. A lot of this love comes across with the development team that ressurected castleinfinity. It wasnt the first MMORPG that was resurected, and it wont be the last, as long as you have a deep emotional tie with a game (bordering on adiction, believe me, I know) you cant just let it go.
Thanks for bringing back some memories that were close to me with this story.
There is truth in humor.
:-/ Sadly, chances are slim to none. We tried it once, and it didnt exactly go over so well. On that note, it CAN run under Mac OS X.. under VPC. Just.. without sound. But it's better than nothing! Buuuut - if you like it enough without sound, you could pick up a computer at the flea market for 10 dollars with enough power to run this game:-)
*laugh!* True enough. Oddly, the dictionary definition of agism defines it in relation to prejudice against the elderly. A bit off. But I know what you mean:-P
Serve your website from a Windows machine. 80% of slashdot will refuse to read it out of spite. Presto, Slashdot effect averted. As an alternate to the Windows machine, post something supportive of the RIAA -- then you won't even need a server to handle all the people who won't be visiting the page you don't really have.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
You're new here, aren't you?
I am trolling
And Goatse.
Surprise, fear, drugs, and Goatse.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
If you are permitting the download to go for free, would you ever consider permitting the source to go for free (as in Free Software)?
Doom went this route, and, well, it is runable on any os because volunteers have made it work on just about anything. Same could happen to your project!
Todd Fries
Young is perhaps id > 400K. 200K-500K is getting warm (ranges overlap somewhat), 100K-250K is medium rare, 50K-120K is experienced, 20K-50K is on the brink of ultimate geekhood, and < 20K is ye olde bearded type.
But hey, look on the bright side: you have some impressive hair cultivation to look forward to!
-RMS by proxy.
(yes, of course I'm kidding)
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
I'm the old bearded type? I guess I'll have to go get a rocking chair and sit out on my front porch and complain about the weather.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
A majority of yesterdays games sucked as well. Its just that people tend to remember the good ones. I suspect that the same will be true of current games.
No, your standards have merely risen. Honestly, try comparing one of the old games and shut off nostalgia or "well, for its time..." logic and compare those old games to a good modern one (no point in comparing them to utter crap). You will usually find major improvvements that you'll find make the game much more playable. For RTSes stuff like queues, multiselection and even unit behaviour, for RPGs comprehendable interfaces and stats, etc. Many games have a better save and "respawn" logic nowadays, often you're not thrown back to the start of the dungeon if you die somewhere in it. Controls have become more precise, visibility has improved, puzzles are less erratric, dialogue is more expressive, levels less repetitive (unless you're comparing to Halo) and often gameplay more varied (what passed for fourty hours of entertainment back then would count as stupid grind or repetition nowadays).
Oh, and games have become longer on average. most games simply relied on the fact that you had to start over when you lost your last life.
Most old games would never hold up to modern expectations, even if graphics and such were not a factor. They often relied on novelty to get the player. Crap such as Space Invaders or Tempest is held in high regard.
And don't get me started on the games that weren't considered good even back then, the cheap dev costs allowed for a whole lot more of those to be thrown at the market. What passes for bad these days can often still be enjoyed though it won't be on par with the greatest titles.
Though, of course, you said the "vast majority" sucks which would just be a rephrasing of Sturgeon's Law and applied even back then. The "vast majority" can be disregarded because noone likes, buys or plays those games.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Hey now, Tempest rocks. So do any number of other early games, although I'm not much of a Space Invaders fan.
The main games played in my MAME collection are Tempest and Joust. They are simple, precise, and fun.
Has anyone considered writing a P2P webserver? The pages are stored on multiple boxes and are fetched via a bit-torrent-esk protocal.
Admittedly dymanic content such as ASP/perl would be tricky however it would reduce server load.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
It always cracks me up when I see this "first MMOG". I remember using Q-Link (AOL predecessor) when I was so young on my C-64. At one point they developed a game where you could walk around this island and collect stuff and chat using avatars. You could see other peoples avatars and they would walk around. It would be something of a conquest to run around and see who could find the most junk. They ended up ruining by having a bunch of mods that abused people for fun.
But that's just my own experience. Look at all the MUDs and such. I think the massive in MMOG is somewhat relative. There have been MMOG's for a long time in my opinion.
you would -think- that was true, and it is certainly reasonable, but it is simply not how the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act left things.
There is no such thing as a corporation which has no "heirs". At a minimum, if the corporation is dissolved, the debtors (in the case of a bankruptcy) and the stockholders have on-going rights in any intellectual property that existed unless the board of the corporation EXPLICITLY turned the companies intellectual property over to the public domain.
Or, under some circumstances the copyright reverts to the employees who did the work.
You may _consider_ the title abandonware and freely distributable, but that does not mean that it is _legally_ so.
This is why Project Gutenberg has such trouble scanning anything written after 1924. There are a gazillion photographs, magazine articles and so forth where the author can not be found, the PUBLISHER doesn't exist, no one knows if "Mark Trail" was a pseudonym or not, and finding him or her is impossible, but by golly, if we PUBLISHED that photo and made any money out of it, his or her GRANDSON might come after us.
Samething with software. Your position (abandoned) is one the Library of Congress recently asked for comments about. I hope you submitted one.
I know agism is lame, but I'm impressed with teenagers ( no offense) who manage to do more with their life than I've done to the present point. I've got 10 years on you, and I'm starting to feel like a geezer who hasn't amounted to much. It has to do with guys like you involved in projects like this ;)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Playable versions of the original "MUD" were available as early as 1979, mainframes only. Multiplayer mainframe Zork was created even earlier. I remember playing multiplayer Zork on a Dartmouth university mainframe back in the early 80's.
h tml
In 1980, MUD1 was online on the internet.
Compuserve was first able to put Islands of Kesmai up as a commercial offering in 1984.
In 1985, Galacticomm's MajorBBS and Compuserve's British Legends were both available.
The BBS software that Galacticomm wrote was called MajorBBS, and I used to help run a BBS, and customize some of the programming and configuration for it. (Borland C with DOS Extender on a 286!)
What made Galacticomm unique was their invention the Galactibox, which was a large computer case with 16 ISA slots that connected to a PC via an interface card -- of which you could have multiple. This allowed BBS operators to put together the hardware to run 16-64 modem lines much cheaper than, say, Compuserve.
I used to help run a MajorBBS in Michigan called SOLARIS until the con-man that owned it skipped town and left all of the hardware, so my then girlfriend and I decided to run it out of our home. We were always in the red over the phone bill, so we eventually closed it down.
Here's an interesting timeline to check out if you're interested: http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/mudtimeline.
First off, good for them. That was a remarkable rescue.
I do have a small bone to pick, though. Castle Infinity is not "one of the first" by a decade or so.
The first graphical MMOG I know of was Habitat from 1987. Yes, that's 1987 not 1997. Habitat was built by a partnership between Lucasfilm Games Division (now LucasArts) and Quantum Computer Corp (now America Online). It ran on a Commodore 64. Though usable at 300 bps, you really needed 1200 bps to do more than poke around.
Habitat didn't make it out of the beta test in the US because it used an indecent amount of server hardware. Quantum needed the hardware for the beta version of AOL. Habitat's bastard stepchild did make it to release, though: Club Caribe. In 1988 it had tens of thousands of players and supported upwards of 1000 at once.
Lucas later released a standalone game using the Habitat engine. You may have played it: Maniac Mansion.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Yeah...the original servers were high-end (for the time) P6-200s. On which we estimated about 5000 players would comfortably run.
The server side software is complicated. Rick Lambright, who is honestly one of the smartest people I've ever met, built a system that did all the stuff you'd expect from an MMOG, but he did it before there were any examples to learn from. Unfortunately, our goals never explicitly included making the software run for anyone else, so I'm not surprised it has taken some work to port it.
I was one of the original client-side programmers at Starwave. We put an awful lot of ourselves into Castle Infinity and it was heartbreaking to see how badly Starwave managed/marketed it. It's really nice to see new people taking the system over and keeping it running.
Congratulations on keeping the game online and bringing it back to people's attention.
nathan
Punched cards? Feh. Try punched tape, sonny.
MAC | A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Thanks for posting that review. It's a few years out of date, so quite a lot has changed. New technology has been added, and quite a lot of features. The game can handle more than ever. The screenshots are accurate though:-)
But then that's the difference between finding a previously published book in the trash and finding the original unpublished manuscript, or to take it back to the topic at hand, having a discarded copy of the software and having a discarded copy of its source code.
It would come down to good faith. A reasonable person would see throwing away the source code, runtime environment, and hardware as divesting oneself of the rights to the property as allowing its destruction would deprive even the supposed retainer of the rights of the very rights he seeks to deny to others.
If IP in the trash stays in the trash, then that would certainly be an unconstitutional extension of copyright to infinity by denying it to the public domain.
If any act would deprive all of humanity access to the work, including the rights holder, those rights should be forfeit to the public domain.
Alas, while I think my position is morally sound, section 104A - Copyright in restored works, effectively allows creators to retain copyright over works restored by others, and moral rights in copyright in the UK has similar provisions.
However, it does suggest that until the work is restored, it is in the public domain. Once the work is restored, rights apparently go back to the original destroyer of the work as "if it had never entered the public domain in the United States."
Unless I'm misunderstanding what they mean by "restored" in that section. Is it work restoration or copyright restoration?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?