This one as well...
You said, "It wouldn't take much to do the argument justice. Someone who played both early EQ and Sojourn could easily post an analysis of similarities between the two products". Sounds like Flight did just that. Or is your problem with this that it isn't in depth enough? Two people who did both have commented on how they are pretty much identical. Do you personally have any experience with this to say otherwise or are you just in white knight mode atm?
Actually, that's my bad... Somehow I just missed all of page 6. My browser's 'go to first unread post' must have borked...
No one is saying that Brad's name should be scrubbed from the history books. He obviously deserves credit for helping advance the genre. It is relevant to the topic though because if the guy stole all of EQ's mechanics then he didn't actually design anything that people loved about EQ. Unless EQ's graphics are the thing you loved the most about the game then it matters. He is asking people for money to design a game from the ground up and by all accounts he has never actually done that successfully before.
I played EQ for quite a bit when it was released, then I stopped play because it was a buggy mess and I more friends and more enjoyable experience in SojournMUD. Then school and working to pay for school pretty much stopped all online gaming until 2004/5ish. I played sporadically the first year or so the game was out.
I don't think many people are seriously saying he "didn't do anything". But people are questioning how much credit he truly deserves for EQ, given it's basis in well known MUDs. The design for EQ was largely lifted from said MUDs. Brad is a designer, not a technical guy. He didn't do the graphics, network code, or anything else technical. And it was obvious in the first couple years of EQ that Brad didn't "get" a lot of what was going on with his own game.mkopec_sl said:
I personally played early Sojourn and I played EQ. Note, for the record I did not really like Sojourn, but I loved EQ. However, as I stated many of the things EQ took from Sojourn were piss poor design problems, which were fixed by the Blizzard guys in WOW. The design took death penalties <common in MUDS>, grouping <common in MUDS>, and a lot of the AD&D class structure and many critters lifted almost verbatim from the Monster Manual. This was not copying from Sojourn.
That's like saying someone who wrote a book shouldn't be pissed when someone makes it into a movie because they should of just done so themselves. Granted I am playing devils advocate a little because I this kind of shit happens all the time and why larger companies pay out the ass for IP lawyers but to act like it is no big deal and dismiss it is kind of shitty.
I don't know a damn thing about Sojourn, but sure that's entirely possible that it was a complete or partial rip off. Point me to where Sojourn's creators are asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars to relive their glory days, and all they have to show for it is some shit that they could have whipped up over a weekend coke binge and you might have a fucking point.
Thats not my point, dude. Im with you on that above point. I just dont agree with the entire ripping off shit and doing nothing part, thats all.