Hi Scott,

Yes, I got your previous email too. Just often get busy around here.

Yes, I was the initial creative force behind The Realm. I had worked on
designing and building "The Sierra Network" (later came to be The
ImagiNation Network) -- doing the front-end user interface and many of the
original board and card games. It was amazing...we built a whole network
with just 3 of us initially -- me, one guy doing network code, and one
server architect. We also had an artist join us, and eventually grew the
team.

How the Realm came about is that after getting the ImagiNation Network
going, Ken and I had talked about doing an adventure game online (Sierra was
famous for its pseudo 3-D adventure games ala, King's Quest and Quest for
Glory). I spent months during whatever free time I had and created a demo of
multiplayer characters walking around and able to do simple interactions
(give, get items, steal). Then I added some creatures/monsters...and we
decided to try to make a multiplayer adventure game. Well, then I started
prototyping how puzzles would work, and that is where we got into all kinds
of design problems with how to make good multiplayer puzzles. And how if you
have hundreds of characters interacting with a world and one person solves
one problem (i.e., kills the minotaur to cross the bridge), how do you make
it fun for everyone else (instancing vs. virtual world)? Especially if we
make some cool/hard puzzles and then someone just goes around and posts the
answer. So, ultimately, we saw many difficulties with creating multiplayer
adventure games. 

So I wrote up a proposal to create a fantasy role-playing game world using
the Sierra-look and game engines...but with multiplayer. Ken bought it and
we started building a team. It went quite well, but this was all new, and
since we were a research project, we struggled to build a quality team.
Often, people on our team were taken away for a few months at a time to help
"rescue" another project so it could be released. So it was a struggle, and
as the team leader, I was swamped with trying to project manage, design, and
even code. We hired Mark Zechiel, and Steve Nichols stepped up and became
lead server programmer and helped with the design. 

If we had full support on the project, we could have likely gotten it out
earlier (6 months to a year). Also during the time of it's development, the
ImagiNation Network was sold to AT&T, which later sold it to AOL. The Realm
was kept separate, and was always a part of Sierra, but it seemed Sierra did
not want to focus on multiplayer anymore. The ImagiNation Network spunoff
and became its own separate company after it got going (1992 I think). When
I started on the Realm, I had to "quit" INN and rejoin Sierra. 

Why I left was a combination of things. I did have a congenital heart
condition that caused me to have surgery in 1995 and that did effect my
contributing to the development for about 4-5 months. But I left in June
1996 mostly because I was wanting the Realm to head in a different
direction. My goal had always been for the Realm to be social first, and I
had plans for guilds and social structure and economy and world events. The
marketing dept really wanted monsters, weapons, blood, and gore. We could
not find agreement and so I saw it was best to leave. I had worked at Sierra
for nearly 10 years...and it was a good challenge and a great experience.

I know I left it in the hands of Steve Nichols as designer and several
others were hired on -- like Janus and Daniel James. I was pleased how it
turned out, and it would have been great to see Sierra invest more money
into improving it because it could have grown much more. It does indeed have
a unique feel and flavor that is far different from the rest of MMORPGs.

I have not played the Realm for many years, but have followed the latest
takeover/purchase of it and am interested where it will go. I would love to
hear what you have liked most about it, how you find the community now, and
where you hope to see it go. Let me know if you have any more questions.

-Dave

p.s. As far as dates, I have a folder in my filing cabinet at home that I
can pull out and see if I have better dates about when it started and big
dates in its early development were. I think I even have my original Realm
proposal too...

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from Dave Slayback to Scott Schubert / Azathoth
http://www.ConeyLove.com