Best Text Based RPG I've Ever Played

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TruthBringer
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Look, flat out, there is no other text-based RPG like Gemstone 4. It is the single most profound, exciting, diverse, detailed text-based World you could ever find yourself experiencing.

I love it. I've played it since I was a teen. The game never dies. And it just keeps getting better and better. It used to be called Gemstone 3 back in the day. But it has since then been upgraded. Why not check it out? They give you the first month absolutely free of charge. After that it's only $14.95 a month. And trust me, it's worth it. Besides, even if you don't like it, after you've played it for the month, you can just cancel, and they won't charge you anything. So it's a win win situation.

PS - Make sure that you use the wizard program when you play. The newer ones are alright but they focus too much on the mouse. The key to this game is to be able to use the keyboard as much as possible. Because it's faster.

Here's the website:

play.net >> GemStone IV

Make sure you study before you play. I found out back in the day when I made sure I studied alot about the races, spell circles, action commands, etc., that it made it a heck of alot easier to play the game.
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Tell you what. Here's a little incentive for people who might need it. If you build up your character in the game, you can sell it for REAL money outside the game. I've seen level 100 characters go for as much as $1,000 US dollars. You can sell anything from weapons, to gold, to armor, to just about whatever the game has to offer for REAL cash in REAL life.

Here is the website that auctions off the characters and such:

GemStone IV Auction Place - FAQ

Or...you can always take the lazy way out and instead of building up your own character you can purchase one from that site and equip him/her full of gear. The cheaters wet dream.
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I forgot to mention that there are virtually no hackers in this game. So it's hack-free. The same can not be said about games like World of Warcraft, Diablo, etc.

In this game, everyone is on a level playing field.

play.net >> GemStone IV
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Here's another tip that is really important for anyone who plays this game. If you choose to use the Wizard client (The one I highly recommend), or the JAVA client to play the game, and if you want to ask any questions to any other people playing it or if you just want to talk in general then you have to type ' before you say anything because it's the way to talk in the game. If you don't use the ' before you say something then the wizard client through which you are playing the game won't let you speak. So thats something I think is very important for anyone who first starts playing the game.

14.99 a month is peanuts folks. People spend more than that on 2 packs of cigarettes. And the first month is free.

http://www.play.net/gs4/

And by the way, Even if you were homeless, didn't have a computer, and only had just enough money to pay for the game every month, don't worry, you can go to any University or Public Internet Access place and you can use the JAVA client to play the game from anywhere. I know that our Universities over here all have libraries where anyone can go and play Gemstone 4 for hours on end. Basicly until they close.

Don't have a credit card or debit card? No problem. These days, you can go to check cashing places and ask about pre-payed debit/credit cards that anyone can sign up for. I have one, and you qualify for it no matter what. And the best part is, you get to activate it instantly, and, the money is ready to go from the second you activate it. And usually the fee for putting money onto it is relatively little. $2.00 for mine.

Not comfortable with using a pre-payed debit/credit card online? Well Gemstone 4 accepts money orders. So no worries. It might take a little longer for the billing department to receive it, but hey, once they do, you're ready to play.

Also, It can run on almost any computer too. Any computer made from 1995 and up can run Gemstone 4 because it doesn't require a graphics card or anything too significant to play it. Hell, you could play it from an office computer at your work if you wanted to if you could get away with it, even a bare bones office computer with internet connection would allow you to play this game.
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Thats an awful lot of effort for a game. Instead of expending all that energy for computer games why dont you make a nice lunch and bring it to a homeless person.

The act will fulfill you spiritually not to mention a hungry person will eat today.
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Nomad;1195130 wrote: Thats an awful lot of effort for a game. Instead of expending all that energy for computer games why dont you make a nice lunch and bring it to a homeless person.

The act will fulfill you spiritually not to mention a hungry person will eat today.


Oh I love helping out the homeless. It's one of my favorite things to do.
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Here's some more information about MUDS for people who don't know much about them.

In online gaming, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), pronounced /mʌd/, is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.

Traditional MUDs implement a fantasy world populated by fictional races and monsters, with players being able to choose from a number of classes in order to gain specific skills or powers. The object of this sort of game is to slay monsters, explore a fantasy world, complete quests, go on adventures, create a story by roleplaying, and advance the created character. Many MUDs were fashioned around the dice rolling rules of the Dungeons & Dragons series of games.

Such fantasy settings for MUDs are common, while many others are set in a science fiction–based universe or themed on popular books, movies, animations, history, and so on. Not all MUDs are games; some, more typically those referred to as MOOs, are used in distance education or for virtual conferences. MUDs have attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including communications, sociology, law, and synthetic economies.

Most MUDs are run as hobbies and are free to players; some may accept donations or allow players to purchase virtual items, while others charge a monthly subscription fee. MUDs can be accessed via standard telnet clients, or specialized MUD clients which are designed to improve the user experience. Numerous games are listed at various web portals, like The Mud Connector.

It has been argued that modern games like World of Warcraft, and social virtual worlds such as Second Life can have their origins traced back to the early MUDs. Originally graphical virtual worlds were called graphical MUDs, most notably Everquest, but by 2000 the term MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) had become the standard. The MMORPG RuneScape started out as a text-based MUD before graphics were added. Many MUDs are still active and a number of influential MMORPG designers, such as Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid, Mark Jacobs, Brian Green, and J. Todd Coleman, began as MUD developers and/or players.





Adventure, created in 1975 by Will Crowther on a DEC PDP-10 computer, was the first widely used adventure game. The game was significantly expanded in 1976 by Don Woods. Adventure contained many D&D features and references, including a computer controlled dungeon master.

Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT wrote a game called Zork in the summer of 1977 for the PDP-10 minicomputer which became quite popular on the ARPANET. Zork was ported under the name Dungeon to FORTRAN by a programmer working at DEC in 1978.

In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at Essex University in the UK, started working on a multi-user adventure game in the MACRO-10 assembly language for a DEC PDP-10. He named the game MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), in tribute to the Dungeon variant of Zork, which Trubshaw had greatly enjoyed playing.Trubshaw converted MUD to BCPL (the predecessor of C), before handing over development to Richard Bartle, a fellow student at Essex University, in 1980.

MUD, better known as Essex MUD and MUD1 in later years, ran on the Essex University network until late 1987.[12] The game revolved around gaining points till one achieved the wizard rank, giving the player immortality and certain powers over mortals. The game became more widely accessible when a guest account was set up that allowed users on JANET (a British academic computer network) to connect between the hours of 2 am and 8 am and at weekends.[13] MUD1 was reportedly closed down when Richard Bartle licenced MUD1 to CompuServe, and was getting pressure from them to close Essex MUD. This left MIST, a derivative of MUD1 with similar gameplay, as the only remaining MUD running on the Essex University network, becoming one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity. MIST ran until the machine that hosted it, a PDP-10, was superseded in early 1991.

During the Christmas of 1985, Neil Newell, an avid MUD1 player, started programming his own MUD called SHADES because MUD1 was closed down during the holidays. Starting out as a hobby, SHADES became accessible in the UK as a commercial MUD via British Telecom's Prestel and Micronet networks.[15] A scandal on SHADES led to the closure of Micronet, as described in Indra Sinha's net-memoir, The Cybergypsies.

In 1985 Pip Cordrey gathered some people on a BBS he ran to create a MUD1 clone that would run on a home computer. The tolkienesque MUD went live in 1986 and was named MirrorWorld.

1985 also saw the creation of Gods by Ben Laurie, a MUD1 clone that included online creation in its endgame. Gods became a commercial MUD in 1988.

In 1985 CompuNet started a project named Multi-User Galaxy Game as a Science Fiction alternative to MUD1 which ran on their system at the time. When one of the two programmers left CompuNet, the remaining programmer, Alan Lenton, decided to rewrite the game from scratch and named it Federation II (there never was a Federation I). The MUD was officially launched in 1989.

In 1978, around the same time Roy Trubshaw wrote MUD, Alan E. Klietz wrote a game called Milieu using Multi-Pascal on a CDC Cyber 6600 series mainframe which was operated by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium.[20] Klietz ported Milieu to an IBM XT in 1983, naming the new port Scepter of Goth. Scepter supported 10 to 16 simultaneous users, typically connecting in by modem. It was one of the first commercial MUDs; franchises were sold to a number of locations. Scepter was first owned and run by GamBit (of Minneapolis, Minnesota), founded by Bob Alberti. GamBit's assets were later sold to InterPlay (of Fairfax, Virginia). InterPlay eventually went bankrupt.

In 1984, Mark Peterson wrote The Realm of Angmar, beginning as a clone of Scepter of Goth. In 1994, Peterson rewrote The Realm of Angmar, adapting it to MS-DOS (the basis for many dial-in BBS systems), and renamed it Swords of Chaos. For a few years this was a very popular form of MUD, hosted on a number of BBS systems, until widespread Internet access eliminated most BBSes.[citation needed]

In 1984, Mark Jacobs created and deployed a commercial gaming site, Gamers World. The site featured two games coded and designed by Jacobs, a MUD called Aradath (which was later renamed, upgraded and ported to GEnie as Dragon's Gate) and a 4X science-fiction game called Galaxy, which was also ported to GEnie. At its peak, the site had about 100 monthly subscribers to both Aradath and Galaxy. GEnie was shut down in the late 1980s, although Dragon's Gate was later brought to America Online before it was finally released on its own. Dragon's Gate was closed on February 10, 2007.

In the summer of 1980 University of Virginia classmates John Taylor and Dr. Kelton Flinn wrote Dungeons of Kesmai, a six player game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons which used Roguelike ASCII graphics. They founded the Kesmai company in 1982 and in 1985 an enhanced version of Dungeons of Kesmai, Island of Kesmai, was launched on CompuServe. Later, its 2-D graphical descendant Legends of Kesmai was launched on AOL in 1996. The games were retired commercially in 2000.

The popularity of MUDs of the Essex University tradition escalated in the USA during the late 1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role-players to log into multi-line Bulletin Board Systems and online service providers such as CompuServe. During this time it was sometimes said that MUD stands for "Multi Undergraduate Destroyer" due to their popularity among college students and the amount of time devoted to them.

Spread

The first popular MUD codebase was AberMUD, written in 1987 by Alan Cox, named after the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Alan Cox had played the original University of Essex MUD, and the gameplay was heavily influenced by it. AberMUD was initially written in B for a Honeywell L66 mainframe under GCOS3/TSS. In late 1988 it was ported to C, which enabled it to spread rapidly to many Unix platforms upon its release in 1989. AberMUD's popularity resulted in several inspired works, the most notable of which were TinyMUD, LPMUD, and DikuMUD.

TinyMUD

Monster was a multi-user adventure game created by Richard Skrenta for the VAX and written in VMS Pascal. It was publicly released in November 1988.[29] Monster was disk-based and modifications to the game were immediate. Monster pioneered the approach of allowing players to build the game world, setting new puzzles or creating dungeons for other players to explore.[30] Monster, which comprised about 60.000 lines of code, had a lot of features which appeared to be designed to allow Colossal Cave Adventure to work in it. Though there never were many network-accessible Monster servers, it inspired James Aspnes to create a stripped down version of Monster which he called TinyMUD.[31]

TinyMUD, written in C and released in late 1989, spawned a number of descendants, including TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH. TinyMUCK versions 2 contained a full programming language named MUF (Multi-User Forth), while MUSH greatly expanded the command interface. Some use the term MU* to refer to TinyMUD, MUCK, MUSH, MUSE, MUX, and their kin. UberMUD, UnterMUD, and MOO were inspired by TinyMUD but are not direct descendants.

LPMud

In 1989 LPMud was developed by Lars Pensjö (hence the LP in LPMud). Pensjö had been an avid player of TinyMUD and AberMUD and wanted to create a world with the flexibility of TinyMUD and the power of AberMUD. In order to accomplish this he wrote what is nowadays known as a virtual machine which he called the LPMud driver as well as the C-like LPC programming language used to create the game world. Pensjö's interest in LPMud eventually waned and development was carried on by others. During the early 1990s, LPMud was one of the most popular MUD codebases.

DikuMUD

In 1991, the release of DikuMUD, which was inspired by AberMUD, led to a virtual explosion of hack and slash MUDs based upon its code. DikuMUD inspired several derivative codebases too, including CircleMUD, Merc, SillyMUD, ROM, SMAUG, and GodWars.

Simutronics

In 1987 David Whatley, who in previous years had played Sceptre of Goth and Island of Kesmai, founded Simutronics with Tom and Susan Zelinski.[35] In the same year they demonstrate a prototype of GemStone to GEnie. After a short-lived instance of GemStone II, GemStone III was officially launched in February 1990. GemStone III became available on AOL in September 1995, followed by the release of DragonRealms in February 1996. By the end of 1997 GemStone III and DragonRealms had become the first and second most played games on AOL.

Graphical MUDs

Main article: MMORPG

A graphical MUD is a MUD that uses computer graphics to represent parts of the virtual world and its visitors. A prominent early graphical MUD was Habitat, written by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar for Lucasfilm in 1985. Graphical MUDs require players to download a special client and the game's artwork. They range from simply enhancing the user interface to simulating 3D worlds with visual spatial relationships and customized avatar appearances.

After the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late nineties, graphical MUDs became better known as MMORPGs, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.

Gameplay

While there have been many variations in gameplay and features in MUDs, some distinct sub-groups have formed that can be used to help categorize different game mechanics and game genres.

Hack and Slash MUDs

Main article: Hack and slash

Due to the room based nature of traditional MUDs ranged combat is difficult to implement, as a result most MUDs equip characters with close-ranged weapons and usually takes place in a medieval fantasy setting. MUDs that restrict player killing and primarily focus on combat and questing are labeled Hack and Slash MUDs.

Player versus player MUDs

Main article: Player versus player

Most MUDs restrict player versus player combat, often abbreviated as PK (Player Killing). This is accomplished through hard coded restrictions and various forms of social intervention. MUDs without these restrictions are known as PK MUDs.

Roleplaying MUDs

Main article: Role-playing game

Roleplaying MUDs, generally abbreviated as RP MUDs, encourage or enforce that players act out the role of their playing characters at all times. Some RP MUDs provide an immersive gaming environment, while others only provide a virtual world with no game elements. MUDs that are heavily roleplay-enforced and have a cohesive game world are also known as RPI (Roleplay Intensive) MUDs.

Talkers

Main article: Talker

A less-known MUD variant is the talker, typically based on ew-too or NUTS, with plenty of derived codebases. The early talkers were essentially MUDs with most of the complex game machinery stripped away, leaving just the communication commands. Talkers create very little network traffic, making them ideal for setting up quietly at work. People who are long time users of ew-too talkers are called spods.

Psychology and playing style

Dr. Sherry Turkle, Ph.D. of Sociology of Science at MIT, developed a theory in her book "Life on the Screen" that the constant use (and in many cases, overuse) of MUDs allows users to develop different personalities in their environments. She uses examples, which date back to the text-based MUDs of the mid-1990s, showing college students who simultaneously live different lives through characters in separate MUDs, up to three at a time, all while doing schoolwork. The students claimed that it was a way to "shut off" their own lives for a while and become part of another reality. Turkle claims that this could present a psychological problem of identity for today's youths.

A Story About A Tree, a short essay written by Raph Koster regarding the death of a LegendMUD player named Karyn, raising the subject of inter-human relationships in virtual worlds.

Observations of MUD-play show styles of play that can be roughly categorized. Achievers focus on the difficulties of the game, difficult quests, fearsome monsters, and hard to obtain equipment; others explore every nook and cranny of the game, and try out all the guilds and races; some devote most of their energy to interacting with other players; then there are the killers who focus on interacting negatively with other players, if permitted, killing their characters or otherwise thwarting their play. Few players play only one way, or play one way all the time; most exhibit a diverse style. According to Richard Bartle, a longtime coder and observer of MUD-play, responding to a question posed by Keith Stuart, an interviewer for The Guardian, "People go there as part of a hero's journey - a means of self-discovery"
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For anyone who is good at coding things and would like to attempt to create their own MUD, here is a good site to get you started:

csd3:bloodrose: mud resources
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I was playing Colossal Caves / Adventure in the late 70's on a Honeywell DPS6 - magnificent game, I only wish I still had a copy.
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Bryn Mawr;1198139 wrote: I was playing Colossal Caves / Adventure in the late 70's on a Honeywell DPS6 - magnificent game, I only wish I still had a copy.


You really should try Gemstone 4 at least once Bryn. It's a great game. I'm not sure what Colossal Caves was like, but I would be shocked if you didn't have a blast playing Gemstone 4.
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TruthBringer;1198268 wrote: You really should try Gemstone 4 at least once Bryn. It's a great game. I'm not sure what Colossal Caves was like, but I would be shocked if you didn't have a blast playing Gemstone 4.


Two problems "No official Linux client exists" and I'm too tight to pay for gaming given that I have too little time to devote to it.

Colossal Caves was Adventure - I'm not sure which name came first but they were the same game.
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I was a player on the Essex system in Richard Bartle's time. 2400 baud dial-up through UCCL into JANET off an 8MHz homebuilt XT with a 30MB hard drive, EGA onto a green screen. I'd programmed under RSTS, that made navigating a lot easier than going in cold.
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spot;1198425 wrote: I was a player on the Essex system in Richard Bartle's time. 2400 baud dial-up through UCCL into JANET off an 8MHz homebuilt XT with a 30MB hard drive, EGA onto a green screen. I'd programmed under RSTS, that made navigating a lot easier than going in cold.


I don't know anything about programming.
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If anyone wants to learn more about Gemstone 4 they can go to krakiipedia.org. Here is the link for those who want to study more about Elanthia and it's virtual geography and realms:

Main Page - Krakiipedia
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For people who would like to study the Verbology of Gemstone 4/Elanthia you can go to the following website:

The Verbology of Elanthia
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TruthBringer;1198834 wrote: For people who would like to study the Verbology of Gemstone 4/Elanthia you can go to the following website:



The Verbology of Elanthia


Thanks Truth. I can never get enough of that stuff.
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Is verbology a word ?
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

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The Oxford English Dictionary makes no mention of verbology.

Verbicide exists: The act of destroying the sense or value of a word; the perversion of a word from its proper meaning.

A Verbarian is "An inventor or coiner of words" and the act of creating a new word is coining.

The study of new words is neology.
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GemStone IV is a text-based role playing game (often known as a mud) produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a High Fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as GemStone II and was launched in April 1988 on Genie. It was one of the first MMORPG's and is one of the longest running online games still active. Access to the game is subscription-based (monthly fee) through its website, with two additional subscriptions levels available, "Premium" and "Platinum".

GemStone IV is a text-based game built on Simutronics' proprietary engine, the IFE (Interactive Fiction Engine). This engine is capable of changing nearly any aspect of the game on the fly which allows updates without the necessity for downtime, a problem of many graphical RPGs. Due to the use of the IFE, GemStone is rarely taken offline, giving a 24-hour uptime cycle aside from the occasional game crash.

The GemStone interface is simply a text stream, and the game can be played with a Telnet Interface after authentication. There are several official interfaces to the game, as well as several unofficial ones. The oldest interface for Windows is called the "Wizard Front End" and offers several useful features such as status readouts, macros, and limited scripting abilities. The Wizard has since been superseded with the "StormFront" Front End introduced in 2003. StormFront offers several additional extensions to the game, including a "point and click" interface that allows one to click on text within the game and bring up action menus applicable to that portion of text. The Java FE and a browser-based version named "eScape" are less popular alternatives. A Wizard (similar to the Windows version) also exists for Macintosh Classic, while a Front End named "Avalon" is available for. Mac OS X. No official Linux client exists.

Here is a picture of the wizard front end client I was telling you guys about before:

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GemStone was first demonstrated to GEnie in 1987 before Simutronics was officially incorporated. It was only used as a demonstration model and was never available to the general subscribers. GemStone II was released in April 1988 to GEnie customers. However, GemStone II was very short-lived, and GemStone III went into open beta testing in December 1989, officially launching on February 1, 1990. The transition from "II" to "III" maintained significant portions of the environment, but not all, and character records were not maintained over the transition, requiring all players to begin anew. GemStone III evolved into GemStone IV in November 2003, but the game world and character records were maintained over the transition. Gemstone III was promoted on GEnie by promising players the opportunity to receive real-life versions of gems found in-game, something that persisted for many years.

GemStone originally operated with a license to use the Rolemaster game mechanics and Shadow World environment from Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE). In 1995, Simutronics and ICE agreed to let the business relationship expire, necessitating the removal of all ICE intellectual property from GemStone. Many of the game changes were simply renaming ICE names, such as changing the world name from Kulthea to Elanthia, and renaming the deities while keeping their previous characteristics.

Game mechanics were greatly changed with the de-ICEing (as the period is colloquially named), which required every game character to undergo significant changes. Character racial and class choices were also changed, making any direct translation between the two systems difficult. The end result was that every character was required to "re-roll" their character with the option to change race and skills, but maintaining their old experience level, class, and equipment.

GemStone became available on AOL in September, 1995, just after the de-ICEing process. Shortly thereafter, it became available on CompuServe and Prodigy as well. When AOL switched to flat-rate pricing, GemStone did over 1.4 million customer-hours in a single month, while the number of simultaneous users could rise above 3000 during prime time. Simutronics launched a web portal in 1997, and started phasing customers off of the online services and onto the web interface, although it would take several years before the last of the online service portals were closed.

Gemstone has won different awards for it's amazing gameplay including:

1998 Finalist, Online Game of the Year, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences

December 1996, AOL Members' Choice Award

GemStone IV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Some may be happy to know that play.net >> GemStone IV currently has a Summer special going where they are offering their platinum memberships for 2 months free. Can't beat free right? I don't use the platinum I use the regular $14.95 per month membership because I can afford that. Most people can still afford that in reality. Thats only a little over $100.00 a year. Not bad if you ask me. But anyways, here's the offer from the staff that they posted over there on the site:

Free Platinum Summer Trials!



Posted on 7/7/2009 3:46:43 PM by the Webstaff

For the months of July and August, you're invited to give our Platinum community a try... for free!

The tight-knit, amazing community is full of players who have the same desire for adventure and storylines as you! Take advantage of the opportunity to participate in one of the many MHO events, earn a custom title or unique rewards while participating in stories (both player and staff driven), make long lasting relationships with others, and create amazing memories as you explore the wonderful world of Elanthia together. And do all of it at our expense!

What this means is that you will have two months of fun with everyone involved in the Platinum community, from the players and GameMasters to the wonderful world of Elanthia. Our focus is on you, the players, and creating an immersive and interactive world for you to engage each other within. There will be raffles, merchants, a festival exclusive to Platinum, and the annual Frontier Days celebration - all during those two months alone! Stick around after the trial and take part in an epic, Platinum-exclusive storyline encompassing all of Elanthia as the Fall season comes in full, and follow up with the ever popular Ebon Gate festival as the year comes to an end.

The Platinum community invites you to come and rediscover the imagination and adventure of today's Gemstone IV!

(This offer only valid for GemStone customers who have not had an active Platinum subscription within the last 6 months.)

https://www.play.net/gs4/news.asp?id=149
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Here is the official Gemstone 4 Players created message Board where people go to talk about the game. Perhaps those interested in playing could learn more about the game by visiting it?

The Gemstone IV Players' Corner - Powered by vBulletin
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Post by cooldude94 »

I played a better game, though I don't remember what It was called.
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Gemstone is one of the first MMORPG's ever created and it is one of the longest running online games still active.

With Gemstone 4, The gameplay differs from most MMORPGs in two ways.

Firstly, while players can (and do) group together to better slay evil creatures, this is not compulsory nor necessary; a single character, if played wisely, can be self-sufficient. Secondly, this is a game for those wishing to invest a long time playing, and advancement is steady and lengthy. It has been calculated that if a player spent 8 hours playing a day, every day, it would take a little over three and a half years to reach the maximum level of 100. Compare this to WoW, where a few months play will quickly get you to the maximum.

In other words, games like WoW just aren't challenging enough for a hard core gamer. If it was, it would take alot longer and be alot tougher to reach the maximum level in WoW.

With Gemstone, development of the game is ongoing, with a dedicated team of staff and an equally loyal player base.

I have played on Gemstone for over 2 years, and am so far showing no signs of becoming bored. I know people on there who feel the same after ten years. If you're looking for something that's a little more immersive than the typical MMORPG, can support itself without the need for flashy graphics, and has a long history and established playerbase, than Gemstone is the game for you.

I just think Gemstone 4 is alot more in depth than other MUDS.

In Gemstone 4, you move through the game by walking through "rooms," which are vividly described as you enter. The descriptions are generally top-notch, showing some real imagination and knowledge on the part of those who design these things. As you move from room to room, there are working doors, ladders, tunnels, portals, trapdoors, caves, arches, and various other means of entrance and egress, to lend variety and realism. In addition, many rooms have hidden exits, which you must search for - but find only if your character possesses sufficient skill.

Characters are several and varied, framed so that the different races and professions essentially need each other for spells, items, services, and other things. This encourages interaction among players, and seems to work well.

Gemstone IV is now over 18 years old, and is the longest running game of its kind. The world of Elanthia is dynamic. Characters in Gemstone have a lot more options open to them as well. You could choose to become a Master Fletcher, Blacksmith, or Cobbler. Mining/Smelting is currently in the works. Alchemy has been introduced. One of the better improvements, in my opinion, was the addition of the Adventurer's Guild. This is a reward system, and is completely optional. With Gemstone 4, There is no software to purchase.

Plus, with Gemstone 4, you get quite a varied and useful cast, made more so by the fact that each sort of character can be created using any of the many races that Gemstone offers to players: Sylvan, the slight and agile; Elf, the slight and strong; Half-Elf, stronger and not so slight; Halfling, the littlest and quickest; Human, among the strongest and ablest; Dark Elf, very strong, but dark at heart; Dwarf, very strong and spirited; and Giantman, the strongest but rather clumsy. Combining these races with the various character types makes for terrific roleplay.

Of course, none of this would be much fun without monsters to slay. When a character is young, it has an abundance of low level monsters to fight, but as it grows older and more skilled it can successfully fight higher level beasts, for better treasure.

With G4, you get auctions, special merchants, and other events to keep things moving for those temporarily weary of the hunt. The Items are richly detailed, with descriptions and properties.

With Gemstone, the interaction is often evocative. Characters can marry, adopt other characters as their children, and weave intricate histories combining each other's stories often in epic sagas of tragedy and glory. They can fight each other (although this is frowned upon by Simutronics), over squabbles, love, money, and other disagreements. They can join forces to face a superior critter, hunt these and share the treasure among the entire hunting party. They can own houses and general stores, complete with user-selected furnishings. But most of all, players form friendships, many of which transcend the game. There are even Simutronics Conventions (Simu-Cons) which players can attend, meet each other in real life, don imaginative (and often expensive) costumes, and sometimes form intimate relationships.

Ultimately, Gemstone IV offers an escape from the dreary day-to-day lives that most of us imagine we lead. Who does not prefer to rush off on noble quests, battle evil monsters, defend home and hearth, hunt cunning prey, and learn useful survival skills whose merits are immediately obvious, rather than sit in rush hour traffic for hours, knowing you're going to do the exact same thing tomorrow and the next day.

Gemstone IV is compelling, intricately detailed, heroic, and grand. It is magnificent fun.

Gemstone 4 can make for a much more imersive world without people running around with the name "HAxor!#AH$(A)" talking about how their mom wont let them go to the movies.

Also, Gemstone 4 has a 25,000 word manual. That's incredible. And very useful. Gemstone 4 has an interactive language system that is incorporated into the game.

http://www.play.net/gs4/
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Here's a crude video of Gemstone 4 that I snapped yesterday but at least it gives you a small glimpse of what Gemstone 4 is like:

YouTube - Gemstone 4 (Ultra Mud)
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YouTube - The Greatest Mud Ever Created
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New Gemstone 4 video fresh outta the box:

YouTube - Greatest RPG Game Ever!!! GemStone IV
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Some weapons in game:

YouTube - Some Weapons You Can Get In GemStone IV MMORPG MUD

Some armor in game:

YouTube - Some Armor You Can Get In GemStone IV MMORPG MUD

A Bank in game:

YouTube - One Of The Many Banks In GemStone IV MMORPG MUD

A music shop in game:

YouTube - One Of The Music Shops In In GemStone IV MMORPG MUD
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Looks like someone posted this GS4 video yesterday on youtube:

YouTube - Gemstone IV Skull Temple hunt
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Two more brand new GS4 Videos done today:

YouTube - The Path To Darkstone Castle (Gemstone IV MMORPG)

YouTube - Hunting For Trolls In Gemstone 4 MMORPG
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To the SIMU staff:

There is currently a poll going on over at the Players Corner as to why the population of Gemstone 4 is the way that it currently is today. Here's the link to it for those who want to follow it:

What Do You Think Is The Number One Reason For Gemstone 4's Population Today? - The Gemstone IV Players' Corner

Things people have been saying about the reasons Gemstone 4 is slowly dying:

1. One player has stated:

"I would consider playing again if they started another new server. It would take like a $15 hard drive to do it."

2. Another player has stated:

"I'd say that any game that decides to target being a "niche" game where epics are *indeed* epics ... they will have an extremely loyal player-base."

3. Another player has stated:

"But I'll tell you this much, If I had only one wish to use on a game right now I would wish it for this one to go back to the way it once was, and to somehow get the thousands of players back that it has lost.

I know this is not a dream and that it could happen. If it's one thing I've learned in life it's that you never count something out just because it's old and forgotten about at the moment. I want Gemstone 4 to be like one of those super freaks on Ripley's believe it or not where the 72 year old lady is using her leg muscles to lift more weight than any of the younger 20-30 year olds competing with her in the gym. I want Gemstone 4 to show the true potential that a game like this deserves. And I really do miss the way the environment of the game was back then.

It just sucks too because in many ways Gemstone 4 is way better than Gemstone 3 ever was. And there's less people playing. It just doesn't seem right.

You know I was thinking...why doesn't Gemstone just go back to it's roots? Why not do exactly what it did the first time successfully and see if it works again? Make a contract with AOL so that AOL members who use the chatrooms and stuff can play for free. And I don't know maybe what worked the first time will work again."

4. The same player has stated:

"Just curious, but what if Gemstone 4 was to go ahead and lower it's regular subscription price to say, $10.00 a month? Thats only $120.00 a year. I would pay that.

That might bring some more people to the game. Might help a little bit.

A second option would be to go even further, and lower the normal subscription price from $15.00 to $5.00 a month. Now you're talking. The fact is that there are some really good FREE MUDS springing up all over the place. MUDS themselves will never die. It's just a fact. There will always be people who love to play MUDS. The problem with Gemstone 4, however, is that it's a great MUD, but it charges too much now for it's monthly fees. And the World Wide Recession is not helping things. If it lowered it's basic subscription to $5.00 a month I guarantee you that people will jump on board. More people and in the end the company would probably make the same as they are making now with less people paying more.

The last option, and I don't think it bodes too well for those who get payed By Simutronics for Gemstone 3, is to go ahead and eventually just make Gemstone 4 free of charge. Just like some of the other MUDS like those over at Iron Realms Entertainment. I mean those are great muds over there, and as far as I know they don't charge anything. It was only a matter of time before people started creating MUDS that were just as good as Gemstone 4, so why not just catch up with the times and make it free? That would obviously increase the player base by an enormous amount. I've had people tell me that Gemstone 4 looks really cool, and that they want to play it, but that they don't have the money. I mean is this really what Gemstone 4 is all about at this point? It should be available for all to play. Because it really is a staple of MUDS.

Instead of everyone talking about Gemstone 4 dying, why don't we (those who love the game) talk about different ways of keeping it going? I mean really, there is absolutely NO REASON whatsoever that Gemstone 4 should ever have to go away. Unless computers become obsolete or the power grid gets knocked out by some kind of disaster or something. Other than that, if I was SIMU corp, I would never take it away from those who wish to play it. That would just be a waste.

Currently, there are less and less people playing gemstone 4 every two years or so. Maybe it's dropping at an even faster rate now due to the recession everyone is experiencing. I am not sure, thats for those who run the books for Gemstone 4 to know about.

If 200 more people drop from the game than I don't know how much Gemstone 4 has already made over the years for Simu but I can guarantee that Simu won't be racking in the dough at that point. And, that the game won't be as much fun. The lower the player base, the less fun the game becomes. This is my view anyways. And if the player base is almost non-existant, than that's even worse.

SIMU is not stupid. They know their player base is dropping and dropping. The free option was the very last option I presented. It was last for a reason, it was last because if nothing else works to save Gemstone 4, than thats what needs to be done in my opinion. Starcraft and games like that still have a pretty fairly large player base and thats because the game is free. It never really loses too much because people play it all the time in different countries, etc.

The gemstone 4 player base is NOT expanding at the moment, it is declining, with no end in sight. This does not need to be the fate of the player base. Perhaps the fate of the current pricing, but not the player base. The Gemstone 4 player base I believe could be saved in a number of different ways. 3 of which I listed above.

I believe and know for a fact that $15 every month for people who have no job due to the recession is an expense they can do without. No job means no money. No money means no $15 every month for Gemstone 4. It's easier to scrape together $5 or even $7-10 a month than it is to scrape together $15 every month. Now just exactly how much easier it is is up for debate, but the fact thats it's easier can not be debated.

For kids who don't have any money whatsoever, and who might play gemstone 4 (trust me I seen some of the free games these kids play at the library and Gemstone 4 would be a 100% increase in terms of quality) can't because they don't have a credit card and their parents wouldn't think of getting it for them unless they had already played Gemstone 4 before themselves. Many of the teenagers today are out of work as well. And can't pay for Gemstone 4 either. I saw on the news that what was it like 70% of teens in the United States (The country I live in) are not working. Thats a HUGE amount.

The two biggest things I can see that would increase the user base is 1) more advertising. (I think banner ads on rpg/gaming webcomics with 60 day free trials would help) and 2) more new content. I guarantee you if monks ever come out you'll see a marked increase in old players coming back to try them.

Of course what do you do once those people start playing to keep them in the game? I'm sure simu has some crazy stats about how the average trial account logs in for half an hour then never returns. I know when there were 1k+ people it was easy to find someone to hang out with and hunt things with. You also had a lot of conflict with people which brings you closer to the game. It's not as easy when there's 350 people on and you rarely see anyone that level. (Of course I'm not sure how the levels are distributed, I picked a lot of sub level 10 boxes whenever I was in the east tower..and this was a couple of months ago)

Community events are nice, but having friends to hang out with whenever you're playing are better. Take a look at wow. See how many people are in guilds and play because they feel needed. I don't particularly feel needed when someone just brings their rogue or empath or whoever in instead of interacting with someone.

I'm not sure GS can attract more people without already having more people. Or maybe if we start playing and not just idling at tables when we're not hunting. Maybe if we looked around and asked others for help instead of relying on our extra accounts for healing, picking, spells, blesses, etc.

The bottom line is that if Simu doesn't figure out a way to market the game to the 8-14 year old range (the next generation of G4 players) then there is probably little hope of a major revival.

That generation will play just about anything if it sparks their interest. And the kids these days are highly intelligent. If SIMU doesn't start going to the places that these kids hang out at online, the websites, message boards, etc., and start making deals with those companies and sites, where if they will place an add that runs everyday on their site for G4 and in return SIMU will pay them a small amount and that if the kids from those sites sign up to play gemstone 4, through those sites, and in return they will receive a free 1 year membership, or a free 6 month membership, or some kind of deal like that, so that the kids can get used to that game for the time period, and that when their membership is up they will no doubt be addicted and come up with ways to pay for the game on their own (like pre-payed credit cards that anyone can get), then there won't ever be a serious revival in my opinion.

The next generation of gamers is always the key. Every major video game corporation knows this, every company in the world knows that they MUST market to the next generation in some way if they expect to be around for a long time.

It's not rocket science. But it HAS to be done if Gemstone 4 is to grow it's userbase exponentially (which benefits SIMU in the long run, because it will generate larger and larger profits instead of the slow trickle down of decreased profits that they must be experiencing at the moment, and have been experiencing for years now).

Thats what needs to be done. It SIMU can't figure out how to do what all other successful companies have done in the past, and are doing in the present, then yes, I fear that it can eventually kiss Gemstone 4 goodbye over time because it would be slowly digging it's own grave."

5. The same player has stated:

"I'm also a realist, and I don't pretend that corporations keep things going purely for the Customer's benefit. This is America, and SIMU is an American company is it not? Money is usually the bottom line. But that's what I'm getting at here. If Gemstone dies, and it very well could, and you and I both know this, then Gemstone no longer becomes profitable. In other words the money tree completely runs out of money. And for the customers, the fun tree stops producing it's fruit as well. So it's a lose/lose situation if that happens.

My point is that Gemstone dying is not a good thing for anybody. Not for SIMU, not for anybody. Not after all the work people have put into it, both staff and player alike. It's also not good for the World, because if the best text best game ever created (in my opinion) dies, then the World will have lost a gem. A gemstone 4. =)

It may not be how SIMU generates most of it's money at the moment, and that's fine. But if Gemstone 3 can die, than the HERO engine can become obsolete as well one day. And that could stop producing money as well. The key is to protect your assets on every level, and to not let a single productive entity slip away from your grasp. That's the way they should be viewing it. I mean I'm not gonna say...."So what if Bobby gives me $5000 a week? Joey gives me $10,000. So Bobby can take his $5,000 and shove it where the Sun don't shine!" Yeah that'll show um. I mean that's just fricken retarted. Who loses in the end on that deal? I do. And this case if Gemstone dies than so does SIMU.

I think we are mostly all already in agreement that it is indeed dying. I mean you know, and that's true thats true. I guess, in some ways, I was just wondering if you know, and everything is sweet in game by the way, but you know, when it comes to the dying, I just thought, you know and I mean I don't know....the wind, the seasons, they change...you know..., but about the dying part, I don't know I mean I just thought maybe somethin could be done about it. :shrug:"

6. The same player has stated:

"An example of a company that has successfully figured out a way to promote itself with the current times is Zynga, the creator of Mafia Wars. Mafia Wars was the 2009 Webby Award People's Voice Winner in the Games category. Mafia Wars is available on Facebook, MySpace, Tagged, Sonico, and Yahoo. To my understanding, the game is free, although there may be some way where players have to pay for certain things to get certain benefits. I'm not sure because I've never played it. Mafia Wars has more than 25.9 million monthly active accounts. The point being that Zynga, which started out with a game that had not been marketed yet, figured out a way to promote through some of the most popular online companies out there today, and they are reaping in the benefits like you wouldn't believe.

Their player base is so diverse it's not even funny. I can't tell you how many old ladies have sent me a free shotgun on my facebook page. lol. Or how many little kids have asked me to join their mafia family.

But here's the deal. As fun as a game as mafia wars is, I would bet you hands down that Gemstone 4 is more complex, more in depth, more interactive, and more entertaining.

So if the marketing team at SIMU can figure out how to convince a major popular online company to accept a promotional deal with them, they can reap in the benefits just as easily. If it's pop up pictures that gamers want these days (because I think that's what Mafia Wars uses, I'm not 100% sure though) than I'm sure that pop up pictures can be incorporated into the Wizard, and Stormfront, just as easily.

It can be done. Gemstone 4 can be successfully promoted. Somebody just has to take the initiative and put forth the effort. You reap what you sow."

7. The same player has stated:

"I should also add that Zynga is responsible for promoting yet another successful game, FarmVille, which has recently become the most popular game application on Facebook. And as far as I know Facebook is the only company that it is currently being marketed too.

But this is what will blow your mind. FarmVille's active userbase was recorded at 72,015,037 active users on December 11, 2009. You read that right, 72 Million active users. And it's a fairly new game.

Now you can't tell me that collecting different looking farm animals beats gaming in the World of Gemstone 4. I'm sorry, I love animals, but give me a break.

If Gemstone 4 was able to tap into even just 1% of the amount of fanbase that compromises Farmville, it would be a MAJOR accomplishment. Just 1 itty bitty percent."

8. The same player has stated:

"Gemstone's/Simu's staff should use their Facebook and Myspace pages to send out friend requests within the acceptable amount of friend requests per hour limit. So 112 friend requests per day (7 every 3 hours or so - myspace + facebook included) comes to 40,880 friends per year. Make two pages on facebook/myspace, both related to GS, and use the program to promote both of them, and that comes to 81,760 friends per year. There is currently no limit to the amount of accounts/pages you can create on facebook and/or myspace, so of course one could use their imagination for as far as they wanted to go with it. Just make sure to somehow create a secondary program that posts a message on all of your friend's walls/homepages at least once per day. Why not? Mafia Wars gets away with it. I get like 3 posts on my homepage/wall per day relating to that game. I delete them of course. They could just hire 3 people who's sole job is to divide the 112 friend requests/224 friend requests/however many are sent out per day between themselves, and they would reach many many different people."

9. The same player has stated:

"Fact is, no one from SIMU would get in trouble for going behind the scenes and creating pages on facebook/myspace related to Gemstone and if they sent out an enormous amount of friend requests if they did it undercover. In fact I think that's exactly what the Mafia Wars staff does. It can't all be players that harass my page daily with mafia wars requests. Just adding this all up: If SIMU can pay 3 people to set up two different pages each (1 for facebook and 1 for myspace, all relating to Gemstone 4), and the pages can be identicle or slightly different it wouldn't matter, because neither facebook or myspace frown upon having the same exact named pages under people search because it's the same thing as having 100 Bob Johnsons located in New York, New York, but if just 3 people have 2 sites each pumping out 122 friend requests per day, that comes to a total of 732 friend requests per day. Factor out that 85% of the people will accept the requests and you come out with a total of 613 friends per day. 613 friends per day for all 6 pages combined comes out to 223,745 friends per year.

And the beauty of all of this is that it wouldn't take long for Gemstone 4 to see results, because SIMU wouldn't have to change a thing that it's doing at all right now. Because as anyone knows who is familiar with facebook, when you type in any message/comment or update on your profile/wall/photo section/notes/links or any of the other options, it automatically gets sent to all the friends you have on your list. This means that if Simu pays 3 people to set up 6 pages total pumping out those friend requests daily until it reaches that total of 223,745 friends for the year, then one single message relating to the 1 month free trial would reach all 223,745 of those friends in an instant. And I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that Zynga is currently using this exact same strategy with it's two most popular games.

You send out a message relating to the 1 month free trial to 223,745 people all within a few seconds time, and I guarantee you that you will have some traffic headed your direction.

And there is a cherry on the top for all of this as well if SIMU went ahead with this strategy, because I currently have 400 friends on my publicly viewable page on facebook at the moment, and because of the public view status of my page I receive roughly 3-4 friend requests daily from people who want to join my friends list.

So you figure if we apply the same concept to the 223,745 friends that would be on all 6 pages combined, then all 6 pages would get literally thousands of daily automatic friend requests sent to their pages for doing nothing other than having their pages be available for public viewing. I mean it doesn't get much easier than that.

Before you know it, together with the friend requests being sent out and the friend requests that would be coming in both on a daily basis, it wouldn't take long for the 6 sites to reach the point where the friends would total in the millions. And then each time the SIMU staff wants to send comments/updates on those pages then they would reach millions of people in an instant rather than hundreds of thousands. And it really wouldn't take that long for all of this to become a reality either.

The more pages put up, and the more people pumping out requests, the faster the process would complete itself."

10. The same player has stated:

"It would appear to me, at least on the surface, that both Mafia Wars and FarmVille were designed to work almost perfectly for benefiting from myspace and facebook, before they were ever even marketed towards them. Obviously they had their eye on the prize, long before they had ever even sealed the deal.

So whoever created these games, definately knew that facebook and myspace HAD TO BE the kind of companies they marketed to otherwise the games as they are currently designed would be total failures. Luckily they placed their bets right, because it would appear that they ended up getting exactly what they were hoping for.

So either two things happened in this case. Either myspace and facebook both approached Zynga asking it to produce games that would be designed to work well with their applications, or.....Zynga guessed right and had enough foresight to know that both myspace and facebook would sign a conctact with it. It can't be both, so it has to be one or the other.

FarmVille. FarmVille doesn't have 72,015,037 active users. That's not what it really has. What FarmVille really has is 72,015,037 Facebook Friends. This is because it uses the exact same system for increasing it's games player bases that other members of Facebook (such as myself) use to bring friends to their pages as well. The system is identicle in these cases."

11. The same player has stated:

"Facebook does have a great system for marketing things with. And that's what games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars uses to market their games. Whether they are free or not. And as I mentioned before I really do believe that if Gemstone 4 can somehow utilize their request system to promote itself with, than it will have a far more powerful effect than if it doesn't take advantage of their system.

The Facebook request system is what Zynga uses so well. If Zynga can use the system to promote it's games, than so can Gemstone 4. I don't think Gemstone 4 will reach even close to the amount of people that Zynga has reached with it's games (because they are mostly free), but I do believe that Gemstone can reach an enormous amount of people by using the same request system that Zynga did.

The fact that Gemstone 4 costs money I don't think will negate the fact that it could reach far more people than perhaps it has ever been able to reach in it's history. Even with it's days on AOL and when it was free. I don't believe that there was ever an AOL game that was able to tap into over 70,000,000 players like Zynga has been able to do with FarmVille on Facebook.

Someone mentioned before about trying to promote through some of the old magazines or whatever that Gemstone 4 used to promote through. I don't think that will work as well as it would with some of these newer companies like Facebook and Myspace, because of the simple fact that you can reach a huge amount of more people through them with less effort put into the process. The magazine idea should not be counted out though, and it wouldn't hurt to use that as well, but I believe that as with anything that method is slowly becoming obsolete compared to what you can do with online applications these days. Doing both though is better than doing one or the other.

Tsoran had a great idea that he mentioned in the other thread over on the official boards that I thought it was amazing. The only problem I see with it is I'm not sure that you can just start coding an interface for Facebook without first getting Facebook's permission. If Facebook would allow Gemstone 4 to do such a thing, it might just be the smartest tactic that Gemstone 4 has ever used before. But even if Facebook doesn't allow for Gemstone to do that, than there is still the option of utilizing the Request System without ever having to get permission to do so. And in that case, Gemstone 4 wouldn't have to pay a red penny for doing that. And it would still gain the benefits from it.

Someone also mentioned that Gemstone 4 currently already has a Facebook and Myspace page. Well that's nice to hear, but guess what, so do I, so do probably most of all of you. It's not having the Myspace or Facebook page that matters as much as how you use it. I don't have a game to promote (although I do what I can for Gemstone 4 through my own personal page), but SIMU and Gemstone does have a game to promote. They would have to use the request system on both of those companies in the same or at least a similar way that Zynga does with it's Mafia Wars and FarmVille applications. If it can do that, it can reach many many many many people. As of right now, I doubt that Gemstone 4 sends out friend requests to people at all, probably due to the fact that they want to look as professional as possible in their opinion, and would rather have people come to their pages and join them instead. This is where the problem comes in, because sitting back and waiting for people to join your page - and in turn sign up to play your game, is not how Zynga has been so successful with it's games. Zynga has been successful because of the fact that it has been proactively going out and gathering it's userbase, by utlizing the request systems that both Myspace and Facebook have in common, and which Zynga's games are designed to take full advantage of."

12. Another player has stated:

"I think the general idea sounds good. Anyone ever bother to send this thread to Simu about advertising on facebook?"

13. Another player has stated:

"Farmville is, indeed, a successful business model. Finding a way to tap into that market would be awesome. That being said, even though I'm not sure how it could be made to work, I think this is the best marketing suggestion I've heard in a long, long time. Seriously.

Here's a 4AM idea (meaning, it's stupid, but just to get the ball rolling): Create a separate GS instance called GemStone Lite. Make the Java front end work on Facebook. The game would be free, but charge $1 or more for some of the stuff you buy in stores (say, weapons or armor made from magical metals.) Lastly, figure out how to keep the GS-Lite server from melting when it has 50,000 players logged in. Ok, maybe, figure that part out first."

14. Another player has stated:

"I would love to see some attempt at marketing for GS even at the level of flyers or some sort of enticement to players to try the game."

15. Another player has stated:

"I also have to say that the low population is probably also contributing to the low population. It just isn't as fun to play with so few people around, which surely has caused a few folks to leave. What should Simu do? I think the basic rate should lowered back to $10. They could also allow three or more characters per account (with only one logged in at a time, so some means of transferring items would be needed) for the $15 they charge now. And a little cheap advertising wouldn't hurt."

16. Another player has stated:

"I have always wondered what simu actually does with the money they get from their player base. They are running a text base game. The hardware costs obviously aren't that expensive. They have a low population, so I can't see the network costs being that expensive either..

They don't pay their staff. They don't do any sort of advertising at all...

Yet they still think they should charge $15 for a text game.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I don't play this game is simu. I feel they are making profit on this, but not doing anything with it. They are slowly letting the game die."

17. Another player has stated:

“I think the single biggest lost marketing opportunity was the failure of the Gemstone AD&D material. Now that said I haven't a clue why that fell through. I just think putting Elanthia into a D&D campaign with mention of the fact that it’s based off a currently running online game would draw people in.”

18. Another player has stated:

“I agree. I remember the "d20 supplement!" announcement and how a bunch of people were interested, but then things fell kind of quiet.”

19. Another player has stated:

“The premise of this thread is that Simutronics desperately needs to expand its player base to attain both profitability and future viability for Gemstone IV. This concern is by no means new, but we seem to be reaching a critical mass/point of no return after which it will be time to call it a night and shut er down, or drastically raise fees to play to the point where few would stay. Neither extreme is acceptable.”

20. Another player has stated:

“It's off on a tangent, but there is a game with a payment model somewhat similar... Puzzle Pirates, which is a cartoony pirate themed puzzle MMO (yeah, really), has 'Dubloon' servers.

There's 2 in game currencies, dubloons and pieces o' eight - basic items only cost pieces o' eight, and you only earn pieces o' eight as treasure. The good stuff, and badges to do the premium puzzles or captain a ship cost pieces o' eight and dubloons. Dubloons can only be purchased for real cash from the company (in game), or there's a market for trading them between players (also in game).

It works pretty well for that game.”

21. Another player has stated:

“I'd wager that the hourly AOL days and then the unlimited AOL days were the most profitable by Simu. Especially if their legal agreements were rock solid to be paid by AOL hourly regardless of AOL's payment model.

Now, it's a matter of P&L. If they employ $1m worth of overhead a year between real estate, servers, services, and people/benefits. Across all games they need only 3340 players at $24.95 for a year to break even. Entirely reasonable.

Anything above that is complete profit. The beauty of the model is that it's sustainable. They can, at any time, release GMs, scale pay, change incentives, do upsells for a little cash infusion, etc. So at any point in time, if they're not profitable, it's horrible management (or they're investing in things like the HJ engine).

It's really a great case study for an MBA student. It's sustainable, profitable, easily scalable and almost entirely run on the virtue, blood, sweat and tears of volunteers.”

22. Another player has stated:

“The biggest thing today is to bring people into our little sandbox so there are people to play with not only today, but in 2, 3, 4, 5, years.”
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