[ale] OT: lost source code..

[William Fragakis]

If it's true, they aren't very quick learners. This article was 
published on the web in '03

"Mystery: Meridian 59, the version from Near Death Studios, was almost 
quietly killed before it even began. Can you tell us what happened?

Brian: Sure. One thing to keep in mind is that 3DO viewed online games 
as a whole as a failure. Trip has said many times that the market isn't 
ready for online games. Meridian 59 didn't live up to expectations, so 
they said that online games overall were a failure.

When 3DO closed down Meridian 59 in August of 2000, they had very few 
people on staff that knew much about the game. I had left a few months 
earlier, and I was one of the last people to work on the technical side 
of things. So, after they shut it down they went about repurposing the 
machines that used to be the game servers; it was rather humorous, 
because the machines were so underpowered compared to more modern 
machines.

However, one of the Guardians (the in-game name for customer service 
representatives) took the main development server and put it in his 
cube. He did it for mostly selfish reasons; he wanted to look at the 
game more and see how it worked. But, when Rob and I were purchasing 
Meridian 59 from 3DO late 2001, the machine proved to be the last 
remaining location for the source code of the game. I don't doubt that 
the machine would have been scrubbed if it had been collected as 
normal, thus ending the commercial life of Meridian 59."

http://ims.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=15&id=10581

wf

On Feb 20, 2006, at 8:48 AM, Tony Carter wrote:

>> Description:
>> We have lost the source code for our old game Meridian59 and
>> we need someone to decompile/recompile it and give us the source code
>>
>> We are offering 3000$ for someone to decompile/recompile it
>> for us in a short timely manner. (we need the source code)
>>
> That can't be real. No company in their right mind would put 
> themselves in
> that position.
> I think that email was a hoax.
>
> A quick glimpse at ( http://www.meridian59.com/ )shows the copyright 
> holder
> as  Near Death Studios, Inc. Where does guru.com come into play?
>
>
> -Tony
>
>
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