Timeline of MazeWorld (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

Revision as of 14:13, 6 September 2012

The concept origins

The name "MazeWorld" is retained for one of the author's concept games, after reshaping and rethinking a game idea which took multiple forms over the course of nearly three years. As early as 2008, the author wished to create a realm to be used as the context of a game, but only very rough ideas based on this concept alone were created. The only consistent details were that the realm was to be secluded and dystopian, would house a high amount of creatures and enemies, and would have, in general, a lot of content (lots of items, weapons, etc), and that the player character would be an outsider to this realm forcefully pulled in, with the objective of overcoming the dangers of this world and finding a way out.

Between 2008 and 2010, several tries were made, ranging from RPG forum, 2D platformer, RPG Maker-made roleplaying game, and even first-person shooter concepts were explored, but ultimately abandoned due to lack of interest, time, or resources, sometimes all three at once. Ultimately, after discovering classic roguelikes such as NetHack, and its variant SLASH'EM, the author was sufficiently inspired to create a table-top style roleplaying game with roguelike elements. It wouldn't be a video game proper, but a roleplaying game, it would definitely be.

The closer past

Between 2010 and February 2011, the project took on the name of "Project Downpour", named after one of the previous game concepts attempted and ultimately abandoned, before it took its current name of MazeWorld. A rough sketch of the game was then created and tested out privately with the author's friends; it proved, in their words, to be enjoyable and addictive and that they would always come back for more. The concept was simple: A random number generator would be used to generate room numbers, those room numbers each pointing out to an event; this event could be a new weapon, a monster, food, meds, clothing, armor, traps, and so on. The Mazes were truly born. Working from the original concept, the seemingly simple idea was greatly expanded upon to the shape it takes nowadays.

February 10th, 2011

Mazeworld left the conceptual stage of privately held games on MSN and was ported on to IRC, introducing the use of scripts and bots which are still used today. The author felt that IRC was a better platform for the game to evolve as it allowed the use of those bots, which are more flexible than MSN Plus! scripts; plus, the use of an IRC channel was the way for the Mazes to gather more people than simply two (the GM/Author and the player). Even though the roots of the game as a single player experience can still be felt today, it was a change in the direction of public, spectated games in which a player would take on his/her challenges while onlookers and spectators could watch and (occasionally and sparingly) comment.

The birth of the Big Three

Those days, simply known as the pre-1.5 era, saw the rise of three talented players; UncertainKitten with Heather, Trance with Aria Fujisaki and Dragoshi with Matthew Kethys; they are a Big Three of Mazeworld contestants still considered as of today to be the most memorable there are.

• Heather was famous for her legendary recklessness, perverted berserk tendencies, her Heckler & Koch G3A3 battle rifle fitted with a 50-round drum, used and abused for just about anything that needed to be blown to pieces, and inexplicable amounts of luck. She originally planned to take down the Game Masters , but after finding love in her ally, a kitsune named Akemi, the two simply escaped with a bang, being at the time the first contestant to escape the Mazes with a combined carried wealth in the five figures: a total of 19000 P$, plus other riches and gear, became their war loot and their reward for a run full of emotion and events. Although she is chronologically the last of the Big Three, having completed her run on September 3rd, 2011, 8 weeks in after the introduction of version 1.5, she is still considered part of the pre-1.5 era's biggest influences as she has started before the 1.5 update.

• Aria Fujisaki was elevated to the rank of icon after being the first contestant to finish two consecutive runs in a row and earning the nickname of Black Arrow Shooter (BAS), in blatant homage to anime character Black Rock Shooter, now as iconical as her signature weapon, the Zastava M93 Black Arrow sniper rifle. She was notable for her excessive chivalry and courage, refusing to take cover and taking on enemies practically only with this weapon. She is also famous for having befriended a Ryu she bought in a hiring bureau, which was named Syldra. Aria and Syldra became extremely famous as they continue their adventures, Aria riding the youkai dragon, and the two fighting relentlessly, until the dragon's untimely death, which was more than avenged by the contestant's victory, now better known as BAS, by achieving the FinalT ending.

• Matthew Kethys followed suit and completed 2 consecutive runs on his own, 24 days after Aria did exactly, surpassing Aria's own score. He was reputed to not let emotion or bullshit get in his way and was practically the "tank" of the Big Three. With good reason; Matthew would carry the iconic PKP Pecheneg machine gun along with a good reserve of spare ammunition belts (each are 200-round!), universally considered to be the most powerful weapon in the game, as well as a tricked out Colt mk18 mod0 with a 100-round C-MAG magazine, for which he carried no less than 1400 rounds of spare ammunition; at least, this is what he left the Mazes with and no doubt he would have carried and used more had he got the occasion. He stormed through the most dangerous of the Mazes' events at the time, shooting his way through just about ANYTHING that would stand on the wrong side of his guns.

Heather, Aria, Matthew, the Big Three, affectionately called "the HAM of Mazeworld", after their initials, are called that because they formed the top 3 of the leaderboards for a long time after their respective ascensions. As of September 2012, it is still the case, proving that their success in the Mazes shall remain as an example to follow, engraved in time as a timeless feat.

July 17th 2011

During the week in which the author turned 18, MazeWorld's version upgraded to 1.5, bringing many new encounters and features, but also introducing officially the MazeWiki, on the wikidot platform. As a minor anecdote, the term Mazer was coined during the 1.5 era. This word is an affectionate nickname to denote a Mazeworld player.

January 1st, 2012

What first started as a simple update to 1.62 became a list of new features that piled up, constantly pushing the release date until the symbolic New Year's Eve, as it turned into version 1.7. The wiki opened the Other topics section and brought many new features which changed and enriched the gameplay, starting a trend to improve existing features on top of adding new ones, such as new features tied to roomstyles (crackable vaults in vault rooms, for example), the inclusion of fortune-telling elements, of restaurants and themed chefs to enrich the food system of the game, of the now ubiquitous Maze Citizen encounter type, to populate the Mazes and add to the atmosphere. In short, it is at the time of 1.7's release that Mazeworld, both as a game and as a realm, began growing sufficiently in the author's eyes to the point the realm now has a distinct feel, a sort of unique 'personality'.

February 2012

Even then, the way the game was at the time with v1.7 felt incomplete, and the author felt it needed even more to suit to what was felt as needed. Thus, on 02/02/2012, Version 2.0 was announced, with a gigantic list of new items and features, mainly lots of new weapons, the introduction of a new weapon accessory type (UGLs), a lot of new clothing and armor, tons of new encounters (introduction of mercenaries, new youkai, new creatures), and important changes in encounter-worn equipment.

February 10th, 2012

Mazeworld's first anniversary, and the release of version 2.0.

Between February and June of 2012

Afterwards, subsequent "revisions" of 2.0, which were quick and short updates adding or fixing a lot of things, were introduced over time. A total of 8 revisions were made, which spanned over several months.

June 13th, 2012

Two days after the release of revision 7, which coincidentally, could have been big enough to be an update on its own, the wikidot platform is abandoned and this very website, Mazeworld.net, is chosen to be the new home of the MazeWiki.

Summer 2012

Revision 8 is introduced in June 20th, introducing even more weapons to the Mazes. But the biggest announcement had to be made yet; Mazeworld 2.1, which would introduce and re-work so many features of the game it would reshape Mazeworld entirely. Several months of work to develop the new features of 2.1 then started, only finishing in August 9th when the author announced he would implement Beta testing, the aptly named 2.1 Beta during which players were invited to do mock sessions specifically to test out the new elements of the game. Ultimately, the testing was completed and deemed a huge success.

September 6th, 2012

Even though no delicious and moist cake was available to celebrate this, MazeWorld 2.1 is officially released on this date, with all the features announced and tested in Beta now implemented into the main game for all players to enjoy, thus marking the beginning of the new and improved MazeWorld era.