Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands
One of the first graphical MMORPGs set in Athas.
Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Strategic Simulations in 1996 for Windows 95. Based on the licensed Dark Sun campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it was one of the first fully graphical MMORPGs. The game featured nearly unrestricted player versus player combat, a trait later popularized by titles such as Ultima Online.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Strategic Simulations
- Publisher
- Strategic Simulations; Total Entertainment Network
- Released
- October 2, 1996
- Genre
- Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
- Platforms
- Windows 95
- Modes
- Multiplayer
Facts from the source article.
History
In the summer of 1994, AT&T's Interchange network approached Strategic Simulations, Inc. about creating an advanced Dungeons & Dragons online game. AT&T was building its own online network and wanted a major game to attract users, following the model of Neverwinter Nights on America Online. Andre Vrignaud oversaw the Dark Sun Online project. The development process was troubled from the start, with GameSpot's Andrew Park later noting it had too little funding and time, and only one part-time artist. The team reused many assets, including code, from Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager. Sprites and sounds came from Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse and World of Aden: Thunderscape, another game in development at the time. Modifying the Wake of the Ravager codebase for multiplayer use made the work more complicated. After AT&T shut down its network in 1996, SSI shopped the game to other services. Total Entertainment Network picked it up, announcing the deal in April 1996. TEN released Dark Sun Online on October 2, 1996, after two years of work. It was one of SSI's first "Online Only" titles, alongside Panzer General Online Only, and was available only to TEN subscribers, who later became Pogo.com members. GameSpy noted that the game included many features that would later make Ultima Online successful when it launched a year later.
Legacy
Dark Sun Online was part of the earliest wave of MMORPGs, according to a 2000 PC PowerPlay review by Brett Robinson. He grouped it with The Realm and Meridian 59, noting that their overly basic graphics and gameplay led to a quick demise, clearing the way for more successful second-generation games like Ultima Online and EverQuest. A planned sequel, Dark Sun Online: The Age of Heroes, was announced by Total Entertainment Network in December 1997 but never released.
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