Clan Lord Hype

Clan Lord is one of the very first graphical MMORPGs, currently in its 386th week. This means Clan Lord predates Ultima Online, as well as relative latecomers like Lineage and Everquest. As a Macintosh-based game, Clan Lord has been mostly unknown in the larger gaming community, but it was the dominant Mac MMORPG until the introduction of Worlds of Warcraft in 2004.

While Clan Lord's graphics were state of the art in 1996, the top-down, sprite-based engine style has fallen out of favor with newer games. Still, the heart of a persistent world is distinct from its technical merits, and in these ways, Clan Lord excels. Clan Lord's sense of community is second to none, and the game has many social features other games lack. For example, Clan Lord has a sophisticated court system, so players can accuse each other of crimes and get a jury trial, and the jury can fine, jail, or banish the defendant, plaintiff, or both. There's an elaborate scheme for marriages, and it even allows for larger and alternative family groupings. There's a bard guild, and an extensive community of players who compose and arrange pieces using the fantasy instruments of the world, often using multiple musicians. There's a museum, developed by the players, including works of art as well as various pieces showing the history of the world. There's a coliseum, in which players fight beasts in a pit, while hordes of spectators cheer and bet on the outcome using a parimutuel system.

The key to a persistent world game is repeat business, and Clan Lord players have an average 96% month-to-month retention rate. Players come back for the community, as well as to adventure in the constantly growing world. MMORPGs must improve with regular updates, and the tools for making these improvements are a critical unsung factor of a game's long-term success. Clan Lord's world creation and editing tools are astounding and robust. In addition, the scripting method for NPCs, monsters, items, and special effects is extremely sophisticated, using a custom language called Socks. Monsters in Clan Lord do more than in any other game, with some showing signs of true intelligence, conversing with players, breathing fire, nibbling on fallen players, shooting sticky webs that slow down characters, dragging players into cooking pits, and any of hundreds of other behaviors.

Special events are also important, and Clan Lord has many tools that give GMs control over every aspect of the game, from generating new monster types on the fly, to making NPCs move and talk, to creating or disabling connections between areas, to world-rocking earthquakes or plagues.

Our initial manifesto includes a set of guidelines we've always used to direct development:
1 Clan Lord is fun, not frustrating.
◦ Fun activities should prove profitable; boring ones should not.
◦ Actions that are fun for other characters should be rewarded.
◦ A player should not be forced to do things he or she thinks aren't fun.
◦ Characters never go dramatically backward.
◦ Nothing bad happens to characters when they're offline.
◦ Rewards are large; penalties are small.
◦ Rewards are common; penalties are rare.
2 The world of Clan Lord is full of surprises.
◦ The world is large and diverse enough that one can always explore.
◦ Each day is potentially different.
◦ There is always the possibility of an unusual event.
3 Each character should feel special.
◦ Characters can grow more diverse over time.
◦ Characters should always feel they can be useful.
◦ Active characters gain in rank and stature compared to the general population over time.
◦ Characters can do things alone if desired.
◦ Characters can have both short-term and long-term effects on the world.
◦ Characters get to decide, as opposed to having decisions made for them.
◦ Characters can change their growth direction if they choose to.
4 Clan Lord is about interactions between characters.
◦ Groups are more effective than individuals.
◦ There is no upper limit on the total population.
◦ Characters can communicate with each other in a variety of ways.
◦ Characters can form and join a wide variety of organizations.
◦ Clan politics is a major factor.
◦ Good characters vastly outnumber evil ones.
5 Clan Lord is approachable and easy to learn.
◦ Initial play is simple, with more twists added as the character grows.
◦ Characters are not forced to make permanent decisions before they know the consequences.

Filed Fri - April 22, 2005, 07:43 PM in

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