The Realm Online

[OmerMor]

So there's this MMORPG game Sierra made back in 1996, and was later bought by some other companies: The Realm Online.
I recently found out it's actually written using (modified?) SCI 2.1 (!).

We used a modified version of SCI (Sierra's Creative Interpreter) to create The Realm. It was the same engine used to make all of the existing adventure games, so we made The Realm in a similar style. We picked the cartoony art direction for two reasons: The artwork was highly compressible, and our artists could make it rapidly. Remember, this was the day of 28k modems. Download sizes were a huge deal! We didn't get into the store for several years, so our only method of distribution was digital download. Every kilobyte counted!

SV.EXE is even able to open the game and view most of its resources!

In all the lists of SCI games I never noticed The Realm Online. Weird.

Here are some nice articles about this game:
The Game Archaeologist: Steve Nichols' The Realm Online debriefing, part 1
The Game Archaeologist: Steve Nichols' The Realm Online debriefing, part 2
It's a Mystery Who's Running One of the Oldest Multi-Player Online Fantasy Games

[OmerMor]

How about that:


Found in the Demo version of the game.

[Kawa]

How about that indeed.

[lskovlun]

Modified SCI2.1 indeed (I thought you knew?)... my usual stash is gone for now (dead hard drive...), but there are special kernel functions there for network access, hashing and so on. There are also some hardcoded things relating to the game. I think it would be unproductive to use this particular interpreter for fan-made games.

[Collector]

I guess that people didn't pay much attention when Aftertaste was posting here. He was trying to tear into it.

[OmerMor]

I guess that people didn't pay much attention when Aftertaste was posting here. He was trying to tear into it.

I guess I missed it, or didn't notice it's SCI.
BTW, the up-to-date client is still very much SCI.

It's pretty amazing that you can still play today an online SCI game.

[OmerMor]

Collector, maybe it was you who led me to believe that:

I don't believe the Realm is a true SCI game, but just uses SCI type resources, like Betrayal in Antara and Shivers Two.

 

The Realm is a really an SCI game with additional network support.

[Collector]

That is what I first thought, but as I delved deeper into it with Aftertaste's code I started to think otherwise.

[Aftertaste]

It is indeed SCI, and i have ALOT more info on the subject now, took me long enough .

[OmerMor]

It is indeed SCI, and i have ALOT more info on the subject now, took me long enough .

Great! I'd love to hear what you've come up with.

[watch-out-graham]

If I'm not mistaken, the community had reverse engineered or emulated the server side code for The Realm and had a free to play version for some time before the rights were purchased.  I would love to get my hands on the server emulation code if that is still available somewhere.  I haven't been able to find it.

[Collector]

Not the Realm, but related. An old LSCI developer, James Leiterman recreated the server side of INN after ImagiNation Network Revival fell into oblivion. INN Barn is the result and is still around. https://wiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php/INN_Barn

[watch-out-graham]

I've found very few screen shots from the early days.  This shot is from a port of the v3.47 game (1998 version) so not truly authentic, but it uses the original's SCI scripts.  Nevertheless, it sparked a fair bit of nostalgia for me to see the old interface.