SOL (computer game)
| SOL | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
September 1995 |
| platform | Web browser |
| genre | Browser game , business simulation |
| control | Keyboard & mouse |
| language | German |
SOL is the oldest persistent massively multiplayer - online game in the world. It is a science fiction - economic simulation the goods cycles, trade wars and maps on the planet.
There were already browser games before SOL, but they were either persistent (saving personal game progress) or designed for interaction (e.g. Stellar Crisis ) between players. At the same time there were postal games that were persistent and multi-player capable, but you had to send a postcard or floppy disk to the game management to hand them in. The third game variant were MUDs , which were the only real MMOGs , but purely text-based and almost always adventures.
SOL was the first game that was persistent, graphical, capable of massive multiplayer and operable via a browser, and that combined the concepts of post games with immediate interaction between the players. All of today's browser games use similar concepts.
Gameplay
Each player represents an emperor who begins his career on an isolated planet. At the beginning of the game, the budding emperor is given a planet that he can expand according to his wishes. Depending on his level of development, he has a certain number of reports available per day in order to advance the commodity production of his own colonies. The emperor can therefore plan and commission his new buildings in peace before he triggers a report. Newer browser games drive production in real time, there are no reports that the player has to call up when necessary.
As soon as the planet's economy meets certain requirements, the empire rises one level and new and better buildings are available. From level 5, spaceships can be built to fly to other planets and found a colony there or to trade or wage war with the residents there. However, from level 5 onwards, your own planet is also vulnerable.
The game ends for the Emperor when the Empire reaches level 11. However, most emperors avoid leveling up to level 11 in order to be able to continue playing their empire as long as they want. In contrast to other online games, SOL does not know any resets, the Soliverse has been persistent since its inception.
In newer browser games, the player gets better buildings and spaceships mostly by researching various branches of science, the so-called Techtree .
history
Programming at SOL began in Hamburg in 1992 . It was supposed to be a clone of the then popular strategy game Dune II - Fight for Arrakis for NeXTstep .
With the appearance of the first graphics-capable web browser in 1993, the developers came up with the idea of changing SOL so that instead of just two, thousands of players can play against each other at the same time. Since HTML was not real-time capable, a large part of the original game concept was discarded and replaced by a turn-based reporting system. It was now more about building a functioning economic cycle.
Since SOL went online in September 1995, games have been played on graphical planetary surfaces on which houses and vehicles can be placed.
reception
SOL is considered the first long-term browser game. It went online in 1995 in a German and an English version. After more than ten years, SOL was still played by over 4000 players and in October 2010 had 6569 so-called Emperor (Imperator) on 5777 different solar systems.
Web links
- SOL on Freeport
- c't article ( memento of August 24, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) in which Multiversum Media Lab's Free Port is mentioned for the first time (still without SOL)
- Rhein-Zeitung 01/97 Networked enjoyment on the PC
- AMIGA magazine 1/97 Online: Internet pages
- PC Praxis 3/97 Play worldwide via modem
- Timeline of player and solar system counts up to June 2010
Individual evidence
- ^ Daniel Schultheiss: In the realm of interstellar traders: Internet games as an innovative form of play . Ed .: Andreas Will (= People - Markets - Media - Management . Volume 1 ). Universitätsverlag Ilmenau, Ilmenau 2009, ISBN 978-3-939473-44-2 , p. 36 , urn : nbn: de: gbv: ilm1-2009100012 .
- ^ Dennis Andrzejewski: Browser games overview. In: Spieladgeber NRW. Specialized agency for youth media culture NRW, accessed on September 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
