Well of Souls - The First MMORPG (That You've Never Heard Of) - (Corrected) Design Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Sometimes, despite all my research, even I can still make mistakes; especially when that information isn't well documented or I find conflicting information. Normally, I would just let the mistake slide; no one is perfect after all, but considering this is really the only information regarding Well of Souls available, I want to make sure it's as accurate as possible. Way back in the day, I could simply correct the appropriate mistake with an annotation, but because TH-cam is TH-cam, now I have to release a whole other video!
Because of the wonderful comments left on the last video, I don't want to delete that version, so I'll allow these both to exist. Eventually, I'll unlist the original and have this version up.
Just in case you already watched the original, here is a quick changelog:
Corrected information regarding the professor. It wasn't Burton Richter, but instead Melvin Schwartz.
Made a more accurate statement of NetSpades being the first publicly and commercially available Spades game played over the internet. Original language was a bit too vague to be accurate.
Fixed statement regarding WoS being the first MMORPG in development. Though it was in development alongside Ultima Online in 1995, turns out Meridian 59 was in development in 1994, making that the first MMORPG in active development.
Clarified language that made it clear that it obviously depends on your definition of a MMORPG. Some would consider Habitat or Neverwinter Nights (1991) the first MMORPGs, though those games are missing elements that would make them official MMORPGs by some. Likewise, clarified language that says that not considering Well of Souls an MMO perfectly valid as well. In short; it's subjective.
Clarified and emphasized language that clarifies that Well of Souls was the first indie-MMORPG to make it more accurate to the title.
Changed the song "Block Destruction" (aka apparently Scott the Woz's outro) to something less immediately recognizable and hopefully more fitting.
Fixed a few minor graphical and audio glitches that had occurred during the rendering process last time. Though no promises that it didn't happen this time.
Aha, but you forgot the most important correction! The book store at 15:52 sells you a book for the quest to get the Stun spell!
You might want to add to the description on this one the links you have on the original's, otherwise anyone curious enough will just end up giving the older one more views to check them out, which may mess with the alrogythm and the pace of the replacement.
I agree with Cross the Multiverse! In addition to the resource links and such in the original that could be placed in this one's description, you could put a link to this vid in the original's description as well so that people will actually know about this corrections upload. I just happened to stumble upon this one without knowing you had uploaded it at the time.
I played Well of Souls as a child. It almost felt like a fever dream. Definitely a surreal experience. I'm glad I'm not the only one who stumbled upon this unusual gem.
I feel the exact same way. Played it when I was like 10, and I thought it was a dream but i managed to find it 😂 what a rush
I played WoS when I was 16! I'm now 36. I had such fond memories. I found it through a gaming friend who wanted to play with me. I definitely consider it an MMO and I'm always telling people about it. It was HILARIOUS. I was so impressed and stunned that ONE guy made it.
Words can hardly describe how emotional I get hearing these old midi songs from Well of Souls. And what a profound impact this game had on me as a child and continues to have on me as a grown man. It inspired me to want to create videogames. It still inspires a sense of wonder and imagination in me as an adult. I used to secretly install this game on the library computers just to play 20 minutes of it before getting kicked off and they would uninstall it. And I'd be right back at it the next day lol. I used to use my own custom skins and stuff. Only real computer OG's know about Well of Souls. The most beautiful part of it all is how the website is still there, barely changed after all these years, and today, I can install well of souls and play it anytime I want on my surface pro tablet computer thing
Fun fact, its STILL downloadable and playable. I played in fucking middleschool. I'm 33 now and seeing your video pop up randomly here I am checking if its still a thing and sure enough I'm about to spend real time making a video on it once again. Thank you for doing this... evidently 4 years ago.
I played this game for a few years with my friends when I was in high school in the early 2000's. We had built up a sizable PVP guild with our own forum and website. It encouraged me to learn web design, and lead me to getting a degree in Computer Graphics some years later. Well of Souls inspired creativity in may of its players. I might just go back and play a few hours in it this week for old times sake, if Evergreen is still kicking.
Me and my friend would have smoked your guild
I'm jk bro
What a game... I remember playing on Uncle Dan's server in the early 2000s and having a blast talking with people, playing, helping them out, and more for hours. It was always full of people just hanging out. It will always be one of those games that I always end up thinking about with fond memories.
Alas, those will just remain memories of another era. We can't go back to that time, no matter how much we wish we could...
"Thank you for playing Well of Souls."
Decided to take a little nostalgia trip and it was exactly how I remembered the game. Thanks for archiving this little piece of history.
Just wanted to say well done taking the initiative to clarify a few things from the initial video. It is disappointing that it had to be done in a completely separate upload and not cover with annotations like you used to. But still, I applaud the effort to make this video as clear and accurate as you can. :)
Yeah, I'm glad that he took the extra step to fix the video when he learned of some errors rather than simply address it in a comment or the description of the other video like most people would. It's a shame TH-cam keeps taking out useful features like annotations and publishing messages that would show up on the subscribers' feed (and in fact made videos themselves less likely to show up on said feed). Who knows what they'll take out or change in the next few years to make the site even worse.
I played this when i was around 7! I successfully 'convinced' the community that I'm 14 and felt extrenely mature, lol. Makes me extremely happy hearing the beautiful sounds and noises again after two decades!
This is such a sweet video. One of my favorites I've ever seen on this site. Thank you for sharing your experiences, the life advice of "following your bliss" is great.
Thanks for this video. Even 20-something years later, I think of Well of Souls sometimes. It was my first game I was really fell into, that I would spend 8 hours a day playing, and even get up early before school to get a few hours in. Uncle Dan really did make something special, and I'm glad I got to be one of the few who stumbled upon it.
Thank you for playing Well of Souls. I played this game with my brother back in the day.
It's 2005, and I've just downloaded the Desert Storm world. I'm playing online and a level 80 guy takes me along in a party to help me level up. After a few hours I have to leave with Dad to go to Great Mills for some hardware thing, and I never see him again. The world (which was really well put together) is lost to time, as is Great Mills, carefree summer days on a Pentium 2 computer, and my Dad, but I still load up WoS occasionally to play through Evergreen for a few hours, and it's like I never left.
My dude! I remember playing this quite a bit as a kid. I never fully mastered the mechanics, but my brother got super into it, and he even tried to design his own world! Super cool to see someone else talk about this. I never really realized this was the first mmo. I guess that gives me some pretty good gaming cred lol
Synthetic Reality's Well of Souls was one of my most favorite games as a kid. Hearing the music sends me way back man.
Glad I’m not the only one who played it. Thanks for the video
Im not cryin, you are
No, I'm not crying. My eyes are just sweating. You're crying!
Found this randoly, thanks for covering synthetic reality, there is so much history behind this game. Lot of little details and mechanics in this game. I really wish I could se the community come back, but the community isn't going to stick around long and actually play and PK without new players. No idea how we can get new players, Im sure there is quit a few that would love to play this, but haven't heard of it.
I've been wanting to write a comment to this for months, but never had the time, unfortunately. I forgot the little details I wanted to write back then when I first watched it, but I do remember this being an interesting video. I've never been a fan of MMORPGs, and never even heard of this game before your video, but it sounds like a very influential game. I do remember you mentioning this game technically couldn't be finished, which is a design choice I don't care for, but there do seem to be a lot of good elements of this game. I also like that you can have your own custom character.
I mean "I never heard of this game before" seems to be a common theme with my channel and one I'm all too happy about. I wouldn't say it was globally influential, but it definitely was influential to me.
What a great game. Wow must have been 20 years ago the first time I played it! 10mb game took 30 mins to download - it was my bench mark for my childhood internet speed so must have downloaded it a few times! I remember trying to make my own world at age 11 or so (and failing miserably lol)
I'd say the saddest thing about Well of Souls is all of the old worlds that other people had made that are now lost to time since the game came bundled with the software needed to create your own game. So of course people used it to create fan games for popular media franchises like DBZ and Gundam.
Thank you for making this! I found WoS as a kid because my computer couldn’t handle games with more intense graphics lol. It was always special to me but it’s cool to have context for how special it was as a piece of game dev history!
Thank you for this! I want to start making games and looking for inspiration and thinking about gems that I played in my childhood WoS came to my mind.
I'm really happy that I found your video, it's really inspiring.
We had the same childhood. Well of Souls, FFXI, pixel art. Let's gooo!
this is so absolutely well done and inspiring. you're doing the world a service man thank you
Thank you for the wonderful comment!
This game has a special place in my heart.
Man, I was a teenager when i played Well of souls. Twenty years ago and i still want to play it. The old worlds. The Summoner, Megaman, Castlevania, RoT, and so many others. My world i made hit #1 most played once... And it was only a single scene fighting Goku from base to ssj6, back when Dragonball AF was a thing.
Theres alot of good memories, and it's a shame not many got to try it out. It's such a timeless classic that was worth a try, especially for people who like obscure strategy games. If anyone ever had some of the old worlds, it would be worth a play, alot. The Summoner is one of the many best worlds out of 20-ish. Too bad many of the sites are gone, and most people probably never saved any worlds for others to replay.
It's nice to see these memories from long ago though. I'm glad for that.
I played this game a fuck ton, I was very big into the PVP aspect. Scrive was my name, danm i miss those days I still remember the names of a few of my clan mates and everything.
Scrive haha! I was purple haze. Do you remember like Buff, Nas, Jaded, Tina, etc?
I honestly don't know how I found this game back then, but it was a ton of fun with all the different servers, mobs, and weird people I met there.
Scav was extremely broken in PK if my memory serves me. All graphics could be edited, mods were skyrim level back in the 2000's. This was mmorpg Gmod and most of the playerbase spent THOUSANDS of hours, if you had less than 1000 hours, you were in the minority. The map was decently large, adding in all the zones and hidden stuff, it seriously was on par with the elder scrolls level of content.
WoS will forever be remembered and shared by me, it was a privilege to enjoy the game, I'm happy i delved even deeper into the modding and really got to see how special the games workings were.
I miss the dopeness that this game provided back in those days. I agree with you; super influential. This was back in the web-based games like Alien Adoption Agency, Pimp Wars, Mech Wars, Elven Lands, Tenaria.... Well of Souls/Evergreen scratched another itch once I lost my D1/D2 CDs. It was good stuff. Good enough that I randomly thought about the game and decided to look it up on TH-cam for the first time.
Thanks for the nostalgia trip -- I have half a mind to download it again and see what's become of it.
Hey man, I think you have what it takes to be a real TH-camr. You just have to be more consistent. I just sat through a half hour of you talking, you're obviously competent at making videos
The history here runs deep. Never would have guessed the random game my buddy suggested in middle school would have such a story behind it.
I’m absolutely one of those people who feel you are extremely underrated. Your story is inspiring. Keep up the great work.
I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for awesome people like yourself giving me just verbal support!
I used to play this game all the time. The music definitely takes me back.
Catch me casting all the spells in the world of Evergreen.
Alright then, a fourth time it is.
i honestly love this game recently re downloaded it earlier havent play since i was about 16 so 14 years ago such fond memories playing evergreen with my best friend from high school
ive met alot of amazing people on this game and i wish the player base would come back so it wont die ill always be a fan
I remember playing this game when I was a kid and had no idea what an RPG even was yet. I'm not even sure how I got it, probably it was just something I found while searching for free games on the internet. Until I remembered it recently and tried looking up to see if there were any videos of it and found this one, I didn't even know it was supposed to be multiplayer. I recall just bumbling around by myself as a gray squirrel (squirrel2, seen at 17:48 or so, in fact) in Evergreen, typing random stuff into the chat window and sending it to no one, and spending a lot of time as a shadow ghost thing because I kept dying. I had no idea what I was doing, and I'm sure I made virtually zero progress toward anything in the game. But, dang it, somehow, I enjoyed it, and now it's a nostalgic thing for me. I'm glad this video exists, so thank you for making it, now I finally understand what Well of Souls even is. And it's fascinating.
I used to play this back in the late 90s with a buddy down the street.
Well of Souls was one of my first MMOs. I even had a golden soul. My brother and a couple friends would play the hell out of it. Hundreds of hours I happily spent on WoS.
I've been missing WOS. Was wondering what I could dig up and came across this great vid.
Great video! Just discovered your channel after my roommate told me about this game and how she used to play it as a kid. Really fascinating history. Got another subscriber =)
Sober called me a pigeon egg then bombarded me with a library of animal sounds, would watch again, liked and subscribed.
Good on you updating the video despite the annoyance youtube's own removal of annotations caused.
Warpath looks sick and seeing this path of creations is impressive as HELL.
The concept of online games being built in a way that allows continued online play after the servers vanish means the world to me after a teenage love of Chromehounds saw it's doors shuttered with no hope of community efforts since no help was offered and the system was so heavily reliant on their servers :(
A game being interesting is one of the best compliments it can garner- so I'd say the kitchen sink design paid off :)
Damn it, low hanging fruit every time but it's hard not to appreciate a good misleading XXX joke.
I forgot about the twist of this video and I'm impressed and happy as hell all over again to hear it and what it did for ya.
Reiterating 'follow your bliss' is such a pleasant close. Here's to that.
In the early 2k's you could have caught me on Uncle Dans servers as a Black Chicken Mage.
i remember this game very fondly, because i played it right around high school and had to move. my older brother helped me setup my computer when we had nothing there for a few days. i played the ever loving crap out of the single player mode, and then once we got internet access i went balls to the wall downloading other worlds and trying them out. everything about this encapsulates the 90s gaming world, and i will always love it for that.
Man, this game was one of my favorites when I was younger. I always played the castlevania world which was always difficult lol. I loved it. Even Evergreen was fun. Thank you Dan!
Hearing this video was something that made me appreciate his words and Yours. Thank you!
Oh wow! Glad to know someone else actually knew about this game! I remember messing around with this game a lot as a kid, making skins for it and hosting them on my Waku Waku 7 fansite. I was JUST thinking about it because I loved how customizable it was and the idea of an MMO making tool kit blows my mind. I really wish someone would revisit this concept today, especially in 2D with easy to work with sprites. But until then, knowing the game still functions is enough for me! Thanks for the video I am diving back in...and likely featuring it in a video of my own about games that let you use custom sprites/portraits.
Good to see people are still responding to this video!
Found this while googling WoS to download it again. Wonderful video with a beautiful ending.
I am ao happy to be a part of the few thousand that played this game and loved it. ❤
I vividly remember playing this game in the early 00s. I didn't understand much about it, but it was a good time. That "Oh" sound that enemies make brings back the memories!
Omg I totally played this game! Were you able to upload your own Sprite? I could swear that was the case
Yep, you could make your own skins!
Incredible. Let's bring this back!
YES ME TOO I LOVED THIS
I would like to add that although I agree it is hard to measure the impact of this game, the impact is certainly there. I was just watching a documentary about the making of Slay the Spire. My first thought was "This reminds me of WoS" but then sometime into the doc, one of their first concept enemies was literally a green jelly. MANY MANY MANY foundational pieces for WoS are in games today.
Man.. that ending was heartwarming. Fantastic vid and thank you for taking me on a Nostalgia trip
Oh my god I loved thid game. My favorite custom(?) world was Jerrys World
Pfft, I played this game before youtube existed. You know what's the best thing about it? The website is STILL online after all these years.
Man! I just remembered about this today. I played this in my teens, maybe 17-18 years ago.
This was such a weird but wonderful video for me as I had no idea about Dan. For me it was a way to play something for free 😳 thank you to you and Dan for the work ❤️
i just redownlaoded after sooo many years and am playing again... the nostalgia is insane... i feel like a damn kid again! thank you for this amazing insight of a video
i'm interested in reading that interview! can't seem to find a link to it
Please do one on Warpath 🥺
Josh Worts had a blog called Josh News, but I can't find any version of it online.
I`ve found this game on someone`s PC on our local network, back in early 2000-ies, and quckly became addicted to it. It`s a brilliant little game, simple, fun but deep enough to enjoy. I`m even did some skins for it. It was good fun!
best game ever I have no idea where my brothers and I found it but we did and I FONDLY remember getting hard carried at goblin catapults on my toons. jesus what a game
My favorite thing to do in Well of Souls was capture and level a level 1 slime as high as I could.
I haven't thought about well of souls in over a decade. I remember playing as a drunken chicken that attacked with bottles. Surreal...
WoS skins were so unique and implemented into my mind for eternity.
I just randomly thought about this game the other day and stumbled upon this. I played it back in the early 2000s, and I don't remember that much about it apart from making my own sprites. It'd be cool if there was a mobile version of this game.
A lot of good memories messing around in this game as a kid
I remember this game. It was a real phenomenon in the small neighborhood I grew up in. My big brother and the other big kids on the block played it together. I would sit and watch him play when ever I could. The silly noises the monsters made always made me laugh, even to this day.
Much memories this game has been during my childhood aswell. I was one many who played this growing up. I am happy too hear it atleast made it too a video. I might download it and play it again do time. No computer. :(
the chiptune cyndi lauper song is really messing with me. also thanks for covering this, i stumbled on this game after a drunken night of talking with the lads, it was an awful lot of fun inspite of it being so simple.
Great video. Totally took me back to the early 2000s and finding this curiosity.
i miss this game, i remember talking to samsyn and he wanted to release the game on Steam but there were issues in uploading and it never happened... if it did I'd still be playing to this day if it brought more players back/new players in.
Good video, loved Well of Souls as a kid, put a solid 50 or so hours in when I was around 7
I loved this game and played it back around 2002-2003. It had such a weird feel to it, which gave it so much of its charm.
I loved the monster taming aspect of it too. Anyone also play Continuum/subspace?
I definitely played this. The modded skins were so far ahead of its time
I’m playing this game again after a decade. Servers are still up, there’s still a handful of people playing.
What about today? i was waiting for it to come to Steam but it never did... getting that itch to play again though
My sister and I played the shiiiiit outta this game when we were little. We’d design our own characters and monsters. Seeing this makes me want to hook my computer back up and check it out
8:19 This does put a smile on my face.
We need a Well of Souls for 2021 and beyond.
Also, games like Adventure Quest should be on mobile.
The only other things that I can think of with a "Player Extensibility" aspect are some of the things that are/used to be on "BYOND".
28:09 Wait, he's STILL making games?!
Had some good times with this
I remember playing this back when I was a Kid, back when my big brother downloaded this. He told me to never play this, yet I snuck my way to play this, probably because it's my persistent mind telling me to play new games back then. He may injure my limbs, or try desperate means, but it won't stop me from playing what game my brother was playing since.
I played this as a kid! I’ve been wanting to play it again 😢
Playing this as a kid was so much fun! Figuring out how to hack the game files and make it do what I wanted, actually lead to my profession today. Thanks for making this video 💪
i've watched this like 8 times lol
It's appreciated 8 times than normal!
@@SoberDwarf im on like 20 now hahaha
I played this game a lot back in around 2001, it was great
Man I remember being 7-8 just begging my cousin to play this whenever I visited lol I loved it even tho I had no idea what I was doing all because I was able to play as a gundam
Listen, this was the best game in the 90s. I forgot how I found it with friends but the fact you could have your fav character sprite to play with as well amazing back then. I remember downloading goku to play with while expiring the world and teaming up with others. No one ever played with the starter characters.
Played Well Of Souls over 20 years ago
Loved this game growing up played hourssss with my buddies. its still up and im getting back into it! roped one of my new friends to play it with me and he loves it lol. So much awesome stuff about this game like you can just make your own skins at will
shoutout to kyle who introduced me to this game in like 7th grade lmfao
Fantastic video. I remember playing this game back in the day.
I remember running into a guy playing in the end game area at the very bottom of the main map. He wasn't marked as a cheater or anything. But he was able to Insta kill anything an do crazy stuff. He had a hacked account, he tried to show me how to do it but I was just not very bright at times as a kid.
Had a dream about this game, it was like the palace with rpg elements
Played this ages ago. Had so much fun. Guild wars and other created worlds. Reinstalled it today.
Thanks for the video bro, i played this game when i was a kid.
Damn, I had no idea Dan was so old.
I loved this game I played it so much way back when I was 12 and I went back when I got into college the game was still pretty much alive. I edited each sprite for every NPC and monster in the game to add gore and change up colors to make it pop. I still have my characters and my guild uniform which my guild doesn't exist anymore but I still have the uniform on. So many crazy memories with this game. It's insane that a big game of my childhood no one has really heard of lmao. I started a war with genocide too which was insane. Good times
Genocideeee
Avalon (Tina that ho), sov, lod, eternum vitae, can't really remember any other
I played this when I was younger in like 1999 or 2000 because all I ever had was dial-up internet.
It's been forever since I played this! I never really engaged with the multiplayer aspect of it, but this was definitely my gateway into World of Warcraft. I remember being obsessed with abandonware, specifically Home of the Underdogs (www.homeoftheunderdogs.net) around the time I found this game. Being a broke teenager, games like this and sites like HotU were incredibly important to me personally, getting to experience and learn about games from a different perspective. Awesome video, thanks for the trip down memory lane :D
This game sounds like something a much younger Jolis would’ve enjoyed back in the early nineties if he wasn’t too busy playing his older brother’s Nintendo Entertainment System. 😜