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The Shadow of Yserbius

 
Games: The Shadow of Yserbius
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The Shadow of Yserbius
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Game Description

Although called The Shadow of Yserbius, this Sierra redirection of the game from an online multi-player fantasy game to a one-person role-playing version actually encompasses two games: The Shadow of Yserbius and The Fates of Twinion. The games come with both single- and multi-player modes, literally thousands of opponents to encounter and a vast world filled with hundreds of inventory items and quests.

Considered "dungeon-quests" by the designers, at the time of release (1993), these two game had a support system for multi-playing at the ImagiNation Network on the Internet. In true role-playing fashion, however, the player builds his or her character based on unique strengths, weaknesses, endurance and abilities. Level advance requires acquisition of experience and spells, quest completion and combat prowess.

In The Shadow of Yserbius, you can choose your character from eight races and affiliation with one of six guilds. Male or female preference is accommodated as is choice of philosophy: harmony or chaos. Gameplay is seen from a first person perspective and the crux of the story is revealed slowly as you gain access to the many hidden areas of the dungeons.

The Fates of Twinion, the sequel to Yserbius, has the same properties of character generation as its predecessor in nearly every way. Perspective is still from a first person viewpoint and plotlines are revealed the deeper you penetrate into the hidden areas of the volcano Yserbius. There are three main areas within the game including the Twinion Tavern, a meeting place for online participants, the Guild Hall where inventory management is effected and the Dungeons themselves, where the adventure aspect lies.

The manual contains full disclosure of the various magic spells available, creatures and beings to be encountered, race characteristics, guild information, alignment proclivities and a breakdown of skills by guild. The interface is mostly point-and-click or point-and-drag and a system of on-screen icons and buttons is used to access various features in the game. Once a character has reached level 20 during on-line play, if you choose to take him or her off-line, the character cannot be used on-line from that point.
~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

The two games are a commercial solo-version of the Internet on-line games of the same title.
~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Production Credits

YSERBIUS Designed and Developed by: Ybarra Productions, Inc.:; Scot Amos, Karl Buiter, Mark Dickenson, M. S. Dunhour, Mike Dunhour, Roy Eltham, Botu Green, Mike AcAulay, Leonard Micko, Michael Moore, Andy Riedel, Donna Taylor, Andrew Townsley, Joe Ybarra; Opening Sequence and Additional Artwork: Fred Butts; Music and Sound Effects: Aubrey Hodges, Russell Lieblich; Sound Driver: John Miles; Special Thanks: Ken Williams, Wendy Barlow, Sharon Chercowy, Paul Lavelle, The ImagiNation Network testers, and all our friends at The ImagiNation Network and Sierra On-Line; The Flilib library used in this product is Copyright 1990 Dancing Flame, Mill Valley, CA. All rights reserved.; TWINION Designed and Developed by: Ybarra Productions, Inc.; Ybarra Productions, Inc. Game Team: Scot Amos, Wendy Barlow, Fred Butts, Sharon Chercowy, Mark Dickenson, M. S. Dunhour, Roy Eltham, Botu Green, "Tawn" Lawler, Biard MacGuineas, Mike McAulay, Leonard Micko, Michael Moore, Andy Riedel, Donna Taylor, Andrew Townsley, Joe Ybarra; Music and Sound Effects: Russell Lieblich; Sound Driver: John Miles; YPI Playtesters: Bob Blees, Carlor Flores, Paul Lavelle, "Fuzz" Lokajicek, Alisa Shaefbauer, Rich Waters; Special thanks: Ken Williams, The ImagiNation Network testers, and all our friends at The ImagiNation Network and Sierra On-Line
~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide
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Wikipedia: The Shadow of Yserbius
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The Shadow of Yserbius
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Developer(s) Sierra On-Line
Publisher(s) Sierra On-Line
Platform(s) MS-DOS
Release date(s) 1992
Genre(s) MUD
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer

'The Shadow of Yserbius', originally published by Sierra On-Line, was the first of three graphical MUDs for the online community. Opening to rave reviews, The Shadow of Yserbius, according to industry critics, set the standard by which all future MUDS would be judged. The game was followed by two sequels entitled The Fates of Twinion (1993) and The Ruins of Cawdor (1995). Until recently, only The Shadow of Yserbius and Fates of Twinion were playable in offline mode.

The Shadow of Yserbius, along with its successors, remained online until 1996, when America Online purchased the rights from then-owner AT&T for an undisclosed price (rumored to be $40 million). AOL soon pulled the plug on The Shadow of Yserbius, which was a competitor to its existing online RPG Neverwinter Nights.

In late 2007, the ImagiNation Revival Project succeeded in resurrecting the long-dormant ImagiNation Network by using the original client software coupled with the freely-available DOS Emulator - dosbox. The Shadow of Yserbius is now once again available for online play with all features, graphics, sounds, and such fully intact and functional. Macros are fully supported and compatibility with old character and map files is enabled for TSN/INN versions 2.4 and higher.

Contents

Game play

Combat was simple turn-based point and click fare, typical of many graphical RPG's of its time.

The goal of the game was to kill an evil elemental creature called En-li-Kil. There were a number of "rooms", where up to 30 (later 60) people could meet and adventure together in groups of up to four. Combat was turn-based.

The available professions were Barbarian, Knight, Ranger, Thief, Cleric, and Wizard. Player races included Human, Orc, Elf, Troll, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, and Gremlin.

Another popular pastime was player vs player sparring. This later became corrupted by cheating, as well as version compatibility issues, which later versions tried to address with little success. The most popular of these cheating programs was a macro called VitaminF.

Many players were members of guilds, ranging from the SoF (Soldiers Of Fortune), KoY (Kingdom Of Yserbius), EMPIRE and DEADZ, to guilds such as TheMercs, KoC (Knight of Chivalry), ,KAAOS (Killing As An Organized Sport),and the FTT (Friendship,Truth, and Trust Guild). While some guilds were based on role playing at times, some of the guilds were dedicated to helping others with interest in the Quests and building strong characters. A handful of the guilds started in Yserbius during the early 1990s, such as SoF, TheCelts, KAAOS, DEADZ, TheMercs, New Outriders (http://www.newoutriders.com ), and the FTT, still exist to this day.

Source of information for gameplay. Detailed walkthrough available at http://www.yserbius.org/forum Source of information for Gameplay Original Manual in PDF form http://www.yserbius.org/download/Yserbius_Manual_Original.pdf

The Tavern

The tavern was the social hub for the game. Players who spent a lot of time in the tavern were known as "tavern rats". Many games and challenges took place there, as well as a significant amount of roleplaying.

Also Where JesseBarbarian once hit a woman for singing a song he didn't like.

Remakes

Doubtless due to the popularity of The Shadow of Yserbius, the perceived simplicity of its engine, and the fact that most of the graphics are easily reproduced, there have been several attempts to remake the game.

The Ruins of Cawdor (second sequel to Yserbius) has been patched to be playable offline.

Current Projects

In May 2007 the INN Revival was able to get their server emulator to the point where a playable version of Yserbius is online that is open to the public during certain time windows. Unlike the early remake versions, this successful attempt uses limited reverse engineering of the client software to build a working server for all of ImagiNation Network including Yserbius and SierraLand. With the emulation software - dosbox - it is possible to use the original INN client software and connect to the INN Revival server over a regular Internet connection, instead of requiring the use of a modem as the previous versions did. Once connected, many of the original features have been brought back on-line, including MedievaLand (the play area featuring The Shadow of Yserbius.) Once online and in MedievaLand, you can connect to Yserbius and join others in Sword Swamp (currently the only available Tavern). Preliminary testing indicates that almost all of the functionality of Yserbius Online has been retained under this setup. It is also backwards-compatible with popular macros such as VitaminF (a character modification program) and pre-existing player and map files from the original ImagiNation Network releases. Work on bringing back Fates of Twinion and Ruins of Cawdor is in progress and should achieve similar results to Yserbius in terms of playability, since the two other games are based on the same gameplay engine and similar file structures.

Note: Since the current client in use is based on the 2.4 INN client, two popular Yserbius bugs/features are no longer available: characters can no longer "force" equipment into use that excludes their Guild, such as a Ranger being able to force into use the War Hammer of Doom; and, players below a certain level cannot be teleported past the Labyrinth Gate, as was possible in earlier versions such as 2.0 and 2.1.

Another test version of The Shadow of Yserbius was created a year earlier in mid-2006 that allows users to enter the Tavern and chat with others. This version was built in Java and can be found at Yserbius.Org.

Abandoned Projects

The first remake attempt was Gandalf's 'Yserbius project', which was in development in 1998. Gandalf, a major force in the Yserbius community, disappeared in early 1999. With his going, all information regarding his project was lost.

In mid 1999, Xenther and EtoneDarkKnight worked together on developing 'Project Asunder', a spiritual successor to Yserbius. Numerous screen shots were shown, with actual gameplay implied. However, EtoneDarkKnight fell out of communication with the public late that year, and Project Asunder was closed shortly thereafter.

In early 2000, Mithrandel announced development of 'Yet Another Yserbius' (YAY). While Mithrandel claimed to have finished development of the Tavern and extended beta test invitations to a small group of testers, no public beta test was ever released. Mithrandel later went on to develop FauxINN, a recreation of The ImagiNation Network.

Sources

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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