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If you want to host a LORD type game, why not just grab a copy of Synchronet BBS software (it's free), and get a copy of LORD ($15 at gameport.com). There are quite a few LORD clones made for bbs systems as well, most are probably free. Ambrosia is a big BBS game now days too (Yes, there are a few bbses still around).
I used to play on BBS systems all of the time. Mutants, crossroads of the elements, farwest trivia, and blademaster were some of my favorite major bbs/worldgroup games, and I played LORD, BRE, Usurper, Pimpwars, evangelist wars, and several "regular" BBS door games.
That's when I bought PCBoard, somewhere around 1994, and had a 3-line BBS under DOS/Quarterdeck multitasking software. Probably 90% of my visitors stuck to playing LORD, and a few played tradewars.
I would have loved to see how PCBoard would evolve over time, going into the windows '9x/xp age, with more 32 bit support (other than OS/2) but Clark Development (developers of PCBoard) went bankrupt, and supposedly the bank still owns all of the source codes and rights to it.
At the time, I wanted to upgrade to Major BBS, but it wouldn't be unrealistic to think that it may cost $20,000+ for a MBBS/Worldgroup system, because Galacticomm's target business was not BBS hobbiests, but businesses or individuals that were in it for the money and had a lot of it to invest.
Crossroads was like $250, mutants was like $400-$500, tradewars was like $500+ if I remember correctly, blademaster $250+, major mud $1000+, wilderlands mud $200+, etc . Even something as simple as a "who's online" menu or something, that had a different layout and colors may have been $35-$50.
One of the local BBS systems that ran worldgroup for many years, rather successful about 3/4ths of that time, had somewhere around 200 lines, internet access, several gamenets, probably 60+ games of its own, etc, but when everyone started going to the web, the owner (which was also a college professor at the UF) did not want to give up the success of the board. So, instead of just giving it up when he knew it was over, he drove the BBS into the ground, just taking out a few phone lines or special services offline every once in awhile.
Anyway, there was one point in time where I could log on at any time and see atleast 75 people online. But for the llast probably two years, there usually wasn't anyone on it. So, he took off all of the phone lines and made it telnet only, while getting in to debt appx $50,000 (from what I've heard) with the ISP he was using for the BBS. He started selling the galactiboxes and such (multi serial cards/controllers and such) from his bbs for cheap, and eventually, it went down. |
