Kingsoft Ranger, MUD, Saipan, do you still remember the "outdated gadgets" of those years?

Around 2 1 century, domestic stand-alone, online games and mobile games ushered in the first rapid development. During this period, countless products relying on the three have emerged continuously, jointly shaping that glorious era.

However, with the constant changes of the times, some products keep developing and eventually lead the trend of the times, while others sink into the memory of the times. When people who have witnessed it re-examine the products that have withdrawn from the historical stage, they only feel a kind of "feelings" that have precipitated over time.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about three products that led the industry trend in that era, but were ruthlessly abandoned by the times.

knight

Speaking of this software, most post-80s and post-90s may not feel strange. From the 1990s to the beginning of the Millennium, Kingsoft Ranger, as a few genuine game modification software, was active among gamers. In that era when information was blocked and the network was underdeveloped, Kingsoft Ranger once became an "artifact" in the eyes of countless solo players because of its simple use, efficient modification and hundreds of game strategies.

Speaking of it, the birth of "Golden Mountain Ranger" was also an accident. In 1998, due to disagreement with the company's top management, the fledgling programmers Zou Tao and Dong Yao angrily left their jobs and vented their helplessness and anger on the game. At that time, their favorite game was Legend of Fantastic Heroes 2. However, like most players, although they are programmers, they still can't escape the fate of "card clearance".

At that time, the mainstream game modifiers were game busters, game wizards and FPE. However, after using FPE for a period of time, they soon found that the software was "weak". FPE not only has to switch back and forth between games and software, but also the search speed is very slow. In order to modify the game quickly, they simply started to develop their own game modification software, which became the prototype of Kingsoft Ranger.

Is this interface familiar?

Later, after another career change, they joined Jinshan Software Company. At that time, "Kingsoft Ranger 2" was about to be listed, but Jinshan boss Lei Jun was not satisfied with this software. Zou Tao took this opportunity to introduce himself and promote his "ranger prototype". After a series of emergency preparations,1April 1999, this brand-new "Zou Tao Edition" and "Kingsoft Ranger 2" were officially launched. In a short time, Kingsoft Ranger almost crushed the whole domestic game market, occupying the forefront of "popular software" for a long time, and even competing with QQ software at that time.

However, the good times did not last long. After the Millennium, the market share of domestic online games increased rapidly, which forced this software, which mainly modified stand-alone games, to fall into an embarrassing situation. After the final edition of Kingsoft Ranger 5 was released in 2003, one of the producers, Dong Yao, left Kingsoft in 2004, while another producer, Zou Tao, chose to stay and eventually became the CEO of Kingsoft. "Golden Mountain Ranger" gradually faded out of the player's field of vision with the passage of time, and "a generation of game modification artifacts" came to an end.

The last version of Kingsoft Ranger V stayed at 5.0 forever.

On the Zhihu, there is a question: "As a programmer, where does the greatest sense of accomplishment come from?" . As the developer of Kingsoft Ranger, Dong Yao answered this question.

"I think the greatest sense of accomplishment comes from the fact that my works are loved by users. I have developed two programs with more than 1 100 million users, one is Kingsoft, and the other is YY voice. But the most fulfilling thing is not these two, but "Golden Mountain Ranger", a single game modifier. Because this is a program developed by me and another student out of their own interests and needs, I made a prototype before joining Jinshan, and I didn't even have a name. I was packaged by Jinshan as a formal product for sale, so I was named Jinshan Ranger. "

It is true that now players can get Conan's "super power" of the destroyer with one click in the game through modifiers such as "Wind and Moon Shadow". However, for players who have experienced the era when data needs to be manually modified, "Kingsoft Ranger" may carry more beautiful childhood memories. Whether it's Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, New Double Pride, Diablo II, Heroes Invincible, filtering data by increasing or decreasing values has become a "secret book" handed down by users in those years.

Memories will be silent with time, but this feeling will become eternal.

Diablo 2 likes to line up with profiteers after locking gold coins.

plaster

2000 is the first year of online games in China. It is from this year that the online game war of Internet companies in China officially kicked off, which also laid the development pattern for the next 20 years. However, before 2000, domestic players also experienced a very special period, a word online game-Mud, which had no graphic screen and relied entirely on instructions.

The picture is being uploaded.

MUD is called multi-user dungeon, which initially refers to multi-purpose maze, and later it is called multi-user dimension multi-purpose space and multi-user domain multi-purpose territory. (Excerpt from Popular Science China) is a word multiplayer real-time game with instructions as the operation mode. The most important feature is that the game does not have any graphics and pictures, and all the displays depend on text descriptions. Players operate the characters by inputting specific instructions.

In China, mud mud is called "mud mud" by fans. As the originator of graphic online games such as Endless Mission and Network Genesis, Mud covers all elements of modern online games such as role-playing, horseback riding, PVP, PVE, interactive novels and online chat.

The cover picture of Endless Mission

The earliest MUD game can be traced back to 1978, but it has been more than ten years since it really entered China. From 65438 to 0993, Taiwan Province Province of China took the lead in setting off a mud wave, and many well-known mud games were born, such as Legend of Dragon Field, Legend of the Wind and Kingdom of the Wind.

At the end of 1993, a mud station named "Oriental Story" was opened on the server of Jiaotong University. Different from other MUDs, the background and plot of Oriental Story are all created by themselves. Compared with previous works mainly translated into Europe and America, Oriental Story is the first computer game that integrates China's martial arts theme into online games. It is precisely because of this that China's MUD creations have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and the content forms are showing a trend of blooming.

Among them, we have to talk about two far-reaching mud games, Peking University Chivalrous Man and King of Kings.

Mud interface of Peking University Swordsman

The predecessor of "Peking University Chivalrous" comes from the game "Chivalrous" created by Fang during his early stay in the United States. Because its administrator mudadm set the server in the physical building at the East Gate of Peking University, it was named Peking University Chivalrous Journey.

Peking University Knight was born in 1996 and has been in operation for 24 years. As a rare "fossil-level" MUD in China, it has witnessed the rise and fall of the entire online game market in China, and it has also become a paradise for many old players and a fertile ground for many excellent wizards (MUD defenders) to grow up. Open its Wiki, and you can find almost any "gene" existing in domestic online games.

It is more like an encyclopedia of online games, and it is also a "pilgrimage site" for domestic game lovers.

The picture in this article comes from Peking University Knight WIKI.

Almost at the same time as the appearance of "Peking University Chivalrous Man", Chen Guangming and Huang yu zhen, graduate students from Tsinghua University, Taiwan Province, set up a mud station with strong academic and experimental nature "King of Kings" to study "Efficient Decentralized System". However, who would have thought that four years later, this "King of Kings" actually opened a new chapter in online games in China.

The picture in this article comes from Baidu Encyclopedia "King of Kings".

In July 2000, the first multiplayer online role-playing game "King of Kings" released by Cai Hua Company was launched in Chinese mainland. As the first real online graphic MUD game in Chinese in China, King of Kings got rid of the shackles of boring words and presented it to players with more beautiful pictures. The game provides three basic occupations: warrior, mage and priest, and provides many opportunities for players to change jobs in the later period, which greatly enhances the player's game experience and enriches the diversity of the game. This game swept the whole China market in a short time, and 10,000 people were online at the same time in a month.

Although Korean online games quickly entered China and seized the domestic online game market, at that extremely special period, King of Kings still became the undisputed representative of the first generation of online games in China.

"King of Kings" game screen

Saipan operating system

Before the birth of Apple's ios and Google's Android, Nokia's Symbian system may have carried many people's childhood memories. In that era when Sony Ericsson focused on music, Samsung and LG were still pursuing appearance, and Motorola stopped, Nokia's Symbian system quickly captured many young people with its first-class fluency, powerful intelligent background system and diversified game library. According to the data of market research company iSuppli, in the third quarter of 2007, Nokia gained 40% of the global market share, and its exceptionally powerful intelligent system contributed greatly.

There's always one that makes you feel at home.

Compared with the omnipotence of modern mobile phones, mobile phones in early 2000 were simpler, and nothing seemed to capture users' functions except daily telephone information. It was not until 2002 that Nokia mobile phones began to spread in the domestic market. In 2005, with the release of Symbian 9.0 system, players in China finally discovered another important function of smart phones, that is, games.

Similar to the current console game platform, most of the games on Saipan system at that time came from stand-alone games, which were tailored by game manufacturers, so you can see almost any game manufacturer's brand or its well-known IP. For example, Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, EA's FIFA, The Sims, Activision's Dangerous Wolf Race and so on. Thanks to the operability of the physical keys of the mobile phone, it got rid of the single game of eating snakes and sweeping mines, and the Saipan JAVA games with more colorful pictures quickly seized the domestic mobile game market. In particular, many stand-alone masterpieces transplanted by Gameloft, a mobile game manufacturer, have become eternal memories of early players.

The picture in this article comes from the "arcade era" in Zhihu.

Many domestic game manufacturers have also ushered in their own highlights. I believe many hardcore players should have heard of the game "Seven Nights". As the most sincere 3D Symbian JAVA game of Chengdu Dingguo Technology, with its excellent game plot, Seven Nights directly killed a number of Symbian games at that time with the ultimate 3D picture, refreshing the players' cognition. Later, this game was nominated as the "Best 3D Award" of IMGA in 2007 (International Mobile Game Award). You know, there are only five games in the world that can win this honor, and seven nights is one of them. However, due to the underdeveloped mobile network at that time, it was difficult to download games with a capacity of 27 million, and piracy was rampant, and Seven Nights was a great success in the end. However, this game named "Silent Hill in China" still did not prevent the players at that time from treating it as a masterpiece.

Screenshot of seven-night game

For the earliest Saipan players in that year, apart from the game, the most impressive thing may be the signature of the certificate. Although Symbian system is an open platform, in order to maintain stable operation, Nokia has specially strengthened the security of S60V3 (user interface based on Symbian 9.0) and has stricter regulations on the third-party software running in the system. The most obvious feature is that the third-party software installed by users must have the signature certificate identification. However, at that time, the player's genuine consciousness had not yet formed, and pirated games almost became the mainstream. Therefore, after buying a Saipan mobile phone, it has become a compulsory course to go to various forums to find big brothers to do visa-free books. The higher-end giant salamander directly obtains the right to use by brushing. After Saipan delisted, Android ROOT and iOS escaped from prison and became successors.

label

Being abandoned by the times does not mean disappearing forever. The "feelings" attached to the products of these times will always be remembered by those who have witnessed them. And they are also witnesses of the times, pushing the whole industry to a higher level and accelerating the progress of the industry.