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Old 07-19-2012, 01:02 PM   #1
Threshold
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Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Hey folks,

This isn't a titanic announcement of a huge content update or anything, but instead something we've been doing recently that our people seem to be enjoying.

To spice things up for our daytime players, I've been logging on to during the day while I'm in the office and just causing crazy stuff to happen for a few hours during the day time.

Sometimes this is as simple as random little games or events, other times its something big like an invasion or a contest.

We have a lot of people who play from work, or school, or at home while the rest of their family is at work or school, so this seems to really spice things up during the otherwise dull doldrums of mid day.

For those of you gaming during the day time, you might want to pop on and check us out. This is not to say you shouldn't play other times as well, of course! This is just something new we've been doing for even MOAR FUN. And honestly, its a fun thing for me to do while I'm slaving away at Frogdice Global Headquarters...

We also usually keep track of what's going on and share funny quotes or crazy happenings in a running Facebook thread throughout the day:



Play Threshold in your browser:
Or use your own client: thresholdrpg.com (port 23)

See you online!
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Old 07-19-2012, 01:16 PM   #2
camlorn
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

So, I have to ask. Frogdice backs threshold? Threshold has an actual *office*? Or is it just that you work for them, or something.

Kind of curious now--frogdice has come up in relation to threshold before.
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Old 07-19-2012, 02:30 PM   #3
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Kudos to this. The main reason a mud's population dwindles is boredom and stagnation. No matter how roleplay intensive a mud supposedly is, and no matter how many neat-o features a mud has, a mud can't help becoming repetitive. People come and go like the tide unless they're rapt with interest about what's giong to happen next. Little things that make every day on the mud a little unique from every other day, and give each player a chance to do or get something he couldn't have done or got yesterday and won't be able to do or get tomorrow would make me want to log in today. And tomorrow to see what's next.
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Old 07-19-2012, 03:22 PM   #4
Threshold
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Happy to explain! Thanks for asking.

is the company that makes, runs, and owns Threshold. I founded and incorporated the company in 1996.

Frogdice also made Primordiax (currently closed) and (). Coin 'n Carry is a casual web game that is a combination puzzle, RPG, crafting, economy game (it does a lot so its hard to classify).

Frogdice's 4th game is going to alpha this Friday, and will beta in mid August. I can't tell you much about it yet. We are going to show it off at our annual convention - FroggaCon - August 3-5 in Lexington, KY.

Frogdice does indeed have an office right here in Lexington, KY. We have 3 full time staff, 3 part time staff, a couple of subcontrators, and 16 Pollywogs (our intern program). We call our office The Lilypad, or sometimes jokingly: Frogdice Global Headquarters. The ribbon cutting for our office was attended by the Mayor, lieutenant governor, a congresswoman, and a bunch of other business/government leaders last month.

I guess I should share news a little more often so folks know what we are up to. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a douchebag sharing links to news stories about us, but maybe some folks would find it interesting.
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Old 07-19-2012, 05:20 PM   #5
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Be a douche anyway. PR is as much a part of running a business as the rest of it. You make enough money to eat, rent an office, and pay a few employees from running what likely began as a hobby. I can't speak for the rest of the regulars around here, but I'm always interested in hearing how other people managed to turn something they vaguely enjoy into a livelihood. Those are inspiring types of stories.

I toil in an office all day long to barely pay the mortgage and feed a family, get yelled at, and get things thrown at me, and I have three degrees. I'd set out on my own if I thought I had a prayer at succeeding, but I'm a social retard who isn't comfortable with (and sucks at) convincing third-parties to willingly pay me thousands of dollars for services they probably don't need. I spend half my day whoring my resume around town (and all over the country), even ready to uproot my family and relocate the second I get a better offer, which will probably suck just as bad as my current job after I get settled in. But I digress. Post more news.
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Old 07-19-2012, 06:22 PM   #6
Threshold
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

This is my thinking exactly, and that's one of my goals behind doing this. I want to give our players a reason to login every day, and specifically THAT DAY, to see what kinds of craziness is going on.


Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement SnowTroll. Ok, I'll do that.

And good luck finding that next, better gig.
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Old 07-19-2012, 07:57 PM   #7
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Firstly, get primordiax back--I watched it for the longest time, finally logged in and found it empty, and then found it was closed for testing. Still, would be neet to try it with actual players.

Secondly, I don't suppose coin 'n carry or your next game are blind accessible? I'm going to presume not--I don't hold you accountable or anything--but I figure you've encountered blind mudders before, at least.

How do you make money off threshold? I mean, offices are expensive and cost money, so that money has to be coming from somewhere. I did play briefly for a time--I really should check back in now that crafting's been added--and I don't remember much in the way of donation. I mean, not only are you making money, but you got important people to attend the opening of your office, which is not something I would expect for mud-related enterprises. And an internship program, which I'd probably grab hold of, if you were near me (coincidentally, I don't even know where Frogdice is).

SnowTroll, you make me feel good about post-college life. Pleas tell me one of your degrees isn't computer science? I mean, I figured my prospects were somewhat bright, you said you had three degrees and say your job sucks, and now I'm kinda wondering.

Will have to look into frogdice when I graduate college--it'd be great to be *paid* to code on a mud. I mean, honestly, like, talk about ideal jobs.
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Old 07-20-2012, 01:12 AM   #8
Threshold
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

We have some awesome plans for it. You are going to have to wait a bit, though.. sorry. I know a lot of folks miss it.


Both and our next game are browser based graphical games. Sorry about that.

But is still a very high priority for us as far as constant content development, events, roleplay, etc. We even added some features over the last couple months to improve both blind accessibility and playing Threshold on a mobile device. Many more of our information commands have a "mobile/light/blind" version now, for example.


Our players are extremely supportive and over the years have wisely supported their favorite hobby financially. That is what has made it possible for us to survive this long with a full time professional staff, top notch hardware, incredible stability, and tons of great stuff always in development.

We owe everything to the support of our players.

Definitely! Our crafting system is getting better and better as we add more crafting professions.

Crafting is not just a bolt-on feature in Threshold. Crafters are an actual separate guild/class with unique gameplay and a totally different type of "combat" for crafting items. It is very cool and is a very different way to play Threshold.

They have also added a lot to the roleplay of the game as they added another layer to the economics of the game.
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Old 07-20-2012, 10:28 AM   #9
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Primordiax had a lot of potential, but it also seemed to have a few design flaws, at least in my limited opinion. It's probably good to iron out some of the kinks and get everything shipshape before opening it up again, but really, how comitted are you to opening a second mud? Threshold is already a robust mud. It's tough to make a second equally robust mud that's "different," especially based on the same world/mythology (but then the IRE people managed to repackage substantially the same game a few times, so why not?) I dare say most of the current Threshold players would tell you that if you come up with something cool, new, and different to add it to Threshold instead. Honestly, unless you're into a second mud on principle, I'd give it even odds that you're going to quickly determine that simple browser-based, Coin n Carry type games appeal to a much broader audience, and are a much bigger generator of company awareness and revenue, while mud players are a tiny crowd. If you really get into a second mud, three quarters of its players are going to be people who play your first mud, not new business.

Honestly, it's always shocked me (in a good way) that Threshold ended up making enough money for you to eat. It's a great mud, but there are a lot of good muds out there. Looking back, I think I've always underestimated mud players. Somehow, enough hardcore mud addicts part with enough optional money to pay your mortgage, feed your family, pay the rent on your office, and pay a few employees to boot. I don't care how many players a mud has, 10, 50, 100 dollars here and there from a small percentage of them can't possibly add up to enough to eat. There've got to be some absolutely sick people in the mix who've been computer gaming since birth, finally finished school and got jobs, and suddenly realized, "Hey! Now that I make 40-150k a year, I have thousands of extra dollars I'm not using to buy groceries or rent my apartment. Let's buff up the mud character I play each night when I get home."

Anyway, to Camlorn: I'm not a computer guy. I'm a patent attorney, actually, so I'm tangentially involved with the tech sector, just as a service provider rather than somebody who's actually useful at making things other people want. I'm really computer savvy and have a knack for picking things up quickly, but I never considered the industry and can't even program a webpage, much less a game. Honestly, both computer science and electrical/computer engineering are the places to be right now. Software and telecommunications are really big, especially wireless technology. Semiconductors are doing okay, too. Chemistry/chemical engineering are okay if you get an advanced degree and luck into a position with an oil company along the gulf coast, or with an electronics manufacturer who needs a chemical guy. Other engineering degrees (mechanical, aeorspace, etc.) depend on where you live and the companies around you. Mechanical is pretty widely accepted for most manufacturers. The biological sciences are worthless degrees, biochemistry, too, unless you get a PhD and luck into the right position with a university lab or a pharmaceutical company. Most of those are in the northeast.

As a CS guy, be flexible about location and relocate if you have a good opportunity. Everywhere in California, and a few hotspots in Texas (mostly Austin, but a few other cities) are great for computer people. But big companies have offices all over. If your grades are good and you get some dynomite internships under your belt, you want to go to a big, reputable company with decent insurance that matches a bunch of money in your 401k, and dig in your heels. Don't end up with some tiny, start-up, niche software company if you can help it. Half of those fail.
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Old 07-20-2012, 10:54 AM   #10
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

First, threshold, going to throw this out there. There's no particular reason a graphical browser game can't be made accessible--go have a look at gmagames and their pacman clone and doom clone for the blind. Limited resources and the like and I don't expect anything, but most people see a "graphical" game and go "There's no way someone blind could play that." To be quite truthful, world of warcraft could be made fully accessible if someone cared enough to pay the money to add the additional tagging information and sounds required. World of warcraft is a bad example of something that could be made accessible--typically, full 3d environments are very, very difficult--but it *could* be, given the resources to do so. I'm not saying go jump on getting blind accessibility in everything (though, I'd love that), but do have a look at some of the various audiogames--it's not as hard as you'd think. I do have a space exploration thing I'm slowly plucking away at, actually--I've gotten as far as a white square on the screen--but I'm approaching it that way: write it for the sighted and add blind accessibility as a "feature". For the most part, blind accessible games aren't playable by the sighted, mostly because the people who wrote them are fully blind and can't get graphics (I'm using pov-ray and my limited vision, and purposefully chose space exploration because I can get away with what are basically placeholder graphics of a sort, or at least graphics that can be easily described by a scripting language: sphere with cyllinder sticking out, sphere with fractiles for clouds...notice a theme, here? sphere with x).

SnowTroll, I actually want to be a professor, kind of. Either a professor or a researcher--I'm one of those big dreamers who never seems to get anywhere on anything, but loves to think about concepts and such, and work out how they might be made to work. We'll see where I end up, but apparently computer science professors start at $60000, or so I've heard.
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Old 07-20-2012, 01:34 PM   #11
Threshold
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Re: Daily Awesome Fun on Threshold RPG!

Wow. That's very interesting. I am definitely going to look into that. Thanks!


You are 100% right. That's why Primordiax will not be opening back up as a mud. We have plans to transform it into a different type of game, utilizing the game world, game mechanics, writing, world design, lore, and as much of the code as possible.

We have taken a lot of code and gameplay elements and already brought them over to . So Threshold's players have already benefited enormously in the last year from this.

We decided that Primordiax as a mud would just split our player base and not do anyone any good. That's why we closed it up and are repurposing it to be a very different, and very awesome game. One of the benefits of being a small, indie studio is that you can do crazy stuff like that. So we are taking advantage of one of our strengths.


Exactly. We still love MUDs, we still love the MUD community, and we intend to keep Threshold going for 50-100+ years or longer. But as far as the further growth of the company we want to make a wide variety of games and hopefully bring some of those gamers back into mudding when they decide to try out our other stuff.

We've already seen that as some players have become new Threshold players.

It is slow, and the numbers are not huge, but anything that brings brand new people to MUDs is something I am very excited about.
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