Current date/time is: July 19, 2008, 8:30 am
Trade Wars traces its origins back to the early 1970s, and as we approach the 20th anniversary of the release of Sherrick's original version of the game, it is still actively played. As BBS Doors, Trade Wars variants have often been ignored in online game history, overshadowed by the more popular MUD movement. But Trade Wars, and BBS doors in general, represented an early, commercially viable mode of online gaming. While the BBS world has all but disappeared, I believe the online game model represented by these games, the public-hosted server model, has not yet reached its potential. With the popularity of Neverwinter Nights, the first mainstream persistent online game deployed for public hosting, I expect to see a resurgence of door-like public-hosted games as an alternative to the more restrictive monolithic server model of today's "online community" games.
Following is a history of the development of Trade Wars variations, as well as several other dates of interest.
1966: Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek debuts on television. Many of the fictional elements of TW variants are based on Star Trek.
1972: Hunt the Wumpus, a text-based maze game, is developed by Gregory Yob at University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.
1974: People's Computer Company (PCC), a company that is still around today and who brought us Dr. Dobb's Journal among other things, publishes Volume 2, Number 3 of it's newsletter in January. In this publication is a BASIC source-code listing for Star Trader by Dave Kaufman. This game outlined the general details of a sector-based game with ports and a player moving between sectors trading three basic products (Fuel, Organics, Equipment) to earn credits.
1974: Empire, a multiplayer space empire game based on Star Trek, opens on PLATO. It supports 32 players.
1974: DECWAR, another Star Trek-based game, is created for VAX/VMS.
1977: George Lucas' Star Wars debuts in movie theaters. Star Wars is the second major influence behind the fiction of TW variants.
1977: A book called "What to Do After You Hit Return or P.C.C.'s First Book of Computer Games" by Hayden Book Company is published. It contains a short BASIC code listing for a game called Star Trader, which is a reprint of the earlier PCC newsletter printing of Star Trader. This book can still be found at rare book sites. Note: A conflicting source states that this book was published in 1979.
1983: MegaWars is opened on CompuServe. The design, according to S. Patrick Gallaty, is based on DECWAR.
1984: Chris Sherrick creates the original Trade Wars. Though many believe he was influenced by DECWAR or MegaWars, Sherrick has said that he was not familiar with either game at the time. Instead, the game is conceived as a cross between Kaufman's Star Trader, the board game Risk, and Hunt the Wumpus. This initial TW version has 60 sectors. It is written in BASIC, first for the TRS-80, and then ported to the PC to run under the Nochange BBS system. Sherrick makes this version (and many future versions) of his code available to the public under a restricted license, apparently to allow others to port Trade Wars to new BBS systems.
1984: Omnitrend's Universe, written by Thomas R. Carbone & William G. M. Leslie III, is released for the Atari, PC, and Apple computers. It is a single-player game, but has many elements that will become fused with the original Star Trader and Sherrick's base Trade Wars concepts to form Gary Martin's Trade Wars 2002. This early game included such elements as multiple ship systems (drive, weapons, docking, scanners, mining, trade), a starport (buy and sell, money exchange, contract house, colonist transport), and the ability to purchase multiple ships.
1984: Several games called Star Trader and variations for various systems were released at about this time. Among them, Star Trader by Steve Hartford, published by Computerware for the Tandy (TRS80) Color Computer, and Star Trader by Bug-Byte for the Commodore 64. These are stand-alone games, but follow the basic space trader model.
1985: Trade Wars 2 is released. Improvements over the first TW include 99 sectors, an evil alien race called the Cabal, and planets.
1985: John Morris joins Chris Sherrick to work on Trade Wars. His initial task is to port the Nochange version of TW2 to RBBS.
1986: Morris takes over all TW 2 development when Sherrick leaves for college. He releases new versions under the names TW200 and TW500 (based on the number of sectors allowed in the new versions), but then returns to the TW 2 name convention to avoid confusion with other TW variations that have begun to appear.
1986: In September, the Darkseid conversion of TW2 for WWIV is completed. Also known as TW200/QuixPlus Version. It is a direct conversion of Sherrick's BASIC code to Pascal by Lord Darkseid, a software pirate and sysop of Apokolips BBS. Further modifications were made by Sorcerer, Supreme Dalek, The Omega Man, and Preston Stroud, with many new features added later by Quixotic Software.
1986: In December, Apokolips BBS goes offline, and The Omega Man opens Klingon Empire! BBS to replace it. Omega Man makes many changes to Darkseid's version, mostly to change the theme of the game to match his BBS. The Cabal are replaced by Romulans, the ability to create and destroy planets is added, the restrictions on dropping fighters in sectors 2-10 are removed, and Clark Kent is employed to keep fighters out of sector 1 (huh?).
1986: Late December, Gary Martin acquires a copy of the Omega version of TW, as well as Sherrick's original BASIC code. Around Christmas, he begins porting the Omega code. By New Year, his first version is complete, and opens on Castle RavenLoft, a Genesis BBS he runs. He then converts this to WWIV, and releases the game to the public under the title TW 2001. In this early version, Martin replaces the Romulans with Ferrengi, Clark Kent with a Federation StarShip, and adds some other new features.
1987: Alan Davenport, listed in the credits of many of the Sherrick/Morris releases, begins releasing the Sherrick/Morris code and adding his own modifications. Because he releases his code under the name TW 1000 (which is similar to TW200 and TW500 used by Sherrick/Morris), many people believe they are attributed to Morris and come to him for support. Morris attempts to get Davenport to change the name of his game or stop the distributions.
1987: TW 5: Galactic Armageddon is written by Andrew Vega and others. It is a fork of the Sherrick/Morris TW 2 code.
1989: Morris releases the first C version of TW 2. It offers online chatting, and realtime combat against other players and the Cabal. He removes the code from public domain, and all future versions of the code are closed.
1989: Martin opens the Metropolis BBS, an MBBS system, out of his home in Lawrence, Kansas. He begins to consider an MBBS port of Trade Wars. Metropolis soon grows to have 40+ lines and access from Kansas City.
1990: Yankee Trader is released by Alan Davenport. YT introduces a number of new concepts to Trade Wars, and is very popular with players and gameops.
1991: Martin releases TW 2002 v1.00 in June. TW 2002 is a complete rewrite of TW 2001, and numerous features are added. v1.03 releases in July, and it remains active until August of '92 when a patch, v1.03d, is released. v1.03d remains the standard version while Gary works on TW 2002 v2 over the next year.
1992: The first 32 bit version of TW2 is released by Morris. Also, a multithreaded 32 bit version for OS/2 2.0 is released.
1992: Seth Robinson, author of Legends of the Red Dragon, releases Planets: The Exploration of Space (TEOS), a "kind of simplified Trade Wars meets LORD" according to Seth.
1992: Martin contracts with High Velocity Software, a developer of MBBS games and utilities, to create a version of TW 2002 for the Major BBS. This is the first truly interactive version of the game. All previous versions were persistent and multiplayer, but only allowed a single player in the game at a time. HVS introduces a number of new elements to the game, with Martin's collaboration, to support the demands of multiplayer play. Development continues until release in 1994.
1993: Martin releases TW 2002 v2 in May. v2 0.93, the final restricted beta version, is released in December of 93, followed almost immediately by the first wide beta, v2b1.
During development of TW v2, Gary enlists the help of Drew Markham to create the ANSI ship images and all of the Cinema animation scenes in the game. Drew Markham later goes on to found Xatrix and create some successful titles including Redneck Rampage. Xatrix later changes its name to Gray Matter Studios where Drew and his crew release Return to Castle Wolfenstein. You may recognize Drew's name in Trade Wars 2002 v2 as one of the ship manufacturers, Markham Space Tech.
1993: Iago's War Manual and the TW 2002 Bible are released. Both are compilations of valid tactics and bug cheats for TW 2002 v1 gathered from Fido and other sources. Iago's War Manual is compiled by Jim Bianchi, and the TW 2002 Bible is compiled by Justin Curry.
1993: Morris discontinues development of TW2.
1993: Work begins on Outpost Trader by Greg Watts (MegaWatts Computing). It is a fork of TW based primarily on Martin's TW2002 v1.03d which was widely played while TW2002 v2 was in beta. A group of TW players and gameops, many of whom contributed to Iago's War Manual, are credited with inspiration and play testing. Among them is Joel Downer.
1993: Iron Ox, by Joel Downer, begins development. It is released in 1994. Downer is an avid fan of TW2002, but his game focuses more on planetary colonization than trade.
1994: Martin releases TW 2002 v2b5 in February. Beta 5 remains active for over a year while the Martins are busy with other projects.
1994: HVS releases their version of TW 2002. From this point until the HVS version ceases development, new features are added to both versions of TW 2002 in parallel.
1994: Martin sells Metropolis BBS to Multi Service, a Kansas City based company, at the advising of Ed McCullough. Gary and Mary Ann Martin are hired by Multi Service to host the BBS, and Ed is named head of the new BBS department. Metropolis soon grows to include each city of the Big 12 college conference. It eventually changes its name to Gameport and diversifies its mission to include game development and sales, game hosting, and general online entertainment. In 1998, Multi Service purchases Legends of the Red Dragon and TEOS from Seth Robinson.
1994: Slice's War Manual is compiled and released by Harold Weiss between TW2002 v2 beta 5 and beta 6. It is an updated manual of TW 2002 v2 game tactics, similar to Iago's War Manual, again compiled from various online sources.
1995: John Pritchett joins Gary and Mary Ann Martin and takes over debugging of TW 2002. Martin releases TW 2002 v2b6 in May.
1996: Pritchett and the Martins leave Multi Service to begin work on a new space opera project. The game is extensively designed, but work never begins. Because TW v2 is still in beta, it is agreed that Pritchett should attempt to write a final version of the game, adding multiplayer features. Pritchett begins work on this new version, and the new project is shelved.
1997: Martech releases Pritchett's multiplayer version of TW 2002, TWv3.00, in April. It incorporates many of the features found in the multiplayer HVS version, but runs under any DOS BBS system.
1998: Martech releases Pritchett's Gold add-on for TW 2002 as part of TWv3.06, in March. In December, Martech releases TWv3.09.
1998: In December, Pritchett starts his own company, EIS, and releases TWGSv1.00, a TCP/IP game management system that hosts the latest version of TW2002, v3.10. TW 2002 is no longer supported under DOS BBSs. It is ported to a Windows 16 bit executable that interfaces directly with TWGS.
1999: TWGSv1.01/TWv3.11, the current major revision of TWGS and Trade Wars 2002, is released. This is the first truly 32 bit version of TW 2002. This version is still under development. The minor revision is up to 55 as of this writing.
2000: Martech sells TW 2002 to Pritchett's company, EIS, in April.
2000: In October, Pritchett is contacted by Realm Interactive, a start-up game company in Phoenix, that wishes to use the Trade Wars name on their new game. A contract is signed, and Realm Interactive gives their game the working title of Trade Wars: Dark Millennium.
2002: In July, TW: Dark Millennium is picked up by NCsoft (publisher of Lineage), a major player in online game development. The company is based in Korea, and the US division is headed by Richard and Robert Garriott, formerly of Origin.
2002: In September, Pritchett is invited to join the Realm team for 6 months on the TW:DM project. He accepts the opportunity and relocates to Phoenix for the winter.
2002: In October, Realm hires Joe Madureira, a well known comic book artist (Battle Chasers, Uncanny X-Men, and others). His distinct style transforms the visuals of the game. By this point, development of the game has diverged from the original Trade Wars influences. Because of this, it is mutually agreed that the Trade Wars association should be dropped. The game title is changed to Exarch.
2003: In March, NCsoft officially announces the Exarch project. Pritchett returns home and begins work on independent projects, including future plans for Trade Wars.