A little bit of game history...

I am bored here at work, babysitting an empty TSA-monitored warehouse.  From my "what are your top 5 games" thread I know a lot of you are big fans of Master of Orion and, obviously, so are the people who make Galactic Civilizations.  So, even though it is off topic, I figured most of you would be interested in this story... and I am one of a very few people who actually know this story.  I can't tell the end of the story, you'll just have to use your imaginations as to how it ends, but I can tell the story of where Master of Orion actually came from.

The story of Master of Orion begins with the formation of the company you know today as New World Computing... I bet you weren't expecting that, were you?  In the late 1980's a group of Commander's Edition SFB Staff members led by a former SFB national champion named Jon van Canaghem left the SFB Staff to form a computer game company with the sole purpose of producing the games of the Star Fleet Universe as computer games.  They did this with the knowledge and cooperation of Task Force Games, the publishers of the Star Fleet Universe.  They made a couple simple games, such as the classic "Nuclear War", while trying to arrange their ultimate goal of making the SFU games.  Unfortunately, Paramount ultimately told them that they would never, ever allow computer games based on the Star Fleet Universe to be made.  Paramount had never authorized the Star Fleet Universe (Majel Roddenberry did during the "dead years" between the cancellation of the original TV series and the first movie... it's a long story) and was adamant there would never be any Star Fleet Universe computer games.  New World Computing then made a deal with TFG for the rights to make a computer version of a board game we had in the design phase at that time called "King's Bounty" and, in a move that was far ahead of its time, TFG and New World Computing ultimately did a simultaneous release of a board game and computer game together.  During the making of King's Bounty the guys at New World were inspired to make Might & Magic... and the rest, as they say, is history.  And yes, ultimately both Might & Magic and Master of Orion arose from the same set of circumstances.

Of course, the news that Paramount had told New World Computing essentially "you'll make a Star Fleet Universe game over our dead bodies" was, as you might imagine, a hard blow to the SFB Staff.  In fact, it was unacceptable to the some members of the SFB staff.  Steve Cole's SFB Staff is the original such organization.  Steve Cole literally invented the modern method of making games that most game companies use today when he created the SFB staff in 1978 operating through the US mail.  Much like his game, SVC is the Rodney Dangerfield of the gaming world... "he don't get no respect".  He is "the father of modern game design" and he practically invented the process by which games are made today.  There is a big difference between the SFB staff and its distant descendants of today such as this "founders program".  The SFB Staff was far, far more serious than it's modern day descendants.  I am a rarity among SFB Staff members, chosen purely for my natural game design abilities.  Most SFB Staff members have some type of alphabet soup associated with their names... doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and military officers.  The SFB staff included scientists from JPL and Lawrence Livermore, a 2-star Marine Corps General, and an Air Force Colonel from US Space Command (really, no foolin').  This is the group of people they told could never have a comupter game version of their favorite game.

You'll have to use your imaginations from this point, because you won't ever find anyone that will be willing to finish this story for you, but this is where Master of Orion ultimately came from.  This is where it began.