GameStorm was an online gaming

Online game

An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...

 service founded by Kesmai

Kesmai

Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981 by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim Air Warrior on the GEnie online service, one of the first graphical MMOGs, launched in 1987...

 corporation in the 1990s. It offered several online video games at a flat monthly fee of $10 per month, a relatively radical payment system in the age of pay-by-hour online gaming. Both Kesmai and GameStorm were sold to Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...

 in 1999, and shut down by Electronic Arts in 2001.

GameStorm featured games developed by Kesmai, such as Air Warrior

Air Warrior

Air Warrior was an early multiplayer on-line air-combat simulator. A player is able to fly a simulated World War II aircraft, fighting with and against other players, each flying his own simulated aircraft. It was introduced in 1986 by Kelton Flinn and his company Kesmai. At this time the internet...

, Multiplayer Battletech: Solaris

Multiplayer Battletech: Solaris

This version of the multiplayer BattleTech computer game was available on AOL, and on Kesmai's game service between 1996 and 2001. At its height on the AOL server, thousands of players competed simultaneously in arenas of two to eight participants, battling in team games or free-for-alls...

, Stellar Emperor and Legends of Kesmai, along with games developed by several other companies. Legends of Kesmai was the 2d graphical version of Kesmai's groundbreaking Islands of Kesmai

Islands of Kesmai

Island of Kesmai was an early commercial online game in the MUD genre, innovative in its use of roguelike pseudo-graphics. It is considered a major forerunner of modern MMORPGs.-Launch date:...

 MUD

MUD

A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...

 from 1985, and may be regarded as an important step in the genre leap from MUDs to MMORPGs. GameStorm's payment method was massively popular for the emerging persistent online gaming genres that rewarded players for time invested, but were too expensive for many people to pay $2/hour for on AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 or other gaming services. Mythic Entertainment

Mythic Entertainment

BioWare Mythic is a computer game developer in Fairfax, Virginia which is most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot...

 (Now EA-Mythic), widely known for the Dark Age of Camelot

Dark Age of Camelot

Dark Age of Camelot is a 3D medieval fantasy MMORPG, released on October 10 2001 in North America and in Europe shortly after through it's partner GOA. It is still running today recently celebrating its 10th anniversary....

 MMORPG

MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

, was one of Gamestorms major developers. Mythic offered several licensed RPG and persistent non-RPG games to Gamestorm's library, including Dragon's Gate

Dragon's Gate

Dragon's Gate was an interactive, real time, text-based multi user online fantasy role-playing game, sometimes referred to as a MUD. It was one of the longest running pay-for-play online games in the world, it opened to the public in the spring of 1990 on GEnie. In the summer of 1996 the game was...

. Starship Troopers Online, Magestorm

Magestorm

Rolemaster: Magestorm was an online-only first-person shooter using magical spells as weapons. It was developed in 1996 by Interworld Productions . It centered on team-based gameplay and included some role-playing elements, notably the character class and level-based systems...

, Aliens Online, Splatterball, Godzilla Online, Silent Death Online

Silent Death Online

Silent Death: Online, often abbreviated to 'SDO' or 'SD', was a top-view spaceship fighter game created by Mythic Entertainment who originally licensed the rights from Iron Crown Enterprises, before purchasing them upon its bankruptcy....

, Darkness Falls, and Darkness Falls: The Crusade

Darkness Falls: The Crusade

Darkness Falls: The Crusade , known informally as DFC and DF2, was an internet fantasy MUD-style game developed by Mythic Entertainment, and which has been hosted by America Online, GameStorm, and Centropolis Entertainment...

.

External links

• The MultiPlayer BattleTech Archive
• http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/interviews/legendsofkesmai.htm
• http://www.legendsofkesmai.com