Microprose Founder Really Wants You To Know He Was In The Military

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Scott Jennings| 17 Comments

Massively has an interview with “Wild” Bill Stealey, co-founder of paeleo-PC game company Microprose whose entire catalog I purchased several times. Sadly Master of Magic was NOT MENTIONED.

However, something was:

Whether they were in my regiment when I was in the Army, or in my squadron, or my wing when I was in the Air Force, or the guys in the Air Force Academy; those are the kind of people I trust my life to. So those are the kind of people I want to hang out with.

I’m a retired military officer, five of the guys who are associated with this are all Air Force Academy graduates. We’re working with two Naval Academy graduates; we have a bunch of shooters from Fort Bragg coming in.

In the military we’d have the ready rooms, we’d have the squadron break room or we’d have the Officer’s Club, and this is like our little Officer’s Club to go hang out in.

Remember: service guarantees citizenship.

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  • Schtee

    He’s cool and all, but I’d respect him more if he’d served…

  • Vandermint

    I don’t get the snark. The guy’s making an “action-based military MMO”. If Ric Flair made a professional wrestling MMO, he’d probably talk about how his best friends were other wrestlers, how he’d like to bring in other wrestlers to contibute and give their perspective, and that the social networking part of the game would be similar to how the wrestlers hung out in the lockerroom or at a hotel bar or whatever.

    And this game would be awesome.

    Anyway, what’s the big deal? Are you going to stop talking about DAOC, WebWars, and LtM now?

  • Pentagony

    Would you like to know more?

  • http://www.brokentoys.org/ Scott Jennings

    Vandermint :

    I don’t get the snark. The guy’s making an “action-based military MMO”.

    It’s very mild snark. I have tons of respect for veterans and only mildly less respect for ones that remind you of it every paragraph in an interview.

  • http://bdadv.blogspot.com Bonedead

    Freedom isn’t free
    It costs folks like you and me
    And if we don’t all chip in
    We’ll never pay that bill
    Freedom isn’t free
    No there’s a hefty fuckin’ fee
    And if you don’t throw in your buck ‘o five
    Who will?

    You don’t throw in your buck ‘o five. Who will?
    Oooh buck ‘o five
    Freedom costs a buck ‘o five

    praise allah for edits imo

  • tannenburg

    - clicks Pentagony -

  • dartwick

    His comments seem reasonable.

  • Shannon B

    There’s an ancient photo up next to our boardroom of my boss shaking hands with him. I walk past it every day to get coffee. Kinda glad to see he’s still going in the games industry.

  • Glasseye

    “Starship Troopers” is a much more tolerable book/movie if you treat it as parody. ;)

  • http://www.gawaintheblind.com GTB

    man, Master of Magic was the SHIT. I can’t understand why nobody has made an updated version.

  • Triforcer

    The world is divided into two types of people- those who think Starship Troopers was the bestest movie ever, and those who say its the worst they ever saw. I’m in the first camp :)

    EDIT: I love how the edit function has a cooldown. Thanks for reminding me MORE of shitty MMOs.

  • freakachu

    I played the hell out of master of magic back when I was a kid. I would stay up all night methodically crushing my enemies. totally awesome game, even now.

  • Please

    Master of Magic > Civilization.

    Discuss.

  • Vasagi

    Glasseye :“Starship Troopers” is a much more tolerable book/movie if you treat it as parody.

    Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is much more tolerable than Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven.
    Maybe the movie would’ve been better if Carl had started playing the theme to Doogie Howser on his keyboard or something.

  • Owain

    Starship Troopers, the novel, was one of the most influential and controversial pieces of science fiction of the second half of the twentieth century. As a USAF Academy grad myself (’76), there is much in it that speaks directly to my own experiences. You may not agree with much of Heinlein’s philosophy presented in that book, but it is thought provoking, even after 50 years.

    It is annoying that hacks like Verhoeven think that they have to ‘improve’ on a classic. If filmed as written, it would have been a much better movie. As it is, ST the Movie is definately ‘meh’ inspiring.

  • Hoplite

    GTB :
    man, Master of Magic was the SHIT. I can’t understand why nobody has made an updated version.

    Stardock is working on Elemental: War of Magic which is “not-MoM”, but from what Brad Wardell has indicated is inspired by it. Stardock did try to acquire the rights to the name Master of Magic. You can google the particulars.

  • Xanthippe

    Scott Jennings :

    Vandermint :

    I don’t get the snark. The guy’s making an “action-based military MMO”.

    It’s very mild snark. I have tons of respect for veterans and only mildly less respect for ones that remind you of it every paragraph in an interview.

    Isn’t it relevant to this particular title, though?

    It’s not like John Kerry, reminding everyone of his service in Vietnam while running for President.

    He’s making a military mmo. He’s talking about the background of some of the people involved.

    It’s entirely germane to the interview and the game being promoted.