Home >> Internet Games >> Computer Games

What Is a Text-Based RPG?

The first text-based RPGs appeared in the late 1970s, representing a hybrid of traditional role-playing games and text adventures. These games allowed players to explore virtual environments, which were described through prose, while adventuring alongside other players connected to the game's server. Text-based RPGs are most commonly referred to as "multi-user dungeons," or MUDs, and while most online RPG players gravitate to graphic multiplayer games, MUDs still have a devoted player base.

History
- Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw created the first text-based RPG in 1978 at Britain's Essex University using BCPL, a forerunner of C language created by Martin Richards in 1966. The initial version of the application simply allowed a user to navigate a virtual environment without interacting with it, but in his MUD timeline on the "Multi-User Entertainment LTD" website, Bartle notes that between 1978 and 1980, the programmers added RPG conventions such as combat, inventory management and interaction with the environment to the game, which came to be called MUD1. The concept caught on with student programmers at universities who typically hosted their creations on their schools' UNIX systems.
Alter Egos
- Before a player enters the game's virtual world, he creates an alter ego specializing in a particular profession suited to the game's setting, such as a wizard or a knight in a fantasy world, or a starship pilot or high-tech soldier in a science-fiction environment. As the player kills opponents and completes tasks, he gains experience and becomes more powerful, learning new skills or gaining new offensive capabilities such as destructive spells or advanced weaponry. Players' primary attributes and skill ratings are represented as numerical values on their character display, and the game uses these values in algorithms to perform calculations, which determine a player's success in activities such as engaging in combat or picking a lock, as well as calculating the damage inflicted by a player's attacks.
MUD Clients
- Players connect to the RPG's server through a client application that uses the telnet protocol. A player can use a basic telnet client, though most experienced gamers use specialized MUD client,s which provide additional functionality such as the ability to create macros, a sequence of commands, which can be executed with a single keystroke. A no-frills telnet client, also referred to as "raw telnet," doesn't provide a dedicated input box for commands and chatting, and a player's input can be jumbled with the MUD's room descriptions and incoming chat from other players, making the on-screen text difficult to decipher. Free MUD clients are available for a wide range of operating systems, such as Windows, OS X, Unix and Linux.
Rise of Graphic MMORPG
- As modems became capable of handling the data transmission demands of graphic RPGs, these newer games eroded the player base of the text-based games. The first graphic online RPGs appeared during the 1980s, with Lucasfilm Games' "Habitat" making its debut on Quantum Link, an online service that was America Online's predecessor. While "Habitat" was more an enhanced chat environment than an actual game, in 1991 AOL offered "Neverwinter Nights," a full-fledged graphic RPG, to its subscribers for an additional hourly fee. In 1997, Richard Garriott and Ralph Koster introduced "Ultima Online," a multiplayer RPG based on Garriott's successful "Ultima" series of single-player games. "Ultima Online" charged a monthly fee for access and since the game wasn't exclusive to a particular online service provider, any gamer with an Internet connection could play. By 1998, "Ultima Online" had 100,000 subscribers.

Computer Games