Comment by charcircuit

4 days ago

Can't you have multiple users in a dungeon in non text based games? See WoW and RuneScape.

Roguelikes have evolved from being text based long ago, so I don't see why MUDs have to be.

10 comments

charcircuit

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black_knight  4 days ago

Because then it would be a different thing?

WoW and Runescape exist. But MUDs exist too, and text and graphics have different possibilities. So it makes sense to have some of both in this rich world.

  • trashb  4 days ago

    Indeed, text and graphics are different styles and there are pro's and con's to either one. Similar to how some people enjoy ps1 style games over "modern graphics". One of the major pro's for text based games is accessibility.

    It's in a way comparable to the difference between a novel and a movie or a novel and a comic/manga.

    Really before the term MMO was coined these type of games where called "graphical MUDs"

    Also Runescape started as "DeviousMUD".

    Neverwinter, Runescape, Tibia, Ultima online, Everquest and more all formed from MUD lineage.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Graphical_MUDs

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_massively_multiplay...

bovermyer  4 days ago

You seem to be suffering from the misconception that text-only is a _bad_ thing.

  • charcircuit  4 days ago

    There is a difference between thinking a game being text-only is bad and thinking that a genre being text-only is bad.

bowsamic  4 days ago

Roguelikes use text as symbols, rather than being primarily literary. This comparison doesn’t make sense

klibertp  4 days ago

Roguelikes have had 2D UIs since the start (just rendered with characters), while a MUD with a 2D interface is not a MUD but an MMORPG. There's a bit of a middle ground in rich MUD clients that can reorganize the 1D stream of words visually into a dashboard, but that's as far as you can go while still calling it a MUD.

MUDs (and closely related single-user text adventure games) are a well-defined genre; you can improve various aspects of the presentation, add rich formatting, images, background music even, but the moment you stop using text as a main medium for gameplay, you're simply not doing a MUD anymore.

  • jghn  4 days ago

    I definitely saw MU* games with graphics schemes in the 90s, although most of the moment to moment activity happened in standard trulytext base "rooms". For instance there were a series of Battletech MU* games that would replicate cockpit HUDs, the hex maps, and related via ASCII art for you while piloting a mech.