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Right, text is the lowest bandwidth form of communicating imagination. And to make up for that low bandwidth users have to exercise their own imagination. It's

Right, text is the lowest bandwidth form of communicating imagination. And to make up for that low bandwidth users have to exercise their own imagination. It's like storing actual vertices of a sphere, vs. having the client execute code to generate the vertices given a position and radius. This is as opposed to graphics where the creator has enough bandwidth to actually portray their imagination on the screen. While there's undoubtedly an appeal to exercising one's own imagination, it introduces two key shortcomings. One, the users imagination doesn't always produce the expected output, and two by locking the interface into a text based interface a whole host of gameplay options are off the table. You're never going to have a text based racing game, or anything involving physics. There's a reason why almost all text based MUDs have a graph or grid based world and turn based gameplay: because that's all you can really do with a text based interface. You could build a racing minigame in a text based MUD but it's probably just be rolling checks against some kind of character stats rather than having the player actually guide a car around a track.

stOneskull 6y ago
i made a text based horse-racing game. it's just different. a different medium and experience. i remember an old DOS professional wrestling game that was text and i found it more fun than the wrestling arcade game. my memories of it have better graphics even.
astrobe_ 6y ago
> the users imagination doesn't always produce the expected output That's not a bug, it's a feature that literature uses quite a lot. > You're never going to have a text based racing game Actually thinking and typing fast in some MUDs can be vital. > There's a reason why almost all text based MUDs have a graph or grid based world and turn based gameplay: because that's all you can really do with a text based interface Roguelikes are turn-based, but MUDs are semi-real time (sort of turn based with short time limit). The grid layout is essentially historical in the sense that users have certain expectations. Probably one could use GPS coordinates and Logo-style commands, nowadays even a rusted Raspi could handle that. But builders and makers are, I believe, more interested in world-, story- and character- building than in technical feats like this. And so are the players.

stOneskull 6y ago

i made a text based horse-racing game. it's just different. a different medium and experience. i remember an old DOS professional wrestling game that was text and i found it more fun than the wrestling arcade game. my memories of it have better graphics even.

astrobe_ 6y ago

> the users imagination doesn't always produce the expected output That's not a bug, it's a feature that literature uses quite a lot. > You're never going to have a text based racing game Actually thinking and typing fast in some MUDs can be vital. > There's a reason why almost all text based MUDs have a graph or grid based world and turn based gameplay: because that's all you can really do with a text based interface Roguelikes are turn-based, but MUDs are semi-real time (sort of turn based with short time limit). The grid layout is essentially historical in the sense that users have certain expectations. Probably one could use GPS coordinates and Logo-style commands, nowadays even a rusted Raspi could handle that. But builders and makers are, I believe, more interested in world-, story- and character- building than in technical feats like this. And so are the players.