I played a text-based MUD called Federation II for about a year before I moved over to a more popular title named Gemstone III, which was a sort of text-based p

I played a text-based MUD called Federation II for about a year before I moved over to a more popular title named Gemstone III, which was a sort of text-based precursor to World of Warcraft, where you could run around and kill rats and cast spells and such. I was obsessed with GS3 for a few years until my early teens. It was no less addictive than Warcraft later became (at massive scale), and back in the days when AOL was $3 per hour for dial-up, this was not an inexpensive activity. Fortunately my parents wanted to support my interests and for several years I received "AOL coupons" for all the usual holidays, my birthday, and chores around the house. I'm glad they found a way to make it work, because those experiences are what inspired me to learn how to code - I wanted to make a virtual world just like the ones I fell in love with playing. Most people I've talked to who never played them definitely underestimate how immerse a text environment can be. Here's a video that shows the medium for those are who may not have seen it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJrC1xD4DM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJrC1xD4DM8