Comment Re:Plato (Score 1) 179
I used to play Drygulch (and Empire) all the time back in the mid-80s. Drygulch was great, you had to delve the mine (something like a 30+? level maze, each floor something like 20x20 squares I think, it's been a while, but thru your mining you could actually deplete walls and clear a whole level) for ore, take it up to the assay office and cash it in for better supplies (all represented by little vector grachic icons of course) and sundries. You could traverse the badlands to find sister city, not an easy feat by anymeans but the sister mine was far richer). All in all a great game.
But I spent the most time by far on Moria, that game was the ultimate. It was dungeon-crawling-roleplayingesque game with vector graphics in a small window in the center depicting the dungeon and the directions you could travel. The world was divide up into different terrains (forrest, dessert, mountains, etc) but of course everything looked like the same vector-wall dungeon, but hey that's where imagination comes into play! You only got one character at a time, and once dead that char was gone for good (only to be remembered in the hall of fame!) You could party with quite a few other players at a time (which of course you could never "see" in the dungeon, just on a list of who's in the room at the time) and go exploring. The max # of players was quite a few I think (greater than 30 I think). My last char I remember was pj17 (incremented every time I died). Anyone remember hunting for the Ring or discovering the hidden levels like the Ocean? (A longshot I know but what the hell)
I was actually like a 4th/5th grader (read: zbrat) at the time so everything on a 'puter was cool then. Still though reading thru these sites makes me quite a bit nostalgic for those days.
I wonder what would it take to resurrect those PLATO games to their former glory? I imagine copywrites, or a complete lack of source code would be a stumbling block. But, it's not like it'd take a lot of resources or bandwidth to host the whole thing (I used to connect at 9600 baud on the high end). I think I could put more time into those games (if the community was there of course) than into Neverwinter or EverQuest or any other so-called MMPORG. I wonder...
But I spent the most time by far on Moria, that game was the ultimate. It was dungeon-crawling-roleplayingesque game with vector graphics in a small window in the center depicting the dungeon and the directions you could travel. The world was divide up into different terrains (forrest, dessert, mountains, etc) but of course everything looked like the same vector-wall dungeon, but hey that's where imagination comes into play! You only got one character at a time, and once dead that char was gone for good (only to be remembered in the hall of fame!) You could party with quite a few other players at a time (which of course you could never "see" in the dungeon, just on a list of who's in the room at the time) and go exploring. The max # of players was quite a few I think (greater than 30 I think). My last char I remember was pj17 (incremented every time I died). Anyone remember hunting for the Ring or discovering the hidden levels like the Ocean? (A longshot I know but what the hell)
I was actually like a 4th/5th grader (read: zbrat) at the time so everything on a 'puter was cool then. Still though reading thru these sites makes me quite a bit nostalgic for those days.
I wonder what would it take to resurrect those PLATO games to their former glory? I imagine copywrites, or a complete lack of source code would be a stumbling block. But, it's not like it'd take a lot of resources or bandwidth to host the whole thing (I used to connect at 9600 baud on the high end). I think I could put more time into those games (if the community was there of course) than into Neverwinter or EverQuest or any other so-called MMPORG. I wonder...
