Old news cast about an early MMO

[Jackolantern]

All the talk in another thread about "roguelike" graphic games (which use ASCII characters to display the world) reminded me of this YouTube video. It is from a 1988 episode of "The Computer Chronicles". While the "massive" part can be questioned, there is no doubt that Island of Kesnai is one of the earliest non-ARPANET, non-intranet graphical MMORPGs (before Compuserve, most other computer networks were hardwired to set areas, such as universities, which limited MUD players to play at one of those terminals). It debuted on Compuserve in 1985 on their pre-internet proprietary nationwide network. I just found this news cast on YouTube. I have heard that some players who got sucked into Kesnai would sometimes be paying Compuserve bills of $500+ each month. Regardless of the cost, it is quite interesting to take such a distant look back in the history of MMOs

[SpiritWebb]

Its interesting to see how far we have come in just a little over 20 years. Makes you think what it will be like in another 20 years when it comes to MMO's.

[Callan S.]

It also shows how that game was quite enough to be enjoyable for people. Yet perhaps alot of gamers would reject it today off first impressions. Which raises the question, if gamers today reject a game does that mean it's bad, or just that gamers expect things which aren't actually to do with fun and are spoilt?

[Jackolantern]

I have thought of that before, too. People loved Frogger, Pong, and Atari 2600 decades ago. They dropped hundreds of dollars into arcade machines to play them, people paid thousand-dollar phone and internet bills to play MUDs, etc. But I think a certain amount of being "spoiled" is to be expected. It is just the evolution of man, even if we are only looking at one tiny segment of it (MMORPGs). People used to live in small huts with dirt floors, drank unclean water and slaughtered their own food. But we look at that today and say that is unacceptable, even though there were many people who were happy they had that back then. So I don't believe there is anything wrong with a large number of players not accepting those kinds of games today. Once you see progress it is hard to go back.

[Callan S.]

Well in terms of unclean water, that's a health hazard. I don't think frogger was a health hazzard and weve moved on to healthy games now (or for lolz, games today are just as RSI inducing).

I'm not sure I'd call it progress, but hard to go back? I'm thinking yeah.

Just saying it's a reason for people to not to beat themselves up about their projects - there really is a spoilt factor out there that doesn't let the game get a proper run. Take your game back in time to the eighties and it'd be cherished.