Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
As computer technology was still relatively new and was only being used in
universities and businesses, the lack of amazing graphics was not a hindrance as it
would be in today
s modern games. The technology was as amazing to the people
using it as the automobile or airplanes were at the start of the 20th century.
'
The initial games on these mainframe systems were text-based and text-based
adventure games were a perfect fit for this technology. The university systems
were networked and it wasn
t long before these adventure games were given a
basic level of multiplayer functionality. Many of these first adventure games
were based on fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. These
computer games were named MUD, which is an abbreviation of multi-user
dungeon. The multiplayer aspect of these games was basic by today
'
s standards
and was limited to sending email messages and chatting within the game.
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Bulletin Boards
As computer systems began to improve and move from universities and
enterprise businesses to the home, new technology began to appear that allowed
home users to communicate with computer systems around the world. This
technology was called the Modem (modulator demodulator), and by placing the
phone receiver on a box (later on this was replaced by using a small box or
internal PC card connected directly to the phone line), you were able to make
the computer call and connect to another computer or server. Software was
created to make it easier to connect to these remote computer systems called
bulletin boards. Bulletin board software also provided additional features to
download, upload, email, chat, and play online games, whereby the users could
play a game remotely, usually in single player mode. Due to the slow download
speeds of the early modems, these bulletin boards were generally text based.
The Internet Revolution
The process of connecting to, and communicating with, other machines over a
telephone line was still problematic. Telephone call charges were expensive,
modems were extremely slow (and expensive), and limited access to a particular
machine/server meant redialing every time to get a different set of information/
site. A number of events took place that managed to take accessing remote
computers from a specialist only activity to a wider ranging and more popular
activity. First was the introduction of the World Wide Web (the Internet),
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