Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!nstar!pallas!wally
From: wally@athenanet.com (Wally Hartshorn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Sierra's gaming network (was re: CDTV etc.)
Summary: Why not play-by-modem RPGs, like 2-player Dungeon Master?
Message-ID: <1991Jun22.220223.24395@athenanet.com>
Date: 22 Jun 91 22:02:23 GMT
References: <lq+l6wr@rpi.edu>
Organization: Athenanet, Inc.,  Springfield, Illinois
Lines: 42

In article <lq+l6wr@rpi.edu> kudla@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla) writes:
>Well, Sierra is starting an online service devoted exclusively to
>multiplayer interactive gaming....
...
>Basic concepts: Will eventually allow you to play your
>Sierra games that support a modem with just about anyone for $12 a month in
>big cities and $2 an hour outside urban areas.  They're also supposedly
>developing really cool interactive adventure type games like the old Habitat
>on Qlink would have been (I imagine) but at the moment the only net-specific
>games they have are things like backgammon.

The thing I've been waiting to see for quite some time is a modem option
for role-playing games.  For instance, Bard's Tale in which you run half
the characters and your friend (over the modem) runs the other half.  Or
something like the air traffic control game that works with Flight Simulator.
One person's machine would be the "host", with multiple serial ports, etc,
while the others ran single characters connected to the host.  Basically,
what I'm looking for is something like the old "avatar" game available on
the PLATO system at Univ. of IL (and other sites).  Up to 25 players at a time,
all journeying in the same dungeon, helping each other out in real time.
Getting lost when you were poisoned meant yelling for help and having a couple
of people poring over their maps and running through the dungeon, trying to
find you or get you unlost and back to the city before you died.  Getting large
groups together in a single party to journey down to the deepest levels of the
dungeon, because one of the players has been "quested" to locate and kill
Asmodeus before he can advance another level.  Multiplayer games are by far
the best when it comes to computer gaming.  Island of Kesmai (on Compuserve)
and Gemstone Warrior (on GEnie) are nice, but it just isn't the same, partly
because they aren't graphic adventures like avatar was and partly because
you've got that little number after the dollar sign that keeps getting larger
and larger....  Anyone out there ever played avatar?  (Or for that matter
a little game called "ADVDND" that I wrote on the U of I CDC Cyber system?
Only had 200 players, but perhaps one of these days I'll bump into one of
them....)

In the meantime, I have grand visions of writing something like that myself.
But then again, meglomania IS a disease.  :-)
-- 
Wally Hartshorn (uunet!nstar!pallas!wally or wally@athenanet.com)
President, Amiga Computer Enthusiasts of Springfield (ACES)
Chronicler, Shire of Swordcliff, SCA
Sysop, The Quest, F&SF BBS, Citadel-68K node US (217) 546-7608