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Milawe · 09-01-2007, 11:39 AM

I love graphical games, but they NEVER offer me the depth of gameplay and character interaction that text games do. The thing I love most about graphical games is that the interface is usually easier to deal with, and it's nice to look at. The thing that I hate about graphical games is what continually drives me to look for a text game to call home again. (I've been adrift for 7 years!)

If I'm going to be playing anything that involves other people, I want communication to be easy. Switching back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard in order to communicate with my fellow gamers is something I found HORRIBLY painful in graphical games. There's absolutely no chance at immersion, for me, because I'm flying back and forth between keyboard and mouse. Plus, with text games, you can easily chat while in combat because your attack commands and your chat commands are already interacting. Not true of graphical games. If you hit enter to open a chat box, you cannot use your keyboard to move until you're out of that chat box. That usually results in your character screaming, "wwwwaaaaaaasssssssssssdddddddddd" or "Hesl[p! Helas now! wwwas" as you're trying not to die to something. Painful. Thus, the new way of dealing with this on graphical games is to go to voice chat. That completely destroys any attempt at immersion for me. With the addition of voice chat, also, you're going to get no RP. Most of us aren't actors, and going between text and voice just gets flat out confusing.

Last but not least, I love to emote (posing). I love reading other people's emotes and reacting to them. I love RP. Trying to RP in a graphical MMO is just painful for me. First of all, your character RARELY does what you're emoting. You type: "/em hug Brody", and your character stands there like a lump. If your character does manage to lift its arms, chances are that Brody is way across the screen, and your character has an armful of background pixels. You also end up spending a lot of time trying to get your characters positioned just right, and that's no FUN.

So, for me, playing an MMO can be relaxing, but I don't play it for more than the leveling aspects of the game. It's kinda like Super Mario Bros with extra people for me. I like the game play, and I like the strategy. It doesn't spark my creativity, and it never really tells a story for me. I especially detest the new trend where you do 23429734928742987 quests to level. By "quests", I mean "Please gather 18 horse hooves for me and return. Oh, you're back? Please gather 17 bull nuts for me and return. Oh, you're back? Okay, now go out to the same place you've already been twice and gather 9 porcupine noses for me. Don't ask me why you couldn't get them all at the same time. I'm the one giving you the quest. Now, be off! Oh! You're back. Thanks, now take these three things, go to the Fall of Frustration and mix it all into a brew using these 8 quest items that I'm giving you to take up space in your backpack. Come back when you're done. Oh, you're done? Please travel across the world by taking the boat, riding 18 horses, hopping on dragonback, and flying to the 15th cloud in the right. Give it to the random guy you see standing there, and he might give you something to bring back to me...." I do NOT call that a well-written quest. BLECH.

So, anyway, back to the question: Is there a correlation between graphical MMOs and text games to movies and books? I definitely think so. The graphical games just can't get the depth that text games have regardless of how hard the players try. The support and the interface simply isn't there. Text games are much more like a book. The characters interact in more meaningful ways. Your surroundings can support much more than simple pixel interaction with a mouse. Text games, though, also move slower, in my opinion, much like a book does to a movie. There's probably more examples than what I can think of right off the top of my head.

09-01-2007, 11:39 AM	#3
Milawe Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: USA Home MUD: Threshold RPG Home MUD: Stash Home MUD: Archons of Avenshar Posts: 653	Re: The Book and the Movie I love graphical games, but they NEVER offer me the depth of gameplay and character interaction that text games do. The thing I love most about graphical games is that the interface is usually easier to deal with, and it's nice to look at. The thing that I hate about graphical games is what continually drives me to look for a text game to call home again. (I've been adrift for 7 years!) If I'm going to be playing anything that involves other people, I want communication to be easy. Switching back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard in order to communicate with my fellow gamers is something I found HORRIBLY painful in graphical games. There's absolutely no chance at immersion, for me, because I'm flying back and forth between keyboard and mouse. Plus, with text games, you can easily chat while in combat because your attack commands and your chat commands are already interacting. Not true of graphical games. If you hit enter to open a chat box, you cannot use your keyboard to move until you're out of that chat box. That usually results in your character screaming, "wwwwaaaaaaasssssssssssdddddddddd" or "Hesl[p! Helas now! wwwas" as you're trying not to die to something. Painful. Thus, the new way of dealing with this on graphical games is to go to voice chat. That completely destroys any attempt at immersion for me. With the addition of voice chat, also, you're going to get no RP. Most of us aren't actors, and going between text and voice just gets flat out confusing. Last but not least, I love to emote (posing). I love reading other people's emotes and reacting to them. I love RP. Trying to RP in a graphical MMO is just painful for me. First of all, your character RARELY does what you're emoting. You type: "/em hug Brody", and your character stands there like a lump. If your character does manage to lift its arms, chances are that Brody is way across the screen, and your character has an armful of background pixels. You also end up spending a lot of time trying to get your characters positioned just right, and that's no FUN. So, for me, playing an MMO can be relaxing, but I don't play it for more than the leveling aspects of the game. It's kinda like Super Mario Bros with extra people for me. I like the game play, and I like the strategy. It doesn't spark my creativity, and it never really tells a story for me. I especially detest the new trend where you do 23429734928742987 quests to level. By "quests", I mean "Please gather 18 horse hooves for me and return. Oh, you're back? Please gather 17 bull nuts for me and return. Oh, you're back? Okay, now go out to the same place you've already been twice and gather 9 porcupine noses for me. Don't ask me why you couldn't get them all at the same time. I'm the one giving you the quest. Now, be off! Oh! You're back. Thanks, now take these three things, go to the Fall of Frustration and mix it all into a brew using these 8 quest items that I'm giving you to take up space in your backpack. Come back when you're done. Oh, you're done? Please travel across the world by taking the boat, riding 18 horses, hopping on dragonback, and flying to the 15th cloud in the right. Give it to the random guy you see standing there, and he might give you something to bring back to me...." I do NOT call that a well-written quest. BLECH. So, anyway, back to the question: Is there a correlation between graphical MMOs and text games to movies and books? I definitely think so. The graphical games just can't get the depth that text games have regardless of how hard the players try. The support and the interface simply isn't there. Text games are much more like a book. The characters interact in more meaningful ways. Your surroundings can support much more than simple pixel interaction with a mouse. Text games, though, also move slower, in my opinion, much like a book does to a movie. There's probably more examples than what I can think of right off the top of my head.