Top text based games

You just don’t hear about large-scale text based games these days, but Torn has been rather quietly seeing massive success on desktop PCs. Launched 14 years ago, Torn bills itself as the game that Mafia Wars was built on. It lets players build a life in the city as a business owner, mob boss, or somewhere in between. You can take part in robberies, invest in the stock market, race cars, manage properties, the sky is the limit. Continuing its success on PC, which has seen more than 2 million players worldwide and 20 thousand daily active users, Torn will be coming to Android devices on May 8. Alternately you can play right now by visiting the link down below. MMO Fallout should be running some preview coverage of the mobile version at some point in the future. (Source: Torn) … [Read more...] about Online Text RPG Torn Coming To Android In May

It’s been a while since we talked about Starmourn here on Massively OP, but if you squint back into 2016, you’ll remember that it was announced as a new roleplay-centric, sci-fi massively multiplayer MUD by developer Iron Realms, which itself has been around for decades pumping out and maintaining high-quality text-based MMOs. The game features extreme customization, crafting, player economy, 50 alien races, PvP combat, starships, creative death mechanics – the works. As MOP tipster Avaera reminded us, the game is now set for the launch of its “first playable release” this year and has been rolling up game information at a steady pace over the last couple of years. This summer, for example, Iron Realms has covered the game world’s core government, complete with lore, as well as its unique combat. “Starting from a relatively clean slate with Starmourn has allowed us to work on some of the pipedreams and ‘wouldn’t it be nice if … [Read more...] about Text-based MMO MUD Starmourn is a sci-fi sandbox spectacle due out later this year

While the common assumption about text-based MMOs is that they can and will last forever, the truth is that many of these are subject to the same fates as graphical MMORPGs. So it is with the three decade-old Federation 2, which closed its doors back on October 1st. The owners said that the shutdown was necessary due to technical reasons, including changing security requirements, health issues of the operators, and the loss of the game’s hosting company. “The game itself has been slowly fading from its peak on AOL where it had thousands of players online all at once, the move to the internet coincided with text games going out of fashion and graphical games taking over,” the operators posted. “And so, with sorrow in our hearts, we have had to make the decision that it is time to draw the Federation era to a close.” Launching back in the late ’80s, Federation 2 was heavily focused on an intergalactic economy and social interactions between … [Read more...] about Federation 2, a text-based intergalactic trading game from the 1980s, has sunsetted

Toxicity in online gaming just keeps popping up – specifically as it pertains to chat and commenting. MOP reader Tanek pointed us to a thread about Standing Stone Games, which is apparently blocking specific words in LOTRO’s chat, including supposedly “political” words, leading some players to demand the company publish the full list to prove to said players they’re not “biased” (not gonna happen). Reader Stephen then linked us to the amusing story of a Norwegian site that’s developed a WordPress plugin that requires people to take a quiz on an article’s contents before being allowed to comment. Finally, there’s Saga of Lucimia, which this week spent its Monday dev blog discussing the Fair Play Alliance and its own home-grown play nice policy – and the fact that it will take a zero-tolerance, insta-ban approach to dealing with racism (we’ll assume other bigotry too). All of these are approaches to handling … [Read more...] about The Daily Grind: Are blacklists, quizzes, and threats effective at reducing text toxicity in MMOs?

Torn, is coming to Android. Slated for a May 8th launch, players will rise through the ranks of Torn City’s criminal underworld, forming alliances with over 2 million players worldwide. Take part in gang-related activities (heists, robberies), trade for resources in a game that boasts 20k daily active users and has enjoyed 14 years of success on desktop. Incredibly, the game has also seen 4 real-life marriages of TORN players and a real-life employment of a Torn City company owner who was so impressed by his employee’s digital work ethic he was hired in real life! … [Read more...] about World’s Largest Text-Based MMO ‘Torn’ Coming to Android