Iron Realms?

[javasaurus]

Anyone here play Iron Realms games? There is a set of four text-style MUDs out there (see their homesite for the specifics) that are supposedly fully developed, professionally run MUDs with no graphics, very old-school in that sense, but well-matured, and very complex. They claim that WoW, EQ, and similar games have traded depth for eye-candy. Oh, I should mention that it's supposedly free to play.

Thoughts?

Comments

[dacuteturtle.livejournal.com]

I disagree that depth <> eyecandy. Humans are visual creatures. The visual processing parts of our brains are huge. Satisfying the senses (visual, audio) is a primary part of gaming.

That much said, WTF is depth? Seriously. Is it storyline? Is it complexity of playing rules? Is it breadth of playing rules? Size of the world? Interactivity? How long you keep interested? All of the above? Is there something as too deep?

I do agree that games have been dumbed down over time. Then again, the best games out there (Tetris, Pac-Man, Space Invaders) are amazingly dumb games. You get them quickly, but that's not the same as mastering them. So dumb, complex, and simple aren't depth, yet each is somehow vital to the game.

Making a game is easy. Listen to the experts. Games are easy to make. Good game-play, however, that's hard. It's that drive to develop good-game play that gets killed by the modern game industry.

Given the size and success of WoW, I must conclude that Blizzard developed a good game-play for WoW. By all measures, those who play it love to play it, and they play it a whole lot. Depth or no depth, it's got game-play, and that's what counts.