Tempest Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I just saw a Slashdot article on Legends of Zork which is a new online browser style RPG. As I read the description it reminded me a lot of old BBS Door games like Usurper and LORD. However unlike those old door games, in LoZ you can buy more 'turns' each day which basically turns the game into a 'he who pays the most wins' type of deal, which doesn't appeal to me at all since I only have a limited amount of time to spend each day. I know there are a few small BBS's that still run Door based games, but is there a modern equivalent of games like LORD and Usurper? Someone mentioned Kingdom of Loathing might be what I'm looking for, has anyone played it? Is there anything else like these old Door games? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.golden.ax Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 (edited) Anyone remember Solar Realms Elite? *AH* I miss that, taking a turn at 11:45pm, and another at 12:01am. AX Edited April 3, 2009 by the.golden.ax Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Oh, yeah, I remember SRE. And TW2002. And Global War. And that football simulator...I forget its name. And so many others that I used to run back in my sysop days (House of Games/WWIVNet node mumble-mumble). I miss the weird, little games, too. Madness was good. Pimp Wars. At one point I think I had two dozen registered games going. And the funny thing was, the site was mainly busy on the discussion board part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 I used to play LORD, Trade Wars, Falcons Eye, and Usurper. That's about all I could fit in in my alloted time (until I made friends with the sysop that is). Kingdom of Lothing is looking pretty good to me, I might give that a shot. I wonder how active it still is and if it's worth getting into so late? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stonestn Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I used to play LORD, Trade Wars, Falcons Eye, and Usurper. That's about all I could fit in in my alloted time (until I made friends with the sysop that is). Kingdom of Lothing is looking pretty good to me, I might give that a shot. I wonder how active it still is and if it's worth getting into so late? Tempest Legend of the green dragon java = legend of the red dragon google up tradewars server (remastered bbs door game with server front end) www.sethable.com (graphical adaptation of funeral wars) - was text based those are the only ones that I have run across / played recently I would hope there are more but thats all I know of for now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Ah yeah, door games. TW2002 was my flavor of choice, and this weird little RPG game kinda like Sword of Fargoal on the C64. Good times. I've actually toyed with setting up an Atari or old PC with a telnet BBS just to run some of the old games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CGQuarterly Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 There are a lot of telnet BBSes out there if you look. Get the right telnet client and it will look just like the old days. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinball22 Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Yes, join the Kingdom of Loathing! It's hilarious, perfect if you have a limited time to spend on it per day, since you get a limited number of turns, and has a really fun community of players and a fascinating economy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 8, 2009 Author Share Posted April 8, 2009 Yes, join the Kingdom of Loathing! It's hilarious, perfect if you have a limited time to spend on it per day, since you get a limited number of turns, and has a really fun community of players and a fascinating economy. Is it still going strong? Is there a place for a newbie or is it mostly advanced players these days? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 There are a lot of telnet BBSes out there if you look. Get the right telnet client and it will look just like the old days. Ya know, I never played around with this kind of stuff. Just did real quick tho, telnetted into a C64 site running Image 1.2. Oh, the good ole days. What I need to do now is explore Vice64 a bit and figure out networking on it so I can run CCGMS and have it all telnet out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinball22 Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Is it still going strong? Is there a place for a newbie or is it mostly advanced players these days? Tempest I haven't played much in a few months, but it's been going strong for years, and there's always a place for a newbie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 We still do a lot of those old games. Of course, only a handful of people play them, but they are still there, 24/7 if you want to check them out. Keep in mind, this is *still* a BBS that is run on real Atari hardware and software, operating almost continuously since the early 1990's, with a few years break in the middle, before I discovered I could let people get access by telnet. Here is a partial list of some of the games we have on tap: AFL Football Assassin Dungeon + Dragons ST Final Frontier II Hackers 2 ST Reanimator 2 Space Trader Elite Thieves Guild Ya'll call anytime - we'll leave a light on for ya... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yuppicide Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 I used to play LORD all the time. I used to program stuff for it. My friend ran a BBS in the area. He wouldn't trust me to put mods on his board. I told him, dude, you can even look at the code and I can explain it.. I mean we were friends I wouldn't do nothing. We could have a bunch of crazy mods. My other friend ran a BBS using Wildcat. Wildcat sucked!!! Unless you wanted something business like.. if you wanted something that people would visit often you needed cool software and doors. He didn't want to put up doors for the longest time. Said he didn't know how to set them up. This guy did some kind of work for NASA and some fiberoptic work for a living. He had all sorts of test equipment at his house and would build and repair all sorts of stuff. You're telling me he couldn't setup a simple door? So, I told him I'd come over and do it for free, but instead he paid the guy from the BBS above to do it. Right around the time LORD II was coming out BBSes started to die out and internet came into reality. LORD II looked awesome. You actually moved around in a world of ASCii characters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 So, I told him I'd come over and do it for free, but instead he paid the guy from the BBS above to do it. My BBS? Don't think so.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdement Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 Right around the time LORD II was coming out BBSes started to die out and internet came into reality. LORD II looked awesome. You actually moved around in a world of ASCii characters. I loved the foundation of LORD II, but I thought the quest sucked. It needed a complete rewrite in the scripting. Seemed to me like the game was too much individuals playing by themselves, not enough interaction. Primarily, I wanted to create a market economy in the game, which obviously got complex and would take a lot of time to script. I spent about 2 days writing scripts and planning stuff on notepaper, before deciding I shouldn't spend so much time on it. Also, the game was unpopular on the small BBS I played. I was hoping I could write a compiler that would add some better features to the script language. It would compile them into compatible script code. Semaphores, and some better flow/loop structures had been worked out, but that was just on paper. === TradeWars was cool until I ran into better players. It seemed like it was impossible to make any progress or have any fun with the game, unless you were winning. I even got frustrated enough to basically spend all my money on carbomite and it still only damaged my tormenters, not destroyed them. At least I think it was tradewars... that's the game where you buy ships and build a space station and such, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 So, I told him I'd come over and do it for free, but instead he paid the guy from the BBS above to do it. My BBS? Don't think so.... Hmm, after re-reading that, I think the OP meant the BBS above, in the same paragraph, not the message above. Apologies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thanatos Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 We still do a lot of those old games. Of course, only a handful of people play them, butthey are still there, 24/7 if you want to check them out. Keep in mind, this is *still* a BBS that is run on real Atari hardware and software, operating almost continuously since the early 1990's, with a few years break in the middle, before I discovered I could let people get access by telnet. Here is a partial list of some of the games we have on tap: AFL Football Assassin Dungeon + Dragons ST Final Frontier II Hackers 2 ST Reanimator 2 Space Trader Elite Thieves Guild Ya'll call anytime - we'll leave a light on for ya... OMG! I've been wanting to play DDST for YEARS! Google searching always resulted in nada. So glad I found this thread! I beat the game way back in '90-91 on a local ST bbs. Hope this is the same one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 OMG! I've been wanting to play DDST for YEARS! Google searching always resulted in nada. So glad I found this thread!I beat the game way back in '90-91 on a local ST bbs. Hope this is the same one! Hi there. You must not still be active in the Atari scene. Let me know if you need any help - we always welcome new, or returning people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thanatos Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 OMG! I've been wanting to play DDST for YEARS! Google searching always resulted in nada. So glad I found this thread!I beat the game way back in '90-91 on a local ST bbs. Hope this is the same one! Hi there. You must not still be active in the Atari scene. Let me know if you need any help - we always welcome new, or returning people. No, I was in the CoCo crowd back then, definitely not part of the Atari scene. Managed to get in and use up my 30 minutes already today. I remember the first few levels being a real PITA, that doesn't seem to have changed. Save often! I was also very surprised to find the Vista telnet client works perfectly by default. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 What in the heck are "BBS Door Games" anyway. The sad thing is, I was a heavy user of BBS's back in the day, and yes I'd always see "BBS Door" on there but it just put a picture of a wooden door in my head I only downloaded warez I guess. Yeah I could google it. But I'm lazy. Thx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garak Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 (edited) What in the heck are "BBS Door Games" anyway. The sad thing is, I was a heavy user of BBS's back in the day, and yes I'd always see "BBS Door" on there but it just put a picture of a wooden door in my head I only downloaded warez I guess. Yeah I could google it. But I'm lazy. Thx. A "door" was a program that was external and separate from the BBS program itself yet added extra functionality. It was called a "door" because the BBS program would step-aside (either removing part of itself from memory or all of itself for instance; yet would leave the modem open) and pass control over to the external program it called (usually through a batch file). This was like going through a 'door' from one place to another. When the external program completed it would close and control would be passed back to the BBS program. Games weren't the only door programs on a BBS. Other doors could be things like the user stats generator/displayer, the oneliner comments, and extra menus. Garak (former co-sysop of a BBS in the mid-90's) Edited July 30, 2009 by Garak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 No, I was in the CoCo crowd back then, definitely not part of the Atari scene.Managed to get in and use up my 30 minutes already today. I remember the first few levels being a real PITA, that doesn't seem to have changed. Save often! I was also very surprised to find the Vista telnet client works perfectly by default. Hyperterm, the shell/command prompt - most do work fine. I've not had too many people having problems getting connected. Just remember to bash a key a couple of times when it first connects. Hard to believe we're still running on hardware from 1987 and up... Thanks for calling, and good luck with the game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yuppicide Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 I was in the "scene" in New Jersey. Some of the people I've met through BBSes are still friends with me 'til this day. My one friend used to run a board in Cranford, NJ called "The Ressurection" I believe. We used to do ANSi/ASCii art for a group as well. I didn't really get to play LORD II much, because 1- As it was coming out it seemed to me BBSing was dying and internet was coming, so 2 - Not many people played and the game wasn't around long. I used to love the old games where you had to hack into BBSes. You would buy different forms of backup in the event anyone hacked your system. The simplest form of backup was a Notebook. They had a similar game called Food Fight where you would fight people. I really miss one of our friends, Rob (nickname on BBS was Flea). Myself and one other guy I am still friends with used to hang out with him often. Back then we were in our teens. I think one of us was 16 and us other two were 18 or 19. One day Rob's Father passed away and well we never heard from him again after that pretty much. I went over his house, but nobody answered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 I was in the "scene" in New Jersey. Some of the people I've met through BBSes are still friends with me 'til this day. My one friend used to run a board in Cranford, NJ called "The Ressurection" I believe. We used to do ANSi/ASCii art for a group as well. Coolness. I've used FANSI to create almost all of the ANSI graphics natively on my Atari Mega St for my BBS. I didn't really get to play LORD II much, because 1- As it was coming out it seemed to me BBSing was dying and internet was coming, so 2 - Not many people played and the game wasn't around long. I used to love the old games where you had to hack into BBSes. You would buy different forms of backup in the event anyone hacked your system. The simplest form of backup was a Notebook. They had a similar game called Food Fight where you would fight people. We've got that game on my BBS. It's called "Hackers 2 ST". I really miss one of our friends, Rob (nickname on BBS was Flea). Myself and one other guy I am still friends with used to hang out with him often. Back then we were in our teens. I think one of us was 16 and us other two were 18 or 19. One day Rob's Father passed away and well we never heard from him again after that pretty much. I went over his house, but nobody answered. That's sad - I'm sorry to hear that. I guess we've all got fondly rememberd friends from "back in the day" that we don't see anymore. Makes me appreciate the ones I still know/stay in contact with that much more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 (edited) I'll be making an announcement soon, but my brother and I have decided to open up shop and run our own BBS. It's something we've both wanted to do 'back in the day', and with some of the awesome free new software.... In short, this will be a ten-node telnet BBS (running Synchronet 3.14) one a modern dual core PC. It's going to have all of the good stuff, too. Registered versions of LORD, TW2002, Usurper, Ambroshia, plus tons of other less-known greats like Lore, Arrobridge, Operation Overkill, Darkness, New York 2008 etc. The whole thing will be modded from the ground up with custom ANSI screens and all kinds of cool stuff. News to follow... Edited August 23, 2009 by Lord Thag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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