R Jason Valentine writes
"Before Ogg was an encoding standard it was a verb. Before the internet enabled the masses to play against each other in Quake and Ultima Online, there was a cross-platform multiple player interactive online game called Netrek. Netrek can trace its history back to 1972. It's an interesting, though incomplete, read, that includes travels through places like Berkeley's XCF. Netrek generally peaked in play in the early 90's, from about 1992 to 1995 or so, and was popular enough to even get an article in Wired. With this
explosion of players, several variations on the original style, called Bronco, emerged. These were Chaos (similar to bronco), Paradise, and Hockey. The Chaos and Paradise variants are all but dead, mostly due to lack of players and an expired Paradise-capable client for Windows. A Bronco pick-up game still occurs daily, and usually once or twice a week, there is a hockey game. League games still exist, and this is the 10th year of league play, with around 200 players registered for the
2002 draft league."
Valentine continues: "Though the graphics are subspectacular, gameplay is enveloping. Like chess, the rules are simple and comprehendable within the
first hour of play, yet the game is difficult to master. After a 5 year hiatus, I returned to the game and found play still
engaging with a healthy, though small, active community. The clients haven't had a major upgrade in years, and recent rebuild attempts remain unfinished. The development slowdown can be
attributed to a decrease in interest and the aging of the original programmers, who now hold steady jobs and don't have an itch
to update stable clients. If you've played before, but not in a long time, the game is worth revisiting. If you've never played, and don't have the latest greatest hardware to play the
latest installment of the tired FPS genre, check out Netrek. Minimum system requirements are a graphics card that can do 256 colors
at 1024x768 and an internet connection."
Waxing Nostalgic (Score:2, Insightful)
Played it during the same era that I was heavily involved in MUDs.
Both prove a point, namely, good gameplay is more important than flashy graphics.
It would be worthwhile to update the client.....
any volunteers?
Bueller? Bueller? anyone?
Re:Overview of Netrek (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Overview of Netrek (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time this comes up I say... I should do something about that. I spend about an hour, end up playing games and then forget about it for another six months until someone else mentions it.
I'm going to try again to see what I can do tomorrow.
Re:Overview of Netrek (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to miss the point. Your suggestion is to ignore the abuse and stick with it. Bzzzt, wrong. That attitude will kill Netrek stone dead. The learning curve is steep enough as it is; when nobody is willing to teach you, only to heap abuse on you, what exactly is your incentive to stay? In case you'd missed it, there are a lot of network games out there these days.
One big problem with Netrek is that new players can see that they're clueless. It's not like many FPSers or pickup map-based RTS's, where you can find twinks to play against, or you can convince yourself that you got unlucky or your opponent is cheating. With netrek, you feel overwhelmed. At that point, if someone heaps abuse on you, why on earth would you stay and discover what a great game it really is? Especially with the rest of your team just telling you to shut up and either play better or get lost.
If you don't believe me, try starting an Ensign (and playing like one) and asking questions in pickup. When I played back in the early-mid 90's, people would happily mentor ensigns in pickup. Now as soon as it hits T, everyone seems to go red mist, and either shouts at or just plain ignores newbies in favour of desparately scumming every last previous planet. Rest in peace, Netrek.