Text-based MMORPGs vs a 3D browser MMORPG

What text-based MMORPGs are

Text MMORPGs grew out of the MUDs of the late 1970s and 1980s: the world is described in words, you type commands such as north or kill rat, and everything happens in a scrolling window. Many are still running, some for decades, and you can reach them through a MUD client, a web page or plain telnet. There are also browser games built from pages and menus rather than pictures, where a turn is a click on a link.

What text games do better

• They run on almost anything: an old laptop, a phone, a slow connection.
• They work with screen readers, and many have blind players and settings made for them.
• Words can describe more than any team can model: huge worlds, deep systems and long histories.
• Small, close communities where players know each other by name.

What a 3D browser MMORPG adds

Averse Lands is a free 3D MMORPG that runs in a browser tab. You see the world rather than read it: where a monster stands, which way a fight is turning, who just walked into town. Nothing is installed, and it opens in Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. A few things will feel familiar to a MUD player:

• Chat with commands. Press Enter and type: /s to say, /y to yell, /p for your party, @Name for a private message and /invite Name to group. /help in the chat lists every command.
• You grow by doing. Weapon blows raise your attributes, each weapon family and school of magic has its own skill, and crafts rise as you make things; the skills database lists all 27.
• People who talk. Townsfolk give tasks and offers in written dialogue, and a quest journal (L) keeps track of every task.
• Open PvP and a player economy, as in many MUDs: see the open PvP guide.

Where it falls short for text players

• It needs graphics. A computer that can draw 3D, a mouse and a keyboard. Phones only have a test mode so far.
• It is not built for screen readers. The world is drawn in 3D, so a blind player cannot play it as they can a MUD. We would rather say that plainly.
• Fewer words. Its story lives in short dialogue and quest text, not long room descriptions.
• It is young, in a small, free beta.

Which suits you

If you love reading a world, play over a slow link, or use a screen reader, stay with a good MUD. If you want to see the world you are in and still play it from a browser tab with nothing to install, try Averse Lands. The no-download guide covers what your computer needs, and the old school MMORPGs are a good next step for MUD players.