[MUD-Dev2] [Design] Design challenge: Bed-time game

[Nabil Maynard]

On Aug 8, 2008, at 12:52 AM, Christopher Lloyd wrote:

> --- Peter Harkins <ph at malaprop.org> wrote:
>> On a tangent, does anyone know of a nice name for this class of
>> games?
>> Think of games like:
>>
>> * Earth 2025
>> * Ikariam
>> * Jennifer Government
>> * Planetarion
>> * Simcountry
>> * Trade Wars
>> * Travian
>> * Utopia
>
> I had a root around , and while I don't have an answer, phrases like,
> "Massively Multiplayer", "Turn-Based Strategy" and "Online World
> Simulation" seem to come up. If these games existed in the 90s (without the
> heavy dependance on internet play), they're probably be labelled
> "turn-based strategy games". 

The terminology for this type of game that I'm most familiar with is
PBBG: Persistent Browser-Based Game.  That's more of an encompassing
term, however, as it covers games like AdventureQuest, which has no or  
next to no large scale multiplayer element.  I'm rather fond of
CyberNations as a good example of a strategic massively multiplayer
PBBG.

Though the PBBG Project (http://www.pbbg.org/) is certainly trying to
gain acceptance of the term, but I'd hardly call it a standard yet.

Nabil
http://www.criticalgames.com