Talk:Online text-based role-playing game

wth?

What the hell exactly is an "online text-based role-playing game"? I highly doubt that such a title exists outside this article, unless it is being used descriptively rather then as an intended title for RPing on message boards (which doesn't have one, and the use of this term as a DESCRIPTIVE probably is in enough to use to get some Google hits - like "black, shiny paint" - but I doubt there's a Wikipedia article called "black shiny paint" that actually refers to paint). Even if there were a "title" for message board RPing, it would not merit an article. There are no "rules" or "types" of RPing on message boards, other then whatever rules the members have made up, and whatever setting they've chosen for that particular game. Yet, this entire article seems to, at a glance, be talking about those "rules", as well as numerous invented terms other then the title of the article. The existence of this article makes no sense whatsoever, and it really needs to be deleted.Rayvn (talk) 22:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that as a term, OTBRPG does not exist. But as a genre they're instrumental to gaming history. I would rather call them "text-based games" as this term seems silly to me. Caliah (talk)

I whole-heartedly agree. With over a decade of experience in both moderation, designing and playing in a number of the article listed sites, I've never heard the term "OTBRPG" outside of this article before. If it is in use, its by such a remarkably small number of people that it doesn't warrant a page for. (Similiar to if I and several friends decided to just abbreviate TFRPGFTSNES for 'the fun role-playing games from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System'.) The article itself is less a compliation of these games and more just notes on etiquette listed in a broad way that doesn't really pertain to many (if any) of the listed games. I agree that this article should be deleted. --Emerald Dreaming (talk) 13:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I too concur. This article title is coining a phrase *never* used. How is that encyclopedic? There is interesting information in the article, though and deletion seems a little overkill. Could it be renamed? BossAnders (talk) 21:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Old discussion

This article really, really stinks. It goes from a somewhat fanboyish, but largely npov, discussion of the OTBRPG community and its strangenesses and charms to an obviously crufty discussion of "how you can do x" and "if you do y people will not like it," garbage punctuation/capitalisation/spelling (regardless of the warning in the supposed "rules" of the online community as to RPG players having "good spelling, punctuation, and grammar"), and sprinkled emoticons ("^_^"). This needs a major npov revisation... and a major shortening. I'm wondering how canonical these "type 1, type 2, type 3" fighting systems are, and how universal the rules are. jglc | t | c 19:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay. I know that my decision to replace the combat rules with a simple blurb will be very unpopular, but here's my justification:

For one thing, there was no verification of any of the information in the combat section, and no citation of any sources. For another, it was written extremely poorly - paragraphs went on entirely too long, poor sentence structure flourished, and the entire section was very crufty. I googled for rpg + "text-based" + "type 1", and found no information about the alleged combat systems.

If you're going to reinsert this section into Wikipedia, please try to edit for terseness and keep the relative importance of the subject in mind. I realise that there are certain people to whom this is very important, but many others have no idea what it is. If, instead of writing an article for your friends and like-minded persons, you could write an introductory article explaining your hobby to those outside of its support community, it would be much more useful. Always keep in mind, please, that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, though one with much more storage space than a paper encyclopaedia, and any contributors should write in a manner befitting such a publication. Thanks :) jglc | t | c 19:45, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that this article needed fixing. It focused mainly on PBP and left out quite a bit of detail on real-time systems such as MUDs and the rest (when historically MUDs are extremely important to the development of multiplayer online roleplaying games), and IMO the usage of lengthy acronyms served only to confuse readers while giving them the (false) impression that they were commonly used in the community, which they are not (in my 8+ years of gaming online in various text-based systems I never heard OTBRPG used except here, no offense). No real references were given, nor background history on a number of text-based genres. Since this article is the "umbrella" article for text-based rpgs in Wikipedia, I would suggest that content for this article be written to inform the general public and utilise existing, commonly-used terminology rather than for a limited circle within the text-based rp community, or seek to redefine already-defined concepts (in other words I agree with the user comment posted above). (Caliah 17:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC))

Additional problem. I will post this in its parallel description. This article and the play-by-post gaming stuff are describe... hmm... the same thing? It may be good to see if we can either combine them, or decide on one to lead the way. Personally, I think most text-based RPGs now call themselves play-by-chat, or play-by-post, etc. - Kimmetje

Yes, I think that play-by-post and play-by-chat are becoming the more widely used terms (As I posted on the PBP article, I had never even come across the term OTBRPG before seeing it here on Wikipedia). At least in the text game circles that I run around in. Oh, another thing that I'd like to note about that person Googling the Type fighting systems. Usually they are known simply as T1 or T2 and are somewhat popular terminology for those in chat based RPGs. You'll find T2 fighting more often in "chat pace" RPGs (though many use the T1 style as well), whereas T1 is more common in play-by-post/forum based RPGs and is usually an unspoken rule. It's just common courtesy to wait for other players to post their responses in a role play thread before replying with another one of your own.

T1 (Type 1) Turn-based fighting style. Players post their characters actions and reactions one at a time, sometimes following a strict posting order.

T2 (Type 2) Speed-based fighting style. Players post their characters actions and reactions as fast as possible (so the fastest typer is usually the winner).

Dear God

This article has been raped by fanboys since it's original conception, I'd like to extend heartfelt thanks for the removal of the role play fighting section. My associate and I have recently decided to do a complete overhaul of all our OTBRPG related content, including this article. You can expect a marked improvement within a few weeks. As to the issue of PBP, I noticed that myself. The facts seem to be that both terms have small communities of followers. PBP seems to be a slightly more common term, but in general it seems that the community at large has no real name for what we do. Also, while it may have little bearing, this article is older than the PBP article.

My suggestion would be to make the PBP article (which is used more for advertising than for information it seems) redirect to this article. I may however be biased, being this articles creator. I'll leave it to a more experienced individual to deal with that.

In the mean time, I will work on improving this article. Thank you.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Linkskywalker (talk • contribs) 23:21, 1 August 2005

Just an update - I have not forgotten about this article, and I apologise for the delay, I *am* working on it and keeping it stored localy rather than uploading it until I have it completely finnished. Unfuntunatly, I have a few obligations that take precedence. I apologise for the delay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linkskywalker (talk • contribs) 14:08, 15 August 2005

• No problem. I'm looking forward to seeing your revisions/additions. I'm watching the page, so, if anything further goes awry, I can take care of it. jglc | t | c 09:42, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

OTBRPG Version 2.0

Alright, I've cut the article down to 2 paragraphs that give (I feel) a good summary of what an Online Text Based Role Playing Game is. However, I make no assertations of being good at writing encyclopedia style articles. I'd love it if the more experienced members of wikipedia could help me improve this article either through tips or editing the article directly. I for one am not comfortable with the way the article ended, it seems chopped off to me. I might add a paragraph about how to enter the OTBRPG community smoothly, or somthing of the like. If you can think of any information you would find helpful as an outsider learning of OTBRPGs for the first time, I would be much appreciative. Generaly it's hard to write about the community as a whole, since nothing has ever been formalized or even standardised. |User: Linkskywalker | Date/Time: Thursday September 8th 2005, 14:42|

Advertising

The external links look more like advertisments than links to informative material. Indeed, some of them don't even link to actual OTBRPGS, but rather to MUD type games.

Agreed. Words like "excellent" and "immersive" are inappropriate. I would support removing this page as spam. Elonka 12:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• This article has had troubles with people spamming the External links, but the whole article isn't spam. If you see an inappropriate external link please feel free to modify/remove it. —gorgan_almighty 13:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sources...

I am unaware of any *existing* sources for this topic, aside from forums.

That is, in fact, why I started documenting this type of game.

• I have recently added cited references that back up the claims in this article (see diff). I propose removing the {{unreferenced}} notice now. —gorgan_almighty 14:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

External links

Will people please ensure that they are kept in alphabetical order. I have gone through and put them back in order several times, but people keep adding new links out of order. In future if you see the links out of order please but them back in order yourself. Thanks. —gorgan_almighty 11:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Potential merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There seems to be a lot of overlap between this article, and List of Text-Based MMORPGs. Should they perhaps be combined? Elonka 12:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Strong Appose. Huge lists like that are discouraged on Wikipedia as they're not very encyclopedic. This article already has a list of relevant links and it's hard enough keeping the ad spam out of that. List of Text-Based MMORPGs should either be done as a Category instead of an article or it should be deleted completely as non-encyclopedic ad spam. Either way it shouldn't be allowed to pollute this article. —gorgan_almighty 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but i think before doing that, a topic should be clarified: the definition on this article for OTBRPG doesnt fit well with most of the games listed on List of Text-Based MMORPGs, as those follow closer the descripition found in Turn-Based MMORPG.

In fact I think the browser-based should be divided into graphical and textual, and the latter categorized into MUD-like games or turn-based games - though this is just an idea from someone that is a bit confused with so much contradicting information...

Waldir 02:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Were you agreeing with me (gorgan_almighty) or Elonka? —gorgan_almighty 11:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I agreed with you (gorgan). I'd refuse Elonka's sugesttion precisely because of that unclarified issue i mentioned above (the descriptions dont fit each other), which i ask again to be furtherly discussed. Your suggestion (gorgan) is fair enough (the category one, of course), and is the is still useful to people who are looking for an extensive list of this genre of MMORPGs. I obviously disagree that the article should simply be deleted, but converted to a category is a good idea. By the way, probably there would be a need of sub-categories, so the thematic division could still be made, as it is in the article at the moment. Waldir 00:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

There is considerable confusion about the term "online text-based roleplaying game". When most people see the term, they think about a MUD or other multiplayer game, but this article seems to be primarily about turn-based games. I propose that the article be at least moved to a more appropriate title, such as "Online turn-based text roleplaying games". Elonka 03:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Then, why not merge it with Turn-Based MMORPG? (But here its said that OTBRPG is another term for post by post RPG, and i dont think turn -based mmorpgs are post by post... that is more like a forum, right?

The term itself should cover MUDs and MU*s, which I added in their own section. Think it was easier to give this article a small facelift than merge it with existing articles. (Caliah 17:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC))

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Don't go overboard removing External links

The spam notice that someone put at the top of the page doesn't mean that all external links are spam. Some anonymous editor recently removed the links that I added to other sources of NPOV information about OTBRPGs. I added them in an attempt to cite references to the information documented in the article, thus solving the {{unreferenced}} problem. They were not spam. Please be less hasty when removing external links in future. —gorgan_almighty 14:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Do not add additional definitions that can be derived from external articles

This is an article for online text-based role-playing, not role-playing itself. There is no need to go to great lengths to describe role-playing when there already exists a separate article for this purpose. {{Caliah 02:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)}}

References needed for generalisations on this topic

Generalisations about popular websites and their impact on the popularity of roleplaying among young adults are lacking references. Roleplaying as a creative medium existed and was popular long before said websites (Gaia Online, Neopets, etc.) were even created. Hence such assertions should come with appropriate reference links. (And please do not use this article as a promotion/endorsement for your own roleplaying websites!!) {{Caliah 02:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)}}

Merger

Sparring (online role-playing) has been moved to Online text-based role-playing game/Sparring as per the consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sparring (online role-playing) and part or all of it should be merged into the article, after a merger has been done it may be necessary to history merge the history from that page into the main article and then delete the temp page. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 21:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge completed. Percy Snoodle 12:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to motion that the sparring article be moved to Freeform_role-playing_game. Alighieri 16:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

*A dark stranger comes into the room and kills them all*

What? no mention of this infamous statement?

Elitism

This is not an appropriate section for this article. It smacks of the user's bitterness for being ridiculed on some game or other and them taking their frustrations to wikipedia to vent. I move it be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.137.144 (talk) 04:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's unencyclopedic and original research anyway. I've removed it. -kotra (talk) 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Computer Text-based On-line role-playing game

A long time ago, I played a computer text-based on-line role-playing game that was completely made of text. I found it on Uncyclopedia, and it was the weirdest game ever. I had to tell the computer to go North, South, East, or West and the computer did it. But when I said, "Quit", the computer made fun of me. The game was a black screen with white text on top like a game you would make on Basic or something. I think that that game should also be placed here. I don't remember the title, but it was indeed strange! 76.192.142.216 (talk) 21:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

From your description here, it sounds like a standard MUD or Zork-type game. I know of a Zork-type game on Uncyclopedia, but I thought it was just something an Uncyclopedia editor made up. If you can find the make of the one you're thinking of, and it's a particularly notable example of its genre (like one of the most popular or innovative or something), maybe it would be relevant to include in this article. But if it's not especially notable to an overview of online text-based RPGs, it would probably be better as just its own article, appropriately categorized so it could be found, or maybe listed on List of text-based computer games if it fits the description. -kotra (talk) 23:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Those are called text adventures. They still make 'em.Rayvn (talk) 22:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Example game(s) or link to a list?

If I'm correct, the article doesn't mention a single(!) example of an on-line text-based role-playing game. No link to a list of such games either. --82.171.70.54 (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's tough pinning down individual games as having been instrumental to the development of the genre without adding a whole other list that people might feel to have been important, or add mu* link lists without looking like advertising for that particular list. Perhaps you could do research on some. Caliah (talk) 20:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

There are officially approved games of this format out there. One example would be located at www.stsf.net, which is officially linked and sanctioned by the website of StarTrek.com. Aafm (talk) 08:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I propose going with Aafm's suggestion and only using officially linked or sanctioned games with a large user base. Otherwise the same problem we encountered on Play-by-post_role-playing_game will happen here and the links section will get used as a means of people advertising their personal games. On that article, we only allow portals and not the games themselves to be linked. --Frugen (talk) 19:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Psychology references

Are the references made sufficient? They are not links, and as far as I can tell, if those articles are online, they are locked behind a paywall. --68.133.22.25 (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2016 (UTC)