Multiplayer Gaming's Quiet Revolution

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Written by BuckGB on July 27th, 2004

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Back in the dial-up days of the early 1980s, text-based multi-user dimensions (MUDs) relied entirely on user-typed chat, descriptions, and acronyms to construct characters and scenes within computer-moderated worlds. One's quality of experience was entirely contingent on the eloquence, style, and typing abilities of fellow participants. Gestures such as waving and laughing would remain text-exclusive for years to come, but the medium was substantially improved when participants began inserting "emoticons" into their chats. Still in wide use today, these text-cobbled representations of perpendicular human facial expressions were the first purely visual method of interpersonal communication in multiplayer games.

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