The Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game genre was born in 1978 with the introduction of entirely text based fantasy style adventure games ran on private servers. These games were known as Multi user Dungeons. (Or MUDS) While there were several different MUDs available at this time, they shared many basic interface elements - for example, a player would usually navigate his or her character around the game world by typing in compass directions.

Obviously then, the first big difference between the MMORPGs of today and the MUDs of old is the complete shift from text based to graphics based. You now have direct control of the character through mouse and keyboard, whereas before you would be given a set list of things you could do and you would then pick which option you wanted, for example choosing whether to go north or south. Eventually, it became possible to download artwork which accompanied your game, but you still were relying mostly on the text to play the games.

At some point in history the technology became available to allow the kind of direct control of you player that was already available in offline games. The first graphical MMORPG was Neverwinter Nights which went live on AOL for PC owners in 1991 and ran through 1997. However, the game cost $6 an hour to play, a fairly substantial sum of money especially when you consider how slow the internet connection would have been back in 1991.

Nowadays it is usual to pay on a monthly basis, with the average game costing between 8-10 pounds a month, considerably cheaper then the MUDs. This is mainly due to the improvements in technology making the games more accessible to the masses and with the faster computers of today the games are more affordable.

Overall I believe that there is a significant difference between the experiences offered through MUDs and MMORPGs. Through my own experiences it seems that MUDs are more about being the character. As you have no graphical representation on screen for others to see, you have to make them believe who you are through talking and acting like you character. On the other hand, in an MMORPG such as World of Warcraft, this role playing behavior isn’t needed as much as you can play the game like you play any other character. It isn’t necessary to act like you character as your avatar allows other players to see just who you are in the game.