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Kingdom of Loathing also allows bots. Although the bots use third part software. KoLmafia being the most popular and comes with its own custom language. There's also a python based bot.

And it depends where you are online. I'm a member of an online RPG called Kingdom of Loathing with a pretty active chat system.

The moderators are *very* active. Say what you will about heavy-handedness, but recent events have proven that if you start throwing around anything with a flavor of misogyny to it in open chat, you will be banned with much prejudice. May be partially related to our uncharacteristically high female playerbase but the game creators are all guys.

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned The Kingdom of Loathing web RPG.
I think an image search would be better suited for the uninitiated.

I signed up about a decade ago, and this thing was a huge time sink every day at 4pm at work for a good three years.

Being turn based and turn limited, like the old school BBS door games of yore, one always seems to end up having 5-6 accounts just to get more play time.

Curse you interwebs, my old account still works!

Playing Kingdom of Loathing has about the same effect.

If you're a big Zork fan, have you tried Kingdom of Loathing? It's heavily text based, though it has stick-figure graphics, and a fantastic sense of humor. It's free to play, too. http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

I guess I should also plug my own high-text, low-graphic, superhero RPG, Twilight Heroes. Don't let the "Twilight" scare you -- it's superheroes, not vampires. Also free, and also tries to be entertaining reading.

The developers of browser-based RPG Kingdom of Loathing not only read and post on their forums, but also do two two-hour radio podcasts a week taking questions and discussing the game. Their involvement has led to players being recruited to give development advice, to incorporate player suggestions into the game, and to quickly correct gameplay mistakes. They've commented that reading the forums can sometimes be painful or aggravating (and Mr. Skullhead's annual Crimbo rant at the ungrateful playerbase has become a bit of a tradition), but it's better that they suffer some aggravation in the course of making the game better for everyone than it is for them to happily avoid criticism but have the game suffer instead.

What's worse is when developers decide that you have to play the entire game. I stopped playing Kingdom of Loathing largely because they felt the need to make zones that suck mandatory for a run through. Rather than accepting that those zones suck and serve little to no strategic interest and addressing that, the solution was to put a quest item there. The Hidden areas were probably the worst, as there wasn't any strategy involved and the areas weren't interesting, didn't change ascension to ascension and were basically just there as a turn sink. If you're going to do a turn sink, either make it interesting or make it instantaneous. A turn sink that wastes real life time to do isn't going to win any friends unless it's actually fun.

It's difficult to impossible to make an entire game fun, so forcing people to play the entire thing every time is pointless for all involved. Once a person knows the story, there really isn't a particularly compelling reason to make them repeat it.

Try "Kingdom of Loathing".

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com./

Is it just me, or does "software giant" sound like a monster that should be in Kingdom of Loathing ?

Kingdom of Loathing is something enjoy playing. Other than that, try DopeWars or Frozen Bubble (that game is like crack, freaking addicting). Both of those should be in your repo.

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

If you don't have a decent video card don't bother looking for an FPS. But if you want a fairly deep, often subtly hilarious RPG with no more requirements than a basic web browser, give KoL a try.

Takek that, you pastamancer! Back at you, you stealer of my accordion!

Check out http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ it's free to play, fiscal contributions get you some fun ingame widgets, it's popular among smart children with a sense of humor, it's plain web based without fancy Java or flash reuirements, and it keeps my friends able to play on their modest systems so they don't beg me for my hardcore system while I'm playing the latest shooters.

It's what web-based gaming _should_ be.

woe be to the man who tries to sell a product that people don't understand.

Yeah, look what happened to Apple when they tried to radically change the interface on portable music players. Poor bastards.

I agree with TFA. A few games've tried to do MMOs in fundamentally new ways. Look at the Kingdom of Loathing: While not anywhere near a WoW rival, it became successful enough to support a handful of full-time employees and has remained steady for years. You never know where a flash of inspiration will strike, and a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about MMOs.

First off... I enjoy various kinds of text games from the early Infocom games, to the King's Quests, to the Monkey Islands, and event a Zork or two. Yes, Legends of Zork took elements from the world of Zork, but it lacks challenge. In the text games, I like trying everything under the sun to try to get that one step further in the game, even if that meant starting over a million times. It was part of the challenge, part of the fun. This... I found very frustrating. It's like the game is so incredibly dumbed down that it's like a slightly interactive advertisement for something I don't want to buy into.

Games like Kingdom of Loathing and Twilight Heroes, are what lit a fire under me to create my own, Urban Legions.

Kingdom of Loathing is incredible. Since the day I stumbled upon it via Wikipedia (looking up "Trifids" of all things), I have been hooked and play it practically every day since. I love the sense of humor. I love collecting all the crazy items. After ascending about 8+ times, the quests are getting a little tedious. But, they add new content, which makes me want to play it even more. I haven't even broken into the Hobopolis or PvP sides of the game, and it's kept me entertained for 2.5+ years.

Twilight Heroes... I played for a while. Then, I got stuck on one of the quests. After a while, it got repetitive and I dropped it (mostly). I go back every once in a while. It's not a bad game. It's as easy to pick up as KoL. It's got a good sense of humor, and I've enjoyed playing it. Yet, it lacks something (for me, at least) to want to keep playing it. Maybe they've found that certain something that I lacked, and maybe I should pick it up again.

Urban Legions... Why did I create this game? Because I told my friend about KoL, how much fun it was, and we both agreed it was something we should try doing ourselves. During the creation of the game, we broke away from several traditions, but kept various elements we enjoy from playing other games. One of the things we broke away from is character creation. All characters start the same except for their names. You enter a name and an alias, and you're off and running. Stats? We limit it to Brains and Brawn. I mean seriously... How often do you roll for Constitution while playing D&D? We also wanted the game to play differently. The world is very much open ended. There is an over-arching plot that we continuously add to, but there are various side quests along the way. We are light years behind KoL in the amount of content, but of what we already have, we are already building a community of people who play on a regular basis and crave more (By the way... We love you guys and gals!). Like the others, KoL, TH, and LoZ, we provide a few turns per day with the options to subscribe for more turns per day or to buy a big block of turns that you can slowly whittle away. Sure, he and I would love to make enough money from this to one day quit our day jobs and focus solely on this and a few other projects up our sleeves, but the enjoyment we have of creating something that we are most proud of and trying to constantly out-do ourselves is also so incredibly rewarding.

So, back to Legends of Zork... As I said, I enjoy playing these kinds of game, if not for seeing "what not to do". One of the first things that irked me is the combat. I can't control what my character does in regards to combat, so why even go through the motions of creating a character? The next thing that bugged me... I went to my inventory to see what I thought I gained, but didn't. To get back into the game, the only way I could figure out was to go back to the map and into the location I was just at. This took another couple of action points to do. Seriously?! It takes an action point if I want to view my character and click ONE LOCATION on the map?! Are you fbleeping serious?! That ri

Having never played Legend of the Green Dragon all I can compare it to is Kingdom of Loathing which it seems to feel like so far.

Would a good game plot, overcome a lack of great graphics and features?

I'm not sure about a good storyline, but good gameplay can win out over limited graphics and features.

Probably the best example I can think of is The Kingdom of Loathing - http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ - This needs way to many clicks to play and has stick figure graphics but the complex interaction of the various features make gameplay addictive.

This, and the humor in the game, has attracted a large loyal following.

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ beat them to it :D

A couple years ago, I was telling my friend about http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/. At the time, I was working on a card game that was not feasible as a card game. I kept trying to keep the game simple, yet have most of my druthers included... It just wasn't going to fly. So, he and I combined both concepts and the result is something quite different.

The game is entirely browser-based with no plugins or downloads necessary. We tried to keep the interface as simple as possible. We do have a few people who stumble through it, but most beta testers were able to pick it up and run with it without referring to documentation.

The game is divided into numerous events, each with a set of options. The options are modified by the character's current status, inventory, random chance, or by the choices the character makes. The player's status even helps determine which events are presented to the player.

The thing that I find fascinating is trying to write the content in a way that presents itself randomly to the character, but in a logical order and way. This is as not straight-forward as fiction writing. It's like trying to write a Choose-Your-Own adventure where the reader starts from flipping to any random page and a single choice may lead to many possible pages. I also find it challenging creating the puzzles that blend well with the plot and setting, yet are challenging enough for most without being too straight forward or too randomly difficult.

He and I have had a blast creating our game. And, we have had several people try it and give us positive feedback.

If you'd like to try it out, you can find it at http://www.urbanlegions.net/. If you'd like to discuss the decisions behind our designs, that's really a topic for another thread.

Some of the larger game publishers could learn a thing or two from Kingdom of Loathing. It's witty, engaging, and has a great development team who are constantly adding content. The best aspect, though, is that it's up to you whether you play casual or hardcore. I really appreciate that.

Kingdom of Loathing does something very similar to this and has been around for several years.

http://kingdomofloathing.com/

Way too much time invested. You can buy an IOTM or the likes but you can also work to earn them via earning meat.

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

Different type of game entirely, but same basic business model. And they've been doing things that way for 4 years now. Free to play, but $10 gets you a nifty trinket.

Yes, the business model works in principle and in practice. And it's about time that more genres of games that use that model become available.

Anyone ever played The Kingdom of Loathing? It's sort of a cross between a text adventure and an MMO, with some writing that I'd put up there with The Hitchhiker's Guide in terms of humor.

I found out about it two weeks ago from an article in The Escapist, and I can't stop playing it.

And it's free (donations welcome, as it pays the developers' salaries).

Don't worry, it has a different meaning here, too.

Wow, the new idea is Free Games that make money through adverts, micropayments, donations or paid-for upgrades?

Man, I should totally recommend that idea to the people behind KoL (started in 2003, and funded entirely by donations), Kongregate (entered beta last year and gets revenue from adverts), etc..

...without RTFR or RTFB, the book doesn't discuss the emergence of the comical RPG/MMO like Dungeon Runners and Kingdom of Loathing. I'm certain both came about with some hint of inspiration from Dead Alewives' D&D sketch and the over-geekification of RPG enthusiasts.

To quote one of my favorite games:

I thought the MMORPG was already up and running here.

Wait, wrong link...here it is.

Okay, so maybe it's not your traditional MMORPG, but Kingdom of Loathing has been free to play and has offered special items in return for cash donations for quite a while, now.

Of course no list like this is complete without a mention of
Kingdom of Loathing

An Adventurer is You!

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ Who needs colors? BAH!

http://www3.kingdomofloathing.com/main.html

Kingdom of Loathing
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

or
Desktop Tower Defence
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp/

I'm really not sure if KoL uses Flash, but it's worth checking out if you can.

-hps

The Kingdom of Loathing http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ Not flash, just HTML and Javscript.

Stick figures, strange enemies (sabre toothed lime?!), soft spots for seal clubbers and disco, and plenty of alcohol.

Ditto on Kingdom of Loathing. It's not flash, but it's tons of fun.

Doesn't use flash, just standard HTML. And chok full of lovely absurdist humor. And undead elbow macaroni.

Kingdom of Loathing

Completely free, no ads, donation supported. Fair warning: a few of the items are easiest to get by donating, but those are nice-to-haves, and it's certainly no big deal if you don't have them.

Kingdom of Loathing (http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/) is my choice favourite. But it's not a flash game.

Flash variety: http://www.teagames.com. I prefer motocross. Their games are generally pretty well done, and look nice.

Adventure-like: http://www.kingdomofloathing.com. I can't play this any more. It's too addictive. I get nothing else done in life.

I always thought WoW did a good job of providing instance content for almost all level ranges. In my experience, most people who want to speed to 70 seem to want to do so because of the instance content, but really, there is plenty to see at all level ranges. Either that, or they want to get rich quickly, but I've not yet seen a game design where one's material wealth is based on some form of either time or skill, so we can't really fault WoW in that regard.

Of course, there are plenty of free permanent state game options for those of us who are not keen on spending a monthly subscription on anything. (Non-commercial MUDs come to mind, as do games like Kingdom of Loathing.)

I don't know whether you'd class Kingdom of Loathing as a "bad" game that's good, but it's basically a web-based MMORPG that is drawn with stick figures. It's pretty funny and addictive, but it's intentionally low-quality and funny, so does it count?

has been Kingdom of Loathing. It's a refreshing take on the traditional RPG with lots of references to nethack, pop culture and lots of funny sexual innuendo. The graphics are simple but it's a lot of fun, and with about 80K active users it never gets slow, and it's all free too.

I found the Kingdom of Loathing to be engrossing from the very beginning. When the content for low-level characters is both fun and interesting, start-up and achieving comfort in the new interface is far less of a grind. KoL accomplishes this by being funny and clever throughout the gameplay.

doesn't mean it has no graphics, or is going to get along with stick figures

You say stick figures like it's a bad thing.

Yes, theoretically fiat currency could be as scarce as gold and not be overproduced. But could you name even one fiat currency that isn't inflating and hasn't been inflating? I didn't think so. Why then would you propose that paper money and gold money is more or less equivalent when they clearly are not other than in theory?

It's not clear to me that lack of inflation is a good thing. One of the problems with a noninflating currency is that isolated communities (hmmm, maybe parts of society with low money velocity?) run out of it. Some parts of the developed world are resorting to their own currencies. A number of massively multiplayer games literally have currrencies that inflate and deflate as sources and sinks are changed in size.

For example, there's a graph of "meat", the food-based currency versus the US dollar over the past year for the web game, Kingdom of Loathing. It shows a period of considerable deflation from September 2005 to January of this year. Since then, it has steadily increased over time. There actually were two periods of inflation that I know of. The first was know as "bugmeat" and was an extraordinary period of hyperinflation that occured over a single day in August 2004. Rather than roll back the game (maybe they didn't have good backups?) to before "Black Sunday", the key developer decided to employ a host of "meatsinks" to drain the excess meat from the game. This period of deflation continued through the end of 2005 (the graph just shows the vestige of it).

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

Which has proved to me that great gameplay, clever writing and an absolutely huge community can make up for graphics in a MMORPG.

I tried Nation States. I played it for a month or so. I don't consider it to be a game.

For those of you that haven't tried it, basically, you create a country, and every day you answer a couple of multiple-choice questions about how the country should be run. You also get a description of what state the country is in - whether it's a police state, whether crime is high or low, and so on.

The thing is, the questions are simply static questions people have made up. One answer will make your country slightly more liberal, one country might make crime go up a bit, and so on. There's absolutely no depth to it, it's just a fancy way of saying "please choose between making your liberal score + 1 and making your crime score -1". That's not a game, that's just a questionnaire asking you "Still liberal today? Yeah? Guess I'll tell you your country is liberal again then."

I'm right with you when you say that games don't necessarily take a lot of time to play, but Nation States is hardly a shining example. Try Urban Dead or Kingdom of Loathing for examples of non-time-consuming games.

If I wanted to be really sadistic, I could instead present site readers with a sentence, in which they have to fill in either "their," "there," or "they're."

The game Kingdom of Loathing uses that as a test - if you don't pass the test, you aren't allowed into the chat room.

An Adventurer is You!

Perhaps not what you're thinking of, but Kingdom of Loathing is a hilarious (and free) web-based game. If you haven't tried it before you really should.

Another one with funny bits is Nethack, of course.

I agree, though, that there should be more funny games. I miss the heyday of the Lucasarts comedic point-and-clicks. Day of the Tentacle was always my favorite.

-David

If anyone's interested in the "logic" behind this bill, you should read the coverage at GamePolitics or watch the entire hearing linked therein.

In summary, Jack Thompson was the star witness for the hearing, so one could imagine the mountain of crap he spewed about games. Perhaps even more fantastic than Thompson's testimony was the list of "racist games" Representative Burrell used to terrify the House with (a list no doubt provided by Thompson). Burrell spent about five minutes naming off a bunch of racist Flash games one can find on the internets. However, instead of telling the House these "games" are only available online and wouldn't be affected by the bill, he made it sound like the game industry was making millions from selling them in stores directly to kids.

Worst of all (or best, if you can appreciate the irony), he told the House about how the suspect in the rape/murder of a ten year old in Oklahoma "trained" on a "video game" called Kingdom of Loathing. Yep, that's right, a non-sensical, browser-based RPG, where stick figures with classes like "Pastamancer" and "Accordian Thief" do battle with saber-tooted limes, somehow trained a 26 year old to rape and murder. And a law about carding minors in retail stores would have somehow stopped an adult from playing a browser game? Oooookay.

Normally, it would be a silly idea to tell anyone to vote based soley on a candidate's position on video games. But if anyone from Louisiana is reading this, please, vote these bastards out of office for their stupidity alone!