Internet World: Gaming via the Internet From: aeldra@netcom.com (Patrick Kane) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 15:39:29 +0000 ARPA may have been officially a research net, but let's face it, gaming has been a part of the Internet ever since its inception. This month's Internet World explores the multitude of electronic gaming options on the net. An excerpt follows: ---------- Internet Games By Kevin M. Savitz It comes as no surprise that the Internet is home to a huge population of people who play games -- and have found in the Internet one way to find and interact with fellow players. We're not just talking about intrinsically computer-based games here, like MUDs (Multi- User Dungeons) or Sub Killer -- although the Internet does support a substantial population of these. We're also talking about classic board and card games that can, but don't have to, involve computers (e.g., backgammon, bridge, checkers, chess, and Go). Games on the Internet may not be as flashy as those on Nintendo and Sega players, but the Internet can offer the ability to play against other folks -- not just computerized opponents. As with other Internet tools, the people you're communicating with may be right down the hall or across the globe. Besides, it's certainly more satisfying to play (and beat) a human opponent than a digital one. The Internet is home to two styles of games -- interactive and play-by-mail. Interactive games let you play and converse in real time with your opponents, while play-by-mail games take longer and are more involved. Unlike interactive games, play-by mail games let people who only have e-mail access (folks on BITNET, FidoNet, and Prodigy) join in the fun. As you might expect, play-by-mail games on the Internet aren't far removed from play-by-mail games that have taken place by snail mail for decades, most notably chess. Is gaming allowed on the Internet? Sure -- it's OK to use your system and the Internet to play games as long as it's not against the policies of your site. If you use the Internet from a school or business computer, ask the system administrator about your site's policy. ---------- So begins this issue's featured article from Internet World. This article and others from Outside Magazine and additional publications can be viewed at no charge on The Electronic Newsstand, a service which collects articles, editorials, and table of contents from over 70 magazines and provides them to the Global Internet community. Access to The Electronic Newsstand is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via Gopher, an information navigation and retrieval technology from the University of Minnesota. For those without a local Gopher client program, The Electronic Newsstand provides a telnet account which will allow you to use a text based Gopher client to access our service. To access The Electronic Newsstand, via Local Gopher Client: Hostname: gopher.internet.com Port: 2100 via the Gopher Home Menu at U of Minn: Other Gopher and Information Servers/ North America/ USA/ General/ The Electronic Newsstand (tm) via Gopher Link Information: Name=The Electronic Newsstand Type=1 Port=2100 Path=1/ Host=gopher.internet.com via Telnet: Hostname: gopher.internet.com Loginname: enews Password: <not required> via World Wide Web: URL: gopher://gopher.internet.com/ If you have any suggestions on how we might improve this service, or need more information, please email staff@enews.com --The Electronic Newsstand Staff Up