Remember dialing into a BBS just to play 10 turns of Trade Wars and spending the whole day wondering what your rivals were plotting? That was multiplayer, decades before Wi-Fi.
I never played games like this, but I do remember playing chess, X-com, and Civilization via email. And MUDs/MUSHs/MOOs.
I don’t understand how people use the term WiFi when they mean Broadband Internet or Always connected Internet.
WiFi is just one way to deliver the network connection to your device, but it’s not the only way.
I’ve noticed that modern shells often include a wifi status monitor but no way to view your network connection if you use ethernet.
Because most people equate the more marketable term ‘WiFi’ with it and most people don’t use Ethernet.
WiFi by cable
I think most think of their phones or tablets as being “the internet” so that might be why the use WiFi as synonymous with it.
they seem quaint now, but imagine how revolutionary this must have been if you played wargames by snail mail. going from days per turn to turns per day!
It’s basically the direct ancestor of that “energy” system limiting how many lives you get per day in modern free-to-play mobile games.
Wait what
Mobile game bullshit.
Lotta games on mobile give you a limited amount of time you can play without paying real money for more of some stupid fucking resource you only acquire very rarely for free (typically they give you enough every 24 hours to play 2 or 3 games/do 2 or 3 activities/build 2 or 3 things/etc). Basically if you want to play more than you can with the alotted free resources, you have to pay. Like an arcade machine, but dumber.
Gotta explain to the zoomers how games worked before you paid for every turn.
