Before Ultima Online, before Everquest, there was this "information service" called CompuServe. And on CompuServe was this great little graphic game done in text characters (ala Rogue) called The Island of Kesmai. If cost $12.00 per connect hour to play at 1200 baud, your loot dropped where you died, and it had perma-death. Each time you died you lost a point of constitution, and if your constitution dropped below 3, you re-rolled.

The only way I could afford to play was that I was playing on a company account, and I very nearly lost my job the day my bosses called me in to inform me they were no longer paying thousands of dollars per month for me to do "online research" on CompuServe.

It was AWESOME.

I've been playing these games ever since...

Dlangar
http://ofcourseillplayit.com