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> When we started the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter project, our goal was to create the first multi-player space combat simulator to be playable over the Internet.

They obviously hadn't heard of Netrek, the third multiplayer internet game ever, first released in 1988. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek

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Ah, memories. My inspiration to study CS, though probably fortunate that it was mostly dead by sophomore year, or my college GPA would have been much worse.

Netrek's macro system was another feature I wish were more widely adopted in games. Receiver-configurable distresses (RCDs) allowed a sender to publish named kinds of messages ("help at location, intercepting X, ship status, bombing planet, etc.) but receivers control the formatting. So I can set up my client to only show your hull+fuel for general distress calls but more data based on the kind of message.

Actually, I _loved_ netrek... it was an inspiration! It was more RTS than flight sim tho. But it was quite possibly the first MMO as well! I never played it over a modem, tho, just on a LAN... which is definitely not the same thing as a 28K internet connection circa 1999. But that game was genius, and quite possibly _would_ have worked over slow, lossy and highly latent connections, I never tried it.

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