MegaWars III was a massively multiplayer empire building game written by Kesmai and run continuously on CompuServe between 1984 and 1999.
A modified version, Stellar Emperor ran for much of the same time period on GEnie, also ending in 1999 when that service was shut down by General Electric.
In 1979 University of Virginia 4th year students Kelton Flinn and John Taylor started work on a game for the Hewlett-Packard HP 2000F time sharing minicomputer.
[4] The new version, MegaWars, went live on CompuServe in 1983 and ran continuously until 1998, although there were a few times where they closed it down during that period only to revive it after receiving complaints from the players.
Numerous additions were made during its run, notably different classes of ships, and later versions looked little like the original DECWAR.
During this period a port supporting an experimental color computer terminal being built by Motorola and Radio Shack was completed as MegaWars II.
Louden, who had been instrumental in setting up Kesmai on CIS, had convinced GE to start a similar service on their machines.
Stellar Emperor was modified from the original, the most notable change being the removal of the ship customization system and its replacement with a fixed set of pre-rolled designs.
Stellar Emperor ran on this service, but now used a 2D graphical client that made many of the interactive portions of the game a point-and-click affair.
[6] The player assumes command of a spaceship at one of four starting planets, stated in-game to be the last remains of Earth's former empire.
[9] Solar system layouts followed the basic model seen in the Earth's own, with rocky planets near the star and far from it, gas giants between, and most "good" locations closer to the sun.
[10] When a planet is claimed, 5000 colonists automatically arrive (out-of-game) and the colony begins to build out according to the game's internal economical rules.
Because the missiles and torpedoes were all the same, even small ships had some capability against larger ones, although the lower shield strength often led to short battles.
[15] The same metal is used to build the planet and ship parts, so the money available is a fixed amount of that mined which is controlled by the tax rate.
[16] Additional money was generated by setting limits on the number of parts that would be stockpiled at the docks, with the excess being exported.