Gaming back then was very different. There was an expectation of a big time investment on the end-user. Games were much more 'mentally' immersive. It's something that's hard to describe, but back when games lacked in graphics, they made up for it in a rich story and character development.

I remember plotting dungeon maps for hours on graph paper. For the gold box D&D games you had to translate things with a decoder wheel.

In the case of Ultima IV you had to had to actually converse with people or they didn't give you any information. For those that don't know what I'm talking about you basically have to say:

- name - job - <virtue like humility>

to everyone in town. If your lucky they will lead you into another piece of conversation that you have to find 'tag' words in to ask about.

Games like Zork (which literally had NO graphics) had to reel you in on the story alone.