There are still several hundred once prominent MMOs called MUDs that came about in the 1980s and are all text based. They deal with these sorts of problems in very diverse and creative ways. If you've never played one, I might suggest Duris, Land of Bloodlust.

It's old-school, beautiful, huge world and incredibly delicate, strategic and fun combat. It's a race wars, so RvR style full player killing and full player looting. Rough game :p but makes modern MMOs look like Fisher Price editions.