[The Future of Our Hobby] What's in store for us?
Aristotle@Threshold
a different issue I figured I should post it in a seperate thread. This is
a long post, but hopefully raises some decent points, or at least will
provoke discussion. =)
A question that interests me, and apparently many other mudders, is where is
our hobby going? For the sake of this issue, I mean "text-based muds". I think
we mostly agree that muds will continue to exist in some form for at least
the next 5-10 years or so (if not longer). Personally, I agree with this,
although I think things will be radically different a few years from now (And
I don't think this is a particularly brilliant deduction on my part. Rather,
I think this is probably self-evident). I think there are basically 2
different ways our hobby might go. I prefer one, but I will admit there are
benefits to both (well, benefits to some people).
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Possible Future for the Hobby #1:
I will admit right off the bat this is the one I do NOT like (just so you
know my bias immediately). This possible future is that the hobby will remain
something that is mostly enjoyed by programmers. If the number of muds
continues to grow like it is, and the number of players per mud continues to
decline (or if it does not increase), then muds will never grab a significant
share of the gaming populace (by that I mean players). The main draw to
internet games is the fact that you get to communicate with, and play with or
against other people. For that simple fact, games with few people on them just
won't attract a significant percentage of the gaming population. I am not
saying that the number of players *determines* how fun or good a game is, but
I think it is pretty true that having a good sized player base is what makes
internet gaming fun for players. For programmers however, they just need a mud
and a machine to build on, and maybe a couple players (perhaps friends of
theirs) to play their world. These programmers might even be 'players' on a
few other "programmer muds", which helps keep the hundreds or thousands of
muds
populated with at least enough players to make the building have some sort
of point. The proliferation of mud hosting services, publicly available
codebases, windows binaries for codebases, etc. all contribute to the fact
that just about anyone can have their own mud. It seems like more people want
to have their own mud than contribute to other muds. This trend is growing,
and as it becomes easier and cheaper to get a mud "up and running", the
trend is likely to continue.
This does not mean that big muds will disappear. This also does not mean
that there will be no muds that are mostly for the players. I just think
that if things continue to move in this direction, mudding as a hobby
will attract less and less "players", and more and more programmers. In
short, it will become a hobby almost entirely for the programmers.
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Possible Future for the Hobby #2:
The second possible future for our hobby is one that is more player oriented.
This would require less proliferation of muds, and slowly many of the stock
clones would die off. Players of those games would go to some of the more
established, developed muds, thus helping the growth of those larger muds as
well. Programmers would be more likely to seek to help on a larger mud than
to just branch out on their own.
Also, with fewer muds, and each mud designed to be able to handle many, many
players, each mud would have to work to provide something different or
unique in order to attract its type of player. I think hack n slash muds
will not fare as well in the 'future' of the hobby (once again, I admit I am
biased towards RP muds), since games like Diablo will be able to do hack-n-
slash far better than a mud can. However, I think a few really good ones will
still be able to survive. I think the ones that do will be games that *ADMIT*
they are hack n slash muds, and design their game with the purpose of being
a really good hack n slash mud (instead of pretending they are a roleplaying
mud when they clearly are NOT). Roleplaying muds will be designed to cater to
that type of player, PK muds will be designed to cater to that type of
player, etc.
I think this type of future has the best chance of attracting some of the
hordes of gamers that are getting on the internet. When people try out
a mud for the first time, and they venture onto a richly developed, well
written, well described mud with hundreds or thousands of players who
make up the rich society, there is a good chance that they will be
entranced by the experience and stick with the hobby. However, when they
wander onto YASM (Yet Another Stock Mud) and see boring 1 line descriptions
that were put in place just to get the stock mud running, they quickly (and
understandably) decide muds are crap. Attracting more and more players from
outside the hobby will continue the trend, since most of these type players
won't have any interest in programming.
Imho, a natural extension of this trend will be more commercial muds.
MUDs with super powerful machines, top quality internet connections, a
hard working, professional staff and administration, a nice front end
client, etc, will have the advantage over the hobby game where players
simply connect with GMUD, ZMUD, or some other generic client. As someone
else said in this group (I believe it was Jon Lambert), in the future
the client will be an integral part of mudding, and it will perform a
lot of tasks that will add many unique features to gaming. For example, I
think even on text muds, sound will become a significant part of the
experience. The other upside to this is more commercial muds means a lot
more jobs in mud programming, client programming, and even sound and
multimedia editing.
Aside from the things mentioned above, I think one important thing will
have to change if the larger, more richly developed games will ever come to
the fore. The enormous disdain, jealousy, and conflict that exists between
mud administrators and programmers will somehow have to lessen. Its almost
like it is a sin these days to run a big mud, or a successful one. The
prevailing wisdom seems to be that if you aren't starting over with the
latest programming concepts, then your mud is simply crap. People seem
incredibly insistent that THEY know the "ONE TRUE WAY" to operate a mud,
and there seems to be little or no understanding that different people like
different styles- and that goes for programmers as well as players. I know
I have been guilty of flaming on my share of fellow mud operators, but it
just seems like "the thing to do" in our community. Further, it seems like
the more popular the mud, the more the "community" seems to think the admin
of that mud needs to be bashed (You know the kind of bashing: "How can that
piece of crap mud have so many players? It sucks! Their code is totally
archaic! They don't have this, they dont have that, etc, etc, ad nauseum").
As Mister Roger's Neighborhoody (is that an adjverb? *grin) as this sounds,
I guess future #2 requires more programmers working together. It also requires
more support and happiness for the success of other muds, rather than a
jealous desire to beat them down for their success.
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Ok, this might be the longest post I have ever made in usenet, and if you
made it this far I congratulate you.
So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
-Aristotle@Threshold
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Dundee
(Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
>A question that interests me, and apparently many other mudders, is where is
>our hobby going?
Commercial and graphical, would be my guess.
UOX/FUSE/Greyworld are very interesting projects - using the Ultima
Online client to connect to non-commercial servers.
Another interesting project is (was?) UOSR - (I think it was called),
which didn't use the Ultima Online client or the commercial servers,
but it *did* use the art and map files from the UO CD. And even those
were being replaced with freeware art, so that a person could play
without ever buying a UO CD at all.
>For the sake of this issue, I mean "text-based muds".
Oh. Hmm. I don't know. I think you're pretty accurate in your
assessment. More muds (especially as more and more people get cable
modems and whatnot), fewer players (because a lot of interested people
are going to be playing on graphical muds, commercial or otherwise)
instead.
>Imho, a natural extension of this trend will be more commercial muds.
>MUDs with super powerful machines, top quality internet connections, a
>hard working, professional staff and administration, a nice front end
>client, etc, will have the advantage over the hobby game where players
>simply connect with GMUD, ZMUD, or some other generic client.
Speaking of mud programmers working together to create One Great Mud
rather then "competing" with lots of little crappy muds, one direction
being taken with the UOX server is to make a multi-server world. From
the user's perspective, it's one mud. But it would actually be
zoned-off with different areas being run on different servers on the
internet.
Tha multi-server approach would allow you to compete with
commercial-sized worlds. A generic, graphical client with map-n-art
files downloaded in advance for a given mud...
Big project though that would require a lot of people working
together. Yeah, I don't see it happening either. :_P
-
Dundee - http://dundee.uong.com/
Derek
: On Wed, 05 May 1999 10:45:08 GMT, thre...@threshold-rpg.com
: (Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
: >A question that interests me, and apparently many other mudders, is where is
: >our hobby going?
: Commercial and graphical, would be my guess.
Our hobby has definately been commercialized by Origin (Ultima Online),
Sony (Everquest) and now Microsoft (Asheron's Call).
They still have yet to achieve the immersion of ones own imagination from
the written word, and are not completely dynamic.
Fully dynamic streaming 3D worlds are only part of the "Holy Grail" of the
ultimate massively multiplayer online RPG... and this goal has yet to be
achieved.
I have the vision of the ultimate "One Great MUD"... but have not the
resources and time to pull it off... yet.
Nightshade
>So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
>In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
Depends. Do you want to hear about it from someone from the MUSHing
end of the hobby, or not? I've come to realize that even though we're
sort of the same general kind of thing, the things the MUDers play for
and the things the MUSHers do is quite different, and I suspect the
technological advance is going to impact them in very different ways.
Richard
> The 'war on stock muds' thread got me thinking about this, and since its
> a different issue I figured I should post it in a seperate thread. This is
> a long post, but hopefully raises some decent points, or at least will
> provoke discussion. =)
An idea I was thinking of that might help would be to have a starting point
web-site that introduced what muds were and explained that they were of
differing levels of quality and not all based on the same concepts.
Then, they let someone specify what type of thing they were looking for
in a mud and look through the ones that qualified. Sort of like a mud
portal. But of course, for the idea to work effectively, one portal only
would be best and also people would have to direct potential mudders there.
Admittedly there are sites that index muds out there and some may even be
structured along these lines, but the ones I have seen would make me lose
interest as soon as the web-page loaded if I was a first-time mudder.
> A question that interests me, and apparently many other mudders, is where is
> our hobby going? For the sake of this issue, I mean "text-based muds". I think
> we mostly agree that muds will continue to exist in some form for at least
> the next 5-10 years or so (if not longer). Personally, I agree with this,
Well, muds like mine will go for improving the detail of gameplay and
the believability. I firmly believe that graphical muds can never offer
the level of imagination/immersion that text based muds can.
The player killing oriented muds will not change much if at all IMO.
> Possible Future for the Hobby #1:
>
> This does not mean that big muds will disappear. This also does not mean
> that there will be no muds that are mostly for the players. I just think
> that if things continue to move in this direction, mudding as a hobby
> will attract less and less "players", and more and more programmers. In
> short, it will become a hobby almost entirely for the programmers.
I think this is unlikely.
> Possible Future for the Hobby #2:
>
> The second possible future for our hobby is one that is more player oriented.
> This would require less proliferation of muds, and slowly many of the stock
> clones would die off. Players of those games would go to some of the more
> established, developed muds, thus helping the growth of those larger muds as
> well. Programmers would be more likely to seek to help on a larger mud than
> to just branch out on their own.
>
> ...
>
> I think this type of future has the best chance of attracting some of the
> hordes of gamers that are getting on the internet. When people try out
> a mud for the first time, and they venture onto a richly developed, well
> written, well described mud with hundreds or thousands of players who
> make up the rich society, there is a good chance that they will be
> entranced by the experience and stick with the hobby. However, when they
This is why I think there is a need to get them to go through a 'portal'
or something similar where it will make sure they end up at a mud that
will interest them, not just their mates stock mud or whatever.
> Imho, a natural extension of this trend will be more commercial muds.
> MUDs with super powerful machines, top quality internet connections, a
> hard working, professional staff and administration, a nice front end
> client, etc, will have the advantage over the hobby game where players
> simply connect with GMUD, ZMUD, or some other generic client.
Well, in terms of being able to properly support players, they would have
the advantage.. but IMO its kind of like the open-source thingy, where
people are doing it out of their own interest (and have a clue) they are
going to end up with something more interesting than what someone who is
doing it cause they are paid to will. And, where commercial interests
will be oriented on getting the product to the consumer fast enough to
make it commercially viable or whatever, someone like myself who does it
only out of interest and can take several years to do it _exactly_ as he
wants it can come up with a better product.
So, lets say that some commercial muds do become popular, theres an
advertising base for my mud when it is finally complete - while I might
have consideration for someone who runs a free mud and out of respect ask
my creators not to post advertisements for mine on their boards, I would
not have the same compulsions towards commercial muds.
> As someone
> else said in this group (I believe it was Jon Lambert), in the future
> the client will be an integral part of mudding, and it will perform a
> lot of tasks that will add many unique features to gaming. For example, I
> think even on text muds, sound will become a significant part of the
> experience. The other upside to this is more commercial muds means a lot
Until I read this I would have disagreed, but having just played Dungeon
Master again the other day, I can see hearing footsteps, doors opening and
closing.. etc would be niceish. Although, something text based muds AFAIK
(apart from Discworld) do not have is facing directions, where you can go:
turn left, forward, turn around. Hearing footsteps behind you when
someone is approaching you in the same room doesn't have the same effect
when you have effectively 360 degree vision.
> So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
> In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
I think its going to go nowhere. People are still going to go to the
muds they hear of through word of mouth, and whether this is a stock mud
or a decent one thats well done, I doubt anyone can influence.
When people are dissatisfied with the mud they code at, they are still
going to want to go off and start their own. When the stock-mud lamers
are feeling they want to run their own mud, and delude themselves that
its actually worth putting up for someone to play they are still going to
do so. IMO, the only solution is to try and get together all the best
muds and put up a united front to achieve a common purpose, as to whether
its possible, I doubt it.
Ok, so lets say that clients come in. Theres ones, like Pueblo?
- allowing embedded graphics or pictures popping up in another window..
to me thats something that has almost no future in text based mudding -
even if its used only for something like displaying portraits of
characters - theres still the problem that it actually lowers the look
and feel quality unless all the pictures are consistantly done (IMO of
course).
- Now, sound might be good for adding atmosphere but again it would have
to be done consistantly. And even then, I think I would end up
disabling it as I would tend to see everything I would also hear
anyway.
- Now drag and drop inventories might be nice, but again, consistancy and
quality of the images would be most important IMO. It would also have
to be dynamic, so that you didn't have a fixed amount of slots (ala
Dungeon Master, Bloodwych.. and other archaic games) you could drag
items into. I can see clothing your character being a lot clearer with
a drag and drop interface - although a player would have to watch where he
or she gets undressed.
--
Richard Tew (above spudent -> student, lame spam avoidance thingy)
Dundee
(Nightshade) wrote:
>Depends. Do you want to hear about it from someone from the MUSHing
>end of the hobby, or not? I've come to realize that even though we're
>sort of the same general kind of thing, the things the MUDers play for
>and the things the MUSHers do is quite different, and I suspect the
>technological advance is going to impact them in very different ways.
If MUDers and MUSHers don't get together, then the impact is going to
be the same.
***
Dundee * http://dundee.uong.com/
Dundee
wrote:
>They still have yet to achieve the immersion of ones own imagination from
>the written word, and are not completely dynamic.
I don't know what you mean by "completely dynamic".
And, yeah, books are great, but MU*'s are like books that require the
readers to be competent authors. That's a pretty stupid standard, if
you ask me. It's also *the* reason why the hobby is dying a slow
horrible death.
(MUDS played only by mud-coders being what I call a pretty freakin'
horrible death. Feel free to differ).
Dundee
<rm...@spudent.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>Well, muds like mine will go for improving the detail of gameplay and
>the believability. I firmly believe that graphical muds can never offer
>the level of imagination/immersion that text based muds can.
Text-based muds are *never ever ever* going to appeal to the masses.
And by cutting out The Masses, you are cutting out all the players.
All that is left then, are the coders.
Who plays muds, now?
>The player killing oriented muds will not change much if at all IMO.
That attitude, likewise, will kill the hobby. If you can't come up
with a way for pking and "playing with the abiltity to PK" to coexist,
then you are DOOMED.
I fugure you're doomed anyway, as text-mudders burrow into their
PK/Game/social burrows, have no players apart from coders and wanna-be
coders, and commercial graphical muds convince everone to play muds
(their muds, at any rate, not yours).
But then, I'm cynical.
Nightshade
Honestly, given the number of MUDs I see, I suspect we're only a blip
on the radar screen to the MUDders. For better or worse, the kind of
people who want the kind of experience offered on most MUSHes are
apparently a much smaller group than the numbers wanting to play on
MUDs. Many of the things that would improve one type of game would
have almost no effect on the other.
Nightshade
>I fugure you're doomed anyway, as text-mudders burrow into their
>PK/Game/social burrows, have no players apart from coders and wanna-be
>coders, and commercial graphical muds convince everone to play muds
>(their muds, at any rate, not yours).
Frankly, if the only future is the kind of thing that the graphical
muds seem to be moving toward, I'd be out of there anyway. If that's
the road to survival, then there's nothing in it for me.
Jon A. Lambert
>
>thre...@threshold-rpg.com (Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
>
>>So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
>>In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
>
>end of the hobby, or not? I've come to realize that even though we're
>sort of the same general kind of thing, the things the MUDers play for
>and the things the MUSHers do is quite different, and I suspect the
>technological advance is going to impact them in very different ways.
From someone who has played on both sides of the fence, it is my opinion
that many of the concepts found in the MUSH/MOO/Tiny slice of the MUD
pie will become the dominant features of the future large and successful
Internet Virtual Spaces and Worlds. Building, constructing, creating
and programming one's own virtual space within a larger commercial or
non-profit space will be the primary future attraction. User-programming
and user-building will become a demanded feature on large-scale commercial
V-spaces. However, what we geeks understand as "programming" will not
be done in the "traditional" manner. User programming will be accomplished
via true Visual assembly of components.
Virtual Lego and Erector sets, if you will.
At some point, some well-bankrolled group will assemble aspects of the Web,
IRC and Mush/MOO into a commercial virtual reality shopping mall. Virtual
stores in prime locations will be sublet. Virtual bazaars and auction
spaces will be created. Sort of like E-Bay and Amazon books in VR.
Conventions may well be held as well as instruction. Hmm, come to think
of it a lot of this is going on now. IBM conducts classes in IRC-like
space. The only thing missing from these virtual worlds is the sense of
ethereal movement through space. Those spaces that capture the sensation
of being an avatar through a good user interface will be most successful.
You may be thinking. Damn it! THESE things aren't MUDS! I think
the distinctions one draws may well be ultimately arbitrary, parochial,
and meaningless.
Adventure style games like UOL and Everquest will continue to improve
and flourish, as well as HnS and PK style games like Quake and Diablo.
But even among these games, the ones who integrate and support private
user spaces better, the more successful they will become.
But Social VR spaces will be THE PRIMARY net attraction and the most
popular and dominant. This shouldn't be suprising since they currently
are anyhow. Some will be safe spaces and many will be places more prone
to porno and virtual bordellos. (Note this isn't my wish, just an
extrapolation of current net use) Among such social spaces will spring
up various traditional games like backgammon, checkers, cards, lotteries,
etc.
Pure role-playing virtual worlds will exist. And they will probably
still be the smaller slice of the pie. Which environment is more
conducive to live action roleplay, one that supports text or one that
supports voice? There exists a largely untapped base of LARPers and
FTF gamers that will prefer such an evironment over text-only.
I also see real time streaming video and voice as something that will
be common in future virtual spaces or worlds.
I think there are two distinct features of MU*s that will become the
currency of Mass Appeal.
1) The ability of the user to project oneself into space with a
convincing sensation of ethereal movement. The more senses used
the more appeal.
2) The ability to build, create, modify, share and extend a persistent
private user space and populate it with user stuff along with
the ability to move, buy, sell, give, take and operate that user stuff.
Ok. I'll put out my crack pipe now. :P
--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email:jlsy...@nospam.ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://pw1.netcom.com/~jlsysinc> *--
--* I am the Dragon of Grindly Grund, but my lunches aren't very much fun, *--
--* For I like my damsels medium rare, And they always come out well done. *--
red...@my-dejanews.com
decidedly hack n slash outlook.. this is what I've experienced:
Aristotle@Threshold wrote:
> >Possible Future for the Hobby #1:>
> >This does not mean that big muds will disappear. This also does not mean
> >that there will be no muds that are mostly for the players. I just think
> >that if things continue to move in this direction, mudding as a hobby
> >will attract less and less "players", and more and more programmers. In
> >short, it will become a hobby almost entirely for the programmers.
> I think this is unlikely.
But, ack, no, I don't think this is far from the truth at all! There are so
many MUDs I go to that are just "coding clubs" these days. Even then, once
one coder has finished building a virtual area, none of the other coders can
be bothered to look over it.
As Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade) wrote:
> >
> >I fugure you're doomed anyway, as text-mudders burrow into their
> >PK/Game/social burrows, have no players apart from coders and wanna-be
> >coders..
Which brings me nicely on to the assumption that if we want to see the future
of the MUD, we have to look at what attracted the existing players into the
MUD. That rare breed who aren't playing it just to become an immort.
When I started MUDding that's all I ever wanted to do. Achieve immort status.
If they'd have told me I needed to be online 16 hours a day to achieve that,
I'd have done it. I quested and killed and got there in the end.
Then "every other MUD" started opening and there were unlimited opportunities
for immort status. But these were wiener places that seemed to close after a
few months. Having said that, even some of the more established MUDs are
purely for the coders now.
Achieving immortal status is almost like "finishing the game", something
which the videogamers have always been taught to aim for. But what is it
that attracts the players who aren't aiming for immort to perform repititive
actions on a one-dimensional never-changing, never-ending game?
Don't even contemplate boastng that your players stay because the
descriptions are better than such-and-such. Just how many seasoned players
do you think take the time to re-read and re-examine the descriptions after
their initial exploration of a new area? There has to be something in the
gameplay itself, something that keeps them hooked. I don't know what it is,
I'm one of the rare breed of coders who enjoys playing as much as coding now
the novelty of having my own areas scattered randomly around the net has worn
off. And even I can't identify why I like MUDding. I think it could have
something to do with liking the people I MUD with...
So what is the future of MUDs? We're the people who are creating the things.
Perhaps we should do something about securing us a few new player-types?
Maybe we should go back to the old-school of MUD thinking and seriously frown
upon any place that is willing to take anyone as an immort without experience
(ack, there goes my place..). Perhaps we should produce a list of "100 elite
MUDs by category", jointly, the lot of us, and make it any new MUDs aim to
get onto that list. Perhaps we should make a MUD Central, and try to
persuade all these free ISPs that are starting up (as is certainly the case
of the UK) to promote MUDs in their portals as an added internet experience
for their users. We can't give them much in the way of commercial exposure
in return. But we can offer the users something relatively unique in the way
of online gaming. Maybe its time we paid back Zugg for years of happy
MUDding and started trying to persuade our big software stockists to sell it,
or software companies to bundle it with larger selling titles?
At the end of the day, we're the ones who are going to make or break the
future of MUDding. If we don't go out and find the players, in the jungle of
alternative webchat rooms and IRC channels (eep, those words just turned my
stomach) - they're not likely to find us anymore.
Sarah
PS
Just for the record, the big advantage I've always found a MUD has over
graphical games is that in most cases it's possible to keep it running in a
window when you are at work without being caught "gaming on duty" :)
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Derek
: On Wed, 05 May 1999 21:33:31 GMT, de...@mail.pythonvideo.com (Derek)
: wrote:
: >They still have yet to achieve the immersion of ones own imagination from
: >the written word, and are not completely dynamic.
: I don't know what you mean by "completely dynamic".
I mean that a great deal of the world is static, and cannot be changed
without an upgrade, or massive downloading. The less that is sent from the
server to the client, the more static the game world is.
: And, yeah, books are great, but MU*'s are like books that require the
: readers to be competent authors. That's a pretty stupid standard, if
: you ask me. It's also *the* reason why the hobby is dying a slow
: horrible death.
MUSHes may be like books that require the readers to be competent authors.
MUDs are not. We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
game world by any player.
Dundee
wrote:
>I mean that a great deal of the world is static, and cannot be changed
>without an upgrade, or massive downloading. The less that is sent from the
>server to the client, the more static the game world is.
Ah. I guess I've had a bad experience with muds. Probably because of
all the stock muds out there. They just don't seem very dynamic to
me. But yeah, you're right of course, they *could* be dynamic whereas
the graphical ones are more kind of "stuck with what shipped."
>We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
>multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
>game world by any player.
Yeah, but I gotta say... I *like* being able to add stuff to the
world. Even if it's just "my house". I like being able to customize
it and decorate it and so on. Granted you couldn't allow that sort of
thing to impact the world outside my house.
Dundee
(Nightshade) wrote:
>Frankly, if the only future is the kind of thing that the graphical
>muds seem to be moving toward, I'd be out of there anyway. If that's
>the road to survival, then there's nothing in it for me.
What is it about the commerical muds that you dislike? I'm assuming
it's not the graphics.
Rosye
Dundee wrote in message
<0FCF0395F2288CC9.A92FDE9F...@library-proxy.airnews.ne
t>...
I may be speaking for a minority here, but I for one utterly dislike the
idea of graphical muds. I cannot really give any sort of reason as to this,
it might be the fact that at heart I'm a builder and a designer. Graphics
force a single interpretation of the world on a user, while a text based mud
will only hint at possible interpretations, and leave the final decision on
what the world looks like up to the individual player. When I roleplay or
I mud, I love the ability to imagine what is happening around me, not see
some artists rendition of it. Yes, to an extent builders give a form to the
world with their descriptions, but the final picturing of it is up to the
player. Even in the most well described rooms, it will vary even from two
like-minded people what the room actually looks like. This is a good thing
imho =) I'm all for graphical games in other aspects, eye candy is very
nice in the right setting. But when I roleplay, I want my imagination to be
able to take over.
Just my opinion, I'm sure graphical muds are very nice and wonderful and
have good roleplaying. I just dont have any desire to be part of it =) If
this is where muds are headed in the future, I'm pretty saddened by that
idea. I'll continue to run my text based mud and thumb my nose at those who
say graphics are the "future". I dont mind living in the "past". =)
*Note, I did not down any graphical muds in this post, nor will I. Everyone
is entitled to their own preferences and dislikes. Any defensive responses
getting on me for my view of graphical muds will be 100% ignored, but mature
discussion is more than welcomed =)
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade) wrote:
> thre...@threshold-rpg.com (Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
>
> >So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
> >In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
>
> end of the hobby, or not? I've come to realize that even though we're
> sort of the same general kind of thing, the things the MUDers play for
> and the things the MUSHers do is quite different, and I suspect the
> technological advance is going to impact them in very different ways.
I know from experience that your game and mine are already as different as
apples and banannas, and steadilly moving farther apart. I suspect that our
player and staff groups have little in common, and show very little interest
in crossing that widening chasm. (And this is really disappointing
personally, because my wife has mostly forsaken helping with my project in
favor of yours. Grr! ;) ) Don't take that to mean that I don't want to hear
from your side, just that I realize the direction of our two camps is nearly
opposite.
Personally, I'd guess that this itself is pretty indicitive of how mudding
trends will continue - muds as a whole will spread out to cover a much
greater variety of environments. Besides the classic GoP/RP division we're
already so familiar with, muds are already being used outside the arena of
gaming as teaching environments, simulators and online meeting places. I
suspect the basic *concept* of a mud: a real-time, multi-user interactive
environment, will be adapted for all kinds of business applications that you
and I would never recognize as a mud.
--
Visit us at Dreamshadow today! -
telnet: dreamer.telmaron.com 3333
http://homestead.dejanews.com/dreamshadow/DreamshadowMain.html
Dundee
>Just my opinion, I'm sure graphical muds are very nice and wonderful and
>have good roleplaying.
LOL. I haven't seen much of *that*.
But then I've only been on UO and EQ. They aren't really roleplaying
games. But they are massive multiplayer games, which I find
interesting because I can meet all sorts of people. The person I play
with regularly - since meeting her in UO over a year ago - never
played any other online game, computer RPG, or paper-n-pencil RPG
before UO.
And our playstyles are really, really different, but we always play
together.
I suppose you don't really need graphics to accomplish that. I can
bash monsters and level and develop skills and whatnot in a text
environment. I don't know if it would appeal as much to her. She
likes to decorate the house. I look for a magic ring to get +2 dex.
She looks for a silver ring because it matches her necklace. Lots of
people trapped animals in their house and sparred on them to build
skills. She wanted a pet polar bear because they are cute. Then she
wanted a pet hellhound, then a pet Dragon, then a pet hellcat. I
took-up Animal Taming so I could tame a Dragon and Kill Things with
it.
The neat thing in UO was that it could accomodate us both. Not just
both in the same world, but both side by side in that world, and quite
often pursuing the exact same goal, but for different reasons. Which
I guess doesn't have anything to do with graphics, either.
EQ doesn't appeal to her quite as much. No houses at all. No pets to
speak of (other than conjured ones for certain classes, not the same
thing). No where to keep the pet anyway. There's a lot of jewelry
but you can't see it on any of the characters - sort of the same as a
text mud thing there, you can "inspect" someone to see what they are
wearing, but you can't actually see them wearing it. The parts of EQ
that she doesn't like so much are due to the lack of graphics though.
She wants to socialize and explore, have a home, customize her
character (but not "*poof* there, you have everything you could ever
want"). I want to play hero and solve quests that actually mean
something in terms of What Happens Next in the world, even if they
don't mean much. And we both want to be able to play together, at the
same time, with each other, in an environment that lets us do both -
"live in an online world" and "play an online game" concurrently.
Well, I guess that doesn't have anything to do with graphics, either.
But I shop around the MUD/MUSH world and it seems to be one extreme or
the other. All socializing, or all monster-bashing. So... eh... I'll
just play EQ until Asheron's Call comes out, I wot. And hope they put
houses in soon after release.
(oh yeah, I also like writing long foaming rants about UO, and now EQ,
and on commercial muds I can do that without getting banned. I think
if I wrote nasty things about a particular mud then the admins would
kick me off it. heh.)
Alan Schwartz
>On 6 May 99 10:44:13 +1200 (NEW ZEALAND STANDARD TIME), Richard
><rm...@spudent.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>>the believability. I firmly believe that graphical muds can never offer
>>the level of imagination/immersion that text based muds can.
>
Neither are science-fiction books. It does not, however, therefore follow
that you do not have any active audience. :)
(I do agree that if there are those who play MUDs as a tactical
adventure game and ignore the text anyway, they'd likely much prefer
the intuitive appeal of graphics. More power to 'em. They don't happen
to characterize the people I mud with, though.)
Note also that there's a continuum between 'text' and 'graphics'. I think,
given the greatly increasing availabilty of clients that can render
text and graphics (notably web browsers), that spot graphics could
play an evocative role in a largely text-based mud, just as excellent
illustrations or photographs can enhance a largely text-based book.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Javelin@M*U*S*H (pennmush.org 4201) | Alan Schwartz
Paul@DuneMUSH | dune...@pennmush.org
Javelin@Belgariad, and elsewhere | PennMUSH Server Maintainer
=-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
PennMUSH God's Guide: http://www.pennmush.org/~alansz/guide.html
PennMUSH Source: ftp://ftp.pennmush.org/pub/PennMUSH/Source
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Sterling
>
>Just my opinion, I'm sure graphical muds are very nice and wonderful and
>this is where muds are headed in the future, I'm pretty saddened by that
>idea. I'll continue to run my text based mud and thumb my nose at those who
>say graphics are the "future". I dont mind living in the "past". =)
>
I agree, in part. Text-based muds will have a place for quite some time,
especially for the hardcore roleplayers (where having essentially a
pen-and-paper D&D game online is just peachy). Everquest, however, changed
my mind quite a bit. Everquest could *be* my mud with a graphical
interface. The classes/races/skills/spells/mobs are all highly equivalent
to the mud I run. I was really impressed with the "mud-ity" of Everquest.
If I could, I definitely would switch my codebase to Everquest :)
Sterling @ Wyld Knight (who shudders to think of what that licensing fee
might cost)
PS: One advantage, already mentioned, to text-based muds is the "ability to
play at work/school" which you just can't do with the graphical muds (unless
your employer is real nice). There is also the "it can be played on any
machine" aspect, and the "you can play with no download or a very small
download" aspect.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Wyld Knight - wyld.qx.net 3333
http://wyld.qx.net/~rezo
re...@lords.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Nightshade
>MUSHes may be like books that require the readers to be competent authors.
>MUDs are not. We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
>multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
>game world by any player.
This is why I asked whether Aristotle was directing this at the whole
MU**ing community or just the MUD end. For all the superficial
resemblances, they aren't the same beast.
Nightshade
>Pure role-playing virtual worlds will exist. And they will probably
>still be the smaller slice of the pie. Which environment is more
>conducive to live action roleplay, one that supports text or one that
>supports voice? There exists a largely untapped base of LARPers and
>FTF gamers that will prefer such an evironment over text-only.
I'll give you that voice activation would probably be one of the
things I'd expect to be attractive...though one of the virtues of
MUSHing is that it filters input so that all other people see are a
presented mask of the player, including issues like voice. Until
that's true of the voice sends, I can't see it's going to be an
entirely satisfactory replacement...or perhaps satisfactory at all.
Similar problems arrise on graphics usage in such things; until
there's a heck of a big library of image components available for
building (and probably something very complex for character
description) there's going to be some limits to all it's functionality
from a mushers point of view.
Of course there's also the fact that sometimes having to talk at your
computer would be damned inconvenient, too.
Not that I disagree with your point. MUSHers as a group, even on
MUSHes that have coded mechanics, are oriented in a somewhat different
way in what they're looking for in a game than the MUD folks.
>Ok. I'll put out my crack pipe now. :P
Heh. Everybody's gotta have a dream. :)
Nightshade
>In article <3732c185.6902040@news>,
> Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade) wrote:
>> thre...@threshold-rpg.com (Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
>>
>> >So, what are your opinions? What will our hobby be like in the future?
>> >In 5 years? In 10 years? Etc.
>>
>> Depends. Do you want to hear about it from someone from the MUSHing
>> end of the hobby, or not? I've come to realize that even though we're
>> sort of the same general kind of thing, the things the MUDers play for
>> and the things the MUSHers do is quite different, and I suspect the
>> technological advance is going to impact them in very different ways.
>
>I know from experience that your game and mine are already as different as
>apples and banannas, and steadilly moving farther apart. I suspect that our
>player and staff groups have little in common, and show very little interest
>in crossing that widening chasm. (And this is really disappointing
>personally, because my wife has mostly forsaken helping with my project in
>favor of yours. Grr! ;) ) Don't take that to mean that I don't want to hear
>from your side, just that I realize the direction of our two camps is nearly
>opposite.
Yes. When I first started MUShing, I didn't realize quite how much
this was the case. Even MUSHes with a lot of coded mechanics (such as
Dark Dreaming) fundamentally aren't offering the same kind of reasons
to play and directions as a MUD. I doubt much is going to make this
change, as you say. I got an eyefull of this difference a while back
when I tried to explain to people why limited db sizes and the lack of
certain forms of automated process were largely nonissues to many
MUSHers and ran into clear cases where people were looking at me like
I'd beamed in from Mars.
>
>Personally, I'd guess that this itself is pretty indicitive of how mudding
>trends will continue - muds as a whole will spread out to cover a much
>greater variety of environments. Besides the classic GoP/RP division we're
>already so familiar with, muds are already being used outside the arena of
>gaming as teaching environments, simulators and online meeting places. I
>suspect the basic *concept* of a mud: a real-time, multi-user interactive
>environment, will be adapted for all kinds of business applications that you
>and I would never recognize as a mud.
It wouldn't suprise me, since from what I understand of it's history,
that was what some MU** structures were being designed for from the
start; they just turned out to make such bang-up gaming
environments...
Nightshade
>On Thu, 06 May 1999 07:19:46 GMT, Night...@nightdark.com
>(Nightshade) wrote:
>
>>Frankly, if the only future is the kind of thing that the graphical
>>muds seem to be moving toward, I'd be out of there anyway. If that's
>>the road to survival, then there's nothing in it for me.
>
>What is it about the commerical muds that you dislike? I'm assuming
>it's not the graphics.
The fact they're still, from lack of a better term, in the D&D style
'search for treasure, find things, kill things, and poke into corners'
mode? Honestly, it's much the same problem I have with non-graphical
non-commercial muds; it's just that the advance in tech doesn't change
the parts that don't interest me at all.
It's not so much I 'dislike' them (though the above may make it sound
like it) as it just doesn't have anything to do with the sort of
online gaming I'm interested in.
Dundee
wrote:
>(I do agree that if there are those who play MUDs as a tactical
>adventure game and ignore the text anyway, they'd likely much prefer
>the intuitive appeal of graphics.
I don't think that's a fair assessment of the graphics-oriented crowd.
The person I play with regularly - my partner for the past year+ in UO
and EQ - would probably not find much on text muds appealing. She
likes to customize her character (with clothing and non-magical
jewelry, for example), decorate her house, get cute pets, chat, etc.
I am *much more* a powergaming goob. I wear whatever armor is best
even if it is ugly (well, within limits, she won't let me get away
with REAL ugly armor), look for magical jewely, rather than jewelry to
accessorize, prefer pets that Kill Things over pets that are cuddly,
and so on.
What I liked about UO is that it can accomodate us both,
simultaneously (EQ less so because the characters cannot be customized
so much, there are no player-owned houses, etc.). But what I see on
MUDs are a very sort of either-or thing.
>Note also that there's a continuum between 'text' and 'graphics'. I think,
>given the greatly increasing availabilty of clients that can render
>text and graphics (notably web browsers), that spot graphics could
>play an evocative role in a largely text-based mud, just as excellent
>illustrations or photographs can enhance a largely text-based book.
That'd be neat.
John Adelsberger
: I don't think that's a fair assessment of the graphics-oriented crowd.
: The person I play with regularly - my partner for the past year+ in UO
: and EQ - would probably not find much on text muds appealing. She
: likes to customize her character (with clothing and non-magical
: jewelry, for example), decorate her house, get cute pets, chat, etc.
You can do all of that on the text game I play, I think; we certainly
don't have an environment that your average mush fanatic would like,
but if the 'traditional' mudding experience isn't your thing, you can
still play and have a good time, assuming you're willing to expend the
effort.
: What I liked about UO is that it can accomodate us both,
: simultaneously (EQ less so because the characters cannot be customized
: so much, there are no player-owned houses, etc.). But what I see on
: MUDs are a very sort of either-or thing.
You're playing crappy muds. rod.imaginary.com 3000. I think all the
houses are full, and probably will be for a good while, but the features
are all there, insofar as I can tell from what you're saying, and given
that I don't have perfect knowledge of the mud(it's rather large...)
--
John J. Adelsberger III
j...@umr.edu
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
John Adelsberger
: The fact they're still, from lack of a better term, in the D&D style
: 'search for treasure, find things, kill things, and poke into corners'
: mode?
If the population of online gamers were a football stadium full of people,
you couldn't even fill the front row seats with hardcore roleplayers. If
you think you're going to see huge commercial rp anytime soon, you're
mistaken, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see some of the free clone
people consider doing it.
: Honestly, it's much the same problem I have with non-graphical
: non-commercial muds; it's just that the advance in tech doesn't change
: the parts that don't interest me at all.
Don't expect that it ever will; no future development is going to change
the fact that there is a very, very narrow range of personalities that
actually enjoys the sort of roleplaying you're talking about, and many
of them prefer other media. Personally, I am very quickly bored out of
my skull by such games, if for no other reason, then because if I wanted
to write fiction, I'd _write fiction;_ I don't want or need anyone else
to help with that, collaborate on that, infringe on that, or in any
other way have anything to DO with that. I suspect most of the people
creative enough to really get anything out of such games would agree,
and so you're left with damn few people - which doesn't mean your idea
of a game is _bad,_ but it IS going to be pretty small(which meshes
with observed evidence rather well:)
Alan Schwartz
>
>MUSHes may be like books that require the readers to be competent authors.
>MUDs are not. We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
>multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
>game world by any player.
I hate to start this perennial controversy again, but MUSHes (and MOOs,
MUCKs, etc.) are muds, too. I think you mean that you want to talk
about adventure-gaming muds with restricted building (which could be
run on a MUSH server, fwiw, rather than a dikumud server or similar.)
Alan Schwartz
>On 6 May 1999 19:04:09 GMT, ala...@araw.mede.uic.edu (Alan Schwartz)
>wrote:
>
>>(I do agree that if there are those who play MUDs as a tactical
>>adventure game and ignore the text anyway, they'd likely much prefer
>>the intuitive appeal of graphics.
>
Sorry, I didn't mean it in that direction. I didn't mean 'people who
play graphics muds are interested only in tactical adventuring.'
I meant 'people who are interested only in tactical adventuring
may be particularly well-served by graphical interfaces'. :)
Nightshade
>Nightshade <Night...@nightdark.com> wrote:
>
>: The fact they're still, from lack of a better term, in the D&D style
>: 'search for treasure, find things, kill things, and poke into corners'
>: mode?
>
>If the population of online gamers were a football stadium full of people,
>you couldn't even fill the front row seats with hardcore roleplayers. If
>you think you're going to see huge commercial rp anytime soon, you're
>mistaken, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see some of the free clone
>people consider doing it.
I don't expect it; I pretty much said as much in an earlier post.
That was why my comment was that in a way this effects a lot of us in
the MUSHing community less than at the MUD end, because we're pretty
much a tiny minority anyway.
>
>: Honestly, it's much the same problem I have with non-graphical
>: non-commercial muds; it's just that the advance in tech doesn't change
>: the parts that don't interest me at all.
>
>Don't expect that it ever will; no future development is going to change
>the fact that there is a very, very narrow range of personalities that
>actually enjoys the sort of roleplaying you're talking about, and many
>of them prefer other media. Personally, I am very quickly bored out of
>my skull by such games, if for no other reason, then because if I wanted
>to write fiction, I'd _write fiction;_ I don't want or need anyone else
>to help with that, collaborate on that, infringe on that, or in any
>other way have anything to DO with that. I suspect most of the people
>creative enough to really get anything out of such games would agree,
>and so you're left with damn few people - which doesn't mean your idea
>of a game is _bad,_ but it IS going to be pretty small(which meshes
>with observed evidence rather well:)
If you're expecting argument out of me, you've come to the wrong
address. Though personally I prefer a certain mix of roleplaying and
more 'gamey' aspects, but since the only places you see that are on
the 'roleplaying' muds, and they all seem stuck in the D&D mold (which
doesn't interest me much any more) I just mostly do without those
'game' aspects on-line.
Nightshade
>Derek <de...@mail.pythonvideo.com> writes:
>>
>>MUSHes may be like books that require the readers to be competent authors.
>>MUDs are not. We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
>>multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
>>game world by any player.
>
>I hate to start this perennial controversy again, but MUSHes (and MOOs,
>MUCKs, etc.) are muds, too. I think you mean that you want to talk
>about adventure-gaming muds with restricted building (which could be
>run on a MUSH server, fwiw, rather than a dikumud server or similar.)
>
While they may technically be MUDs, I've never run into anyone who
knew about both that had trouble understanding the distinction I was
making between the two. Usages evolve.
mwi...@my-dejanews.com
Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade) wrote:
> mwi...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> >I know from experience that your game and mine are already as different as
> >apples and banannas, and steadilly moving farther apart. I suspect that our
> >player and staff groups have little in common, and show very little interest
> >in crossing that widening chasm. (And this is really disappointing
> >personally, because my wife has mostly forsaken helping with my project in
> >favor of yours. Grr! ;) ) Don't take that to mean that I don't want to hear
> >from your side, just that I realize the direction of our two camps is nearly
> >opposite.
>
> Yes. When I first started MUShing, I didn't realize quite how much
> this was the case. Even MUSHes with a lot of coded mechanics (such as
> Dark Dreaming) fundamentally aren't offering the same kind of reasons
> to play and directions as a MUD.
And there's another measure of the gap: Dark Dreaming boasts of having a lot
of hardcoded mechanics in comparison to other MUSHes. Doug and 'Lea are RL
friends, and I've heard them describe quite a bit of your mechanics. (And,
as I mentioned, my wife is now staffing there too.) But coming from the
perspective of an LP admin, it doesn't sound like much is hardcoded at all.
Derek
: Derek <de...@mail.pythonvideo.com> writes:
: >
: >MUSHes may be like books that require the readers to be competent authors.
: >MUDs are not. We were talking about MUDs here, and I don't believe that any
: >multiplayer game should allow completely unrestricted modification of the
: >game world by any player.
: I hate to start this perennial controversy again, but MUSHes (and MOOs,
: MUCKs, etc.) are muds, too. I think you mean that you want to talk
: about adventure-gaming muds with restricted building (which could be
: run on a MUSH server, fwiw, rather than a dikumud server or similar.)
The terminology has evolved, hence the use of the term "MU*S" to encompass
all types.
Now a "MUD" generally refers to a DikuMUD style hack'n'slash combat oriented
MUD with no building commands available to regular players.
Adam Wozniak
>
>I hate to start this perennial controversy again, but MUSHes (and MOOs,
>MUCKs, etc.) are muds, too. I think you mean that you want to talk
>about adventure-gaming muds with restricted building (which could be
>run on a MUSH server, fwiw, rather than a dikumud server or similar.)
>
I've seen (and written) combat systems for a variety of Tiny* muds.
The line between the "role play" muds and the "hack&slash" muds
is fuzzy at best.
--Adam
--
ad...@mudlist.eorbit.net
I report spam and unsolicited bulk/commercial email.
Nightshade
>In article <373807e6.4915567@news>,
> Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade) wrote:
>> mwi...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>> >I know from experience that your game and mine are already as different as
>> >apples and banannas, and steadilly moving farther apart. I suspect that our
>> >player and staff groups have little in common, and show very little interest
>> >in crossing that widening chasm. (And this is really disappointing
>> >personally, because my wife has mostly forsaken helping with my project in
>> >favor of yours. Grr! ;) ) Don't take that to mean that I don't want to hear
>> >from your side, just that I realize the direction of our two camps is nearly
>> >opposite.
>>
>> Yes. When I first started MUShing, I didn't realize quite how much
>> this was the case. Even MUSHes with a lot of coded mechanics (such as
>> Dark Dreaming) fundamentally aren't offering the same kind of reasons
>> to play and directions as a MUD.
>
>And there's another measure of the gap: Dark Dreaming boasts of having a lot
>of hardcoded mechanics in comparison to other MUSHes. Doug and 'Lea are RL
>friends, and I've heard them describe quite a bit of your mechanics. (And,
>as I mentioned, my wife is now staffing there too.) But coming from the
>perspective of an LP admin, it doesn't sound like much is hardcoded at all.
Ah, I didn't realize it was actually DD you were refering to. I
suspect by the standards of most MUDs, we really don't have a lot
hardcoded. But then, a lot of the hardcoding used at most MUDs would
either be useless or actively get in the way of what we're doing.
I really have to think the big difference is that MUDs seem (for the
most part; I acknowledge there are bound to be exceptions) to be
trying for an effect rather like a multi-player CRPGs with more social
interactions; MUSHes are trying for something closer to extremely
large face-to-face RPGs. While there's obviously places where those
two concepts cross over, I think they tend to be on the periphery of
both groups.
Kjartan Johansen
>On Wed, 05 May 1999 21:33:31 GMT, de...@mail.pythonvideo.com (Derek)
>wrote:
>>They still have yet to achieve the immersion of ones own imagination from
>>the written word, and are not completely dynamic.
>I don't know what you mean by "completely dynamic".
>And, yeah, books are great, but MU*'s are like books that require the
>readers to be competent authors. That's a pretty stupid standard, if
>you ask me. It's also *the* reason why the hobby is dying a slow
>horrible death.
But what's the option? Graphical MUDs? Is it easier to create a
decent playing environment with graphics? I can't say that I'm very
experienced when it comes to trying out publically made graphical
stuff (it extends really only to Doom and Hexen Wads), but what
I've seen has lacked atmosphere and variety. The means might be a
lot easier with graphics (not as much brainstrain), but that doesn't
make the end product any better.
What needs to be done, no matter what path is taken in a MUD, is an
attitude that it has to be very very good or it doesn't go in. I don't
think I'm the only one who's sick of seeing shit code and crap areas
thrown in as if it's MSG. Originality and style is severely lacking
in MUDs these days. I mean, going onto a new mud and seeing on the
boards 'last message: june 1998: we just implemented skin'... well,
it doesn't inspire much confidence.
Kjartan Johansen
kj...@uow.edu.au
-The one thing worse than being a hopeless romantic is being a hopeful one-
Michael Morrison
all, but I thought your post was interesting so ill try to make a
brief response.
I have been mudding for over 9 years, and programming for
them the last 4.. I have a friend who has been mudding for
about 5 years and we had a simple conversation on this
matter... We both agreed our history kind of went like this:
1) Newbie mudder.. WOW muds are cool, you get to have
a character, and gain POWER, and compete against other
people..whee muds are fun, you start losing sleep, a lot of it.
1-2 years later.....
2) You gain power, you are recognized on your favorate mud
as a good player and you like the attention you are getting,
you have the most powerful items, etc.
another year passes...
3) You venture off onto new, and different types of muds, having
mastered the basic mud skills, you gain rather fast on them,
and realise something....mudding is kinda boring now
another year passes...
4) You're a master, you might have some kind of imm position,
and mudding IS boring, everything is virtually the same on
every mud, and roleplayers are dorks :P
At the point you are a master, you might stay in the mudding
community, quit mudding and get a real life, or be a programmer
and just kind of hang around on your favorate mud and code
on your own...
Me and my friend both became programmers, we have a mud
with about maybe 50+ regulars, and averages 10-15 players on
at one time, which to me is a BIG surprise because I don't do
much on it, I might once in a while get into a "coding frenzy" mood
and add some nifty feature, but thats it.
I haven't payed a lot of attention to the mudding community, but
quite frankly i am completely surprised there are still SO many
players and SO many muds. If i was brainwashed as to how many
players/muds were out there and were to guess only on my
knowledge of years of mudding experience, I would guess there
are 10-50 muds out there and maybe around 1000 active players.
I guess I just expect someone to play a mud for a month, realise
how boring it is, and quit; but here i am 9 years later still on them,
and even trying some out when i see a good advertisement (for
no more than 5 minutes usually).
When I get on a mud, to determine if i'm going to stay and play,
I first look at spells and skills. Then try to find if they have a
interesting spell or skill _system_. If nothing ill quit then. If the
mud passes that, ill go fight something, if stock combat, I quit.
Then i look at class system, i dont like classes personally, but
if they diversify them well enough I will stay. Then I type "who",
if i see a lot of this->
[50 WAR] Billybob
Im gone. The best mud i've played to date had an INCREDIBLY
hard levelling system, it was class-based, you got skills/spells
each level..Each level meant something, and you _truly_
respected anyone of level 18+, yes, level 18. It could take an
expereinced person a year and a half to reach level 18.
Then I go into more detailed testing of the mud, areas, mob
regen and what not......
Anyway I kind of got off subject, but I just thought I would throw
my two cents in about my history and where its brought me.
Ive seen UO come, Everquest, and theres still plenty of mudders.
Granted both of those games suck and dont pass any of my
tests, they still stole a giant part of the mud community and
look where everyone still is...mudding....like i mentioned before,
my mud isnt even really "public"...ive never advertised it, and the
name of it is just "Um... Godwars". Kind of making a parody
of all the godwars, its main purpose in life is to help my friend
learn to code, and guess what...I still have a good amount of
regulars!
And something else interesting, that i remember reading about
in your post (i think) .. Is what brings someone to like a mud in
the first place...Well i was 12 years old, and i saw a piece of
paper my brother had printed out. It was a list of spells for a
necromancer class for 3-Kingdoms LPmud (a great mud I must
say, its wierd, but always fun, no i don't play there anymore either).
Anyway... I thought he bought a new game, after he instructed me
how to get on the net and telnet, I logged on, walked around,
chatted a couple things on the necromancer guild line. Then
thought "what the hell is this crap" and quit. About five minutes
later some unknown ghostly force drew me back to the mud,
I played some and got addicted from then on.
Sohl/Borlak/khor/legolas/kendallar/yendor
michael
p.s. just for kicks heres our mud connector listing:
Um... it's Godwars.. Just like all the other Godwars I
guess, except for the fact that I'm running this one.
Which means I'll just put it up so it runs smoothly all the
time, not pwipe, fix bugs as they appear, and put new code
in per player suggestion.
Pip.
>
> -Aristotle@Threshold
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> VISIT THRESHOLD ONLINE! High Fantasy Role Playing Game!
> Player run clans, guilds, businesses, legal system, nobility, missile
> combat, detailed religions, mature, detailed roleplaying environment.
>
> http://www.threshold-rpg.com -**- telnet://threshold-rpg.com:23
Dundee
>But what's the option? Graphical MUDs? Is it easier to create a
>decent playing environment with graphics?
I'm confused, are you looking for more people to create muds or more
people to play them?
It's easier to play in the environment with graphics. Easier to
customize my appearance and show other people what I look like with
'em than without. Easier to decorate my house and have company over
to admire what a *great* job I've done of it. It's even easier to
move around.
But no, it's probably not easier for you to build the world.
That's why I'll pay $50 plus $10/month for it and so will hundreds of
thousands of other people.
Those people may or may not ever play a text mud, but they aren't any
different than the people that DO play text muds (they even fancy
themselves as being Great Game Designers and send you longwinded
emails titled "How to Make This Game Not Suck" - whereas with text
muds, they just put up their own).
Meaning, some of them want adventure, others want more socialization,
others want to Build Characters, others just want to take off all
their clothes and run around annoying people.
>I've seen has lacked atmosphere and variety. The means might be a
>lot easier with graphics (not as much brainstrain), but that doesn't
>make the end product any better.
Well, you need atmosphere and variety, too.
Also, I dunno... a willingness to see that some more RPGs have been
published in the last 20 years and there have been one or two good
ideas in those RPGs.
This whole class-n-level thing, for example. I know there are some
muds out there that are different, but thousands of the things use
this really nasty, awful, archaic sort of retooled-D&D system.
Oh, but then there are also the thousands of Vampire Online deallies.
Ugh.
What the world *really* needs is one more mud based on Pern. Yeah.
Or the Wheel of Time series.
It makes me think that the guys sitting around designing New and
Improved toilet paper to satisfy that niche market of consumers who
aren't happy with the ninety-thousand different varieties of toliet
paper already on the market run home and spend late nights tweaking
their D&D-based system into Star Trek online.
>thrown in as if it's MSG. Originality and style is severely lacking
>in MUDs these days.
Oh, *man* are we on the same page. heheheh.
***
Dundee * http://dundee.uong.com/
rric...@lanminds.com
>On 8 May 99 06:31:52 GMT, kj...@uow.edu.au (Kjartan Johansen) wrote:
>
>>But what's the option? Graphical MUDs? Is it easier to create a
>>decent playing environment with graphics?
>
>I'm confused, are you looking for more people to create muds or more
>people to play them?
>
>It's easier to play in the environment with graphics. Easier to
>customize my appearance and show other people what I look like with
>'em than without. Easier to decorate my house and have company over
>to admire what a *great* job I've done of it. It's even easier to
>move around.
>
Is it really? I mean, I have a hard time describing myself in words, but I
think I would have a harder time creating a picture of yourself from precoded
graphics. I think I would always be 'settling'.. maybe I want a pointier chin,
or my eyes are not quite the right shade of blue, but I have to take what is
closest. With a text mud, I can at least tweak my description to give the
impression I want.
And this makes me think of a possible problem with graphical muds. Won't the
choice of graphics tend to limit your views and options? For example, if I have
a mud full of rich, lush, tropical images, will anyone even THINK "hey, a zone
with frost giants would be neat?" If all the pictures of elephants are grey,
will you want to make a pink one? If all elves wear green and use bows, is
something that looks like an elf, but dressed in blue with a sword, an elf, or
something else? Is the image the message, or is there more to it? (Yes, I know
that these are some simplistic examples, but I just thought of the idea and am
trying to work it into an understandable form.) I guess my main concern is that
we tend to believe what we see, and thus won't think of things that contradict
what we see.
Kira Skydancer
Remove "not" when replying by email
John Adelsberger
: That's why I'll pay $50 plus $10/month for it and so will hundreds of
: thousands of other people.
Here I was thinking that that was because, like most other mud addicts,
you're allergic to sunlight:) (I too play, although only one one(free)
text game, but I don't let that stop me from poking fun at my own kind:)
: Those people may or may not ever play a text mud, but they aren't any
: different than the people that DO play text muds
Having met some of them, I beg to differ. Most of them are even younger
than the current mud audience, and most of them think they have a right
to anything and everything. Yes, mudders in general are bad that way,
but mass-market commercialization has made it even worse. That's the
number one reason I avoid the pay to plays - I certainly could afford
it, if there were any attraction. Well, that and the fact that those
games typically are run by idiots who have no apparent qualifications
beyond 'looked good in a suit at the interview.'
: (they even fancy
: themselves as being Great Game Designers and send you longwinded
: emails titled "How to Make This Game Not Suck" - whereas with text
: muds, they just put up their own).
Oh, the graphical folks will get to the point of putting up their own-
as soon as someone releases code to let them do it. Only a matter of
time.
: Meaning, some of them want adventure, others want more socialization,
: others want to Build Characters, others just want to take off all
: their clothes and run around annoying people.
Sounds like the mud I play, only graphical. As someone who prefers to
keep his clothes on, I'm rather glad I _can't_ see a graphical
representation of other peoples' nude forms running around the game:)
: This whole class-n-level thing, for example. I know there are some
: muds out there that are different, but thousands of the things use
: this really nasty, awful, archaic sort of retooled-D&D system.
Many people are starting to move onward, but the results are usually
hackwork, because they're trying to put them into existing game
systems that don't really suit them. Eventually the quality level
will rise somewhat, and then decline as stockdom sets in.
: It makes me think that the guys sitting around designing New and
: Improved toilet paper to satisfy that niche market of consumers who
: aren't happy with the ninety-thousand different varieties of toliet
: paper already on the market run home and spend late nights tweaking
: their D&D-based system into Star Trek online.
This may well be the most amusing description of stock syndrome I've
ever heard...
Dundee
>And this makes me think of a possible problem with graphical muds. Won't the
>choice of graphics tend to limit your views and options?
Absolutely, and it *is* a problem with graphical muds. Probably one
of the keenest earliest complaints about UO and EQ is that the
characters cannot be customized "enough". All the faces in UO are the
same, in EQ you can have one of a handful of faces and can customize
your overall appearance way, way less than even UO.
Nevertheless, they're easier to play than text muds. "Pick a face" is
easier than "describe your appearance", I mean. It is a problem,
though, an one that I think up-n-coming commercial muds are paying
more attention to. Asheron's Call, for example, has already started
bragging about the ability players will have to make themselves look
like they want to look.
>For example, if I have
>a mud full of rich, lush, tropical images, will anyone even THINK "hey, a zone
>with frost giants would be neat?"
I'd wonder if it would be appropriate for a mud full of rich, lush,
tropical images, but yeah, the graphics are less flexible and more
limiting to the mud designers. Still easier to play.
>If all the pictures of elephants are grey,
>will you want to make a pink one? If all elves wear green and use bows, is
>something that looks like an elf, but dressed in blue with a sword, an elf, or
>something else?
Well, in UO, they recolor the monsters and give them different names a
*lot*. Limitations of art-space, I reckon. It's kinda cheezy,
though.
Anyway, yeah, there are "challenges" unique to graphical muds (more
areas of overlap, though).
I still think, since what "The Future of Our Hobby" needs is more
players, not more muds, that it's *ok* if there are different and even
*more* challenges to hosting a graphical mud. The gameplay is easier,
so that makes for more players. Even if it also makes for fewer muds.
H. McDaniel
be replaced by poor graphical stock MUDs. This will leave text
based MUDs largely in the hands of people who are dedicated to
advancing or maintaining the quality of such games. I believe
this prediction can be counted on if 1.) Graphical games are as simple
to "plug and play administrator" with as stock text MUDs, 2.) Text-based MUD
developers become more careful about who they make their code available
to.
This isn't to say that the advancements and developing of graphical
games will not affect text-based games, only that -- in my view --
the affect will be a positive one. Perhaps the arrival of television
and film reduced the number of trashy novels (as a percentage of
all books being published,) but the classics remain, and good books
and good authors are still praised. We need not fear a drop in the
total number of players across the board, because the number of text-based
games will be reduced aswell, and many of those reductions will be
in games we don't consider a credit to the "hobby".
-McDaniel
Aristotle@Threshold
>Tha multi-server approach would allow you to compete with
>commercial-sized worlds. A generic, graphical client with map-n-art
>files downloaded in advance for a given mud...
This was discussed in another thread, and I think it was pretty clear that
this was a really bad idea. It would be nearly impossible to maintain
balance/fairness between muds, and if you were somehow able to get people to
agree on standards, it would actually be a lot easier to just group all those
people together on one mud that shared 'base' code.
I don't think being able to jump from mud to mud is something that is
desireable, doable, or even better than what we have now.
Aristotle@Threshold
>On Thu, 06 May 1999 15:26:43 GMT, de...@mail.pythonvideo.com (Derek)
>wrote:
>
>And, yeah, books are great, but MU*'s are like books that require the
>readers to be competent authors. That's a pretty stupid standard, if
>you ask me. It's also *the* reason why the hobby is dying a slow
>horrible death.
Hmmm. Players are there to play, not design or create the world. Building the
world is the job of the programmers. I agree that if players had to be the
ones who built the world, we'd be in trouble. Threshold has player designed
houses, and while some are quite nice, some are hideous (I had to add a
feature so whenever you walked into the yard of a player designed house, it
notifies you that it is a player designed house- I didn't want anyone to think
I wrote some of that stuff =) ).
>(MUDS played only by mud-coders being what I call a pretty freakin'
>horrible death. Feel free to differ).
I agree completely.
>Ah. I guess I've had a bad experience with muds. Probably because of
>all the stock muds out there. They just don't seem very dynamic to
>me. But yeah, you're right of course, they *could* be dynamic whereas
>the graphical ones are more kind of "stuck with what shipped."
I think the ability for players to make significant changes to the world *IS*
a benefit. I don't mean actually BUILDING the world. That would be a design
and consistency nightmare. However, being able to decorate houses, clan
abodes, the buildings for a player owned business, etc, etc. are things that
players really enjoy- both the people who design them and the other people who
see them. I know on Threshold this is very popular and is enjoyed enormously.
>Yeah, but I gotta say... I *like* being able to add stuff to the
>world. Even if it's just "my house". I like being able to customize
>it and decorate it and so on.
I agree completely. Players should be able to design things, have some
influence on the world, etc. However, it has to be compartmentalized so they
cant "screw up" the rest of the world =).
Aristotle@Threshold
>It's easier to play in the environment with graphics. Easier to
>customize my appearance and show other people what I look like with
>'em than without. Easier to decorate my house and have company over
>to admire what a *great* job I've done of it. It's even easier to
>move around.
Wow. You must be a really spectacular graphic artist then. I think most people
can find it a lot easier to write a description of themself, their house, etc.
than designing graphic renderings. Furthermore, I'd like to see you design a
game engine that can securely handle people uploading or creating their own
graphics that are then added to the game.
I don't think any of the graphic games allow any sort of significant
'building' or adding to the world by players. I am 99% certain they do not
allow players to upload or create their own graphical renderings for their
character, house, etc.
>>thrown in as if it's MSG. Originality and style is severely lacking
>>in MUDs these days.
>
>Oh, *man* are we on the same page. heheheh.
I'm on that page as well. This is a serious problem that I noted in my
original post, and I think if it continues, text muds will in fact become
nothing but programmers. However, if there was a little more
cooperation, things would probably increase enormously. I also think we won't
see much improvement in text based muds until people find a way to make a
profit with them. Without a profit motive, you just won't see talented people
throwing the necessary amount of time into design, programming, etc.
Aristotle@Threshold
>Dundee <Dundee@NONONOTTHESPAM!.com> wrote:
>
>: It makes me think that the guys sitting around designing New and
>: Improved toilet paper to satisfy that niche market of consumers who
>: aren't happy with the ninety-thousand different varieties of toliet
>: paper already on the market run home and spend late nights tweaking
>: their D&D-based system into Star Trek online.
>
>This may well be the most amusing description of stock syndrome I've
>ever heard...
Heh, I agree. I forgot to praise it earlier, but your post remind me to.
Bravo Dundee. You've raised the bar on how to describe Stock Syndrome. =)
Dundee
(Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
>Wow. You must be a really spectacular graphic artist then. I think most people
>can find it a lot easier to write a description of themself, their house, etc.
>than designing graphic renderings.
No, no, no, no, no... I'm talking ease of PLAY here, not ease of
designing the game.
I *promise* it was easier to arrange furniture and whatnot in my house
in Ultima Online than it would have been to write a description of it.
It was easier to drag-n-drop a blue hat only my head than to describe
a blue hat sitting on my head.
Granted, *someone* had to work extra hard to make all the graphics and
the interface so that it was *easy* for me to use it. But it wasn't
me.
>Furthermore, I'd like to see you design a
>game engine that can securely handle people uploading or creating their own
>graphics that are then added to the game.
Never said you had to give them that ability. Give them As Much As
You Can.... I could make furniture - maybe 20 different things. And
I could dye 20 or 30 different pieces of clothing all sorts of
different colors. Middle Earth Online is promising a "build a face"
feature so you can make your avatar look somewhat like you want it to
look - and without being a graphic artist yourself.
It's already established that the users are going to be more limited
in a graphical environment than in a text environment. But then,
after seeing how people behave in *massive* multiplayer games, I'm not
so sure it's a BAD thing to limit them.
>I don't think any of the graphic games allow any sort of significant
>'building' or adding to the world by players.
Right. There's a lot of building that you *can* allow, though.
>I also think we won't
>see much improvement in text based muds until people find a way to make a
>profit with them. Without a profit motive, you just won't see talented people
>throwing the necessary amount of time into design, programming, etc.
I just don't think there ever will be any profit in text-based muds.
I don't think they make any text adventure games any more, either. I
know *I* haven't bought one in about 100 years.
Sterling
>In article <7AF7BF031E83312D.2F2F66EE...@library-proxy.airnews.net>, Dun...@SPAMSPAMSPAM.COM (Dundee) wrote:
>>Tha multi-server approach would allow you to compete with
>>commercial-sized worlds. A generic, graphical client with map-n-art
>>files downloaded in advance for a given mud...
>
>This was discussed in another thread, and I think it was pretty clear that
>this was a really bad idea. It would be nearly impossible to maintain
>balance/fairness between muds, and if you were somehow able to get people to
>agree on standards, it would actually be a lot easier to just group all those
>people together on one mud that shared 'base' code.
>
I think he was talking more along the lines of Ultima Online and the way you
get to a certain point and the game pauses momentarily while you switch to
another server. There is *no* difference between them, other than the first
is running this portion of the map, and the second is running that portion
of the map. If he wasn't talking about this style of multi-servers, you
were absolutely and 100% correct, and if he was talking about UO style
(almost "distributed networking") multi-servers then the people running each
server are really not Imps as you would think of them in text-based mudding.
If I could run an EverQuest clone I probably would. But I believe one
_MAJOR_ reason for text-based muds hitting the limbo-zone where no major
advances are made is the CPU/memory hurdle. Even a small graphical server
along the lines of UO or EverQuest would require far more CPU/memory/space
than I currently use. There would be no (or few) mud-hosting services that
would be able to handle those types of games, so it would be back to the
early 90s when the only people running muds were those with good friends at
universities, those at universities who could hide them well, or those rare
few that had a t1 into work (and could hide them well :)
Sterling @ Wyld Knight
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Wyld Knight - wyld.qx.net 3333
http://wyld.qx.net/~rezo
re...@lords.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Benjamin A. Hunter
> I just don't think there ever will be any profit in text-based muds.
> I don't think they make any text adventure games any more, either. I
> know *I* haven't bought one in about 100 years.
You haven't seen Dark Castle, have you?
He charges for "Platinum Coins"
People use them for Corpse Retrievals, special potions, enhancing stats, and
"Godload" equipment.
John Adelsberger
: Furthermore, I'd like to see you design a
: game engine that can securely handle people uploading or creating their own
: graphics that are then added to the game.
This isn't a problem. In fact, it's pretty easy. Only one tight spot.
That's making sure nobody makes himself look like something else in the
game. I imagine I'd use an admin check to solve that.
sIM tze hsiong
Tolkien.
thus, Text will live :)
my two cents.
Benjamin A. Hunter <tec...@takethisout.bresnanlink.net> wrote in message
news:7hbtmo$p3...@medusa.bresnan.net...
moon...@yahoo.com
thre...@threshold-rpg.com (Aristotle@Threshold) wrote:
> I also think
>we won't
> see much improvement in text based muds until people find a way to
make a
> profit with them. Without a profit motive, you just won't see talented
people
> throwing the necessary amount of time into design, programming, etc.
>
enormous amount of time into them with no expectation of or desire for
profit?
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