Are MUDs still popular?
Pieter Hulshoff
As a fanatic MUD player from the early 90s, retired around 1998, I recently
looked around on some of the MUDs at the MUDconnector. I've noticed that
most of the MUDs I visited have hardly any players these days. Has the time
for MUDs passed? Have people moved on?
My reason for asking is that I'm seriously considering getting back into MUD
coding, but if playing MUDs is a thing of the past, then there's little
reason for me to do so. After all: we're programming fun things for the
players, right?
Any thoughts?
Regards,
Pieter Hulshoff, AKA Pinokkio
googleman
Yes, indeed!
The mud at www.nanvaent.org is a huge and well-run system, with
something like 20 to 30 players on at most times (including the middle
of the night). It's got a well-constructed and professional web page
that lets you pull stats out of its database engine, so that you can
check the figures for yourself.
It supports a gigantic numbers of locations, and consists of a whole
country with about a dozen large towns and lots of other places. There
are separate guilds and ranges of powers and skills for cleric,
wizard, fighter, thief and bard, and other subguilds such as bandit,
assassin, forester, elemental and necromancer, etc...
Well worth a look, and it shows that the text MUD is alive and well.
If you do get in, leave a message for valhalla (one of my chars).
albert the panther
> As a fanatic MUD player from the early 90s, retired around 1998, I recently
> looked around on some of the MUDs at the MUDconnector. I've noticed that
> most of the MUDs I visited have hardly any players these days. Has the time
> for MUDs passed? Have people moved on?
No, not at all. Despite a temperamental and often quite hysterical
"immortal" at least for now in charge, I still play "Seventh Circle"
almost daily. Would no doubt play it even more if the man who actually
runs the thing would wake up and realize what a detriment this
Englishwoman who calls herself "Darkana" is to the game.
And the grandpa of them all, Richard Bartle, who got me addicted in the
first place, is still there at:
although it does cost a little money each month to play there.
Timothy Timbrook
>
> As a fanatic MUD player from the early 90s, retired around 1998, I recently
> looked around on some of the MUDs at the MUDconnector. I've noticed that
> most of the MUDs I visited have hardly any players these days.
There are alot more muds on The Mud Connector than there was in
1998... Is it upto nearly 1900 muds now. One side effect of this, so
many places to try tends to spread out the potential players more than
it did in 1998.
> My reason for asking is that I'm seriously considering getting back into MUD
> coding, but if playing MUDs is a thing of the past, then there's little
> reason for me to do so. After all: we're programming fun things for the
> players, right?
So...
How popular do MUDs have to be to for you to get back into mudding?
Do you really only program only for players? If I did, I think I
would have gave up by now. (grin) I code because I want to, because I
want to see X, Y or Z done. Not because I have players telling me
whats needed. lol.
Then again, my mud is quiet as a tomb lately. I suppose my mud is over
due for an overhaul. (Its 5 yrs old.) If people still dont play after
the overhaul, I won't regret doing it, but it would be kewl if someone
liked my work. lol.
Clear as mud, eh? ;)
Drifter
Pieter Hulshoff
Well, a constant group of 10+ players sounds like a start. It is a MULTI
used dungeon after all. The fun is taken a tad out if you're the only
player there (like I find often when I log in to a MUD: no players but me).
I do remember playing on MUDs with 150+ players as well (at all times).
Those really give a possibility of grouping (something I rarely see on
MUDs).
> Do you really only program only for players? If I did, I think I
> would have gave up by now. (grin) I code because I want to, because I
> want to see X, Y or Z done. Not because I have players telling me
> whats needed. lol.
Well, I do have fun programming of course, and I do have to like the idea
I'm programming, but if the players don't like it it's a waste of time.
I've spent long times programming changes which when implemented noone
liked, and I had to rollback (like implementing proper multi-classing on a
Merc).
Regards,
Pieter Hulshoff AKA Pinokkio
albert the panther
Fizz wrote:
> Richard Bartle actually looks after two MUD2s. The Canadian one at
> www.mud2.com and the British one at www.mud2.co.uk
I think he takes a very indirect role in the Canadian site, but Viktor is
an able administrator. An unfortunate lack of players, however.
> The British one is the busier of the two, but nothing like its heyday of
> 50 plus players.
Ah, back in the glory days when it only ran from sunset to dawn, using
spare computing space from British Telecom.
Now that was a MUD to always remember.
> This is nothing of course compared to free MUDs which is probably where
> you want to be looking if you want a busy mud. Personally and in my
> experience I find it hard to find a decent and well run mud that is free
> but on the flip side the pay to play ones are lonely.
Despite my bitching about one (English) immortal on "Seventh Circle", it
is a decent free mud (SMAUG-based). Having played there for over five
years is testimonial enough.
telnet: mud.oro.net:4000
As in any MUD, it's the group of players that make the difference, not
lazy programmers or arrogant "immortals".
KaVir
>
> As in any MUD, it's the group of players that make the difference,
> not lazy programmers or arrogant "immortals".
As in any restaurant, it's the group of diners that make the
difference, not lazy waiters or arrogant "chefs". It must be
true - the staff at my local McDonalds told me!
On a more serious note, it seems a common misconception of the
supremely arrogant that they often believe themselves to be the one
deciding factor in the quality of muds. I've met arrogant coders
who based the quality of a game purely on its code, arrogant builders
who thought the world was the most important part, arrogant immortals
who thought it was the way the game was run that decided how good
it was, and arrogant players who - like you - thought that they were
what made a mud outstanding.
Such a viewpoint is almost amusing in it's naivety. If only creating
muds were so simple!
--
KaVir.
Fizz
my message that preceed that? Why have they been deleted?
flet...@post.queensu.ca
> What's happened to Albert the Panther's message that preceeded KaVir's and
> my message that preceed that? Why have they been deleted?
Fizz
<flet...@post.queensu.ca> wrote in message
news:bbfcq4$271$1...@knot.queensu.ca...
These messages were posted less than a week ago.
Lars Duening
The time of expiration is up to the administrators of your newsserver.
Fizz
"Lars Duening" <la...@bearnip.com> wrote in message
news:1fvxd4z.xce2y914u5lhmN%la...@bearnip.com...
> > > > What's happened to Albert the Panther's message that preceeded
KaVir's
> > and
> > > > my message that preceed that? Why have they been deleted?
> >
> > > messages on usenet 'expire' eventually.
> >
> > These messages were posted less than a week ago.
>
> The time of expiration is up to the administrators of your newsserver.
I know ... I should have made myself clearer to begin with. Other messages
posted on the same newsgroup on the same day by me are still there. And the
messages either side of my message from someone else have also gone although
clearly his expiration isn't that short either. I was worried that I (and
therefore him) had posted something that resulted in the messages being
deleted. I'm new to this newsgroup and thought I had fallen foul of an
unspoken rule. However, when I checked the other newgroups that my messages
had been posted to, they're still there! But the orginal message I replied
to has gone. In fact, every newsgroup has a different combination of
messages from that thread. Never mind, something must have gone screwy
somewhere as I'm sure if I had said something out of place someone would
have told me by now :)
My orginal message wasn't even that interesting! :) (And no it wasn't
advertising either before someone suggests that!)
albert the panther
Fizz wrote:
> I know ... I should have made myself clearer to begin with. Other messages
> posted on the same newsgroup on the same day by me are still there.
You can always go to http://groups.google.com/ where Usenet posts are
archived.
Fizz
"albert the panther" <pan...@lava.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.BSI.4.44.03060...@malasada.lava.net...