[Renwulf]

Greetings everyone,

   As an avid gamer of many genre's I've often drifted the way of graphical MMOs.  Despite the current glut of online games, one MUD has consistantly occupied my time.   No matter what happens in life - the community, adventure, and depth this MUD has to offer rivals that found in any game I've ever put my mind to.

   The MUD is DragonRealms, Platinum.  Some of you might have tried DR back in 1996 when it was on Genie, or later during the AOL migration.  Some may have even heard of Gemstone, a sister product by the same company.  Dragonrealms hooked me back in 97, shortly after the web migration.  I quickly made friends and had a few years of fun.  Real life got in the way, and I soon dropped DR for other games....

   But you always come back!  Thats the amazing thing about DR.  The depth of the skill system, the massive amount of rooms, constant additions from hard working GMs, yearly CONs to go and meet the GMs, and so on, all add up to an amazing experience.  Did I mention the roleplay and community are great?

  In particular, I play the DR Platinum instance since coming back.  I'm a recent college grad trying to eek out a living following the 2000 dot-com bust, yet I still happily pay 50$ for both myself and my wife to adventure with our friends in a role-play enforced, adventure-minded facet of DR.  Our friends would go Viking on us (think Capital One commercials) if we even thought of leaving :snicker:

   Still, Regular Dragonrealms is only 15$/month.  A perfect place to learn the ropes in a more forgiving environment. That's the same as any of the other MMO out there - cheaper than a few beers.  If someone is interested, I'm available on IMs at Juason1 and can get you a free month to try it out and answer any questions you might have :shrug:  Worth a shot if you're wanting something,,, more from a MUD.

   You can visit my own fan-site for Platinum at www.drplat.com  DR itself is a large community (several thousand players), while Plat is a smaller community, (about a hundred or so).  It's quite a good thing we got going here, I just work hard trying to make it even better

   PS - Thought I should mention that you don't need to spend additional money to get "cool" things, have a "fun" time, or advance in the game. Hard to explain here, but it's nothing like that at all.  The monthly fee covers most anything you'd want to do (save a wedding or special quest).  

*********************DISCLAIMER*******************

   After reading the site I'm still rather confused as to whats allowed/not allowed for voting/advertising here.  Searching turned up little.   DR is still on your list of MUDs, I found NOTHING while searching saying it's banned (I don't know why it would be), and I know back in 2003 we regularly voted for the MUD (not sure if you have since halted voting for PAY - MUD sites).  I apologize if I'm violating any rules.  I simply have noticed a lack of advertising for this MUD, and want to do whatever I can as a happy customer to get the word out.

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[Anitra]

They weren't banned or anything.

I think what happened is that the DR Admin just decided to stop urging their players to vote twice a day. Muds that don't do that constantly drop very quickly to the bottom of the list.

Goes to show how 'accurate' the list is even when it comes to 'popularity', considering the number of players in DR and Gemstone have.

And you are advertising in the right board, so no worries.  

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Anitra @ Jan. 07 2006,12:10) I think what happened is that the DR Admin just decided to stop urging their players to vote twice a day.

Wasn't it DR that brought TMS to its knees because it couldn't handle that amount of traffic? And I don't think they gave out bi-daily reminders, I think it was just some requests over a global channel...

[Threshold]

I wish they'd start voting here again. That would be great.

Traffic traffic traffic!

[Crystal]

Might want to post their official site and mud address as well

[the_logos]

Official address for Simutronics' generally: www.play.net

And I agree with Threshold. Get whoever runs DR and Gemstone to vote here. They'd easily be #1 and #2. I want a chance to convert some of their players!

--matt

[Renwulf]

http://www.dragonrealms.com   - main DR site
http://www.drplat.com               - Platinum fan site

My apologies for not posting the URLs.  I'm not going to say this MUD is better than all the rest - quite frankly I've always been more of a "modern" gamer and don't know if this MUD is the best.  It's all subjective anyways.  Still, DR just has something that's alluring to me - and if it isn't broke I'm not about to fix it!  

I've started searching out new players due to the many 3D games slowly reducing the MUD population.  I know a great deal of us still MUD, we're just kind of disorganized at the moment.  I've never seen a reason why people can't play 2-3 games anyways (if they have the time).  If one gets a little boring this month, move on for a bit.  

And, I posted on the DR forums as to why they stopped encouraging voting.  Is it possible to place a link on a site other than the main site? ( for example, I wanted to place a voting link on my Fan site).  You're rules are a hair vague about this, I can't even figure out where to get the <tags> from to place the voting link.  Thanks again for the replies.



edit - Oh I forgot to point out Logos... you and our DR Admin have near-identical avatars. Spooky!

[Rindu]

I feel the same way about Gemstone. There's just something about the game that makes it so wonderful. I've played a lot of MUDs and MMOs, and many of them have better mechanics: I like Dragonrealms' "leveling" system better, for example. But Gemstone, for me has a certain magic to it.

I realised after a while that this magic is the players. Gemstone (and Dragonrealms, too) attract a certain kind of player: the roleplayer, more so than other muds I've played. When it comes down to it, all the fine-tuning of game mechanics and so forth that have been implemented are ones which support role-playing. (TONS of role-playing verbs; items with shows and actions, etc.)

Other games are just fine, but they aren't for me.

And Matt...or whoever it was from Iron Realms: no offence at all, you make really good games, but I don't think Gemstone would lose players to you. I played Achaea for a while, and I think that it is for a different kind of gamer.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Renwulf @ Jan. 07 2006,18:33) And, I posted on the DR forums as to why they stopped encouraging voting. Is it possible to place a link on a site other than the main site? ( for example, I wanted to place a voting link on my Fan site). You're rules are a hair vague about this, I can't even figure out where to get the <tags> from to place the voting link. Thanks again for the replies.

Yep, you can place them wherever you want. I can't help you with the tags though as I don't know what account name DR registered with. Why don't you try emailing webmaster (-at-) topmudsites (-dot-) com and ask him. He'll be glad to tell you I'm sure.

--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Rindu @ Jan. 08 2006,14:22) And Matt...or whoever it was from Iron Realms: no offence at all, you make really good games, but I don't think Gemstone would lose players to you. I played Achaea for a while, and I think that it is for a different kind of gamer.

Oh, I'm sure we would, just like Gemstone or DR would end up with some of our players. (We have players from both Gemstone and DR already, including ex-staff from Simutronics, and I would bet anything that Gemstone and DR have ex-IRE players as well). I'm not implying our games are better than Simutronics, as I believe it's all in the eye of the individual user.

What's good about this subjectivity is that two games might both have players who are happy with the games but who might be happier in another game, and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't go both ways. So what happens is that everybody wins in a way: The MUDs get a chance to expose themselves to players who might not even know they're missing something they want, the players get a chance to see if they might actually like something better, and so on. And of course, the happier a player is and the better the MUD is for them, the more likely thta player is going to want to contribute financially. So, it's possible to have players leave IRE and go to Simutronics and vice-versa and instead of zero net impact, it has a net positive impact for IRE, Simutronics, and the players involved. Everybody wins!

--matt

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ Jan. 08 2006,14:32) What's good about this subjectivity is that two games might both have players who are happy with the games but who might be happier in another game, and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't go both ways. So what happens is that everybody wins in a way: The MUDs get a chance to expose themselves to players who might not even know they're missing something they want, the players get a chance to see if they might actually like something better, and so on. And of course, the happier a player is and the better the MUD is for them, the more likely thta player is going to want to contribute financially. So, it's possible to have players leave IRE and go to Simutronics and vice-versa and instead of zero net impact, it has a net positive impact for IRE, Simutronics, and the players involved. Everybody wins!

That is exactly how we feel about it as well. We have TONS of players on Threshold that came here after leaving DR and all the different Simultronics games. I wouldn't be surprised if the reverse were true as well.

But the thing is, a happy customer is more involved in the game, plays more, recruits more friends, etc. Also, the happier player is a more engaging and interesting persona in the world. When people are having fun, that is contagious. So more happy players = more new people who come and say "wow, this is a great place, everyone is having fun!"

I'd rather lose players who are only marginally satisfied with Threshold, if in return I could GAIN players who really enjoy it. Players who love your product are always better- not just from a business sense, but the business side is easier to quantify.

[Ilkidarios]

I always rather liked Gemstone, it was the first MUDs I got into back in the 90's.  Sadly, I lack the finances to play Gemstone regularly these days, so I've fallen out of it.

I myself never quite understood how people get hooked on MMO's. I've taken up WoW, it's alright, I play every once in a while. I just feel like in most MMO's you can't do anything unless you've spent an ungodly amount of time to reach a really high level.

However, I used to play City of Heroes. That was the only MMO I found no real issues with. There seemed to be enough variety and quantifiable rewards in that game to keep me occupied for a while. I've been meaning to get City of Villains in order to start back up as a corny 50's era type supervillain. Of course, this would mean ending my play of WoW, but that doesn't bother me that much.

I've really just gotten tired of that whole medieval fantasy environment. If I never see another sword again, it'd be too soon.

[Renwulf]

I agree with Logos. It's not about who's MUD is err... better. It's about the cross-benefits of competition and a transient population. Everyone can benefit by people being made more aware of the larger MUD-community.

[Renwulf]

I had a few more questions.  I created an account for my fan MUD site, www.drplat.com  It had both an account name, and also a database name.  I assume the database name is what I use in the link on my site for voting?  If I change this it will break peoples' voting?

Second, I see everyone's sites listed after a few votes today.  I've had several people vote, and I don't see mine ranked yet even an hour later.  Does it take longer to update? The rules said to do a search for my site to see if it was possible to vote for it, but that doesn't turn it up (I haven't actually added the MUD to the database). Do I need the MUD in the database in order to be able to have votes for my site?

Thanks in advance