We had yanked their Vortex license for completely failing to pay royalties or keep an accurate accounting of their revenue. They started using a new engine, but they are still in 'beta'. They opened in August, 1997, one month before Achaea did. They definitely don't have anyone working on it as a job.

--matt

I used Avalon's engine way back when (before Vortex, before Rapture) and have seen their codebase. It's custom.

--matt

I disagree strongly with this statement. Many "hobbyist" MUDs, us included, have multiple active administrators. Even if one (or a few) admins suddenly feel the MUD is a low priority, it does not have a direct impact on the game because other admins can easily fill the gap.

On many (but not all) professional MUDs, there is one or a couple of paid administrators, and then a bunch of volunteer staff (who may receive some benefits for "volunteering"). In these scenarios, should one of the paid admins leave (vacations, lucrative job offers etc), it will have a much bigger impact on the game than in the hobbyist scenario. Most of the "professional" MUDs have a quite limited budget, so it's not possible for them to keep half a dozen or more of paid staff that could then be elevated into administrators. I would also argue that just because someone has a financial interest in a game (maybe with the exception of games that has seen a truly significant investment budget prior to launch), "professional" MUDs are more prone to being shut down (or replaced with another game) if the administrator realizes he is no longer earning enough from the game.

The case for stability in professional MUDs versus hobbyist MUDs mainly applies to hobbyist games with a single implementor. There are risks in both models, but since the admin of a professional MUD is financially dependant on the game, he/she is more likely to terminate (or make significant modifications) in the project, should the businessmodel start failing.

BatMUD is definitely the exception, not the rule. The longevity and quality of that MUD is not common in the hobbyist arena by any means. It is certainly something the admins (both current and historical) should be very proud of.

Furthermore, keep in mind that what I am talking about here is the perception of players/customers. A very large number of players prefer the professionally run MUDs - and one of the reasons is that they believe them to be more stable and reliable. I happen to agree that in the majority of cases, a professionally run mud is less prone to the random sways of interest hobbyist admins may have. I do admit, however, that there are exceptions to this rule, and there are hobbyist muds that do indeed end up being as stable and reliable as professional ones.

But the purpose of this list is to benefit players who don't like gambling on hobbyist muds (since most of them are NOT run as well as BatMUD) and would like to know in advance which ones are professionally run.

I would tend to agree with your logic, nhl, but then it occurs to me that all the oldest extant MUDs are commercial (MUD 2 and Gemstone are certainly older than any non-commercial MUDs, and I think Avalon is as well, though I'm not positive there) and I wonder if the answer is more complicated than it seems at first glance.

--matt

I would personally never play any of the games on this list. But apparently some people like these games. And like this list. What's the problem? Why is it necessary for every topic to be an argument?

TEC has at least one paid staff member who focuses mainly on it, as well as several other staff members who occasionally get involved.

I was wondering about The Eternal City, because I thought they might be a professionally run mud.

Do you know if they are a legally incorporated business entity?

Is TEC's owner(s)/operator(s) a paid employee whose full time job is TEC?

If so, they definitely quality for the list.

I was wondering about The Eternal City, because I thought they might be a professionally run mud.

Do you know if they are a legally incorporated business entity?

Is TEC's owner(s)/operator(s) a paid employee whose full time job is TEC?

If so, they definitely quality for the list.[/quote]
Well, Eternal City was developed and used to be run by World's Apart Productions (which is a company, not just a DBA), but Eternal City is now published through Skotos.net. Neither the main owner of Skotos or the main owner of World's Apart has much to do with running Eternal City these days, but I don't know if someone else runs TEC as a full-time job or not. I'd guess not as Skotos doesn't really make enough money to afford to have someone running each of their games full-time.

--matt

Speaking of Skotos and Eternal City, I noticed their websites are down. Anyone know what's up with that?

Oh, wow, you censor. Huh.

Medievia is also a Diku dervative and violating the license, hence they are not listed here.

On top of the license issue, there's an even more clear-cut case of plagiarism, as they do not properly acknowledge the team that created the codebase that they are based on.

It's why I asked for clarificiation regarding the use of the word "professional" (the primary definition mentions conforming to "technical and ethical standards")-- I'd be fired from my day job in a second for appropriating the work of others as my own.

That doesn't matter, however.  Carrion Fields, LLC has official titles for its partners (we have a Copyright Agent, a President, etc.), as part of being a legally recognized business entity.  Charities and other organizations not aimed at taking money from their clients have this for their volunteers as well.

Medievia does have at least one paid employee, which is the difference between them and us.  (We pocket $0-- all funds donated go towards upkeep, bandwidth, etc.)  That's what you should focus on, though it runs into the problems related to their legal issues and professional conduct, as mentioned above.

Ninja's, Ink.
My Backyard, In the Treehouse
North Canton, Ohio
April 20, In the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Six

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With ninjas, your shuriken 2 win!
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Mr. Valg(q?),

If the stationary on which I've written this post didn't suggest it to you already, I've been known to do something in jest, once in a while. I'm sorry I had to stretch a bad joke this far to illustrate it. So you don't have to take my first quote as literally as you did in your post. I understand that fancy names aren't regulated by the government.


To further address Medievia's legitamacy, let me point out that a lot of 'professional' companies aren't necessarily 'ethical'. A good example is sitting right in front of me. Microsoft had to be slapped on the hand and broken into a few chunks to satisfy our ideas on fair play, but I think you'd have a hard time contesting their professionalism. At any rate, it certainly hasn't stopped business.

I can empathize with the dilemma of these coding teams trying to cope with licensing issues, but will that make any difference to people who try out Medievia and like it?

Especially, given the nature of an average mudder who enjoys 'professionally developed' games. If they don't mind the fact that using money can simply 'speed up' a normal process of gameplay, maybe they'll see Medievia's operation despite license claims as a means of them speeding up their own growth before a successful litigation.

To me, that's just the cut-and-thrust of the business world. Having an 'Inc.' at the end of your name means that in some people's eyes you've destroyed the rainforest, or smashed small mom-and-pop operations to bits in your conquest for monopoly. That's really not true in most cases, but you're still forced to bear the same title as others you feel are suspect.

And on the same token, people who enjoy games that have been described as 'viagara muds' by their detractors will gravitate to other games receiving that same criticism, despite the real intricacies and circumstances that make one person's corporate agenda different from another's.

So, to me, there's the rub of it. People in the other thread who've made their own original worlds may not enjoy rubbing elbows with muds that have taken their cues from popular animation and movies, but they'd still be obliged to do the same, if in fact they hold to that same 'for the people' policy this thread's taken up.


Yours in nitpicking,

Jimmy
Senior Mutant Turtle Consultant

Add Legends of Terris in there, it was up on AOL when Gemstone, Modus Operandi, and DragonRealms was there (but it stayed when they left).

Eh.. So I spoke to a non-mudding capitalist economics major, who I think is a pretty good authority on this issue, and on track for graduating next year, about the "Free" vs "Free to Play" issue. She gave me this reply pretty much immediately (paraphrased)..

"If the content is not all *immediately* accessible for free, and paying for it only saves the input of time otherwise taken to get it, then its ok to call it 'free to play'. Since Time = Money."

We added surges on AR (automated double exp periods) precisely so that older players with limited time can still make a competitive character within a few weeks, without spending money on it. Essentially, what we did there is make some limited "time" more valuable instead of introducing "money". (It also congregates our playerbase which is getting more important to do with the declining numbers muds are suffering nowadays - we had 60 people online a few weeks ago.)


These lists could (should?) be accompanied with the advantages and disadvantages of both models to help gamers to decide who to throw their boat in with. For example, if a mud is 100% free, but has limited eq, obviously there's going to be people accumulating it until they're uber, especially cleric types that are designed to take a beating. The pay model gives a way around that, that isnt a 5 man gank party... or a cheese assassinate, or being stripped for not playing enough TIME (enforced logins kinda suck), etc.

Um...did you post that in the wrong thread? This thread has nothing to do with free to play, etc.

--matt