What do you think about MuDs vs Graphicals? Muds obviously have more room to grow, have more variety and larger game areas because text is far easier to code and process, and requires less sophisticated hardware.
On the other hand, in this "hand it to me" society, graphic games have become very nearly works of art. But I hear that they are frequently limited in scope and adventure, far costlier than even pay MuDs are and after a few months of playing they lose their appeal.
I don't play graphical online games because my PC is just not up to the standard required to play 90 percent of them.
So what do you guys think?

Can MuD's compete with graphic games and if so, how do you get that across to people who have to have pictures for everything?

The day they invent a graphical MUD with players who know what "roleplaying" is and has MUD features like weather nd decent quests, I will cheer. I'm not being sarcastic, I think that would be brilliant.

MUDs don't really have to compete with graphical MMORPGs. They're different animals. As long as there are high school/college-age kids with Internet hookups, client software and limited disposable income, MUDs will plug along nicely.

MUDs only compete with graphical MMORPGs in the same sense that they compete with movies, television shows, books, single-player computer games, and personal relationships.

So you would argue that a player who plays a MuD would not be lured away by a graphical game like and a player who plays Graphical would not be lured away by muds?
I would suggest that both types of games compete for people looking for cyber adventure/socialization through gaming. IF this is the case...how would you as a mud admin or a player entice your friends or other gamers to try out a text base game over graphicals?
I know what my arguments are for that. But I want to know what others in the community consider valid points and how you would go about it...

Even I, as a MUD administrator, am enticed to play MMORPGs. I'm a huge World of Warcraft fan. But my point is: It's not necessarily an either/or proposition. Yes, MMORPGs may eat into the time players might invest in playing a MUD. But what MMORPGs have in graphics, they often lack in evolving storylines (which text games can implement far easier) and tight-knit, cohesive communities among players.

Brody is right.  MUDs and MMOs are two totally different things.  What MUDs lack MMOs have, and what MMOs lack MUDs have.  Its like trying to see whether a tree is better than a flower, it's difficult to compare things that are so radically different from each other.  You can climb a tree, but you can't give it to a girl as a gift before a date, and you can smell a flower but you can't seek shelter under it when it rains.  They're too different.  Just look at the culture in MMOs compared to the culture in MUDs, it's like a bizzaro world.  Most of them are just a different type of people.  In the end, I would say that it all depends of personal preference, for instance: I can't play most MMOs because there is very little of a social element, but I can't play most MUDs because there is too much of a social element.

You could say that about text MUDs too--cultures can be very different from MUD to MUD.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

Strengths of a graphical MMORG
-Graphics (obviously) – This adds a whole new dimension of possibilities. Battle tactics especially benefit from this. There is simply no non-graphical comparison to freeform movement in battle.
-Major development studios backing them. This generally provides faster turnover for fixes and enhancements. It also means that things will (probably) be done more professionally.
-Massive playerbase, so you are often able to find friends to play with

Weaknesses of a graphical MMORG
-To date, vast majority focus primarily on fighting and less on RP
-Enhancements are a lot more involved with new art/very complex code to fix. This often makes games seem buggy when very small bugs appear in massive updates.
-Very little policing of in game policies to create environment. Even in supposed ‘RP’ servers in these games people pretty much say and do whatever they want and get away with it. Botting is also common in many of these games and is rarely caught.
-To date games have been designed with simplicity in their systems to appeal to a broader audience. This makes them a bit watered down by most MUD standards.


Now, looking at these, the primary cause of most of the weaknesses has to do with the scale of the project. MUDs strengths lie in their specificity. They can be designed for a much smaller audience with very defined tastes without losing money. Also, they require far less, resource wise, to develop and change. Remove wide audience appeal and complexity from development from a graphical MMORG and you essentially have a MUD as it stands today.

I think there is hope for MUD-Like MMORGs if a few enterprising folks build a set of free architecture and development tool that allows for non-professional coders to develop a MMORG without knowing the advanced technical items that go along with it. The largest drawback to this would be a lot of commonality between the art of various smaller MMORGs, but we see that in the MUD universe as well with stock areas etc.

However, the base question remains, how do I like MMORGs today compared to MUDs. Well I like them both just fine. It is very nice to have a huge and professional design studio pumping out content and beautiful graphics for a game that I play. It is also nice to be part of a large community that is very vocal about it’s hobby and to always find people to play with. However, conversely it is also nice to be part of a small community playing a game with very specific and complex systems that change more slowly but with more care. I do not ascribe to the ‘one-game-at-a-time’ theory in gaming, so I play and enjoy both for what the offer and when I get sick of what they do not, I play something else.

That is like asking will movies replace books.

Personally, to me it is more about the story line.

If the mud has an interesting concept behind it and inspires the imagination, I would choose it any day over an eye-popping graphical with a lame story behind it.

Good point. Books being replaced by movies is a much better idea than my "trees & flowers" thing. Some people would rather read a book, and some people would rather watch a movie. There are just different types of people who choose different types of things. Like Brody said before, MUD is a niche genre, they will always be people who enjoy MUDs, and while it may not rival graphical games, there is still a playerbase and there will always be people who enjoy the "book" over the "movie".

I don't really think it is fair to imply that non-graphical MUDS = Storyline and Graphical MMMORGs = No Storyline. Bear in mind that there are only a small number of graphical MMORGs available and thousands upon thousands of MUDs.

Sure, some muds have story and RP. However, just doing a search on this very site proves that there are quite a lot (maybe even a majority) of MUDS that are all about hack and slash.

Basically what I am saying is that being graphical does not necessitate a lack of story or roleplay. I submit A Tale in the Desert as a good example (). Nor does being non-graphical necessitate a rich storyline or roleplay (I submit almost all godwars MUDs as an example). Give the MMORG market a few more years to expand and grow and you will see more diversity and specificity.

There's not? What can a graphical mud do in this regard that a text-based mud can't?

It also means that profit is the main objective, and therefore 'popular' features will be the most likely candidates for inclusion.

Often so large that you can't find your friends.

I enjoy muds which focus on combat. If I want to RP, I invite some friends around and do it properly.

These things are better handled through code anyway.

This goes back to your point about backing. I can't see a game receiving major commercial backing if it's only going to target a niche audience.

Some considerations I was thinking of were:
Most graphic mmrpgs require top end pcs to play. Require far more outlay in cash to get started, updates to games will usually mean more cash to the player for updates to software. Most, if not all, also require a monthly or yearly fee.
Of course from admin side, the graphics themselves limit the size of the universe and adventure created, because of the size of the files and their complexity.

Muds can be played on almost any machine that can access the internet with the quality of machine effecting the play enviroment very little. For the player, most muds are cheap to free, with almost unlimited potential for adventure and social interaction.
From the admin side...MuDs can be run on most machines and require less bandwidth. Size of the environment is limited only by the imagination and the builders/coders who work the mud.

Does this sound about right?

Hello, I just thought I would weigh in with some thoughts from my experience.

First, though, let me say hello and comment on what a pleasant discourse this has been so far, filled with some interesting ideas and points raised by several. Although I often follow these forums, I rarely post because I do not want to be slagged.

From my perspective, I don't see why a MUD can't be adapted to an in-between status, for the pleasure of a group who fall in the gray area between the MMORPG and MUD players... the game needn't be, in my outlook, an either-or.

There are, after all, older categories of graphical games, such as the side-scrollers, and the adventure game format of successive screens telling a story. These formats might be more appropriate for presenting the richer, more personally interactive content of a MUD.

Actually.. I don't think the movies replacing books analogy is at all accurate. I don't consider MMORPGs to really 'be' muds, since they are no where near as flexible and get in the way of direct expression by players in many ways. Maybe they will get over that 'eventually'. No, I think the argument should be, "Why are we still using books with all words in them, when we could add pictures and if we can add pictures, why not ones that move?" Sure, some people hate books with pictures in them, but its not like everyone refuses to buy books with covers, but insists that all of them 'must' be blank with only the title on the cover and the binding. No, pictures can help convey what ten pages of words sometimes can't. Dynamic worlds demand dynamic pictures, that change as the circumstance requires. Yet, muds almost universally ignore this and the ones that do use it are almost non-existant.

MMORPGs are trying to be something that even the best do a less than steller job of, while requiring more computer resources than a sane person would want to buy to do so. Muds just shrug their collective shoulders and say, "Why would anyone need to add 'pictures' to the book?", so continue to fail in the one thing the MMORPGs don't. It would be kind of nice to see a serious attempt to create something in between the two.

I think we are on that track of creating a MUD with pictures and graphical interface.

I gotta say Emil (it's okay to call you Emil instead of Hephos, right?), that MUD looks awesome.  What would you say is a good estimated date for that client on Aeon Falls?  If I'm not mistaken, Achaea is already implementing a system similar to that only in a trial run, but you'd have to ask Matt, I don't play that game.

What do you think about MuDs who introduce a form of graphic by creating their own fonts and symbols? For example, on Medievia fonts are used to create elaborate looking maps. Does this qualify as semi-graphical?

Hephos the screen shot looks very cool. The client that is being created for aeonfalls will be free?

Jeena

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See Puzzle Pirates' battle system. Couldn't be done without graphics. See also HJ's upcoming system whereby to, for instance, cast a wall of fire you literally draw a line on the ground indicating where you want that wall of fire to be.

There are things text can do that graphics can't (non-Euclidean space, text communication (obviously), etc), but there are also things graphics can do that text can't.

--matt