Try a New MUD Day!
 

I propose one or more days per year be regarded and promoted by the MU* community as Try a New MUD Day. On this day (whichever day it ends up being), players stop playing their regular game and try a new MU* which they haven't played in before. When Try a New MUD Day is over with, they can go back to their regular game, switch over to the new one if they'd rather play that, or be open to putting time into both games.

This idea was inspired by a few truths I've realized about MUDding over the years:

1. An active game with a decently-sized community is probably a good game, and someone must have put a lot of time into creating and running the game.

2. People who have stuck with only one game for a long time have likely not seen and experienced the creativity of people who run other games.

3. Some people who have stuck with only one game for a long time might do so only out of a sense of loyalty to the game and its community and are likely more than ready to try something new anyway.

Some people might choose to ignore the day when it comes and continue to play their game, and that's fine. But for those games which experience more new players than usual, it gives them a chance to put on a good face and do their best to attract and retain new visitors, even if they are only irregular players.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

You are so right. I try some Muds over time, for sure, but I still prefer the one I am playing right now.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I like the idea. What day should it be?

May I suggest a 48 hour period instead? That might work a little better with the play curve for new mud characters and also across timezones.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

48 hours is a better idea. Maybe it could be Try a New MUD Weekend so that people can have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to try out a new game.

I don't know when it should be held. This is something which would have to have the support of several games in order to have any impact, and immortals would have to endorse it within their own games.

It would be a good time for games to offer benefits to new characters to attract them for the weekend. Bonus experience, special events, exciting storylines, unique items, and so forth.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

This is a great idea. Definitely don't pick a holiday though. No one would want to miss the big holiday events of their favorite mud. I know my favorite, Imperian, does a special event for every holiday. If a day was set--like the first day of every month--for trying a new mud, it might make it easier for little known muds to start a thread discussion to generate some interest and get new players.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

If it's every month, it'll probably burn out quickly. Besides, immortals might not want to have events like that so often. Maybe if it's quarterly, like the weekend before each new season, it might work.

I have a feeling that Iron Realms would probably just want its people only trying out Iron Realms games, though.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

You might be right, on the other hand they might be interested in non-IRE players coming to give them a try?

In general though I agree that going around to the free muds makes more sense.

While quarterly isn't a bad idea, I also like the thought of an annual Try a New Mud Party Weekend.

What could be cool is to have a website which could coordinate login times to some extent, so you know that at a certain time a bunch of people were going into a mud, and you'd have some newbies to group with.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I play an IRE Mud. I assure you, the staff is all but mean!

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I often try new muds. Not as much as when I started when I literally tried every mud on the list. But I do. And I find new gems all the time which I add to my roster. I like variety anyways so this is pretty natural to me.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Instead of a website, games could post on forums like TMS giving a new advertising for players update for the weekend, including perks for new visitors. Then in their own games they can encourage their regulars to stay away for the weekend and try some other game.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

And why would they want to do that?

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Well it's not going to work out if people don't take a break from their games to try new ones.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

@plamzi, if you as a mud owner think that mudders regularly play more than one mud, then this could be a good way to attract new players. If you think that they mostly stick with one, then I could see why you wouldn't try this out.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I'm confused. I, as a MUD owner, think that about half of my playerbase regularly plays other games. I still don't see how that would motivate me to tell my players to go play other games.

Now, I have other roles in which I would like to see people check out multiple games, especially people who are new to MUDs in general. But as a MUD admin, I can't think of a single reason to actively drive people away from my game on the off chance that some other MUD admin may do the same and those players may end up in my game. It's just a stretch to me.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I can think of a few reasons.

* your players who go play another mud are likely to come back and keep playing your mud, but new players from other muds who have never played your mud are more likely to add your mud to their list if they come and try yours out. Sure, the actual time played may zero out between players who leave and players who come, but the health of your playerbase will likely end up being more resilient with more total players.

* Furthermore if other muds fold, where will their players go? Probably to muds they've played before or are multiplaying now. Isn't it to your advantage to be one of those go-to muds?

* on the more hypothetical side, if you have a regular group of players from Other Mud X coming to play your mud, it might promote some healthy intermud connections that lead to cross-promotional efforts, advertising, client development, etcetera -- just the sort of thing to build community, as you're doing with MudPortal. Isn't that something you want to encourage?

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Think it is overall a good idea. Though, I would think keeping it to posts on the forum would be beneficial to MUD owners. I can see the benefit Ide is talking about and in a perfect world I'd agree. In the real world people are out for their own interests and will attempt to twist things to their favor.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

The way I see it, if your game is really good, your regular players will come back. If your game is really good, some new people may stick around.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

What might be an interesting twist to the New MUD day idea might be for one MUD to be chosen at a time in which everyone following this thread tries out simultaneously. It might lead to a large influx of new players at once to the MUD and maybe everybody can post comments about how each person liked that MUD. A lot of people have a favorite MUD that they are loyal to, but this might help them find secondary MUDS that they will play on occasion. Plus, it might be fun for those following the thread to play the same MUD at the same time and share our different RP styles.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Hmm, the flaw in this logic is pretty obvious. There are many reasons to quit a game that have nothing to do with its quality. I've quit every game I ever played, including some incredible ones. Haven't you?

The way I see it, you're going to have to work a lot harder to persuade game admins to hop on such an initiative. Why not do something that is entirely player-driven, as nyanko suggests?

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

How would we fairly choose which game everyone is going to try?

The goal of this idea was to shake up MUDs and MUD communities by getting people out of ruts to try new games, especially the people who have been in one game for years and years and never tried anything new, while at the same time to give MUD operators new motivation to attract and retain players.

If it's just a few people on a forum randomly trying out a new game together, it just gives a random MUD an unusual spike in players now and then.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Random, with no repeats, should be fair?

Actually, I think the idea has potential now in the form that nyanko suggested. The thing is that many MUDs are empty, including some quality ones, and will not shine unless there is a certain number of people on (e. g. PvE MUDs with grouping, PvP MUDs with factions, etc). Very few MUDs were built for single players, so numbers matter a lot.

A dozen players that sort of know each other, exploring a game at once, may get a much better idea of what the game is really like, and may have more fun in doing so.

I'm just not sure a day will be enough to really explore a game. Maybe a Try a New MUD week?

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

The empty MUDs tend to be lightly monitored, if at all. It's probably better to try out games which are small and active rather than big games that don't need any help or empty games which the resident IMMs have let go.

The games that don't need help are probably the best games to go to to recruit players to try these smaller games, though by no means should people be discouraged from trying out the big games, even if they come from a big game.

Ideally most of the movement should be players from high-population games towards active games with small player populations.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

I still think the idea for a Try A New Mud Day has a lot of potential. The hard thing, of course, is to get it organized and to find a day when everyone interested can actually participate. Perhaps, on the first sunday night of each month everyone interested might try to same mud. We can pick a different mud each month. For anyone interested, what would you want the first mud to be? Over time, we will probably end up trying most of the muds on the Top Mud Sites list. Just reading over the list of titles, a lot of them sound really good.

Re: Try a New MUD Day!
 

Speaking as a MUD Admin, I actually like the "Try a New MUD Day" quite a bit. I think that within context of players from a particular MUD going to try another one, it will work itself out where they will likely pick the same one to try, organically creating migration of groups from MUD to MUD without having to encourage a particular MUD be the one visited.

My input on the mechanics of how this ought to work, and as a MUD Admin what I would particularly find appealing, would be for the "New MUDs" on the list be MUDs whose Admin(s) have specifically opted into participating. For those of you old enough to remember the "link exchange" fad from a nearly two decades ago, that's kind of what I am thinking. The MUDs who stand to benefit are also the ones taking the effort/risk by participating.

Participation would include there being a maintained list on TMS, the MUD Connector, and Mudbytes (even if just in a forum post, preferably a "stickied" post) of MUDs that are actively participating, along with a helpfile or some other list accessible either in game, on their website, or on their forum for the MUDs that are included. I am a moderator on both TMC and Mudbytes, and with the okay from the other moderators and/or site managers from those two sites, I would be happy to take point on helping create/maintain the list and help promote the event. The list could be as simple as something like:

End of Time - Final Fantasy based ROM; eotmud.com:4000
Bedlam - Graphical optional based fantasy custom game; mud.playbedlam.com:9000
etc.

The MUDs that participate would be obligated to include some measure of a reminder within the game that the "event" is coming up (I would personally add it to my MOTD and post at least a few notes leading up to it) and would also be encouraged to post some forum promotion posts that would serve both as a reminder for the event, and as a means to "sell" their MUD as the one people ought to hop on and try for the first time.

I've long held that greater collaboration and lessening the emphasis on competition between our games is one thing that could help the community as a whole, and this is something I feel stands a much greater chance of helping every MUD involved than potentially harming them.

As far as frequency, I personally feel like once a month might be too frequent and lose too much of the novelty of the idea, that a frequency that high might burn the idea out after a few months. Once a year might be too infrequent to keep people involved/interested, so somewhere in the middle there might be best to consider. Once every 3, 4, or 6 months (basically something that factors into 12, for 12 months in the year) might be a good rate... frequent enough to keep it fresh in people's minds, not frequent enough to where it's always going on, and most importantly, it gives the MUDs in question time to prepare for it. Again, personally speaking, I would aim to have a new and fresh event ready to run for levels 1-15 (or 1-20) and a series of other things meant to specifically cater to low level characters and players new to the game. This would serve two functions: put the game's best foot forward to impress new people coming into the game and cater the events toward newbie characters as to not necessarily influence/encourage older players / higher characters to stick around instead of participating by trying a new game.

Anyhow, I find the idea to be pretty exciting and wanted to throw my two cents in, along with declaring my willingness to participate.