I found a mud which I liked enough to stay and level for more than a day, and which I still log onto from time to time. But one thing that I didn't really like was the ansi art. I looked at a mouse and saw.. a picture of a mouse... Which just made me think, "Oh. A mouse..." It was cute, but not exactly my thing. :)

I don't think I could stand a mud where everything was ansi art... I suppose there are some places where it can add to an extended description, but I think that a room needs to be more substantial than just a picture of a house. I mean, you might as well just say, "You are in a house."

But, yes, in the login screen, it's nice. And maybe a couple other places. But other than that, I don't really like to see a lot of it.

We have a few pics in some of the zones, mostly as a spice. For instance in a large ocean grid, it can be hard to think of individual descs for all those rooms, so I throw in the odd shark or dolphin as a room desc, to break monotony.

But we don't have many, after all muds are text-based, and like Enzo stated, the ansi art isn't all that good looking. It's pretty much work to make the pics too, so it's not really worth the effort.

But it's fun to play around with at times.

You're a little mixed up.

Ascii is the use of silly looking symbols to draw dragons.

                                                /==----~~~~~~~~-----_            _,-'
                -==\\                         `//~\\   ~~~~`---.--~~~  ,-/-==\\                        | |  `\        ,'
   _-~       /'    |  \\                      / /     \      /
 .'        /       |   \\                   /' /       \   /'
/  /-~~ ~ \ _ _/'  /         \/'
/-'~    ~~~~~-----~~
                   '~~--_/      _-~/-  / \   '-~ \
                  {\\      \
                  /'   (_/  _-~  | ||      |
                 |0  0 _/) )-~   | ||      |
                 / /~ ,_/       / //      |          
                o o _//        /-~_>---<-      _-~
               ,/|           //     _-~
            ,//('(          ||     /                  .----_
           ( ( '))          ||    |                 /' _---_~\
        `-)) )) (           ||    |               /'  /     ~\`\
       ,/,'//( (             \\    \            /'  //        ||
     ,( ( ((, ))              ~-       --~
  ;'( ')/ ,)(                              ~~~~~~~~~~
 ' ') '( (/
   '   '   `

ANSI, is the American National Standards Institute, or more commonly known as what gives you pretty colors on your client.

Mud clients themselves pose one of the biggest problems for ASCII art in muds. They do this by allowing the user to select their own font. From a user perspective, selecting your fonts is a good feature. From an ASCII art perspective, selecting your fonts is a bad feature. ASCII art must be done in a fixed with font to display properly. Most of the popular fonts are not fixed width. Because of the font issue, you are better off if you use ASCII art for flavor only. If it is used to convey key game information, some players could miss that information.

Neranz Laverani, Seeker of Knowledge

Personally, I don't see the point in ASCII (or ANSI or whatever) art. For the drawing of maps and such, it's invaluable. But actually seeing pictures of things...

It's like seeing the film of a book, after reading the book. When reading, your mind conjures images of the things you read about (for example, you might see Gandalf wearing different robes or with a shorter beard). Then you see the film, and suddenly all your mental images are forced out of your brain, replaced with someone else's interpretation of the book. It defeats the magic of it. I much prefer to look back at a story and remember how I saw the characters, than to see a director's interpretation of them.

It's the same with a MUD. When it says "The red dragon towers over you, little licks of flame escaping its nostrils as it growls angrily", your mind kicks in and you see this dragon as you would wish it to look. It is your image, and it is how you identify it. Whereas if you see a picture of a dragon looking down on you... somehow, it just isn't the same.

The other thing is that in ASCII art, pictures don't look that exciting anyway. The only way to really see a picture is to squint, and even then it's like "Oh... A blurry, simple, liney drawing of a dragon. How lovely".

In short, ASCII art is good in very, very, VERY small amounts, but if overused ruins the personal touch that words can give.

Santa

As much as I love spiffy colors and a nice big ol pic at the "entrance" to a mud, I more or less strongly dislike ASCII art anywhere else in the game.

There is a mud I saw it in once, with ASCII almost everywhere you looked.

For example, I looked at this painting of a moon rising over a field of bloodstained evergreens or something. The description was absolutely beautiful. Very well written and got my imagination joggin.

Than there was an ASCII picture of it underneath.

That ruined it completely.

I'm not sure why people choose to use ASCII art. In a world where we depend on our imaginations, which I believe is a part of the strong drawing factor of muds, why try to incorporate "pictures" into it?

You can have the most beautifully done descriptions in the world. And than you have this very simplistic, tacky picture added, made of semi-colon's and commas...it just takes away from the wonderment of it all. If I'm picturing this vivid landscape and than see this "ASCII picture" of it, I'll never see the vivid landscape again...I'll see this...picture.

Well..not going to say much because i dont want people to get totally ticked off but..IMO..No ascii art except on the MOTD. IF a builder has the time to make some ascii house and title the room "A house near the square" and that's it (yes..seen this in some MUDs) then they have the time to actually do a description of the outside of the house, the walkway up to the house, looktraps on maybe the door, the knocker, etc, instead of just making some house that when color is added, looks like what some 6yo did on a Lite-Bright. Cant think of how to describe say..a 11th century keep? Easy..with the net I bet you can find tons of pictures of keeps, castles, houses, old walkways. Heck..anyone that's been to europe and walked down the "old" part of town (like say...Neurmberg) can pretty much describe what a cobblestoned marketplace looks like. Still stumped? Try films. Look at what is going on behind the actor. "Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark" is a great example..look at the market place and describe it instead of making say..an ascii pict of a turkey leg and labeling it "The Market Place".
Now on the flip side...I DO enjoy seeing a MUD's homepage where people have submitted artwork about their character or maybe the realm. Not the ascii stuff..i mean the (more than likely) pen&ink, comissioned (maybe..maybe not) artwork of say..a half-elf with her hair in a ponytail and wearing something akin to a jackcoat worn by Imperial Guardsmen from WH40K..