Looking back, it seems like it has been over a decade since I first found the wonderful world of MUDs - and it actually has. I cant help but laugh to myself, as I see where it has gone. MUDs starting and dieing within a 24 hour span, companies actually forming to corner the text based gaming market (gazing at the top of the Top Mudsites webpage, I see that first three muds are all pay to play - many more in the top 20) and actually succeeding. This is more of a question to some of the ancient mudders like myself who're still about and still within the community so to speak, did you think text based gaming would be where it is at today, ten years ago? I sure as hell didnt.

This isnt a gripe or complaint towards pay to play muds, it just amazes me, how people can actually be attracted to them, when you have free muds all over - who are just as enticing as the pay to play ones, imho. I am just a firm believer that when the fore fathers and mothers came up with the creativity, and imagination to design a text based gaming world on the internet - that they would of never thought it would be where it is at today, alot for the better and alot for the worse. To those muds who've actually survived for 12+ years or longer, I applaud you. To the ones just starting out, I wish you nothing but the best of luck, and remember that because your coder is probably 18, that doesnt mean he cant code, and because your head builder is probably 12, that doesnt mean he cant properly build an mprog, he just probably cant spell.

I suppose the whole reason for this post is, that I am just personally trying to decide if there is honestly any reason for me to continue my journey through the wonderful world of text based gaming, compared to all the MMORPGs out there - granted those are really no better than pay to play muds, but once again going back to the polls it seems pay to play is the way to go anymore. And if I am going to pay to play a game or any online type entertainment for that matter, it's going to be one of MMORPG taking over the gaming world by storm. Is there honestly anyone out there in the same boat as myself? That feels the world they use to cherish and love, has been taken over by money hungry companies, and put the ma and pa muds out of business. Just looking for a little feedback is all..

Ish.

Pay to play muds have been around since 1986. In the last 10 years, the number of free muds has increased from a few dozen to a few thousand, while the number of pay-to-play muds has probably doubled - trippled at most.

So no, I don't feel that the "world I use to cherish and love, has been taken over by money hungry companies, and put the ma and pa muds out of business". Not at all.

Heh.

Someone's sure full of something. Not a decade, or they'd realize the inherent fallacies within their own statements.

Maybe a year. If that.

-D

You realize that Gemstone III, for instance, is arguably older than you've been MUDing (original Gemstone started in 1987 and was commercial, of course), and that the team (Bartle and Trubshaw) that did the very first MUD went commercial in 1986? The MUDing world was almost completely dominated by pay-to-play MUDs until early 90s. It's reversed now, even if the biggest text MUDs are commercial. The vast majority of text MUDs are free, and the vast majority of people playing them are playing free MUDs.

--matt

If I recall correctly, wasn't British Legends, in the days of CompuServe, also effectively pay-to-play? I don't remember precisely if there was an hourly charge to play the game itself, but there certainly was a charge to use CompuServe and get access to that game.

So, yes, I guess the pay-to-play phenomenon has been around since at least the mid-1980s.

And, I have to wonder: Does it really make sense to begrudge pay-to-pay multiplayer games when we're not equally incensed by the Infocoms, the BioWares, and all the other companies that have ever "corporatized" single-player games? No one seems to be crying foul over the beloved single-player games that cost money.

If a game's bad, the market will put it out of business. If a game's good, it will succeed. That's whether it's pay to play or free.