I'm curious to know if any of your playerbases have been effected by the growing popularity of some graphical MMORPGs, most especially and most recently World of Warcraft.

A lot of our players left Medievia to play World of Warcraft when it was released. Many of them are still gone, but little by little, they are coming back and playing Medievia again. I was just wondering if any of your games have seen such a fluctation because of WoW or the realease of any other MMORG?

I don't think most MUDs lose as many players to graphical MMO's as many people thing. Everyone I know IRL who plays games like World of Warcraft would never think of touching a mud. "It's just words? Ugh!". From what I've seen a large portion of their players share this mentality, and so MUDs aren't losing out on a lot of potential players.

In terms of current mudders leaving for MMO's, it does seem to be a temporary thing. They'll play, say, WoW for a few weeks, but once you're a higher level and have a lot of nifty equipment the novelty really wears off. Muds, on the other hand, offer far greater variety. There's hundreds of them, and the majority are free. Plus there's a lot more to do in most than kill goblins until you're level 90 and can wield 'The Ancient Blade of Ancestral Chaos Blood Death'.

You know who we lose to graphics?

Wizards.

They wiz, then get bored of it or it's not what they expected or whatever, then they meander off into a graphical world, and are never heard from again. Or, they stay, but don't code because they're playing something else. I miss 'em.

I think the reason they start coming back is that they feel the inevitable consequences of playing every MMORPG.  Sure, they're fun for a while, but every MMO has the leveling treadmill, no matter how hidden it is beneath piles of crap, it's still there.  Eventually you ask yourself "What's the point?  I just kill some monsters, get some money, gain a level, and then kill some more monsters, why?"  And that's when they start crawling back to MUDs.  MUDs contain the depth that is lacking in most MMOs.  Some MUDs do have a leveling treadmill, but what I'm talking about are not roll-playing MUDs, but the true "take on the role of a real person", roleplaying ones.  And that's why they come back.  Because until they create a MUD-like atmosphere in an MMO, they will always have the same problems.

There are some Muds where I find myself saying, "whats the point..." But yeah, they mostly have the leveling thing going on.

I havnt heard of many MUDers leaving for WoW, though many other games i play have. Also, alot of people might not just announce they are gonna play WoW, EQ2, or whatever. They might just start playing less, or altogether.
Most MUDers ive met who also buy all the big MMO's might ignore the mud for a bit, but usally end up balancing their play time betweem the two game types, which is what i do with all my games. A little MUD, a little console, a little graphical online, ect...

We lost a few when WoW came out, but most have returned. MUDs satisfy a different need, trigger a different portion of the game-brain.

Agreed. The RPIs I play have "lost" players who divert more of their time to playing a new graphical game when it comes out, but they return because the graphical games just don't have what it takes for the type of role-play that RPI MUDs do. I'd imagine H&S MUDs might be more affected by graphicals since the premise of both is pretty much the same thing, but that's just my take on it.

Take care,

Jason

Lusternia happened to open around the same time that WoW was released (October 2004), and we had a tremendous reception. Granted this is only anecdotal, but still my gut feeling is that text MUDs were not adversely impacted and continue to grow.

When a system finally exists that can support adding new mobs, new items and new areas into a MMORPG 'and' running it as a stand alone server, we 'might' see it effecting the MUD scene, but more as a transition. Otherwise, I have seen people drop off 'temporarilly', but most come back. Eventually it might happen, but its will take someone to make a free/cheap server and free/cheap client, which support 'true' world development, as well as the bandwidth to support both ends in everyones hands, without huge outputs of money to use them and support the server. Right now, the expense of running one makes running a free one impractical, the engines are good, but not flexible enough, even if provided to everyone that wants one, to compete, etc.

Text so far remains the most flexible, even if sometimes the lack of graphics is a matter of extreme frustration. If it takes 1000 words to destribe something, then sometimes it 'does' require a picture to manage it, rather than send the players running from 5+ pages of text. The only alternative is to 'hope' they imagine what you intended. This is rarely the case, as anyone that spent days trying to figure out the syntax to what should have been a simple puzzle, due to misreading something or flat out not thinking like the wizard, can attest to.