It's primarily noteworthy for stripping out the credits to the original authors and profiting from their work. Other than that, you've basically got a stock Merc with some snippet-level features tacked on. It's still got the four basic Merc classes, no races (like Merc), the same tired old stock combat system, etc - in this respect it's years behind most of the modern codebases. The features it "boasts" (such as a wilderness) can frequently be found as snippets, often with more options and greater flexibility.

However it does provide some interesting food for thought in respect to advertising. If a decent advertising budget can attract so many players to such a mediocre game, what could a high quality game achieve with the same sort of budget?

Well, it sounds like it has features that are typical in a DIKU derivative. I happen to like games like this myself and the things others on this thread find boring I find fun. Here's the rub: there are hundreds of diku derived MUDs that have at least some of those features that are in compliance with the licenses and are free, so I'm not sure why someone would play Medievia.

If everything in this thread is true, I'm just astonished.

It just doesn't make sense for people to pay for that.

What am I missing?

I'd assumed that Medievia had paid developers churning out
real quality stuff. But it's just kill wait kill wait?

And I'd also assumed it was richly featured, but...

No races?
4 classes?

wtf?


-Crat

Gemstone has thousands of paying customers and it isn't that much different in scope as Medievia, with a completely different code base and engine. The basic mechanical idea is - you kill stuff to earn coins and advance. Empaths are one class that doesn't have to rely on it, but as I've seen (and experienced in former days as a player) your options as an empath are:
1) Sit in the town square with a whole lot of snerts, attempting to roleplay while spam-healing everyone who walks in with an injury and hoping they tip you for your trouble.
2) Run scripts so everytime you see someone's death scroll on your screen, you can "fog" to them, grab them, fog them to safety, spam-heal them, and hope that if/when a cleric ressurrects them, they tip you for your trouble.
3) Say to hell with healing and become a "warpath" and hunt to get coins and levels.

Why get levels? Two primary reasons: So you can show everyone how bad-ass you are, and so you can sell your character on e-bay, for cash that you then use to pay for another character, thus making the game pay for itself in the long run - and possibly even turn a profit.

Sounds a lot like Medievia, though I don't know if their players sell characters for cash.

I tried out Medievia once, and was immediately stricken blind by the insane rainbow of colors that assault you from the beginning. Being that I was now blind, I found myself unable to continue playing. When they come out with a braille version maybe I'll look at it again.

That said, going by what you described from your Mediviea experience, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Carrion Fields. I can't claim to be unbiased, but CF might fit what you're looking for.

Medievia will never be 'just a game'.
It will forever be known as the game that stripped the credits off the Merc code, insulted the people whose work they stole on their own website, and then set off to make money off the code they stole.

The reasons why they get so many players are the massive advertising, and the fact that they have been on line for so long. They mostly advertise outside the 'normal' Mud community, because every time they try to promote their game on a mud related site, they get flamed for what they did with the Merc code.

The reasons why players stay there in spite of the game being pretty mundane is probably the usual; they don't want to leave the friends they made, and they sometimes don't even know of the alternatives. Because of the advertising pattern many of Medievia's players are first-time mudders, who don't even know that other Muds exist.

There are lots of better and more immersive muds around, many of them totally *free* too. They are less well known and have fewer players because, being free, they don't have the funds for banners or adverts.
Try this site, which lists a number of free high quality Muds:
Free Quality Mud Collaboration

I disagree that Gemstone "isn't tha much different then Medievia".

As a person that played the game for over a decade and helped (through numerous forum posts and testing) to develop many systems I have to say that it is worlds apart from most MUDs. I have also played Medievia, though for not as long.

Simutronic's "Gemstone" uses a decent timed non-auto combat system. They do not advertise themselves as free, and never have. The code is original, save for some hold-overs from the ICE time. They employ a decently large staff of developers and customer service personnel that regularly crank out additions to both the classes and world.

Empaths (healers) gain experience through healing, as does anyone that takes up lockpicking. Once a mage can enchant (level 25) they can actually level through enchanting items. Rangers can gain experience through foraging terrain-specific (and even seasonal and time-specific) plants. Clerics can gain experience through raising dead PC's. They also have a non-combat experience system in the works, last I heard.

I am not here to tout Gemstone ( I no longer play it), just pointing out that as far as pay-MUDs that I have played over the years I found Gemstone, and one of Simutronic's other products "DragonRealms", to be the top of the heap (in my opinion).

Not knocking Medievia, as I am sure from previous posts that there will be plenty of people that will do that. Just pointing out that there are large differences between it and Gemstone.

The rumor is that it gets more fun when you hero? Hm. What did I miss.  I heroed four characters there in my pre-awareness state (before I learned of the credits and license situation). I don't recall it getting any more fun. Three of those heroes had zero PKs. The fourth had a whole -one- PK, and that was a momentary case of the stupids on my part.

There is a difference between game immersion and flat-out feeling trapped. I found the latter to be far more prevalent.

The solution I found was to gather up all the friendships I made there, and transition them to IMs.  When I do return for brief moments, it is to find someone whose IM data I still seek or to chat in link. It is strictly those people who bring me back for the few minutes at a time, not the gameplay.

Make your own choices, eyes open and informed.

I've not played Medievia so I've not got a first-hand opinion on it, but clearly a lot of people really enjoy it. I personally find World of Warcraft to be somewhere between tedious and painful, but 6 million people around the world disagree with me to the tune of up to $15/month.

Marketing makes a big difference, but marketing only gets people there. One has to have a game that appeals to people to keep them there once the marketing gets them there. Otherwise instead of an operating business, you just have a dot-bomb.

I've also said before, and I'll say again: Medievia's marketing kind of sucks unless part of their conscious strategy is to use the people who hate them to market for them. It's certainly what happens, but I kind of doubt that it was a pre-planned strategy on their behalf. They're happy to sit back and watch some forum posters ensure Medievia remains one of the most visible text MUDs.

(And in any case, I'll bet that, as with games generally, the single most powerful marketing tool for them is word of mouth from people who like their game.)

--matt

I'm not defending Medievia's codebase, but in my mind having no races isn't neccesarily a bad thing.

I mean, was that what you were saying or am I mistaken?

Personally I am attracted to games which offer a wide variety of choice, of decision potential, of strategy, of options - places which encourage me to try new directions, push my character's limits, derive the benefits or suffer the results of my decisions.

I cannot honestly say I found this to be true at Med. Correct, there are four classes, and you can choose which order to take them in... and to hero, you'll go through all four classes, sometimes quite a few times. That's your choice. Hero as thief, hero as mage, hero as cleric, hero as warrior. That's your choice.

There are other things you can do in the meantime, of course, but at the end of the day, it seems everyone ends up in approximately the same place anyway.

I agree with most of the things said about Midievia's gameplay. I did enjoy testing out their ship system, but they are hardly not the only MUD that has a system like that. The thing about Midievia is that they know they have to talk themselves up and make themselves look innovative on their website and advertisements to draw people. Many players of Midievia are not familar with other MUDs - that's because Midievia ... a) does advertise outside the MUD community, and b) are a bunch of "newbs".

In all actuality, the newbie quality that I've come to associate mostly with really bad Dragonball/Godwars MUDs and graphical MMORPGs like WoW was suprisingly prevalent.

However, despite the lack of innovation, exciting gameplay, or users that I could stand, Midievia makes their features look amazingly appealing in their advertising and very much so on their website. I am sure that is a big draw for people.

Sometimes, lack of modest leadership can actually become a boon, depending on the kinds of players you wish to draw. It seems to be a staple of MUDs that follow some commercial semi-free/semi-perk-cost format, and those MUDs tend to be the largest ones(with the exception of Simutronics, who had the benefit of being sponsered by AOL early on to create a huge following).

To the gameplay; it is the responsibility of any game designer who is using DIKU to decide whether or not they wish to remain a DIKU MUD, philosophically, or to push themselves to stretch, creatively. I have no problem with DIKU - I am a huge fan of that gift to the community. I do think that too many designers, whether by code snippets, or by philosophy, allow themselves to not see how they can improve their own gameplay in order to create a fresher MUD.

I.E., Clandestine MUD is, at source, DIKU - and even has kept a some qualities of DIKU which are actually desired by most players. However, philosophically, we went the route of trying to create an environment with dozens of unique mini-games and co-operative skills/etc that would force players to think and have fun in PK, professions, and gaming. Yes, automated combat can be a bore. However, this is typically because most combat systems are just designed to take the easy way out.

And I agree that Midievia takes the easy way out - after having designed numerous systems and helped consult with/fix numerous MUDs' combat systems, it is a fact that there are simply many MUDs that are far better.

I wonder if the original poster wouldn't enjoy an rpi. Based only on the points that fail to satisfy enumerated in their post.

The following are quotes from a recent player survey in response to the question: "Why do you still log into and play Medievia regularly?"

Medievia is an ever-changing and expanding world, constantly working towards making everyone's experience in Medievia as rich, fulfilling, and all around enjoyable for those who play.

Medievia is more diverse then any other game I have played. There is always something to do that suits whatever mood I happen to be in. Most importantly, it is the interaction with other people and the friendships formed on the game that keeps me coming back no matter what.

I love it, the changes, the zones, everything, both players and Gods are friendly and helpful. It is an enjoyable way of spending my day.

The large player base. I like how there are HUGE amounts of people on, no matter what time of day or night it is. There is no slow time. There is never any trouble finding people to play/interact with. And beyond that, things like catacombs, trade runs and ships make Medievia the best mud out there, hands down.

There is still more I have not yet done in this game. The challenge to master ALL of Medievia is what keeps me coming back.

The people I've met and known over the years, the new changes like ships and cpk. I’m anticipating town farms and workers.

Honestly, it’s for the player interaction. I love the community, talking to my friends and pking. I have friends on med I've known longer then almost anyone not in my family irl. More to the point though, it’s the ability to pk. I love running eq because it leads to pk, and gets me eq to pk better, but it’s the rush of icing people that gets me in again and again. I think Medievia has one of the best playerkilling systems of any game I've ever come accross...after playing med I could never play a game that didn't have such a simple and well worked system of pk to allow me to take whatever risks I wanted to at that time.

The complex social structure of the game itself makes it a 'valid' alternate life for me. And like 'living', I want to advance and take part in what happens in the 'world'. The world of Medievia is dynamic and ever changing and that makes me want to experience through the changes (although I don’t agree to all of it). There is a need to achieve 'higher' social status or reputation in the game (or at least to maintain it) and I believe that the changes offers more way to do that instead of just learning zones and get the best set in the game. (e.g dragon lairs, shipping adventures)

Best bang for the buck. I've donated probably $500-$600 between all my characters but what other games will provide me w/ the 6000+ hours of actual played time like Med has. I played World of Warcraft for over a year and it's a good game, but Medievia is a better game. I keep playing because I know that I’ve been playing w/ the same people for 9+ years either w/ or against and that's nice. Medievia is constantly changing and growing. I don't cpk often but when I do I actually feel a rush that I've never gotten from any other game whether it be from winning or losing. Also based in Philly I've gotten to meet other players w/ get togethers and such. I also feel I know my BL child real well which is cool.

The two biggest reasons for me are these: 1, your actions and accomplishments are able to be shared and experienced with real people who you form a very close-knit society with. 2, Medievia has a rich history, a nostalgia associated with certain people, time periods, events, changes. Having spent so much time watching this game evolve, I like being part of the current growth and changes.

I'm constantly impressed with the new features that V is adding to the game on a near weekly basis. Obviously, I've made friends that I enjoy talking to also. There's something about being able to do both of those things together-sharing a fun gaming experience with friends-though that keeps me coming back over and over.
-----

Obviously many people love our game. But, that's not to say that Medievia is everyone's cup of tea. To each their own.

It was just one of the various random examples of how many of the features have remained unchanged from stock Merc, despite the numerous advances other codebases have made in the last 15 years.

As I said before, I'd be interested to see what a high-quality game could do with the same sort of advertising budget.

I think it's obvious many people like the game. I don't think
that's the point in debate.

What I think is being discussed is that it is suprising how
popular Medievia is, despite the serious drawbacks that
have been outlined.

One of the reasons that has been suggested is that
your player base just doesn't know any better. If that
is true, then testimonials don't really address the issue.

The fact that you have not addressed any of the points
raised is startling to me, because it tells me that they are
factually correct. You really do only have 4 classes, and
no races. And all the other stuff said here.

You haven't disputed any of the statements here about
Medievia being a mediocre mud, mostly populated by players
unaware of the many choices available to them. You haven't
disagreed that Medievia's advertising portrays a distorted
image of largely humdrum features.

I'm not saying these things are true, but by not disputing
them, you yourself seem to be stipulating to them.

IS that the case?

-Crat

If you don't like color all you have to do is say no when the mud asks you if your client supports ANSI and it is funner when you hero because you don't have to exp. You can go on dragon lairs, trade runs, serpent hunts, build clantowns, lead a CPK stake, go PK with clannies/friends and there are new stuff added daily.

There's always plenty to do in Medievia and plenty of people to do it with. Of course Medievia can get boring (just like any other game) but only if you keep doing the same thing over and over again like exping.

Muds are meant to be a social environment where people interact and Medievia provides plenty of opportunities to do exactly that. They have shouts, tells, clan/town channels, a immortal channel for heroes and gods and a channel just for newbies where they can get help from gods and avatars.

Have you ever been to a CPK stake with over 30 people? To a dragon lair with 19 people? Been pked while exping and had clannies come help avenge you?

Sure it can get spammy but you can brief spells/combat, turn off the channels and if you really don't like the map just turn it off. People do read room descriptions, otherwise you won't be able to solve zones but there are lazy people who would rather read a walkthrough than spend hours solving a zone and it's the same with the autoquests.

You also have to remember what makes humans human is the fact that we're all different with different likes/dislikes. Maybe Medievia isn't for roleplayers but it's a great place to socialize and relax because maybe, just maybe the people playing Medievia don't want to roleplay or worry about the consequences of dying and being OOC. But if you are brave and want to experience the thrill of Pking/CPKing you can go into PK areas where you lose nothing but your dignity or go into CPK areas where you can lose an entire level and get stripped clean.

You don't have to spend a dollar out of your pocket to get donation equipment. You can ask other players to buy it for you for ingame money or join a bloodline who can buy it for you if you hero for them. If you can't kill something by yourself get friends/clannies to help you, I've always loved the group activities on Medievia.

Virtual realities aren't that different from reality, nothing is fair and if you want something you have to work hard for it. The only difference is at the end of the day you have to face reality.

I have played dozens of MUDs listed here and I still go back to Medievia, I've played over 2000 hours. There will always be good times and bad times but you have the option to leave and quit.

I know it's bad to take what isn't yours and claim it is but it happens to all of us. If the gods that run Medievia can't be the bigger people maybe you can by moving on. I don't know about other people but bashers turn me off. It doesn't matter whos right or wrong, if you have to resort to name calling and bashing you are just as bad.

It's better to find something you like and spend your time enjoying it than being bitter and spending every ounce of energy you have advertising about what you hate.

No. We like being bitter.

<off-topic insult deleted by mod>

Yes, I have done these things on other MUDs. with Medievia's playerbase size, a 30 person PK battle is not extremely impressive. I play MUDs that peak at 40 players logged on at the same time, that get battles that large going and have better combat systems.

I'm not saying that Medievia is an awful MUD, and I'm not even raising the issue of morality here. It's not the purpose of the thread, I do not believe. However, you asked a few questions - and my answer is yes. I've yet to see a feature on Medievia(beyond their admittedly well-done overhead map) that I have not seen a better version of elsewhere.

And to Soleil: Any of us Admins that held a poll of why people play our MUDs on our forums would get the typical ass-kissing of players who are a) so obsessed with the game or b) so obsessed with gaining favor, would get incredibly prolific responses from our playerbase as to "why this game is the best". They all sum up to the same sentence, though;

"I love MUD X, because I've been there and the people are soooo awesome and it's sooo fun and there's soooo much to do and I've been there since the dawn of tiiiime!! *smooch smooch, drool*"

It doesn't invalidate any of the points made in this thread, however, to point out this flaw in forum polls by trying to use it to divert a valid assessment of a game. :-p

There are indeed a lot of people who enjoy Medievia and while I'll be the first to admit it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it has features that you're unlikely to find anywhere else.
For one thing, Medievia is not a game that you play to "win". Medievia is a cumulative experience. Each play period gains the character/player more experience and knowledge to play even further. Honing and developing skills for a variety of player kill scenerios, and learning equipment zones which are enhanced by the possibility of being overrun by other players.
No, Medievia is not "immersive" in the way that many role playing games are. But it is immersive in the fact that you come to rely quite heavily on other players who can aid your successes or your defeats.
Interestingly enough, while I have seven years of playing Medievia, it continues to add new zones, new modules, and yeah, new players, to a degree that it really never grows old.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is, everyone has different tastes, but for those who are looking for a MuD that is creative, constantly changing, hugely expansive in its scope, and has some very unique modules (i.e., ships), this is something to try.
I am quite certain someone will come along and post something nasty and hateful, but it doesn't negate the reality that this is a game that hundreds of people have played for a decade or more. It's a rich, complex enviroment that is takes full advantage of the unpredictability of the human component.
Say what you will (and there are always those who leave the topic to rehash tired old flames), but the game is fun, vibrant and alive.

The original poster, Jeena, is new to MUDs. Just thought I'd make that clear first.

Those are all things that are offered in countless other MUDs. Ships - offered in countless other MUDs. How can you say that Medievia has features you will not find anywhere else, and then submit a list of features that I can find many different places?

I'm not being hateful, I'm just submitting the idea that Medievia tends to talk up its typical features as being extra-ordinary. Obivously they do well for themselves - financially and population-size seem to be doing just fine on the game. However, the concept of this thread is to say that it is probably not because of features, as they really don't offer anything that isn't offered elsewhere. Infact, as we've described, many of their gameplay elements are actually kind of boring - I found this to be true when I played.

Yes, different strokes for different folks - you can absolutely love Medievia... it's your right. However, to call it unique... well - the only things I can think of that are unique about Medievia(besides its mapping system, which is pretty cool) are all bad things. The rest is just Medievia's version of typical add-ons to MUDs.

Jeena,

There's no hate here that I see. None from me, certainly.

Even though some people can be unhinged in their
criticism of Medievia's admins, you must allow for the possibility
that people criticizing the substance of Medievia's features
really might be just stating facts.

In this case, it sounds to me like you really love the social
aspect of it, and that's awesome. Speaking for myself, I don't
want to suggest your experiences are somehow inauthentic.
I doubt anyone here would, since we're all mud enthusiasts
of one stripe or another.

What we're talking about is not the validity of the players'
experiences. What we're talking about is the technical merit
of the mud, and frankly, from what I've read of your post,
you don't really understand what we're talking about. Ships,
for example, are not an especially difficult thing to
implement, and many muds have impressive ship travel,
ship combat, etc. From a technical standpoint, suggesting
a mud is outstanding for its social aspect and its ships is like
saying that some brand of car is great because it gets
you where you're going and it has power locks. There's just
nothing all that special about it.

And that's the question. Not whether you suck for playing on
Medievia, which is an argument I've yet to hear.

The question is, how is it that Medievia is such a totally
ordinary mud, yet popular enough that people will go so
far as to pay money to play it.

-Crat

What objective drawbacks have been mentioned? I've heard people say that Medievia has some features they don't like or lacks some features they'd like, but those are just personal preference issues. They're only drawbacks to those people and people with similar preferences.

Suggesting that "the player base doesn't know better" is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand, with a healthy dose of patronizing attitude thrown in to boot. The playerbase does know better. I'd be willing to bet you your last dollar that virtually every single player in Medievia is aware of alternative online games they could be playing, but they choose to play Medievia instead.

--matt

He likely was insinuating by saying "players do not know better", that players may not be aware that features that they love on Medievia are common place on other MUDs, especially if many of them not long-time MUDers.

Now, I would not venture to assume this, myself, but I do not believe he meant that; "Medievia players do not know better than to know that Medievia sucks and there are better games."

Occam's Razor: It's not ordinary.

I've never played it, but it doesn't matter if most of its features are duplicated somewhere else. The same is true of World of Warcraft and Runescape, but that hasn't stopped millions of people from enjoying them. There is no game -exactly- like Medievia, and it is Medievia, not the individual systems, that people are playing.

Medievia, or indeed any MUD, isn't a bunch of unrelated systems put together that may be individual dismissed. The whole is often greater than the sum of the parts.

Let's use sitcoms as an example: How many nearly-identical-in-concept sitcoms do you think have aired and been cancelled in the last, say, 25 years? I haven't counted, but it's quite a large number. Most of those had all the basic elements of a Cheers, a Seinfeld, or a Friends. What made those super-hits and the others forgotten nothings had nothing to do with the individual 'systems'. Cheers didn't invent a new setting and call it a 'bar'. Seinfeld didn't invent wacky neighbors. What those shows did do was execute those concepts very well.

--matt

The MUD I spent the most time playing (Avalon) before starting Achaea in '96 had no races. It's a completely valid choice to make.

--matt

In fact, over the years I have played many MuD's, and a few Mushes thrown in as well.  So perhaps what was just said is right, it's a matter of personal preference. I don't see anything that Medievia advertising has put out there as untruthful or exaggerated. Quite the opposite, I think it's virtually impossible to impress upon a potential player the social and playing aspects in a way ythat really highlights what you can get from the game.
But, I am the first to admit that if you need graphics, you won't find them in Med. If you need the "thees and thous" of roleplaying you aren't going to find it in Med either. What I've found is aggravation, competition, rivalries, friendship, enemies, and all the other things people find when they play a game long term. Do I think Med is the best MuD out there? Sure I do. Am I biased? Sure. But who can really tell you what a game is about? I mean, there must be some reason why I, and so many others, love the game as much as we do... that should be worth checking out anyway.

Of course it's a "completely valid choice" to leave any of your muds features exactly the same as they were in the stock codebase you started from. The four stock classes you started out with 13 years ago. The lack of races your Diku derivative came with. The automated combat system consisting of typing "kill" then sitting back to watch the show. These are all "valid choices" - indeed, leaving the entire mud as stock would be a "valid choice".

However the original poster specifically stated that he created the thread with the intent of finding other people's opinions, and that's what I think we should concentrate on.

What's your opinion about the endless Diku muds with their stock features, Matt? Don't you think some people might be tired of them? Perhaps prefer something more professional?

What are your views on automated combat? I once heard someone refer to such combat systems as a "joke" - do you think that's a reasonable statement?

Well, that's not necessarily true, at least as far as the social aspect goes. Different MUDs have different cultures and social scenes. It's possible the Med culture is appealing to a wider variety of people.

Personally, my theory is that Med thrives, essentially, by being populist. It's the McDonalds, Wal-Mart, or vanilla of MUDs. McDonalds isn't the only place in the world with chicken sandwiches or salads, but you can bet they get people in the door by advertising them.

More people would want to play a no-RP MUD than a RP MUD, so that's what Med is. More people want to play a simpler game, so that's what Med is. More people want to play a game where you never are forced to take real PvP risks or seriously compete. so that's what Med is. (But there's bits of risky opt-in-only PK so people who want to be badass posers can -- just as McDonalds has the Filet-o-Fish for those seafood cravings.)

It doesn't make design choices that strongly appeal to niche audiences, doesn't do anything particularly distinctive or daring. That philosophy, ironically, is what's distinct. I personally can't stand vanilla, but you know, a lot of people think it's great. If you're only going to sell one flavor, you're not going out of business selling vanilla. It's the same way with Med, and its mainstream appeal is as incomprehensible to MUD connoisseurs as Budweiser as the King of Beers is to beer aficionados.

Soleil,

I have been reading your posts and giving them
consideration. I have been replying to them in good faith.

Your statement that I think the testimonials are "inaccurate" is
offensive. I never said any such thing. Either you've set up
a straw man argument, or you really have no idea what
I've been talking about.

I'm beginning to feel that you're using your words in a
dishonest fashion, strictly for public effect, and not for
advancing the topic in a legitimate way.

All I'm doing is expressing surprise that you're not bothering to
attempt to refute the points raised here. Given that your stated
job is "Director of Media & Marketing", I would have expected
you to take the time to explain to us why these interpretations
are mistaken.

Instead you copy and paste testimonials, and then misrepresent
the statements made that you didn't like.

Whether you're a true believer and don't see anything wrong,
or you're a cynical (and rather lazy) manipulator, the image
you're giving is a darn negative one.

Well, I guess that's your "cup of tea".

In any case, I tried to access your philosophy page but got
a 404. I'll see if I can find a google archived copy.

-Crat

Kavir wrote:
Yep. Of course, there aren't any entirely stock DIKUs/Mercs/etc I'm aware of that are as popular as Medievia is.

My opinion about the endless DIKUs are that most of them are crap and it shows in the fact that nobody plays most of them. Medievia, on the other hand, is quite popular and that says to me that there's more there than meets the eye.

I dislike automated combat as I've seen it instituted in the past.

Having not played Medievia, I couldn't tell you whether I like their combat system or not. It certainly seems that lots of people do though.

--matt

We're talking about a mud with many stock features and nothing that really makes it stand out. The two main things it has which the hundreds of similar muds lack is a large playerbase and a decent advertising budget - and we know that much of its advertising is targetted at non-mudders. Earlier you mentioned Occam's Razor. Well, applying that logic I think it's reasonable to assume a connection between those two points (playerbase and advertising).

Considering the amount of advertising you do for your muds (banners and the like) I'm assuming you've also found that paid advertising is worth the investment.

This is hardly groundbreaking stuff. I can think of dozens of awful computer games I've seen on stores shelves, each of which has almost certainly had more players (and made more money) than even the most successful and well-designed mud. Even was a financial success, and I doubt many people would say that was because of its quality gameplay...

I don't feel that I need to explain anything to this forum. As I've said before, everyone likes different games. Our website does a great job at showing what Medievia is and if someone is really interested past reading the website, they will log into the game and find out for themselves. I already said, a few times, that games like Medievia are not for everyone and that is just fine by me. We have many players who like our system and whether it be "vanilla" or "stock with snippets" according to some of you, we still get lots of old and new players logging in daily. I have given player testimonials on the game and several Medievia players have posted about the game themselves. I'm sorry if you are not satisfied with my posts, but what does it matter? You probably have already made your mind up about Medievia anyway and will never consider playing it.

And as for the 404, it was because I spelled Philosophy wrong. I fixed it in the original post.

Kavir, when was the last time you played Medievia to Hero? Until you do, I suggest you stop making broad generalizations about the game you really know nothing about.

That sounds a lot like "Please Mindlessly grind in our game for 300 hours, then you can start having fun."

It really is, and that's not me slamming you.

I have friends who are beer snobs. They exclusively drink more expensive microbrewed beers. A few even brew their own. They can't fathom how anyone could drink Budweiser, and by saying that I don't mean they can't understand why anyone would prefer Bud, I mean they can't understand why anyone would even put it in their mouth on purpose.

And yet, for all of that, Budweiser breweries spill more beer on the floor each year than the microbrewery of their choice sells. Which, then, is the better beer? Like almost anything else, it's a matter of opinion.

Often they'll swear that if all the people drinking Bud tried a "real beer", they'd never be able to drink Bud again, just as you'll often see people here saying that if Med players tried a real MUD they'd never go back.

In both cases, this is true to a degree, and false to a degree. Let's take a Med player whose favorite part of the game is the limited PvP aspects. Get them to try some of the "better" PvP MUDs out there, possibly including some with Diku roots (e.g. Shattered Kingdoms, Carrion Fields) but much greater tactical depth and possibly including some with deep but very different systems (e.g. Godwars 2, Achaea). Now, I bet if you did that 10 times (substitute different kinds of MUDs for Med players who prefer different aspects of Med), a few of them would leave for one of the new MUDs and never come back.

But, you know? I bet most of them would prefer Med and go back to it, genuinely convinced that it's better. You can get people to try out microbrew beers, but some people just prefer Budweiser.

And now off on a tangent:

You're not actually saying that there's nothing special to distinguish your game before the n-hundred-hours-in endgame, are you? It sounds like you're saying that, but that can't possibly be true?

No, I'm not saying that. What I was trying to say is that Kavir shouldn't speak so absolutely about a game that he has never (I think) and will never play.

However, the game does get more fun the higher level you get. The beginning is a bit of grinding to get experience, yes. Personally, I'd say that you have to complete your first class (31 levels) to get the full Medievia experience. But, you can absolutely have fun in Medievia at any level. We have many long term players (5 or more years) and a lot of effort has gone into developing the endgame so that those players have a variety of things to do. But that does not mean that the game isn't fun for lower level characters either. Again, it boils down to the fact that it's just a matter of opinion what is considered fun.

If I had a cookie for every time I'd heard a stock mud use that defence, I'd open a cookie shop...

Yes, I know, you think you're special. Well, so does every mud - nobody likes to think they're offering the same features as everyone else, and even fewer like to admit it. But it's readily apparent to anyone who's read your feature list (and is at least vaguely familiar with what most muds offer) that you don't offer anything new.

That's really not even something worth debating as far as I'm concerned - it's as blatantly obvious as your Diku heritage. My interest at this point is purely in relation to the value of advertising, and how big an impact it can make to the population of a mud.

I think it's interesting to see how effectively an otherwise mostly-stock mud is able to attract players, and compare it with the more original muds. I've heard that some of the higher quality games (such as Gemstone and DragonRealms) have actually been losing players, and would be interested to hear the views of players from such muds - have these games not been advertising as aggressively? If not, perhaps it might imply that their payment model is losing popularity among many players.

If you look at many of the graphical mmrpgs they are pretty much the same as most MUDs. Why would people want to use a text only interface, when there are so great 3D versions with the same(or close to) feature set avaible? 3D offers a lot of possibilities that MUDs just aren't capable of. You can always throw text into 3D, but you can't easily throw 3D into a text MUD.

My guess is that the reason Gemstone/DragonRealms are losing subscribers is that people are becoming hesitant about supporting non 3D games. Then there are also a lot of people who aren't leaving the text MUD community but still haven't entered it. A lot of people I have talked to in 3D mmrpgs I have tried don't even know about MUDs.

So it is possible there's a lot of people that would be interested in trying another kind of "mmrpgs" but just don't know where to look.

Edit: If you ask people what MUD clients they use, a lot of people will answer that they use "free" clients with the motivation similar to "Why would I pay to play such old games?".

Kavir wrote:
I suspect if you went through Medievia feature by feature, and room by room, it is almost entirely original content and their own interpretation of systems by now, though that's just a guess.

What I think you also miss that is MUDs are both products and services, and there is no such thing as "stock service." A MUD is as much a service as it is a product, and the service (including the pace of expansion, how players are treated, how the admins interact with players, etc) is just as important as the product.

You realize that Medievia's advertising budget is quite small, right? You keep going on about their advertising, but as far as I can tell, they spend very little on advertising. I'm guessing they spend less than 25k/year on advertising, though that's purely a guess.

Simutronics' big text MUDs have been declining in size since 1997 or so, but that's really more a function of the fact that it's around then that the firehose of newbies that AOL had been giving them went away (Simutronics split from AOL when AOL went from hourly to flat-rate, because Simu refused to re-negotiate its contract with AOL.)

--matt

This "Budweiser" analogy is being mis-applied. The Budweiser/McDonalds/WalMart of MUDs is World of Warcraft. All text MUDs are micro-brews. Some are commercial micro-brews (like the ones that your beer connoisseur friends drink), and most are home-brew operations made to just drink with friends, though some a few of those home-brew operations (Aardwolf, Batmud, etc) have a heck of a lot of friends.

Comparing Medievia, which MIGHT have two full-time employees, to Budweiser, is pretty silly. Even the smallest microbrews you can find in the store are bigger operations than Medievia and reach more people.

--matt

Good guess. We really don't spend that much on advertising. Right now the only thing we are paying for are the zMUD icon, Google adwords, and banners at a handful of game and MUD sites. We have neither the personnel nor the resources for a larger advertising scheme. As Matt stated before, our biggest contributor to getting players to the game and keeping them there is word of mouth.

So, what became of the OP? Does s/he still play medevia? Did s/he move on to something else? Does s/he like that something else more or less if s/he did move on?

"Small" is a relative term. A $15500 full page ad in PCGamer magazine might be pretty small for a commercial company, but there's no way a completely free hobbyest mud could justify that sort of expenditure. Start tacking on $1100 Dragon magazine adverts and smaller monthly adverts in various other printed magazines, and you're talking about a considerable amount of promotion to an otherwise mostly non-mudding audience.

Obviously if you gave a text-based mud the advertising budget of World of Warcraft or EverQuest it would gather even more attention, but I doubt that even a highly successful commercial mud could gather enough players to make that sort of advertising campaign pay off.

However it still provides some interesting food for thought, in my opinion. If a few thousand dollars of well-placed advertising can make generic gameplay, repetitive grind and stock features look so tempting, it paints a brighter future for those who are developing high quality original games.

Although already a bit off-topic, I believe this is not necesarilly true. You speak about repetitive grind and stock features with a despective tone, but this also means that these features are familiar to people who have played elsewhere, and the repetitive grind allows for an easy mechanism to advance (though repetitive you feel like you are advancing in levels etc).

What you, as a developer (and probably as a player, if you actually play MUDs) find boring and as a down-side, others (and I would argue that this is a bigger group) might find as an advantage. Better systems with more features and options often mean that you have a steeped learning curve, if you wish to excel you need to spend more time activelly engaged in the game learning and toning skills down so you can master the system. In a more simplistic game, with somewhat familiar-looking features, the learning process is shorter, you can go ahead and start making levels while you simultaneously explore the alternative activities sniped-in/created-for the game, effectibly increasing the number of available options in your hands for when you get bored of the grinding part. More options, all put together, different goals to fulfill (levels, gold in hand, equipment, other random stats you come up with, RP competitions, etc...) means a player will have something to do in this rather simple game whenever they chose to be playing.

Now, you have an easy game, with a short learning curve that has a bunch of options since early on, and you can go ahead and interact with dozens of people without regard of OOC/IC issues. TADDA! you now have the "community" feeling many people long to have when they go on the net (it is not a secret that people have increasingly more "relationships" with virtual individuals to real ones compared to 10 years ago).

So, even if you have a lot of money to advertise, a very good game with nothing custom but a too steep learning curve, with player-interaction restrictions, could end up as barren as an stock diku with a poor admin and a couple of snipets added to it.

I've never played Medievia, but to me it seems very obvious what makes Medievia successful. First off, they advertise intelligently-- that is, by getting fresh new players who have never mudded previously. These players have absolutely no preferences when it comes to muds...they make those after they've been playing for a month or so. Hardly any of these new mudders will say "these colors are blinding!" or "only 4 classes??" Medievia has a seemingly desperate set up to encourage their existing players to spread the word to anyone they know, via word of mouth, flyers, business cards, reviews, voting, forums, etc. They even provide tips on sharing Medievia and they will provide the flyers and business cards. So.....do any of your muds do that? Probably not.

Second, from what I read on this topic and their website, they are newbie friendly. Of course. They attract newbies, so they have a website that is helpful to new mudders. I have not tried Medievia, but I am willing to bet that they have a very good helping/mud school system (called avatars I think?) They also have a detailed step-by-step guide on their website on how to get started, something that many, many mud websites lack. It also doesn't hurt to have a pretty simple setup (no races, 4 classes, automated combat, I believe...) I wouldn't be surprised if well over 50% of new mudders actually stick around.

Third, and just important as the first two items, from what I gather, they seem to be constantly working on the game and bringing in new features (new to Medievia at least.) I think some of the more "high quality" muds don't realize that they need to be constantly improving their mud-- otherwise it is like reading the same book over and over, and you can quickly get bored of it.

Also, I noticed that although they have a link to leave a review on TMS, they don't have a voting link. Whether this is intentional or they were banned, I don't know, but it seems like a good idea to keep their players in the dark about the DIKU license stuff since voting brings players to this site and there is a fair amount of Medievia bashing always going on.

While there's no doubt in my mind that Medievia is not nearly as advanced, high quality, or original as most other established muds, it doesn't matter to them. They know how to get players and most of you don't.

I am curious about one thing though...is Medievia considered a commercial mud?

I disagree.

The point of the analogy is not that Medievia is a huge corporation crushing its rivals. The point is that it (by design, I would argue) appeals to a wide variety of players, rather than being the perfect game for a much smaller group of players. Thus, the disconnect when a player/admin playing a smaller game encounters Med and can't figure out why anyone would want to play it -- they're instead used to a specialized product designed to appeal to the taste of people like them. I'm sure it's not necessarily as engineered as that -- a guy like KaVir probably sits down and makes what would be a great game for his tastes, the kind of game he'd like to play. I think that instead of trying to be perfect for a few people, Med strives to be pretty good for a lot of people.

At this point, yes, WoW would be the homogenized taste of the masses. If all MUDs, text and graphical, magically came into existance simultaneously today, it would make perfect sense to say that, no, Med is itself crafted to a very narrow taste -- but that's not how it happened. Ten years ago games like WoW or even Ultima Online were not yet a reality, and it's in that climate (further back, actually) that Med was born, grew, and grew its playerbase. That it's no longer a populist choice in the face of more popular options isn't as important as the climate that made it what it was and makes it different from other Dikumuds.