Join Dragonrealms today!
 

If you're looking for a Medieval themed, RP heavy MUD, why not try out ?

DragonRealms is a subscription based MUD with a basic subscription cost of $14.95 per month. Read below please to see what you get for your investment:

- Its over 18 years old with huge story arcs which reach back throughout game history and lore as well as constantly evolving stories you can be as much or as little involved in. Including some pretty epic wars over the long years of the game's life.

- A staff of developers and events GameMasters whom are all former players of the game themselves and are highly invested in seeing the game become successful due to their own ties with the player community.

- A completely custom and extremely powerful gaming engine. This isn't based on some software package that's been modified. It was built by the company and is maintained by the company exclusively for their use with a proprietary programming language that gives its developers pretty much unlimited flexibility. If they can think of it, they can develop it.

- Enforced Role Playing. You won't find guys randomly talking about what's on TV in this game. People are encouraged and are motivated to stay in character. And again, the lore is so rich, and heavily developed both by the players and by the staff is not hard to do.

- During prime time, (and this isn't an exaggeration) there are hundreds of players online at once in the game. Checking out DR does not mean you are that lone action figure in the middle of your living room. A good portion of the player base has been playing for over a decade or more. Hell, I'm one of the original players myself.

- A heavily developed crafting system. The beauty of this game in my opinion has always been that the best gear in the game is stuff created by players themselves. Already very complex and powerful forging, engineering, and outfitting societies are available, with alchemy and enchanting societies under development for release this year.

- Ten different classes, Ten different races, again with their own rich lore and language and cultures. The classes are balanced, and the PVE and PVP environments are fantastically well controlled and blended. If you never want to fight another player you don't have to. If you do, there are avenues for you to do so. The GameMaster staff has always taken very serious measures to prevent griefing.

- Huge festivals, big parties, player organized orders, militias, and more!

- Custom developed User interfaces created both by the company (Simutronics) and by players themselves give you the opportunity to make the game feel like whatever you want it to.

There's really so much to experience. If you want to play a text based game, your imagination hasn't atrophied or rotted away yet, or you're new to the whole experience, come visit today!

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

To add to this some players have started to make videos to help you along.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Good grief.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I was debating saying anything, myself. In this day and age, where the huge majority of muds are free, and the bulk of the few that aren't are pay-for-perks but still free to play, an outright pay-to-play, subscription-based mud is an oddity.

So much of an oddity, that it's nearly disingenuous to post an advertisement for the mud without mentioning that it's pay to play. Whatever else makes Dragonrealms unique and awesome, the fact that the game carries a monthly subscription (and a sizeable one, not just a few bucks) is a defining characteristic of the mud. Just as much of a defining characteristic as the features and gameplay. To mention all of those awesome features yet somehow omit that it's a pay to play mud (and an expensive one at that) borders on lying.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

It's more "withholding the details" and less "outright lying," though. Salesmen don't like to build up the bad features of their products.

When I was looking through the website (before realizing that it was p2p), it sounded like an interesting game. However, once I discovered the cost, it immediately turned me off. Being part of the true blue clique is $50/month and that doesn't guarantee that they'll welcome you into the fold.

If you look through the site, it's nothing too special; it has all the races and classes you find everywhere else, and I'm sure that there isn't much new about the spells and skills.

So why are we paying porterhouse prices for the same London broil that everyone else has?

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

There was , where "free subscribers would be able to improve their experience by obtaining the features that are important to them".

However they later retracted the statement, clarifying that "Neither DragonRealms nor GemStone are going "Free to play"." They have introduced a pay-for-perks model (you buy blocks of SCoins to ), but you also have to pay a $15-$50/month subscription. Quests and special events still cost extra, but I would guess they're now tied in with the SCoins.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

The company [Simutronics] seems to be exploring different business strategies,
but there may be customers who are willing to pay more for a particular
experience, customers who see the game as something more than a piece of meat.
The higher prices may provide a certain amount of exclusivity which some may
find favorable. Obviously any business has to view it as a numbers game in some
manner (in order to survive and prosper) but the customers may not be inclined
to share that POV.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Howdy folks. I'm currently a developer for Dragonrealms and am interested to know what you think would make a MUD worth paying for?

Dragonrealms does have hundreds of logged-in players paying to play. So that likely speaks to the game's quality! Your money buys more than just a login account. You get a team of Mentors, Gamehosts, Gamemasters and Onsite staff working to assist you. Enforced roleplay, scripting policies and rules all maintain the game's quality and envrionment. These are harder to come by with an open-door policy. Alterations, constant game development, daily events, player-run organizations... those all exist and are only feasible with a large player and developer base.

I'd also like to point out that in-game purchases are not crammed down anyone's throat. The microtransaction store is a relatively new concept to test the waters and see how things pan out. DR tries hard to give just as much free stuff out as they make pay stuff available. Free festivals and pay festivals. Free auctions and raffles, pay auctions and raffles. Free events, cheap quests and expensive quests. There is a good variety.

The pay quests and festivals provide an experience you probably cannot find in a free mud. Having staff dedicated to watching your 10-man group brave a dungeon, safari, tower or prison riot for many many hours is... tricky to coordinate. Getting lost in a maze of 120 festival merchants each selling dozens upon dozens of items... that takes a lot of effort!

There is a 30-day free trial - so you can always check it out and cancel if it isn't your cup of tea.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Well since you asked: my answer is nothing. Nothing would get me to pay for something I'm getting, better, for free.

There aren't hundreds of players logging in. There are dozens of players, many of whom have multiple accounts. Dragonrealms and the Simu flagship Gemstone (currently IV) are trading card games.

If you do a google search for "dragonrealms character sales" you'll find the first search result page consisting entirely of websites dedicated to selling and buying DR characters for RL money. That is why people pay for this game. Because they can get more than what they paid for, by "levelling up" their characters and selling them on the internet.

Since I'm not interested in trading card games, there is nothing that DR could do, that would convince me to pay to play it. I wouldn't even play it for free.

And that 30-day free trial is a joke - you have to provide your credit card number (or bank account info if you want to do debit or check), and if you don't cancel before the 30 days is up, they start billing you. There is no option to just show up - with your unique account name and password, and the counter starts, and 30 days later if you haven't submitted billing info your account is cancelled.

In fact, out of morbid curiosity, I checked over at Gemstone, and attempted to log in with my old GS account and was surprised to find out it was still valid. I haven't played it in 10 years. But the account name and password still worked. I got an error message saying Welcome Back, please give us money - which of course I didn't do. But that 10-years-dead account info was still valid.

I should've sold it when I was first offered - could've made $2000 on my PC at the time. Silly me, I had integrity. Didn't do me a lick of good; the game only has maybe a couple dozen actual individuals playing it, all trading items and characters back and forth for money, and the script-jockeys are still at it, gathering their mana-bots around them to enchant items that get sold in turn for even more money.

One player with 1 high-level wizard on a premium account, plus 1 other player on a premium account with a cleric - and then the wizard has 5 other characters (you can have multiple characters on one account) - those 5 characters channel their mana to the cleric, who can receive it at 100% because he's a cleric. then those guys log out and the wizard logs in - and the cleric channels all that mana to the wizard, who enchants the item, and they sell it and split the profits.

It's a HUGE money-making business...and they've been doing it at the very least since the days of Prodigy.

There was even a write-up about how one guy was averaging $100,000 in a YEAR profiting off the items and character sales business.

That is why people pay to play those games. If you think otherwise, you're very naive.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

You are about 8 years removed and harping on the wrong game (Gemstone) :(

A quick check of sites like the Sales Yahoo groups has shown a 75% decline in activity since early 2000s. But sure, there will always be a market for items and characters! Why is that such a horrible thing?

If someone enjoys the game enough to buy an item or charater, someone will profit off selling it. Somehow I think this proves my point that people REALLY must be enjoying a game to spend 1000s of dollars buying characters for it! You even admitted it could have been a good source of income for yourself.

In a given day the DR population ranges from the low 200s to the 500s - more during big events. Your observation that the games have only a few dozen people all paying for 10 accounts, spending 100s of dollars a month (to play with themselves??) doesn't add up. But then I guess you had never been to a Simucon and met any of the hundreds of minds behind the text?

The 30-day trial is pretty standard in the industry... ahh well, haters gonna hate :P

I will point out that since the 3.0 release you can't really Redmage yourself. The best armor and weapons give you an advantage, but the game design allows for experiencing all content with storebought gear. Invasions, quests and other events feature mechanics that allow players of all skill levels to participate.

Since I've seen crafting mentioned in a few places, I wanted to list what DR has to offer and is planned to have to offer:

Blacksmithing - Released
Weaponsmithing - Released
Armorsmithing - Released

Bone and Stone carving - Released
Wood and Clay shaping - Older fletching system still in place
Mechanical Tinkering

Leather and Fabric Tailoring, Knitting - Released
Artistry - Older embroidery and dyeing system in place
Jewelrycrafting

Alchemical Remedies - Estimated release this summer
Alchemical Poisons - Estimated release this fall
Cooking - Old food system in place

These are the planned Enchanting Disciplines and are all in development
Runecraft
Invoking
Binding

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I want to start off by apologizing. I didn't mean to mislead, lie, or hold back any information. Yes, DR has a $14.95 subscription with a larger premium subscription as well. I'm not on staff with DR, I don't hold an interest in the company, or any of that. I'm a long time player that loves the game enough to pay for it and who would love to see new people try the game out.

Next, I want to address the quoted post.

You are ill advised on many accounts.

1) While there are people who log in multiple accounts, there are in fact hundreds of individual, unique players playing the game. Why? Because it is that much of an in depth game. I'm not denying that there are people with multiple accounts who play the game. But the vast majority of people have one account which means one character logged in at a time.

2) People selling accounts and characters are the EXCEPTION. Not the NORM. The vast majority of people who play this game become seriously attached to their characters because of the personal investment involved. Of course, like any other game you have people who buy and sell in game currency and characters because they either want to avoid the grind, are just lazy, or pick any reason. Think about how much people enjoy the game if they're willing to invest the kind of money we're discussing into it. This is more of a salute to the game, than it is an insult when discussing the long term health of the game.

3) The reason why they ask for the credit card up front is because the people who operate the game on a day to day basis have a zero tolerance policy for griefing. I'm sure there are other reasons, but if you ask the player base, we're generally cool with this. A lot of us remember the time when they DIDN'T require the card up front and we had random jackasses talking about TV, and rolling up characters to follow you around and insult you.

4) You'll have to speak to someone who plays Gemstone to address your points regarding that game and its economy and dynamics. Aside from a nostalgic stint here and there, I haven't played it since it was Gemstone 3.

You're entitled to your opinion and I'm not going to wax rhapsodical trying to convince you to change your mind. I'm simply going to leave with some final thoughts:

DragonRealms is almost 18 years old if you go all the way back to the alpha/beta on Genie. Its survived being connected to Genie, Prodigy, AOL, Microsoft's GameZone, and a transition to a web based service. Its survived economic downturn. Its survived the general decline in text based gaming. Its still there. We, the players love the game. The GameMasters who do everything from provide customer service, to run events, to sit for hours with players helping them custom design their stuff, to the developers who take the time to learn a proprietary programming language so they can build onto the game are --volunteers-. I personally took the time out of my day here to reply to your post.

If we're all willing to pay $14.95 a month for a basic account, or spend hundreds of hours a month as a volunteer, maybe there's something special here?

Respectfully,
Aaron Schlesinger, player of Elriic for the last 18 years.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Like you, I haven't played these games. Unlike you, I feel that makes me largely unqualified to comment on them.

I'm sure that, like any other games, various people play these games for various reasons. If your favorite free game became pay-for-perks tomorrow, you will get the same folks that try to mine real money in any way possible. That's human nature. Given that, how would you suggest that people working in the online game industry monetize their efforts? Not everyone works on an online game as a hobby--they want to get paid for a hard day's work, just like you do.

If anything, the (alleged) complicated and time-consuming exploit you heard about is a testament that the staff of these games has closed off all the easy botting they could find.

When you play a commercial online game, most of what you pay for is service: professional support, guaranteed on-going event activity, a guaranteed pace of content growth, a better longevity.

Try running a free game as if it's a commercial one, and you'll quickly find out how much more work it is. If your favorite game is trying to do that, then you should focus on giving it extra kudos instead of looking down on other games just because they're commercial.

Incidentally, I believe that more commercially-run MUDs are better for everyone. They are the ones that have promotional budgets to get the word out, and have the potential to generate new audiences. If we were smart, we would support their efforts rather than disparage them.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Negative. Paying customers create an environment of accountability. If you've invested a huge amount of time in your character and realize that if you're repeatedly a jackass, you're going to lose it, it tends to make you keep your anonymous troll behaviors restricted to MUD forums :P

Yes. But if you turn out to be one of those players who is a griefer, you don't get a second chance. Hence the reason for all the information requested at the beginning of the process.

This is MY fault. I am sorry and I've addressed it in a follow up post a few minutes ago. I wasn't intentionally omitting it. I'll go back and add the cost information to my post. I don't work for Simutronics, please don't hold my mistake against the company or the developer who's also posting in this thread.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

If your entire post is based on the first statement, then your entire post is erroneous. I have played those games. Gemstone was the first text game I ever played. Dragonrealms was the second. I started with GS on Prodigy, saw it through the AOL fiasco, and into the WWW and beyond. I played DR for a year or so once it had already become available on the web, and Prodigy had gone out of business. I was also the assistant to Tom Zelinski (co-founder of Simutronics) on the Prodigy GS forum as a librarian archivist, and I was a moderator and active member of the biggest GS fansite forum, which is still alive and running today, on which I still have an active account and read every few weeks.

I'd say that qualifies me to offer an opinion on the product.

Juason posted: What Juason isn't understanding, is that the industry standard is *free.* There is no 30-day trial, or any trial at all, in the industry of text-based interactive online multiplayer games. The vast majority of these types of games are free, period.

DR and GS and other Simu players, for the most part, are members of a group of people who don't know any better. Many of them (as Juason and Eriic have pointed out) have played for many many years, back when they were first available only on the online services. In other words, they have been playing exclusively since the pay-for-play model was the method du jour. They haven't moved beyond it, they haven't ventured past it, they haven't attempted to seek out anything else. And so - they have no idea that there exists thousands upon thousands of players who play for free in other games, that other games might have better systems, better staff, better forums, better code, better roleplay, better hack-n-slash, than anything they can wrap their minds around.

The point being - whether or not these things are true - these players don't KNOW, because they've never experienced anything else. The guy who spends his life in a cabin in the woods, with no radio, no phone, no friends, no family, doesn't know that skyscrapers exist, because he's never seen one or heard anyone talk about them. Those are the majority of players who play Simu games. They pay, because it doesn't occur to them to NOT pay somewhere else.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

What makes a pay-to-play mud worth paying for, in my book?

Nothing, given the stage of my life that I'm currently in. I might play a mud a couple of hours a week, and sometimes not even that. Not every day and all weekend long like the heavily invested players (e.g., college students, housewives, unmarried folks without kids who can stay up all night spending any portion of their salaries not required for rent or food on computer games). The few hours a week I play isn't even worth 5 dollars a month, much less 15 or more. But if the game cost 4.95 rather than 14.95, was serious about roleplay-enforcement all around rather than having an exclusive 50 dollar a month club for the real roleplayers, or if the game used a more accepted pay-for-perks model, I'd be less offended. I'd also be much, much, much less offended if the game let me have a free trial right now, without providing any credit card information, rather than hoping I'll forget to unsubscribe and they can make a few bucks auto-billing my credit card before I do so. Believe me, if people really, really like a game, they'll sign up after 30 days when their trial's up. You don't want to look like you're trying to screw people. I'm serious about this. The primary reason shady internet offers collect your credit card info to begin your 30 day trial and require you to unsubscribe manually is to get some cash out of people who forget to unsubscribe. It's to screw people. There's no reason not to wait to collect that info at day 30 except wanting to screw people.

There's actually very little about mud gameplay and features that makes a game worth more to me. If a mud is rudimentary, full of bugs and typos, unfinished, and just plain stupidly tedious to play, yeah that's a turn-off. But I've had my best experiences logging into a random mud, large or small, and being sucked up into a fun roleplay encounter with other players (even just one or two others) right from get go. Look at New Worlds, for example. Very successful mud (by most standards), and one of the more popular ones around here. Absolutely simplistic system, code and gameplay wise. A few neat features but nothing that special in the code or any of the game systems. But five minutes into the first day I tried that mud, I was roleplaying and having a blast. You just can't code or enforce that experience. It's hit or miss whether I'd have that kind of fun logging into Dragonrealms (or New Worlds on most days, or any other mud). But you only get one shot at that first impression. I've been on and off with New Worlds (currently off) over the years, but still mention it around here as my favorite example of a mind-bendingly simple mud that still manages to do well. It's not the code or the staff-run special events that make a mud what it is. At least not in the case of a roleplaying mud.

If I logged into Dragonrealms right now and wasn't having that kind of fun in 5 minutes, it's not worth money. If I can log into any other free mud right now and have that same kind of fun, Dragonrealms isn't worth money.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

If your criticism are based on a game you played 10 years ago (and I'm assuming it was good enough for you then to pay for) and secondary observations, then I think every reader can decide how seriously to take them.

@Elric & @Juason:

Don't apologize or take it personally. There are folks in these forums who will shoot down pretty much anything.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

It would be interesting to see if, over time, the sudden exposure of Dragon Realms players to many other muds, and Dragon Realms exposure to players of other muds, turns out to be a net benefit or loss for Dragon Realms. Based on the sudden voting numbers, it seems that Dragon Realms made a decision to drive their players to vote here when they have never really bothered before.

Either they didn't think it through very well or someone at DR feels they will gain more players from other muds than they will lose to other muds which is a pretty big vote of confidence in their content even with a pay wall to climb.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

This seems like a pretty presumptuous statement. I've played other free muds. I've played many other pay games. I keep coming home for a reason.

It strikes me that the negativity in this thread is stemming from a lot of presumptions and misconceptions.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Your're correct. Someone discovered this site, posted it on our forums and the player base got out and 'pushed'. I never knew about this site before the post myself or believe me, I'd have been active for years already.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Don't forget boredom! Trolling promo threads is the *industry standard* antidote for boredom.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I've been playing DragonRealms on and off since credit cards were not required on the MSN Games network (or whatever it was called). I'm a serial free trialer. I like the game, but only pay for it when I forget to cancel (like right now, lol)

I'm a stay at home mom, go to school part-time and have a small business that I'm starting. There are tons of games that are competing for my time and money. There's tons of MUDs that have one or two of the things that I would love in a game, but none have them all. I'd have to build it myself for that to happen, of course. Anyway, DragonRealms has a bunch of stuff that I think I could like. Most of the stuff in the first post, so I'm really going to repeat it.

What would the game have to have for me to pay? I don't mind paying, but I'd rather pay less than $15/month. Come on, you only get one character! But for the full $15 I would like:
Honestly, I'm pretty easy to please. My biggest beef the one character for $15 thing. If the price point when down or the characters per account with up, I'll be happy and possibly continuing paying. Add housing and I definitely would.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Nah,, just trying to learn what I can from the community here. I would have expected arguments such as "DR combat sucks, or DR Magic is a PITA to use". But its good to know that cost is a primary concern with so many folks.


>>Realedazed

Good feedback. I'd argue that with the current events team we've been having nightly events for the past 6 months, many of which do not involve any combat. Probably the hardest part of a GMs job is getting the word out that stuff is happening and where. Something we'll continue to work on.

>> Other crafting skills

Aww, I put in 25 hours over the holiday weekend working on Alchemy :P Pushing like mad to get the rest of the systems out so I can move onto some of the other fun mechanics I want to do.


>> Why now?

Well, I've been reading the forums here since even before 2007 when I made my account. Never posted much, but read about and played several other MUDs to further my understanding of things. One day a DR customer asked "Why doesn't Dragonrealms advertise?", and well... they just haven't needed to. But that doesn't mean we can't start trying!

All in all this seemed like a good way to get the word out AND for us to get feedback on what we can be doing better. Thanks!

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

This thread is a prime example of why mudconnect and tms are low on my advertising list. I post hoping to pick up lurkers only, because a lot of the most visible active posters are impossible to please, insular, resistant to change, cheap, and not my target audience.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

That's awesome to know. Thanks for working hard and I'm looking forward to trying them out! Alchemy is what I've been waiting for. I've been back and playing super casually for about 2 months, so the RP stuff was from most of my past experiences. I'll definitely look a bit harder to find events.

And dentin, I prefer the term thrifty. :)

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I think this is the most interesting comment of the whole thread.

Whenever you see someone here making a comment about what the mudding community thinks, remember this quote.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Everyone says that their MUD is the best game EVAR, and that they can't leave for another because no game gives them what their game does. This is because they've already settled into their own game, formed their RP alliances, got all the gear and experience to change into what race/class they want, and they know everyone already. The only thing which separates Dragonrealms from the other MUDs is that people are paying real money for what can be had for free elsewhere. Hundreds of players log on to Dragonrealms? Bully for you. There's hundreds in Aardwolf and I bet Dentin still gets at least 100 in his game on a regular basis.

I admit that I'm probably the most fickle MUDder out there. My interests change frequently, or I get bored, or there's something in particular that I want to try, or I like a game only enough to want to log in and play once in a while. When I see a MUD that I never heard of before feature such things as elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, paladins, wizards, rangers, and clerics--even if they are all given different names--I already know that it's not going to keep my interest very long. Why? Nearly every fantasy MUD has them already.

To me, Dragonrealms just looks like a really bad corporate decision. It's like building a K-Mart among mansions. How in the world they got such a playerbase would be beyond me if it wasn't revealed that people were growing and selling characters to turn a profit. If that business is settling down, there's surely some people who are going to be hanging around anyway--nothing to brag about, for sure.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

You...do realize Gemstone and Dragonrealms were some of the first MUDs available back when the Internet was in its infancy, right?

Brief history here...



1987 was quite a long time ago, and Fantasy by today's standards is a different beast. MUDs today are much easier to setup and implement a totally unique style upon. So sure, valid criticism but please realize that when DR was new people hadn't seen such things before.

That being said, we are constantly working to diversify and improve upon the lore and the races. DR also has some unique races such as Gor togs, S'kra Mur, Rakash, Prydaens and Elotheans. I'm not really sure why the name of a Guild/Class matters. Isn't it how they play and what they do and what lore they have that count?

You are entitled to your ignorant opinions I suppose, but like I said before - haters gonna hate :p

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Okay, so assuming that Dragonrealms has been around as long as you say it has, there's no excuse for it to get so stale that it looks and sounds like every other competitor on the market. Heck, the website reminds me of a bunch of other MUDs, and even seems to have some WoW influence. You people rake in so much dough that there's no reason why you couldn't hire a staff to keep the place looking far better than anything else out there. Your game has failed to convince anyone not already caught in its spell that it is far and beyond anything that they can get elsewhere for free.

There's a concept of product life where the introductory years are when that product is just starting out, finding its target market, testing its strengths and weaknesses. There's a maturity phase where the product builds itself up to maintain and grow its share of the market. There's a final phase where interest or need for the product fades and the product nears its logical conclusion. Some products last for a long time because its producers are able to keep the product in that long maturity phase, whether by finding new ways to market it or developing new ways to make it better. If the producers don't keep the product going, it'll die; sometimes because of inaction, and other times because that's the way it goes.

What you're telling me is that Dragonrealms is so determined to stay the course that it has no need to change and find ways to improve and make itself credibly above and beyond the hundreds of imitators out there, simply because it was one of the first. And you're still telling me that it's worth however much your corporate bigwigs set the price?

I don't understand how the paid subscription in conjunction with the pay2win features is a system that will work in the long run. Pay2win works with free2play because the game makes money on the people who want to spend while maintaining a large and active playerbase; the large playerbase is more likely to attract people who want to stay competitive and buy that extra edge. What it looks like to me is that people in your game have the opportunity to pay for extras in a game that they're already paying for.

Oh, and are your races all that unique? Some of them have fancy names, but I've seen them as playable races in many places: Elotheans remind me of Eldritch; the S'kra Mur are lizardfolk; the Gor'Tog are the race of laborers who happened to be enslaved at some point; the Kaldar are the tougher men of the frozen North; and the Rakash and Prydaen are your dog- and cat-men to attract the furry crowd.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I apologize, but find myself unable to follow that ramble... so much confused hate :confused: Maybe take a walk, bud.

If any folks are interested in having a mature discussion about the game's merits we would be happy to oblige you!

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Despite never having heard of Dragonrealms at the start of the thread it's clear that dark acacia is now an expert and you should pay close attention to his advice ;)

It's always interesting to me how often people in the MU* community are completely unaware of each other, despite the community's small size.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Yeah, insulting people does nothing to make your game look any better. I ignored it the first time, but not anymore.

So you mean that you want to only hear from your sock puppets about how great your game is? Makes sense.

Hello, sock puppet.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Usually I just lurk here but I felt like adding in my 2 cents on this one. Been playing muds on and off for about 15 years. My first mud, which I will not name, was custom coded and to this day one of the best I've played. Been searching for a new home since. Anyway the mud started going down hill as soon as they implemented "donation" rewards. Really it was just a front to look like you are helping the mud(make a profit). This completely ruined everything as you could buy powerful items that gave you a significant advantage over other players. Activity slowly dropped over time and now it's a shadow of what it once was. So despite being an amazingly well designed and addicting mud with a thriving community, I simply was not willing to support such a system.

My point here is that DR may be worth that monthly subscription to some. Maybe it's a great mud. Personally though I would never pay anything to play a mud and am in fact fully against any pay to play or pay for perk setup. It changes the landscape of the mud for the worse imo. I think mud creators are in large, a people passionate for rpgs whose success is simply based upon whether or not people are playing their creation. Muds come and go like the wind and even very well designed muds have closed simply because they can't sustain a stable player base.

So this might be the best mud in the world, but there is nothing you could do, short of making it free, that would get me to play it. I'd actually be willing to support a mud I love with donations. But I believe pay to play or pay to win models go against what muds are about.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I would like to point out that you can't just buy awesome weapons, armor or abilities in Dragonrealms with real life money. The majority of what is being offered could really be considered "fluff" or "utility" in nature. Titles, homes, travel jewelry, boats, item hiders, bonding potions, alterations... those sorts of things.

Rare materials and items are often available at festivals and auctions (free and pay) and as prizes for events and quests (again, some free and some pay).

So no worries! You have to play the game to get better in the game.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Yes, you can just buy awesome weapons and armor, game coins, potions, the characters themselves, and pretty much anything other than coded changes to the characters. Here's a link to one of a couple dozen websites dedicated to DR sales:

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Are you sure you guys have nothing better to be doing on a Saturday evening than griefing a MUD thread?

I meant using the in game store. The company does not profit from these 3rd party sales sites and there is no realistic way for them to regulate sales made on 3rd party sites using untraceable methods.

Methinks you are just jealous because we have "dozens" of players wanting to trade in-game items with each other!

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Uh - jealous? I left Simu games in part *because* of item, character, and coin sales. You'd be best buddies with a PC one day - and an hour later, they have no idea who you are, because their player sold the character to someone who doesn't know the backstory. Character and item sales are a BIG money-making business. Simu profits, because they collect a monthly fee for each account. The more players want to buy and sell for real money, the longer they keep those accounts open and paid. Rather than just quitting the game, and discontinuing that monthly fee, some players will sell a character to someone. Some buy and sell constantly *because* it's a profitable business. But some do it because they don't want to play anymore.

And every time one of THOSE players sells a character, Simu profits.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

If you were *best* buddies with someone, how was it you didn't know they were selling out? Heh.

Using theoretical arguments a person can bash every game in existence today, every business strategy available, hell.. every idea. Words can always be twisted to support any argument. But, why?

I really enjoy developing for the Dragonrealms community and wanted to let other people know about the fun that can be had there. Not get into a gripe fest about money.

For several years I spent $50 / month, and later $100 / month to play on the Platinum server with a dozen of my good friends. I maintained two accounts so I could better run events, go on rescue missions, train up a weapon forger for the server, etc. The game was just that much fun.

Dragonrealms gave me a good reason to work from the time I was 16. I continued to work through college, 2-3 jobs at a time and even ran my own business at one point. DR was cheaper than quite a few other recreational activities I can think of. And hell, a good pair of running shoes costs more than a year of playing vanilla DR. Life wasn't always going the way I wanted and I was able to lean on my friends in the DR community for support, and the deep and complicated mechanics for a healthy distraction.

I have no control over what gets charged for the games. But I do spend a considerable amount of my free time writing deep and varied systems and providing fun events for folks to get lost in. We came here looking to connect with like-minded individuals, and you have made our time posting here miserable. Is that really what you want for this community?

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Why do you need to advertise for more players if you already have so many loyal (and paying) players? All of you came here in search of people to feed more money into your game. That's the simple truth.

You and your friends insult and deride every critic and skeptic who posts here because they don't help you get free advertising for your game. If we were posting on your game's forums, we would all have been banned or silenced by now for sure.

Don't give me that "you make the community look bad with your criticism" baloney. It's just an appeal to emotion.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

>>If we were posting on your game's forums, we would all have been banned or silenced by now for sure.

Nah, we have conflict sections for these types of discussions. And geez, it really is difficult to avoid offending people when they just hurl themselves into the flame wars like you two have been!

>>All of you came here in search of people

This *is* kind of the Advertising section... :p

Perhaps some of you will change your opinion when/if DR goes free to play. For anyone else that may be interested and doesn't mind the cost (or would be willing to try it for 30 days free), please send me a PM.

Thanks!

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

You didn't answer my question: why do you need to advertise if you already have so many loyal players?

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Our players have been asking us to advertise, but the company hasn't devoted much effort to that in the last decade or so. MUDs are kind of niche and I don't think adverising has worked very well in the past (kind of like this...)

A popular thought is that if more people played, there'd be a good argument for lowering the monthly cost or going free to play (not sure if that would work). There is also a thought that a great many people have played DR and Gemstone in the past and may have forgotten about it. Perhaps advertising would bring them back?

I've calculated (not official numbers, just what I've seen over time) that over the past decade DR has had about 4% player attrition per year. While I'm sure most online games in their Prime would kill for such numbers, you want to address it before it becomes a problem.

Even without the slow decline of the player population, we've expanded the game from 3 provinces to 5, added half a dozen new cities, dozens of new hunting zones, a new Guild and more. Every race needs a homeland. Every Guild needs training halls. High level players want instances and special dungeons. In creating all this we risk spreading people too far out... so we've instead been focusing on quality over quantity.

This was a big reason why this year we overhauled almost every aspect of the game in a release we have called Dragonrealms 3.0. A new, more balanced combat system. A rewritten magic and ability system with new spells and feats for each Guild. Plenty of folks have left over the years after hitting the circle 100 level cap and finding the combat system breaks down! Now we support up to circle 200 and the imbalances are solved. The 3.0 release alone seems like a good reason to advertise.

You know, a thought just occured to me. Do any of the free MUDs prevent multi-logins? In DR it is less likely due to the cost (still occurs, though we also have people watching for abuse). But, it seems like in a free MUD you could just log in 10 accounts and, using scripts/macros, totally decimate the PvE or PvP scene?

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Some games prohibit it, some don't, and some limit how many accounts a person can have, without forbidding any multiplaying.

In games that prohibit it, it's just one account allowed to be logged in per IP. So unless you have two internet providers, and two computers, each one running on a different ISP, you're going to have a tough time getting away with multi-accounting. It's not too hard to figure out - that the two logins that *always* come within 5 minutes of each other, that come from 123.45.678.910 and 123.45.678.911 - are the same player logging in two accounts. It isn't likely to happen on a regular basis, which makes it stand out like a sore thumb when it -does- happen, to any staff logged in.

Sure, you could have one account that you play from work with, and another you use at home. But the two will never play at the same time, which sort of defeats the purpose you suggest (totally decimating the PvE of PvP scene).

Not to mention that skills don't all work the same way in all games. In some games, there is no levelling up, there's no artificial mob "trainer" that you have to bring your character to, in order to become more proficient at something. There's no pool of experience points, none of that. And in some games, death is permanent, there is no resurrection, so people tend to be a little more cautious when they set out to rob/raid/murder someone else - since - if it turns out they're the weaker of the two - or if it turns out their victim has a couple of hidden guards standing in wait...they don't get a second chance.

Some games make it difficult for scripting anyway. Games that have a decent AI mob system aren't really very condusive to scripting, in combat. Some people run scripts when they're crafting, but if they're caught running a script like that when they're not actually watching the game, the staff deals with it.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I have not read the whole thread yet (will now), but I have to agree this is a good idea. They don't waste their time with people who won't pay, and many will never create an account as they won't give that information and are not intending to pay.


For those of us who never got used to paying, maybe MUDs could invent some new method with outside advertisements to obtain economical gains if they are successful?

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Most muds are created with code that comes with it licensing restrictions. Those licensing restrictions prohibit economical gains. In other words, they are not -allowed- to charge for their games. And so they don't. And because they don't, the only gain they can get, is more people to enjoy playing the game. It strips the whole experience down to "will people enjoy this?" It means people are playing a game, because they enjoy playing it. Not because they can "get something" from it. It also means people are creating their games with ONLY the desire to see people enjoy playing it in mind. There's no desire or need to profit from it, no desire to pay rent, or hire coders.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

I have gone on thinking of this, and now I don't feel good, because I link the TopMudSites page for students who may want to try a MUD. It would be a bit my responsibility if one of them tries DragonRealms, gives their bank information and gets charged with no clear idea of what happened. I hope that has not happened or would not happen, but it is not good in my situation.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

>>Jazuela

:nod: The scripting policies seem to be very similar to DR. Very strictly enforced with constant supervision. I suppose people can always grief if they use an IP spoofer (similar to what it looks like folks have done in the past to cheat the voting here).

I don't believe the particular skill or experience system would change things much. Gemstone is more level based with lots of numbers and calculations visible. DR is more skill based with descriptions instead of numbers. However, they both take considerable of effort to police.

If 1 adventurer is powerful, 2 are more powerful. A large advantage is to be gained just from an item mule, a healing mule, a CC mule, etc.

>>licensing restrictions

Oh! I didn't realize that - it probably is one of many factors contributing to MUDs being free. The larger ones are forced to have some in-game RL money store to offset the cost of bandwidth, database licenses and so-on. I figured folks were just rolling their own engines to avoid such hangups and reduce the chance for hacking and exploits.


>>There's no desire or need to profit from it,

The contractor model employed is heavily volunteer based and so there is little desire to profit from the game. We do it because we love it. I always tell people - the best part of developing for a MUD is the instant gratification you get after rolling out a system for players to enjoy!

>>For those of us who never got used to paying, maybe MUDs could invent some new method with outside advertisements to obtain economical gains if they are successful?

That seems to be quite difficult (not just for MUDs, but games in general). Simutronics has been working to diversify their portfolio (the MMO engine, several popular iOS games), and if those successes continue it can only mean good things for DR and Gemstone.

>> permadeath

There has been discussion towards bringing back a form of permanent death in DR. It used to be you needed favor with your god or a cleric to resurrect you. Fail, and you Walk the Starry Road. The side effect of having permadeath is a large portion of the population didn't like it, and a portion used it to create drama... so it was changed to a penalty based system. Less risk, but more consumer friendly.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

There's an agreement they have to "click" on, when submitting the credit card information, and the terms of the free trial. They know during the account application process that they will be charged after 30 days, if they don't cancel in advance. And they know that they will -continue- to be charged monthly, if they don't cancel. While I abhor the pay-to-play model and would never recommend it - I -do- know that Simutronics (the company that produces DragonRealms) is legit, and doesn't scam anyone into paying anything they didn't agree to pay in advance. And they -do- stop billing accounts once the account holder has requested cancellation.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

>>gives their bank information

Not specific to DR - and I am not trying to make light of your students' situation - but from a young age I learned the hard way to read the fine print :(

It took getting burned on a large order of computer hardware from a less-than-reputable source to teach me that lesson. I'd have been thrilled to learn such a lesson on a 15$/month MUD and not a $2500 purchase.

Online games in general seem to have their stuff together. I've played them all... and have yet to be erroneously charged or encounter hostility or deception when canceling. Now, online services are another story!

DR has an awesome billing department that you can call during normal business hours to get this stuff sorted out. Assisting in game, posting in the forums or emailing an admin are other ways to get ahold of billing when problems arise. So, I wouldn't worry too much.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

Permadeath doesn't mean that if someone doesn't resurrect you, you're dead. It means if someone kills you, you're dead. There is no resurrection and (to use a Gemstone term) there are no "deeds." If you're dead, you're dead. You roll up a new character. This is one of the ways that permadeath games police themselves - no need to heavily monitor every player's movements. It's VERY hard to become uber powerful in permadeath games - because in order to gain that kind of skill, you have to fight a lot of critters - or people. And every time you do that, YOU risk getting killed. And - once you're dead - you're dead. There are no do-overs in permadeath games. And your character can't get resurrected to tell his pals in-game that he were just killed by so-and-so and gather a group to kill the guy.

In some of these games, the staff doesn't heavily monitor for unattended scripting, because scripting doesn't really help you or your character that much. It's nearly impossible to deal with combat against critters, because of an AI mob system. It's basically impossible to deal with combat against PCs, because you can't count on another player's responses to your actions. Basically, scripting is useful for foraging, crafting, and the wearing and removal of gear. It's not even useful for travel because you have no way of knowing when something or someone is going to get in your way (including the weather) and mess up your script. If you're scripting in an attempt to up your skills, it won't work, because skill gain has a time window. Once you reach your limit for that period of time, you won't gain anything at all until the timer resets. So you might as well not script, and RP instead. Again - in these other games, the players (and the code) police themselves, and there's no need for the staff to distrust their players enough to heavily monitor them.

In games like that, you don't *need* heavy staff monitoring. The only time the staff would monitor you for suspicious scripting, is if you make it obvious enough that another player points it out and sends in a complaint.

Re: Join Dragonrealms today!
 

There are thousands of MUDs. It would be good if the businesses were listed on a different page from the rest.

Yes, Jazuela, the probabilities of it happening are very low, but it is not worth for me to risk 0.00001 that probability. And my students are not English native speakers. MUDs are already confusing enough for us without all this.


As I said at first, I personally have no problem with it at all, but thinking from my position as linking to a list of MUDs, I have to see it different.