I've noticed that one of the games climbing higher into the TMS list (currently at #7) is "Mafia Life". This game has no info listed, and when I went to their site it looked like a web browser based game to me and not a MUD. I also couldn't find the TMS voting link anywhere.

Just wondered if anybody knew what was up with this, if anyone plays the game and could explain it a bit, or if this is actually not even a MUD at all and we're being misled?

Hmm, well, being based in a browser is irrelevant to its MUD-dom or not (we have about 35% of our online players using our web-based client at any single time), but beyond that, it doesn't appear to be a MUD at all. One of the criteria that I believe makes a MUD is some representation of space (whether graphical, via cartesian coordinates, nodal network of rooms, etc) and real-time interaction within the context of that space.

--matt

Sent Adam an email. He agrees and it should be gone soon. It's a cool-looking game (haven't played it), but it's not a MUD. No insult intended towards it at all.

--matt

I've browsed the site a few times but never tried to "play it." Never realized it wasn't a real MUD, which is a shame because I think a Mafia style MUD would be hella neat.

Heh, funny that game popped up here. I'm thinking browser-based games are the Next Big Thing in gaming and it's one of the games I checked out as potential competition. I'm working on a browser-based game that's heavily informed by what I've learned from mudding.

A browser is just a method of accessing a game and doesn't say much about the game itself. A MUD is still a MUD whether the front-end is Zmud, Windows telnet, or a browser. For instance, we have our Nexus browser-based client that new players use to play our games with.

--matt