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Old 03-16-2014, 04:22 AM   #3
Molly
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Sweden
Home MUD: 4 Dimensions
Posts: 574
Molly will become famous soon enoughMolly will become famous soon enough
Re: How do you bring back a fading MUD?

Sadly enough I think Text Muds are a slowly dying breed, and that means all of us, regardless of how big the playerbase is, or once was. The reason is an ever diminishing total number of players. Where there once used to be a constant refill from new high school and college kids, these kids nowadays play any of the increasing number of graphic games available, and mostly have no patience for reading lots of text and typing in text commands.

There is no real "new blood", we are all competing for the same, ever diminishing pool of players. The new players you get nowadays are either the usual wanderer that switch between a number of Muds, or some nostalgic 30+ individuals, returning to what used to be their obsession as teenagers. Usually the latter category also wanders around, since the Mud they remember so fondly is already dead and buried, and now they are looking for something as similar as possible. Check the posts on TMC or TMS under the heading "Looking for a Mud", and you'll see a distinct pattern. Also, when you are above thirty, you usually don't have either the time or inclination for spending hours at the keyboard, so the "returners" rarely last long

Of course the dying process usually takes longer, the higher the number you started from. But even the ones that used to have hundreds of players, now have halved the playerbase. My own game never had a large pbase, even in the highdays we used to peak around 30, so it's something of a wonder that we are still alive and kicking at all. The reason is probably that our players always have stayed long, some of them have been with us for well over 10 years. So we still have a hardcore of oldbies, who keep in constant contact, even if they don't log on daily

So what can be done to revive a fading Mud - or just keep it going for a while longer?

Helpful players and imms is of course number one, but there are better ways of helping new players than showering them in equipment and power-levelling them. A better method is to challenge them - give them a quest or defined task to do, point them in the right direction and then let them solve the problems on their own. Then of course there should still be someone to receive and reward them after the task is done, and that can be a problem due to the different timezones.

And since there are not always enough players on line around the clock, it is also important that the game is possible to figure out and play on your own. So a good tutoring School is important and also good helpfiles. There should also be a rather wide variety of things that you can do to advance your character, other than just killing mobs. Farming, lumberjacking, crafting, trading, minigames, solving quests...

A good community is essential, it may just be a bit of a challenge for a new player to really become part of it. If the old players aren't willing to let new ones into their community, they are essentially doomed themselves. Roleplay is only one part of the social game, there are also OOC social bonds, that are just as important. Imm initiated plots and quests can sometimes become a total success, but other times fall flat to the ground, because nobody is really interested, Usually plots and ideas that are generated by the mortals rather than the staff have a better chance of succeeding.

New content is something that always works for us. Whenever a new zone or feature is introduced, our oldbies crawl out of the woodwork so fast that it becomes obvious that they have an active network outside the Mud. Whether they use IM, Facebook or E-mail, the oldbies usually turn up in droves in an amazingly short time, once the rumour starts spreading. And then for a while the Mud is bustling with life, and since players breed players, more of the newcomers stay on a bit longer, when they are met by an active Port. Until the day when the new feature no longer is so shiningly new, and the oldbies begin to fade out again...

This may all sound a bit depressing, and the main reason why so many of us still hang on is, that we are not willing to sacrifice the endless hours of work from ourselves and others. A good mud is not only a community, it's also a complex and intricate work of art, created by many people, cooperating over many years.

And as long as anyone is willing to pay the server rent, and there still are staff members working on improvements and additions, and players that enjoy the game we create, there is still hope. Hope that one day someone influential out there will discover the treasure of these vintage games, with more content and depth than they ever thought possible, and spread the word on the Internet, and Text Muds will one again be the talk of the day and start to flourish again...

Fat chance of that ever happening...
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