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chaosprime · 09-30-2008, 01:10 AM

I believe you'll find that the situation on whatever MUD this is that you describe, where it's essentially ossified at a point it hit a decade ago, is typical. Very few MUDs can actually continue evolving. Most hit a point where they become completely hostile to innovation and drive away the people who are capable of it; fundamental change (as opposed to churning out 'new content' that amounts to an endless march of prosthetic foreheads tacked onto the old content) is seen as ruining something that people are attached to.

One of the forces that works toward this is identifying 'success' in terms of playerbase size, as you do. The instant this becomes the most important metric, ossification has begun, because players do not like things to change. If they act like you killed their dog when you do minor rebalancing of capabilities, how do you think real evolution is going to play? Answer: say goodbye to your playerbase.

Continuous evolution doesn't happen without a serious commitment to it. 'Serious' means you're willing to sacrifice other things, like the size of your 'who' list. I also believe that, in practical terms, it requires that the basis of the administration be unapologetically autocratic (and, obviously, that the autocrat be the keeper of the vision of continuous evolution). MUDs that make pretensions of democracy will lose all capacity for innovation through the simple mechanism of the endless obstructionism and whining of the people who will oppose all fundamental change in the guise of 'advocating for the players'.

Obviously, I've seen all of this play out. In 1996, Lost Souls was a MUD with pretensions of democracy and I was the main person trying to innovate. (I am not its founder; I joined in 1993, several years after its founding.) I ran smack up against the ossification principle in the form of a person who made himself my personal nemesis, and the extensive network of political supporters he gathered. Amid much drama, I wound up assuming the autocrat position, and my nemesis went his own way with his own copy of the lib, starting up a competing "good old days" version of LS which has utterly failed.

LS has continued aggressively innovating and redefining itself. Every time it changes in any fundamental way, it alienates players. Some of them, it earns back by general excellence; others, not so much. I'm certain that it is the least popular MUD out of those with its longevity and ongoing developer activity. Thankfully, I don't measure its success primarily in terms of playerbase. If I had, that priority would long since have become a straitjacket that would have driven me out of MUDs entirely.

09-30-2008, 01:10 AM	#10
chaosprime Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Home MUD: Lost Souls Posts: 199	Re: Design and Success I believe you'll find that the situation on whatever MUD this is that you describe, where it's essentially ossified at a point it hit a decade ago, is typical. Very few MUDs can actually continue evolving. Most hit a point where they become completely hostile to innovation and drive away the people who are capable of it; fundamental change (as opposed to churning out 'new content' that amounts to an endless march of prosthetic foreheads tacked onto the old content) is seen as ruining something that people are attached to. One of the forces that works toward this is identifying 'success' in terms of playerbase size, as you do. The instant this becomes the most important metric, ossification has begun, because players do not like things to change. If they act like you killed their dog when you do minor rebalancing of capabilities, how do you think real evolution is going to play? Answer: say goodbye to your playerbase. Continuous evolution doesn't happen without a serious commitment to it. 'Serious' means you're willing to sacrifice other things, like the size of your 'who' list. I also believe that, in practical terms, it requires that the basis of the administration be unapologetically autocratic (and, obviously, that the autocrat be the keeper of the vision of continuous evolution). MUDs that make pretensions of democracy will lose all capacity for innovation through the simple mechanism of the endless obstructionism and whining of the people who will oppose all fundamental change in the guise of 'advocating for the players'. Obviously, I've seen all of this play out. In 1996, Lost Souls was a MUD with pretensions of democracy and I was the main person trying to innovate. (I am not its founder; I joined in 1993, several years after its founding.) I ran smack up against the ossification principle in the form of a person who made himself my personal nemesis, and the extensive network of political supporters he gathered. Amid much drama, I wound up assuming the autocrat position, and my nemesis went his own way with his own copy of the lib, starting up a competing "good old days" version of LS which has utterly failed. LS has continued aggressively innovating and redefining itself. Every time it changes in any fundamental way, it alienates players. Some of them, it earns back by general excellence; others, not so much. I'm certain that it is the least popular MUD out of those with its longevity and ongoing developer activity. Thankfully, I don't measure its success primarily in terms of playerbase. If I had, that priority would long since have become a straitjacket that would have driven me out of MUDs entirely.