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Old 08-01-2010, 05:52 PM   #57
iovan
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Name: Elijah
Location: Noneya
Home MUD: DBAT
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Re: The "Health," of Muds

Generally no it won't just be people who haven't tried MUDs that you want to appeal to. Using the appeal of your particular MUD theme (even if custom) is never a bad thing. If there is a group of people who are more inclined to like it that is a good place to start. However I do think that the general population would be inclined to try MUDs if they knew what they were, how they work, and how they might possibly appeal to that person.

I mean there are thousands and thousands of people spending tons of time in forums who haven't tried MUDs. That's a large time sink in its own right in a mainly text based medium. Of course I know that most of the appeal of forums is casual banter, discussion of specific topics, or community based jokes/experiences. I do think though that in general just like a great number of people still read books that a great number of people could get into MUDs.

It's not good for us to be labeling MUDs ourselves as inferior because of their lack of graphics. I know that's not what you think or wish to imply, but it can reinforce such a thought in the uninformed "graphic whores". MUDs are a totally different medium in my opinion. Look at the craze over retro games. Not everyone out there has to have pretty graphics in order to enjoy a game. I think the same can be said of having any graphics at all. The majority can't be reached but we don't need the majority. We just need a percentage of it as new players that can cause an increase.

Having a new pretty client may in fact do that but I think reaching out more as a community couldn't hurt either.

Yes that is the case with the majority. Most of them haven't really cut their teeth on gaming in general if they are teenagers or younger. They've grown up in the late years of gaming and things are completely different to them than to people from my or earlier generations. However there is still a percentage of them I believe can be reached.

The thing is they don't know enough about it to be reached. They follow the path of least resistance. A lot of them have friends who play game X and so they got into game X. I've talked to a lot of people myself who have played WoW and can't believe they wasted so much time on such a simple game except for the friends they had there. Like I said earlier there is so many people who haven't even heard of MUDs let alone tried them. It's pure folly to assume that the reason is graphics and not just because word of mouth doesn't reach them.

Graphics can be why they enjoy a particular game but it doesn't mean that's the only thing that can appeal to them.
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