Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - In defense of all MUDs. Our genre's noteworthiness is being questioned.

DonathinFrye · 08-16-2010, 07:25 PM

For me, the community's presence on Wikipedia is about two things:

1) Maintaining a record of an extremely unique and important phenomenon in gaming (and the internet's) history.

2) Increasing the relevance of of MUDs despite the ever-increasing shift to advanced graphics for MMOs. Why is this important? Because I think that most of us in the community feel that there are features and gameplay elements that exist on MUDs that other online games would do well to strive for achieving. Because I think that when the time comes for MMOs to be some form of virtual reality interface, they will play more like MUDs and less like the graphical MMOs of today. Because I think that there are a lot of gamers out there who would be drawn to this genre, if they just knew more about it.

MUDs aren't irrelevant. They are over-looked by the majority of gamers out of a lack of media and lack of understanding what they are. When someone asks why we are still talking about MUDs in the 2000s, it burns me up. Why do we have articles on Mancala and Go? Because sometimes, older games get something right, and there is both enjoyment and a lesson to be learned from them.

I'm ranting a bit, but I think that arguing against the notability of individual games that have achieved a level of notoriety within their own genre is a straw-man argument, and I think that arguing against the notability of MUDs is only possible because they are an ancient (by today's standards) form of internet game that has never been well-documented outside of the internet (as opposed to ancient board games, or other comparable genres).

The obvious answer to me, as opposed to starting a new site, is to take the best resource sites that exist for MUDs and to incorporate documentation in the way of source articles; this isn't just for Wikipedia, but the continued survival of the genre on Wikipedia will help to make sure that this niche in gaming history won't be forgotten in one-hundred years. Perhaps in the distant future, game enthusiasts will still have lessons to learn from MUDs. If nothing else, they are an interesting chink in the history of online games.

08-16-2010, 07:25 PM	#258
DonathinFrye Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Name: Donathin Frye Location: Columbus, OH Home MUD: Optional Realities Home MUD: Atonement RPI Home MUD: Project Redshift Posts: 510	Re: In defense of all MUDs. Our genre's noteworthiness is being questioned. For me, the community's presence on Wikipedia is about two things: 1) Maintaining a record of an extremely unique and important phenomenon in gaming (and the internet's) history. 2) Increasing the relevance of of MUDs despite the ever-increasing shift to advanced graphics for MMOs. Why is this important? Because I think that most of us in the community feel that there are features and gameplay elements that exist on MUDs that other online games would do well to strive for achieving. Because I think that when the time comes for MMOs to be some form of virtual reality interface, they will play more like MUDs and less like the graphical MMOs of today. Because I think that there are a lot of gamers out there who would be drawn to this genre, if they just knew more about it. MUDs aren't irrelevant. They are over-looked by the majority of gamers out of a lack of media and lack of understanding what they are. When someone asks why we are still talking about MUDs in the 2000s, it burns me up. Why do we have articles on Mancala and Go? Because sometimes, older games get something right, and there is both enjoyment and a lesson to be learned from them. I'm ranting a bit, but I think that arguing against the notability of individual games that have achieved a level of notoriety within their own genre is a straw-man argument, and I think that arguing against the notability of MUDs is only possible because they are an ancient (by today's standards) form of internet game that has never been well-documented outside of the internet (as opposed to ancient board games, or other comparable genres). The obvious answer to me, as opposed to starting a new site, is to take the best resource sites that exist for MUDs and to incorporate documentation in the way of source articles; this isn't just for Wikipedia, but the continued survival of the genre on Wikipedia will help to make sure that this niche in gaming history won't be forgotten in one-hundred years. Perhaps in the distant future, game enthusiasts will still have lessons to learn from MUDs. If nothing else, they are an interesting chink in the history of online games.