Thread: LFM
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Old 04-21-2011, 03:28 AM   #9
Suicide Boy
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Join Date: Jun 2008
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Re: LFM

Yeah, I've been using MUDstats for years, and I'm at least passingly familiar with the top 100 or so -- as well as many that don't seem to be listed for technical reasons, such as the Skotos games (Castle Marrack/The Eternal City).

The biggest MUDs in terms of population are the adult entertainment MUDs, Simutronics MUDs, and Iron Realms MUDs (primarily Achaea). Aside from those markedly commercial MUDs, you have Aardworlf, New Worlds, Discworld, Realms of Despair (although their high population is in fact due to the legality of multiplaying), and a few others. Then there are a whole bunch of MUDs and MUSHes that have anywhere from ~30 to ~80 people online, at a rough average: Threshold (which I'm currently playing), The Eternal City, Federation II, Materia Magica, and so on.

So I'm intimately familiar with what the "normal" population of various MUDs tends to be. Once you get past the top 50 or so by population (including MUDs not listed but that I know about), generally the average number of people online is well below 30. By the time you get past the top 100, you're looking at true ghost towns.

I have nothing against MUDs with small populations, but they're just not for me. It saddens me that their populations are so low, I know it's not their fault, and I wish things were different. Now, MUSHes with very small populations might work for me, since four people can basically have a tabletop-style role-playing session within the MUSH. But in a MUD-style game with hard-coded stats and such, that's just too few people for my taste. I need to have friends, enemies, and even a few strangers, you know? If everyone knows everyone, it's a very different experience.
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