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Old 03-08-2011, 05:31 AM   #10
KaVir
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Name: Richard
Home MUD: God Wars II
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Re: The inevitability of GUIs in text-based mudding

The problem with that argument is that the GUI is handled at the client end. In theory a player could even create a fully graphical interface without the mud owner's knowledge - and in practice, many players are adding graphical elements to their clients.

If one of your players creates an extensive GUI for your game, does that turn it into something other than a mud? What if they do it without your knowledge or permission?

But the same argument could be applied to many client features. Aliases, triggers, highlighting, hotkeys, timers, scripting, etc, etc, etc - even things we take for granted such as echo, scrollback, linewrap and ANSI colour can give the player a big advantage. So where do you draw the line? At what point do you say "stop, that's too much of an advantage"? How can you stop players from using powerful clients to improve their playing experience...and would you really want to do that?

It was posted on the . I think it's well worth keeping an eye on the client forums, they can provide you with some valuable insight into the "other half" of our hobby.

I disagree with the implication that MMORPGs have some sort of monopoly on graphics - as I've said before, MUDs have been using (ASCII) graphics for a long time. Muds aren't books, but if they were they'd be the sort of fantasy novel that has a big map on the first couple of pages. Can you imagine buying such a novel and seeing that the map had been drawn with ASCII graphics?

As unfair as it may sound, people do judge a book by its cover, just as they judge a mud by its presentation. If you had written a novel, you wouldn't use ASCII artwork for the front cover, would you?

Similarly with your website - you make extensive use of artwork, links, colour, etc. You've put a lot of effort into the presentation, and it makes the website easier to use. Of course you could instead have provided the same information in a single text file, using ASCII artwork, but I suspect the reaction from visitors would be less positive.

Those were just a couple of examples. MUSHclient offers extensive support for graphics, you could in theory create a fully graphical interface for it using scripts (in fact I've already seen two such GUIs for MUSHclient - one was an isometric view, the other was 3D). Mudlet's graphical support isn't as extensive, but you could still do much the same sort of thing.

Initially, yes. But an increasing number of players are starting to distribute their work to other players.

I've found the opposite - they're flexible enough to be used for pretty much anything, you could even create a fully graphical (MMORPG-like) interface driven by existing mud protocols if you wished.

That's already possible through existing protocols, you'd just need to write a script for the client.

Well there is - thus this thread. However the response from many mud owners tends to be fairly negative, with some (particularly old school) being quite strongly opposed to any sort of non-ASCII graphics. Even the positive responses tend to be lukewarm at best.

So while I believe that we're going to see a gradual shift towards graphical interfaces, I suspect it's going to be driven primarily by players rather than mud owners, with players developing and releasing their own "mods".

Clients don't need to "stick" to anything. The use of protocols allows them to cater to all muds while at the same time offering additional features to those that support them. Likewise, the use of scripting allows people to design their own GUIs with whatever features they want, without needing to modify the client itself.

Obviously there are certain limits based on the individual mud, and you can see on the client forums that players frequently struggle when trying to add GUI elements if their mud has no (or poor) protocol support. The majority of GUIs I've seen were for muds with strong protocol support.
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