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Old 05-10-2008, 11:32 AM   #30
Japheth
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Wollongong, Australia
Home MUD: Shadows of Isildur
Posts: 5
Japheth is on a distinguished road
Re: The "Health," of Muds

Speaking as an owner and producer of an RPI, I tend to agree with the argument presented that the RPIs have cornered a fairly stable niche. Shadows of Isildur has been steadily growing in average peak time player logins over the last couple of years, which goes against the general trend.

The statement that the pay to play muds will be the last to fall (if it ever comes to that) is also very true. There aren't any other MUDs out there that are really even competing in the same league as the market leaders like Iron Realms. It's actually kind of a shame, I'm sure Matt and co. would love a good competitor. Unfortunately I don't think there is anybody out there with the commitment, vision or skill to pull off what they did.

Nonetheless, the RPI field draws very heavily from Iron Realms players. A fair proportion of our regular players come to us from Iron Realms, having been well conditioned by the Iron Realms Mandatory RP policy, many of them want to take the step up to RPI. The quality of roleplay can be very good on Iron Realms (I played there for 3-4 years, I remember what it was like), but it would be poor business policy and bad for the game balance (which is Iron Realm's big strength) if they went as far as RPIs do with roleplay.

So as long as the big pay-to-plays exist, RPIs will probably continue to exist. We have to get better though. Numbers will probably decline, and we need very much to make the most of what we have, to keep our market share as strong as possible. Number of players is a slippery slope. The less players you have, the less room you have to do certain things that the players enjoy, and the less in game economy, in game interaction, and whatnot works. Which in turn can lead to lower numbers.

All in all though I think MUDs are healthier than some people give them credit for - at least the genres of MUD that dominate the Top 20 here on Top Muds. The day of the casual Diku / LP may be past though. But who knows what the future holds?
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