[plamzi]

I agree that it works great for a map. Probably a lot better for a coordinate-based world like yours or a strictly chessboard world like Aardwolf's. For worlds like mine, I find the "cell-type" map design to be cleaner-looking. Which leads to better results when you overlay the map on top of the world view UI.

Kaz makes some excellent points here. You can set the whole "some graphics vs. no-no-no to graphics" debate aside and instead ask yourself purely functional questions. What does the best possible UI for a MUD look like to you, with all your individual/unique considerations in mind?

When I asked myself that question 3 years ago, what I had in mind was a mobile app. What is a mobile game in which you can't play normally with just tapping, dragging, and dropping? It's a huge pain in the a## is what it is. And so, you need visual representations on screen for anything that must be manipulated for normal play. Now, that's a tall order even for a hack'n'slash MUD. But if you expect people to play an app on their phone by typing in commands, you quickly find that even veteran mudders will just log in to chat, if they use it at all.

Now, I believe that some of the same considerations are true for web apps. People are used to performing most in-game (or even in-browser) actions with the mouse. They are used to seeing visual representations of things in the game that they can click on, scroll, etc. That is what I was getting at many pages ago when I said that we need a MUD GUI for the web that "looks like a game".