[Molly]

You could also turns this statement around 90 degrees and say that in spite of the significant problems and the fact that the MUD hasn't 'taken off'', the OP still refers to it as his 'favourite MUD', since 10 years back.

That says something about that game - at least it does to me. A MUD that instigates such loyalty in a player must have something special. Whether you call it originality, flavour, complexity or quality, it's something that separates it from the masses.

'Quality' is an ambiguous term to use, since it obviously means different things to different people. To some it even acts like a red cape on a bull, because they equal the word with 'elitism'. Quality is really hard to define, and yet most people recognize it when they come across it. But to equal 'quality' with 'success', especially if by success you mean 'large number of players', is hardly appropriate either. Then you could just as well say that McDonalds has higher quality than the small gourmet bistro round the corner, because it has so many more customers.

Obviously all 'successful' games must have some basic level of quality, or they'd never keep their players. And obviously game design has something to do with it too; games that target the mainstream, will probably get more players than the ones who are catering to a more exclusive segment. But how they manage to build up a large playerbase is probably dependent on a number of things; popular theme and features, heavy advertising and a MUD name that starts with A - or even Aa - most likely all play just as large role here as the game design.