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It's not so bad. I'm on very slow dialup (gprs) and their pages load in a reasonable time. Sure, not under 30 seconds, but then again, nothing that's not just text on plain background does.
I like eyecandy. It makes the webpage an integral part of the game's fantasy world. In the case of IRE games, it also delivers a professional image, which I'd say is a must for a pay-to-play game. Sadly, not all p2p muds care to invest into a half decent webpage.
What really turns me off a mud's webpage:
-- stolen/unauthorized artwork (you know who you are)
-- flaming text and clashing colours
-- hard to read text (usually because of lack of contrast between text and background)
-- flash-only pages - they can look fancy, but atm are highly annoying to use
-- haphazard navigation
-- lots of "Under construction" pages that have been in place for months or, in some cases, years
A mud page should also have decent compatibility with text-only browsers and readers, since blind people are a larger minority in the mudding world than you might think.
Lots of information is good, and room for player contributed content shows that the mud has a good community. Dynamic content supplied by the mud is a standard for most serious muds nowadays.
You want to show that you have a rich world, and if possible, drag the visitor right into it and make them want to be part of it. You want to show you have a good community that promises hours and hours of fun. And you want to show that you have a staff that cares about the game and its image, and is able to handle running it with a degree of professionality (even if it's a hobbyist mud).
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