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Old 03-19-2014, 04:23 PM   #13
Darren Brimhall
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 243
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Re: How do you bring back a fading MUD?

One thing that I have not read here involves how Players treat each other.

For the Newbie, like going to a Job Interview, its the impression they receive when they try a Game that either keeps them coming or makes them leave.

Yes, I agree that Graphical Games are the biggest drain on the MUD Community, and the loss of Staff with a good dose of RL matters is another draining factor. But if MUD's in general want to keep going, they need to want players to come and stay.

Then, there's the fact that not everybody plays at the same speed. For some, this will improve with time and confidence in the MUD (also helped along by encouraging players). But for others, for one reason or another, while showing great enthusiasm for the Game, are either slow or considered 'dimwitted" by other players who either have the time or paticence to try helping these people get up to speed--and instead, force them out of the game alltogether.

Yes, this has happened to a friend of mine that I tried helping in a MUD that I have long rallied against on these boards. She tried going back in 2012, and managed to stay only five months before the same people who shoved her out in the first place succeeded in showing her out again. Recently, she posted on that game's fourm board about the possibility of returning...

Only two people responded, that she told me (and I should ask her if more responded), but neither of them were the ones who pushed her out twice before.

Another fact is the lack of mobility with in a Game can also stagnate and strangle it. Maya, my Boss at Eternea, had a very interesting plan for combating this--what I've named 'Ebb and Flow". Basicly, you give a character a position in the heirercy of things for a limited amount of time to see how they perform with responcibility, pressure and whatnot. If they do good, they are promiced an even higher position--if they do poorly, they're returned to the general populis but are givien another shot later...

The point is to keep things circulating with in the Game so they don't become stagnated. By this means, you cater to the players, keep things interesting, and nobody has a stranglehold on any position (unless they're NPC's) in the Game.

So you see, even if your MUD has the most dynamic of everything imaginable if you don't take care of, or challange your players, your MUD dies.

Its that simple.




Darren Brimhall
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