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Old 05-01-2013, 05:30 PM   #111
Lotherio
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Join Date: May 2008
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Re: Do MUDs need to be "brought into the 21st century"

As this conversation is at its heart how to attract new players to an old medium, I thought I'd way in a little. Briefly, I mentioned recently in my intro thread, I play muds as games, I'm combat oriented for the most part. If I want intensive RP, I will go to the other Mu*s (Mushs, Mux, Mucks, etc.) to find what I want.

I can tell you from that environment, the goal isn't looking to lure in new people based on 'graphics' as the delimiting factor on how to draw in new players. Some use web-based clients embedded at their sites to stimulate connections, but at its heart it comes down to they are still text based 'games'.

The biggest factor I have noticed over the last 20 years of Mu*'ing, in attracting and maintaining larger player bases, is content.

I'll say it again, its the 'content' and not the 'presentation' that attracts and holds players.

Quick example, 20 years ago, star wars and star trek were large draws. Then something happen, White Wolf came out, appealed to modern interests by theme and genre, and, as it happens, most World of Darkness oriented Mu*s tend to do fairly so long as they have active, dedicated staff.

For instance five years ago, as these Mu*s waned. The successful ones of the genre might average 40-75 players on-line at peak - and considering there is no real grindy game code/mechanics and its all purely RP based, that's pretty good. By comparison when the original Shadowrun mush was popular, it hit 100-200 players on-line at peak times. The trend is down in general.

However, White Wolf did something recently, they finally updated/changed their rules and now have New World of Darkness, a complete rewrite of their genre. A year ago, I started playing on the 1st Mush/Mux/etc of the NWoD genre and, during the day, non-peak, there was 150+ players on-line.

Another example, two years ago, String Theory was on the market as a Mush based on the Heroes TV series. Similarly, daytime activity was 140+.

Blood of Dragons, recently advertised in the threads here, they hit 30-40 players during daytime hours. But, 3-4 years ago, there was maybe 10 people (2 staff, 4-5 idle, and a few might be RP'ing actually). Last year, they were drawing 100+ during the day. They got popular after the HBO series launched.

Content - most text gamers are currently and will continue to be young to middle aged adults and not teenagers. They will like to read. I hate to go here, but the single most popular text based game I have witnessed ever is adult based content. I won't say its name, but the most popular one I have seen averages 500-600 players on-line with peak times hitting 800+. Its all text based RP, they offer nothing graphical and I have not seen a web based client embedded anywhere specifically for this Mu*.

On a brief side note, as a staff member at a couple of Mushes, I have asked younger players how they came to find Mushes and stay at it. Most say they enjoyed the MMORPGs but find them severely lacking in true RP content and wanted more richness, and indeed, control, in their RP content and made the switch back from graphics to text simply for the purpose of more fulfilling RP.

I think, and I know I might get some hate, but the content of many Mu*'s are about 20 years old and the genre's they uphold were created by young adults then and haven't been updated. If we asked most readers today both familiar with Game of Thrones and Tolkien-verse which they liked better, I dare say the trend might be towards Game of Thrones vs Tolkien. However, I wouldn't be surprised if statistics (and this is a guess, I have no real numbers) if most Muds had a tendency to favor older genre/flavors of fantasy/etc.

Demonstrating right along, I think everyone realizes the concept of 'elves' that most Muds embrace - tall, elegant, beautiful - is dated. It came to start raising in popularity with Tolkien, was probably further enhanced when D&D changed from proto-typical (short, fae, woodland) to Tolkien (with the launch of their Dragonlance). I would dare to say it may be on its way out with the rise of popular new fictions (Game of Thrones - the Children, GRR Martin's tribute to 'elves' are short once more, and Rise of the Guardians, its not Tolkien fantasy anymore).

Most muds say they're 20 years old, but how many of them have actually completely wiped their 20 year old world/maps/rooms and started from scratch on content aimed at younger generations?

I think this conversation is debating apples to oranges when the topic might be fruit trees. I think content would need to be modernized to appeal and retain more players, for those Muds that think they might be struggling, before some flash bang graphics are slapped on to present as more appealing only to find the content is still outdated. I mean, I'd hate to buy a new mustang to discover everything beneath the exterior is really from a 1975 volkswagon bug, to be honest.

Than again, for those that are successful with 100-200+ players at peak times - Threshold, Ateraan, etc. - don't change anything.
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