[SnowTroll]

When Everquest was new, my best friend really got into the game. He had never played a mud before, but we’d grown up playing table top games for ages. He’d been our GM for years. The reason he got into Everquest versus text-based muds wasn’t because the game had graphics (the graphics were subpar anyway). It was because the game had millions of players, an enormous amount of content, and the backing of a major company. It was a real live official computer game, rather than a retro hobbyist’s project he had running in his basement. He didn’t choose Everquest over muds. He didn’t know muds existed at the time, but even if he did, he would have gone with the established, huge MMO game that millions of people, his friends included, were playing. And the reason behind his choice wouldn’t have been the presence of graphics. Everquest resembled the D&D/AD&D games we grew up playing. It was cool navigating a world in first person perspective, but other than the ability to walk around Quake-style rather than typing your way around, the graphics really sucked butt.

My wife and I had a stint playing Legend of the Green Dragon (LOGD) on some server somewhere that I forget. We played for quite some time, actually, and she really liked the game. It’s not so different from a mud, being 99% text-based, except that it’s browser-based and has some mouse-clicking you can do if you don’t care to type the first letter of your menu options. She didn’t know muds existed at the time, but even if she did, she would have gone with this game instead, and it didn’t even have graphics. It was an easy game, with a low entry barrier and learning curve, it had the look and feel of a real live official computer game, rather than a retro hobbyist’s basement project, and a community of other friendly people played it. But my wife thinks actual in character roleplaying is weird and nerdy, and reading room descriptions in a mud is too much reading, so games like LOGD were the limit of her foray into RPGs, unless you count playing Final Fantasy on our Playstation. Same deal there: a real live official game with a following and a playerbase (even if it’s a single-player game, it has a following and a playerbase), rather than a retro hobbyist’s basement project.

Aardwolf did something smart not all that long ago. If you don’t know what muds are and you’re bumming around the app store on your cell phone, you’re going to come across Aardwolf on your list of apps. Not a general mud client, but an actual “game” you download called Aardwolf. The app just logs you into the mud from your phone, but people who don’t know what muds are think they’re logging into a multiplayer app from their phones. A real live official game, rather than a retro hobbyist’s basement project.

Threshold is on the right track by starting a company and making some other games (however simple and uninteresting some of them might be to a hardcore roleplaying mud aficionado). If I didn’t know what muds were but I stumbled across Frogdice on the internet, I’d think I found a real live official game rather than some outdated nerd hobby. If there’s an official looking website, a browser-based interface, and a fairly simple learning curve, I could almost trick my wife into playing a mud if she weren’t roleplaying-adverse.

The reason the public’s not into muds isn’t because they lack graphics. It’s because muds are sitting all exclusive and walled off in a corner. If a mud styled itself as a game like any other, rather than some special category, had a web interface or an easily downloadable client that I automatically acquired from their website when I tried to play, lots of web documentation, a really low entry barrier, and a site that made the game and company look like some big official and well accepted thing, there’d be more public interest from people who just plain don’t know what a mud is, but would be turned off if they knew that a game is 20 years old and an outdated hobby.

But most mudders here don’t want the general public coming in and joining their games. Most of us like exclusive, roleplay-required games. We want people who know what a mud is, know what roleplaying is, and are looking specifically for a roleplaying mud to find our game and join it. We don’t want strangers on the internet who don’t know the first thing about muds or roleplaying showing up in large numbers and ruining the atmosphere and games we’ve come to love. We say we want that, but we don’t really. At best, we maybe want former table top gamers, RPG console nerds, and other people who are heavily into RPGs but possibly unfamiliar with muds to give us a try. But we definitely don't want my wife and her friends stumbling across your favorite RPI on the internet, thinking it's a "regular game," and polluting your atmosphere.