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Old 09-10-2010, 10:24 PM   #62
Milawe
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: USA
Home MUD: Threshold RPG
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Home MUD: Archons of Avenshar
Posts: 653
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

I believe this was done on purpose. Very little information was given so that players could explore the situation without being tainted by external resources. When DF posted about a short story prior to alpha, he posted it with tons of spoiler warnings. Some even posted that they were not going to read the story because they didn't want to spoil the story.

I wrote for small parts of Atonement RPI when they were just about to go into pre-Alpha, and I was given very little information about the storyline itself. I was just given a lot of details about what I was specifically writing. I definitely understood that our parts were segregated pretty heavily in order to preserve that lack of information and mystery. I was very intrigued by this way of story-building and have always been very interested in the way Atonement was presented. It seemed out of the norm and actually pretty newbie friendly. Everyone goes in with an equal lack of information which seems to even the playing field.

Ultimately, and I could be very wrong here, I think that we're ignoring the biggest factor in why older muds in general (RPI, RPE, Hack n Slask, etc.) have seen a decline in playerbase is because our playerbase is getting older. As the playerbase gets older, a lot of people disappear for no reason other than real life gets in the way big time. And when real life comes knocking in a serious way, things that we once loved a great deal begin to show their flaws, and a lot of us remember the glory days of when we could play without many distractions and when the headaches were worth it. I know that as I get older and more responsibilities get shoveled onto my shoulders, I'm less patient with anything I do for entertainment. When movies suck, I'm more ready to leave. When games suck, I give them less of a chance. RPIs are already extremely demanding environments, and perhaps, when you have less time to play and less time to be immersed because your boss is screaming in your ear (as opposed to hanging out in a computer lab until 5 am), that one dude going OOC is about 1000% times more annoying than he used to be. Many of the established RPIs out there are pretty old, so I would assume the playerbase has been around for nearly as long.

Just a thought that has nothing to do with game design or a degradation in the community.
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