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Old 08-03-2007, 09:19 AM   #7
Molly
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Sweden
Home MUD: 4 Dimensions
Posts: 574
Molly will become famous soon enoughMolly will become famous soon enough
Re: What to do about old content?

Most older Muds probably has this problem, ours certainly does, since many of the OLC features, (like various extra desks) weren't implemented until the world already was over 10,000 rooms. Also the quality requirements have been raised considerably over the years, leaving all the oldest zones vastly inferiour to the newer ones. Regrettably those older zones are also the closest to the core, since the world tends to grow outwards in concentric circles, which means that the oldest, inferiour zones are usually among the first that new players come into contact with.

Updating old zones isn't nearly as much fun as creating new ones, but our ambition is that in the long run all old zones will be updated to our present standards. Since I've built the main part of our world, many of them regrettably are my own responsibility to fix, but we've been lucky enough to have some other Builders participate in the updating of some others, where the original Builders usually left the Mud years ago.

The general procedure is to go through the entire zone, (usually directly in the files, fixing any remaining typos, adding all the extra descs and nifty features presently available, usually enlarging them a bit, (if there is still space), and then topping it up by adding a few scripts and a couple of quests, and finally a 'Zone flag'. The Zone flags, hidden at the 'core' of each zone, are our special reward for explorers, who can collect them against a reward. Only zones that are 'up to par' get a zone flag, and when we have a batch of 15 new flags, for updated or new zones, we call a Clan Contest, with a prize for the Clan that collects the most. This generally triggers a lot of player activity, so the announcement of a new batch of Flags is a big event, which usually brings even fairly inactive oldbies back into the game for a while, to help their old Clan.

At least that is one way of turning a rather tedious task into a treat for the players, who might otherwise never even notice the update. Another way to sweeten the deal a bit is that I allow myself to build one new zone for each old one that I update. It prolongs the updating process of course, but at least it offers some variety in the work.
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