Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - The future of text-based gaming?

Malifax · 02-27-2007, 11:10 AM

Mobs/NPCs interacting with mobs/NPCs doesn't get you much, IMHO. If it doesn't involve the players it's a game playing itself.

The biggest problem for text-based games is a dwindling audience. The kids who used to play MUDS now play WoW. If it's not graphic it's a second citizen in the gaming world. And, really, MUD hobbyists can't compete with the mega gaming companies, their financial resources and armies of designers and programmers. Make no mistake. It is a competition. As sad as it is to say, the text genre of online games is slowly dying. There will always be MUDs out there. A few of them may even flourish. But unless Blizzard or someone decides to devote significant resources to a text game, you'll never see another major text-based game. Just my opinion, of course.

Now, to stay on topic...

Online games, and especially MUDs, are about the players. The people you meet and the friends you make are what keep you in games, not web-based bells and whistles. A game has to have well-designed and interesting mechanics, but in my opinion, if we want the text genre of online games to live, we need to design and build games with THE goal of player collaboration. As it is, players walk their characters out to some area where they perform an activity that advances their level and skills. It's a solitary grind that separates players instead of bringing them together. The future of text-based games has to be about making advancement and conquest a group activity.

I think we in the MUD development community need to step back and take a look at what makes MMORPGs popular other than their graphical interfaces. One thing that made EQ wildly successful was the group hunts it necessitated. Groups of friends would set up times to get their PCs together to go killing. There are lots of other ideas and concepts incorporated into MMORPGs that can also be applied to MUDS, and I think it's important that we recognize and embrace them.

So, what is the future of text-based games? In my mind, the next generation of MUDs incorporates goal-oriented mechanics that allow PCs to learn anything simply by doing it. None of the "repping" point-gain that you see in learn-by-doing systems these days, but layers of abilities learned by using what you know. Each advancement activity is a mini-quest all it's own, where success requires multiple characters possessed of varied abilities and talents. Every facet of the game is multi-layered, creating interdependence among the characters. I think most of these things already exist. They just need to be taken to another level.

The future MUD will be accessible through a client that, when launched, teleports you to a multi-room "club" (complete with bar and other amenities) where you can chat OOC with other players. There's one board listing the drinks you can order and another listing the characters in the game. Several arches, portals and doorways lead out of the room: One to character creation. One to the game message boards. One to in-house mail. One to an interactive game manual. One to player-created and administrated guild/house/clan areas. One to a room full of player website links. And one to the game, of course. The object is communication.

02-27-2007, 11:10 AM	#10
Malifax Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 108	Mobs/NPCs interacting with mobs/NPCs doesn't get you much, IMHO. If it doesn't involve the players it's a game playing itself. The biggest problem for text-based games is a dwindling audience. The kids who used to play MUDS now play WoW. If it's not graphic it's a second citizen in the gaming world. And, really, MUD hobbyists can't compete with the mega gaming companies, their financial resources and armies of designers and programmers. Make no mistake. It is a competition. As sad as it is to say, the text genre of online games is slowly dying. There will always be MUDs out there. A few of them may even flourish. But unless Blizzard or someone decides to devote significant resources to a text game, you'll never see another major text-based game. Just my opinion, of course. Now, to stay on topic... Online games, and especially MUDs, are about the players. The people you meet and the friends you make are what keep you in games, not web-based bells and whistles. A game has to have well-designed and interesting mechanics, but in my opinion, if we want the text genre of online games to live, we need to design and build games with THE goal of player collaboration. As it is, players walk their characters out to some area where they perform an activity that advances their level and skills. It's a solitary grind that separates players instead of bringing them together. The future of text-based games has to be about making advancement and conquest a group activity. I think we in the MUD development community need to step back and take a look at what makes MMORPGs popular other than their graphical interfaces. One thing that made EQ wildly successful was the group hunts it necessitated. Groups of friends would set up times to get their PCs together to go killing. There are lots of other ideas and concepts incorporated into MMORPGs that can also be applied to MUDS, and I think it's important that we recognize and embrace them. So, what is the future of text-based games? In my mind, the next generation of MUDs incorporates goal-oriented mechanics that allow PCs to learn anything simply by doing it. None of the "repping" point-gain that you see in learn-by-doing systems these days, but layers of abilities learned by using what you know. Each advancement activity is a mini-quest all it's own, where success requires multiple characters possessed of varied abilities and talents. Every facet of the game is multi-layered, creating interdependence among the characters. I think most of these things already exist. They just need to be taken to another level. The future MUD will be accessible through a client that, when launched, teleports you to a multi-room "club" (complete with bar and other amenities) where you can chat OOC with other players. There's one board listing the drinks you can order and another listing the characters in the game. Several arches, portals and doorways lead out of the room: One to character creation. One to the game message boards. One to in-house mail. One to an interactive game manual. One to player-created and administrated guild/house/clan areas. One to a room full of player website links. And one to the game, of course. The object is communication.