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Old 02-06-2012, 09:43 AM   #15
SnowTroll
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 183
SnowTroll will become famous soon enough
Re: Hello from a lurker

Muds are, by their nature, competitive. Even if a mud isn't a PK mud, you're still unofficially compared against other players based on how strong your character is, what it can accomplish, whether it knows any skills or spells that can help someone else, how well you know the ins and outs of the game, and even a little bit of out of character recognition (i.e., are you a cool person on the OOC channels, are you one of the "long-time" players).

This means that no matter what the mud, no matter what the system, there are going to be at least a few people who play all day long, reap whatever benefits they can from that, and set the bar for the rest of the players. Even in a "causal RP" mud, or a complete non-roleplaying mud, you're always going to be a second class citizen next to the play all day long crowd. That doesn't mean you can't log in a few times a week and have fun, but if you're a former hardcore mudder, it's a big transition to just mess around online for an hour or two, and not nearly as much fun. And you're never going to find a game where the casual versus hardcore delineation doesn't matter at all. Maybe it matters less in some muds versus others, but it's always going to matter.

I've played my share of "casual RP" muds, and whoever it was above who said that a mud with just casual players, no hardcore all dayers, will die is right. I must have tried at least a dozen muds that "used to be great" back in the good old days, but over time, have dwindled to 1-5 people online, tops. People who played all day long got lives, and now the former regular playerbase is just a bunch of casual mudders who pop in from time to time to see who's still around. In most of these cases, the admins don't really develop those muds any more, but just keep things open for their former players, and the players don't play all that seriously any more, even though they'll bash or rp with you for a little bit if you want. Occasionally, a newbie or two will pop in, level up a bit, be a part of the community, but then get bored and disappear. I've been that newbie quite a few times.
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