[Molly]

I agree that most Mud players are basically only interested in the Muds they play, and also that the Forums of individual Mud are more busy than 'global' Forums like TMC and TMS. This is generally true even for a comparatively small Mud like my own.

However, I don't see that trying to target this phenomenon by offering individual discussion Forums for all listed Muds will work. For one thing the incentive for the players to check outside that Forum would be low, just as the incentive for the vote-only traffic to do anything more than click the vote button is low, (and even to do that, they usually need to be prompted in some way, most of them don't even like to interrupt their playing long enough to vote).

Secondly, setting up a discussion Forum nowadays is so easy that almost all established Muds already have their own Forums. In fact I've even seen many new Muds starting out with a Discussion Forum before they set up a website, because it's needs much less work on the Admin part.

Thirdly, I think that MudMagic already does something along those lines, and I don't see their open Forums as any more active than TMS and TMC - rather the contrary.

I think the only way to attract players in the content of the site, outside the ranking lists would be to offer things there that really interest them - and also to treat their posts and opinions with some basic respect. (In that context I don't see attitudes such as the one displayed by Threshold helping much).

I am however less pessimistic than other posters about the possibilities to attract players and not just Admin to Mud Sites. I actually believe that a 'Text Mud Community' does exist, even if it is rather loosearound the edges and not very homogeneous. It consists of the confirmed Mudders, who prefer text to graphics, and who eventually return to Text Muds even after having tried out MMORPGS for a year or two. I think most Admin can affirm that some of their 'lost sheep' return to their 'roots' after a year or two, declaring that they got bored by the graphics after a while.

I also remember that when I first got hooked by Muds myself, long before I became Admin, and even before I started building, I used to read everything on the net that was Mud related. Perhaps the content of the posts was different back then. Perhaps it was more geared towards issues interesting to player than Admin interests. I am really not sure, maybe other longtime posters have better memories. And if it really did change, maybe we should try to recreate the spirit that existed back around 1995 or so.

What I am pretty sure about however, is that most avid Mud players play more than one Mud. They generally have one that they consider their 'Home Mud' and that's where they usually log on every day, and hang out to chat with friends long after they stopped playing actively. Players are very loyal to their favorite Mud, but that doesn't stop them from occasionally testing others. They are usually a bit curious about what other Muds can offer, they 'shop around', compare features like skills and spells, usually don't stay long, but in some cases get hooked on the new place, and change their main 'Home'. Quite often our players mention features they have seen in other Muds, and want us to implement something similar. Also players 'shop around' when they get into bad conflicts with other players or even the Staff, when they have played a Mud so long that no challenges are left, when they don't like the changes that are implemented, or - in some cases - when they get banned for various reasons.

In all those cases reviews come in as a natural service to offer, since after all the info submitted by the Game owners often tends to be painted in somewhat too 'rosy' colors. Sure, reviews can be biased, but then again, so can the selected 'info' that the owners choose to display. Offering input from both Admin and players provides some kind of balance.

I definitely agree with those who have declared that reviews should be allowed for all games. It doesn't make sense that some games, (and apparently usually commercial ones) should be allowed to block out all player input. It just doesn't seem right and fair to me.

Good articles could be another way to attract players to the site. An observation in that context is, that if you want to to interest people in writing articles for the site, you should offer them at least some incentive, for instance a free banner for a short period. Writing a decent article means quite a bit of work and time that could be spent on other things. I wrote several articles for TMC myself in the past, but stopped when I realized that I got zilch in return for my effort - it just wasn't worth the effort. I suspect others felt the same, and this is why the submissions to the article section here drained to almost nothing years ago.