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Old 03-07-2011, 06:55 PM   #5
KaVir
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Name: Richard
Home MUD: God Wars II
Posts: 2,052
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Re: The inevitability of GUIs in text-based mudding

Sure, but I'm not saying the GUI should be at the expense of gameplay, nor that it should be a requirement for playing the mud.

There does seem to be a common misconception that only graphical muds should have graphics. In fact text-based muds have been using graphics for a long time - but initially they were limited by the clients. So their "graphics" consisted of ASCII maps with ANSI colour, VT100 energy bars, dashes and bars (and other ASCII art) for the score layout, and so on.

But clients have progressed a lot since then, and for many players it does enhance the experience to have true graphical maps instead of ASCII ones, to have graphical energy bars, to have buttons and icons, etc.

And while it may not appeal to everyone, what I'm seeing on mud client forums is more and more players designing GUIs for their favourite muds. There is a demand, whether you like it or not.


The major clients already support most standard protocols, and allow considerable customisation through scripting. It's the muds that need to catch up.

Agreed, but I'm not suggesting that text-based muds will turn into fully graphical muds. What I'm suggesting is that we'll see more and more people replacing ASCII graphics with proper graphics, replacing their prompts with energy bars and icons, that sort of thing.

Several muds have developed custom clients for their own GUIs over the years. But what we're seeing now are general mud clients like MUSHclient and Mudlet that allow you to quickly and easily design your own GUI through scripting, and IMO this is what's really changing things - because creating your own custom GUI is no longer a major job requiring a specialised skillset. It's now something you can do in a few hours, with just a little scripting knowledge. And we're seeing more and more players getting in on the action.

As I clarified earlier, I'm not suggesting that such a GUI should be a requirement. However it is already an option, because this functionality exists in modern clients and is being used by players. Newworlds has said in the past that he dislikes GUIs, yet his players are still creating them and he can't really do anything about it. The same is true for other muds. You can choose whether or not to ride the wave, but you can't stop it.
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