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Old 07-31-2010, 08:39 PM   #41
Hiddukel
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Re: The "Health," of Muds

Would have to agree with Kavir here..... while a MUD developer may choose not to design their own custom MUD client for users to download and use, if they so choose to do so over the other available MUD clients out there, it brings a more robust and well rounded MUD into the market.... the more the options, the more likely that it'll be a bit easier to attract a new "customer" base. I started writing one for my MUD using Visual Basic... it's still fairly "beta", but completely functional. While I haven't had the time to program features found in other MUD clients, it does allow me to add in more control to what the player sees and hears when using the client... whereas other MUD clients are limited in the sense of what I can communicate to them to do through my MUD's source code. For example, I can implement a text box into my client, and feed into that box, website links throughout my own website (or other websites). These links would scroll (or appear in some other form) depending on a command that the end-user executes. The user types "HELP HIDDUKEL" and a link would appear in the text box, allowing the user to click the link, which would then bring them to a page within my own website that gives more information than I could ever (or would want to) give within the MUD itself. Things like this open doors for a MUD that would otherwise be closed. And as long as it isn't a "required to play" client, users will always have the option to remain with their own MUD client if they so choose to do so.

As for the MUD listings....

I always remembered seeing a lot more than what were listed by Kavir... granted, the list is completely subjective since it's hard to measure a total amount based on MUDs that are actually active and playable... as he had pointed out that while there were a lot listed, some of them listed were defunct listings. But, that's always been the case (even so today), and if you were to look at the trend based on what was listed at TMC (cached pages via web.archive.org), I see numbers that pretty much jive in line with the trend graph listed at findmud.com

I took the total listings from several page caches through several months of every given year from 2001 thru 2010. Put them in Excel and calculated an average. On average, we see something like this:


2001: 1723
2002: 1795
2003: 1903
2004: 1731
2005: 1714
2006: 1690
2007: 1582
2008: 1428
2009: 1119
2010: 1115

Not much of a chance from 2009 to 2010... but a big drop when compared to the peak year of 2003... nearly a 50% drop in listed MUDs. One could say that those listed in 2003 weren't all functional... but the same goes for 2010 as well... while there isn't a constant value of listed MUDs being defunct, I would bet that there's an average percentage for each year.... and with that, you still see a drop over the last 7 years by nearly 50%.

As with Kavir, I too am seeing a lot more blind or partially blind MUD gamers...... using text readers to play. But all in all, I doubt that MUDs will ever get near as popular as what they once were... too many graphical alternatives, and with today's hardware, you don't need to break the bank to get your hands on it.
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