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Ide · 08-03-2010, 10:55 PM

I get the feeling that the TMS community, mostly made up of developers, is sort of missing the point here, and I think it's related to an observation you could make about the mudding community. Namely, where are the sites/forums where players talk about muds they play?

In every other game community you'll find developers talking about making games, and players talking about games they play, specific games. But apart from the usual advertisements, recruiting ads, and flamewars, I can't even think of one forum thread where I've seen a player post up with something like, 'hey, Achaea, let's talk about it. Who's playing it?' etcetera.

These are the kinds of things, in my opinion, that would get other players -- both veteran mudders and people coming in off a Google search -- interested in checking out a game.

Sure, you have your forums for specific games, and you'll find this in other game genres as well. But there's always player forums in other genres where the focus is on what are you playing, what's new, what should I try.

Why is this so? Is it related to the strong community focus of most muds? Does this make each individual mud community more insular? There are plenty of online multiplayer graphical games with strong communities, but still general sites where players will talk about all FPSs, or all RTSs, etcetera.

Is it the low number of players not being able to support the forum activity? Mud developers have at least three forums, and surely the players outnumber the developers (or do they...

).

Are mud players, for some reason, simply not interested in talking about muds? Maybe this does tie back into the first question, about the strong community focus of muds. If someone is happy in a community, maybe they're just not interested in other communities. But I think you see many players hopping from one game to another or trying a new place out (this especially seems popular with the IRE players, but IRE has wisely captured this migratory instinct by consistently rolling out new games).

In any case, something to think about.

08-03-2010, 10:55 PM	#82
Ide Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Seattle Posts: 361	Re: The "Health," of Muds I get the feeling that the TMS community, mostly made up of developers, is sort of missing the point here, and I think it's related to an observation you could make about the mudding community. Namely, where are the sites/forums where players talk about muds they play? In every other game community you'll find developers talking about making games, and players talking about games they play, specific games. But apart from the usual advertisements, recruiting ads, and flamewars, I can't even think of one forum thread where I've seen a player post up with something like, 'hey, Achaea, let's talk about it. Who's playing it?' etcetera. These are the kinds of things, in my opinion, that would get other players -- both veteran mudders and people coming in off a Google search -- interested in checking out a game. Sure, you have your forums for specific games, and you'll find this in other game genres as well. But there's always player forums in other genres where the focus is on what are you playing, what's new, what should I try. Why is this so? Is it related to the strong community focus of most muds? Does this make each individual mud community more insular? There are plenty of online multiplayer graphical games with strong communities, but still general sites where players will talk about all FPSs, or all RTSs, etcetera. Is it the low number of players not being able to support the forum activity? Mud developers have at least three forums, and surely the players outnumber the developers (or do they... ). Are mud players, for some reason, simply not interested in talking about muds? Maybe this does tie back into the first question, about the strong community focus of muds. If someone is happy in a community, maybe they're just not interested in other communities. But I think you see many players hopping from one game to another or trying a new place out (this especially seems popular with the IRE players, but IRE has wisely captured this migratory instinct by consistently rolling out new games). In any case, something to think about.