[Milawe]

I would say that yes, someone who is not an English major and not necessarily even that into reading can learn to mud. You saw this a lot in the old days of muds when people who could barely type would play because they wanted to be playing this sort of game. Those people have moved on to graphical MMOs now that they've become commonplace, but before the time of MMOs, they played MUDs as well simply because MUDs were the only option for the type of gameplay they wanted.

I know that Threshold had ton of non-English speaking people for a long time. We have a lot of people from Southeast Asia and several from Israel. (Well, a lot of our Israelis are still playing.) They're not English majors at all, and several were bettering their English as they were playing.

So, yes, currently, muds appeal more to people who like read and write, but that wasn't always the case. I always thought the best places to market would be table top gaming stores and magazines, universities, and libraries. I also tend to talk all the people I meet on MMOs into trying out muds in general when they express boredom with the games.

There's also a lot of nostalgia out there, so sometimes I try to hit the older gaming crowd who still speak of Zork fondly and paid out oodles of money to Simu.