They require significant ongoing development work to avoid stagnation, but that is a separate issue from what I was talking about.
By "pretty much runs itself" I'm talking specifically about a mud that requires little in the way of an administrative presence within the mud - the players don't depend on admin-run quests, events or storylines in order to be able to play the game and enjoy themselves. The players have their own tools for dealing with griefers and spammers. Undesirable activies are blocked by the code rather than enforced by people. Players can quickly and easily find the answers to most questions they might have via intuitive in-game documentation. And so on.
When a game pretty much runs itself, it gives the admin more time to spend on other things...like development.
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