[Molly]

[the_logos]

While it's well-intentioned, I can't say I see a written story showing anyone the nature of text MUDs. I've never found that anyone understands the nature of text MUDs without sitting down and playing them. The idea of a real-time world being represented in text is so foreign to most people. Of course, the stories may get a few people interested enough to sit down and try out text MUDs, which would be good.

[Spoke]

[Tezcatlipoca]

Couple of points:
-First I think many of us (myself included) are possibly a bit guilty of pushing off MUDs as too "foreign" or difficult for "normal" people, which means we need to pay special attention to advertising it in special ways to them. While I still haven't completely convinced myself of this NOT being true, I think it would be worthwhile to play devil's advocate with the notion.
The first computer game made was a text based game that, except for the multiplayer environment, bears a striking resemblance to the style of most text based MUDs out there (although I think we can agree that while they may LOOK like "Zork" or one if it's counterparts on the surface, it's better to equate "Zork," the 10mm Hydra viridissima, to it's current MUD brother, the 10m long fifty headed Hydra). The game of course had many single player variants. So many that, I'd be willing to bet that many people who spent their adolescence or teenager years during either the 80's or the 90's, and used one of many different computer types that were commercially active, can recall playing (and probably enjoying) either “Zork”, or a variant of it. True, I’m focusing in again on a smaller group of people (“…and used [a] … computer…”) which certainly was no where near the extent we have today, but I’ve personally been pretty darned surprised at the people I’ve found that used to play such games, and even those that used to play multiplayer text based games (not necessarily MUDs however) on the old acoustically coupled modems. I’m also (although less so as I’ve found more and more) surprised at the number of people (younger people then the afore-mentioned) who have in fact heard of and even played MUDs before in semi-recent times. The excuses for quitting are usually the same of course: “not enough time… I was too addicted… everything else in my life screeched to a halt…”
Really, from personal experience, the only large groups of people I’ve found that played or at least seen a MUD before, are those of the “new” generation (those that are teenagers now--you know, the ones that are most apt to become problem players for a while before they get bored). Interestingly enough, this generation is the most computer heavy generation of any so far, with strong focus on the Internet, and more importantly, games. The games they’re used to seeing ARE the flashy new games with huge intricate engines, massive attention to graphical detail and which tend to favor a short reaction time over an imaginative or quick thinking brain. These, although I’ve managed to pull a few in myself, tend not to be the most creative players. They also almost never have seen or heard of MUDs before. They might, in turn, not be the best people to focus on.
If the people we focus on are those that already are aware of MUDs, then what’s the point in advertising right? Well… I don’t think we can say that every person that has heard of a MUD is an ex-MUDder him or herself. A campaign for reintroduction of these people into the text-based genre may be advantageous. Starting with those who are most apt to jump ship in terms of time availability--college students.
But an overall reintroduction campaign I think might be worthwhile. It just needs to present to them both tasty morsels of MUDding that they now miss and can still get excited about, as well as presenting them with recent changes which take care of those problems they finally decided to bail out because of (as mentioned earlier by someone else, too much Rping, or too much H&S; not enough of a balanced fun, mix, or even alternate activities to both). It might also be worthwhile to tell them that they don’t NEED to spend every waking moment of their lives on the game anymore. With the mixed pay/free MUDs out there, money can be supplemented for time in terms of “getting somewhere” in the MUD world (although I understand and respect that some people here might not agree with that method of administration). Another option: with so many other styles of MUDs out there, I’m pretty sure (although I haven’t looked) that there exists MUDs that don’t require lots of time to play so much, as just a place to stop by when you have time and kick back for a few minutes or an hour, and yet STILL have fun, and maybe even still get somewhere because of quality playing during those few minutes.

-Second point (the first one started turning into a rant. I figured I probably should divide it up before I find myself with only one point). Spoke restates a great point; the best way of “advertising” is through word of mouth. Or at the very least, it’s been the mainstay of MUD advertising as I’ve seen it. It’s how I got into it probably closing in on 10 years ago now... I’ve honestly lost count… 10 doesn’t seem right, but I think only because it makes me seem older then I want to admit to myself. Either way, wherever I’ve been, the primary means of “advertising” the MUD was to get players to mention it to people they knew; friends, family members, online acquaintances, ect. I can’t say that they achieved earth-shattering results of course—there’s many reason for that I think—but I know it does work, as I’m a product of it working.

-Third point. This isn’t really a point I don’t think. In fact, I’m not sure any of these could be considered “points.” More like crappy advice. At any rate… posting “MUD Stories” is not a bad idea at all. But I’d suggest posting a mix of them. Most that I’ve heard mentioned are humorous ones. I’d suggest mixing those with tragic ones, violent ones, and all sorts of different kinds. Humor is an attractive device, but if you present nothing but humor, you might find people merely taking what you’re presenting as a joke. That and as great as the humor can be in MUDs (especially the ironies involved in some of your more run of the mill-MUDs, or those involved in H&S MUDs [the “good” aligned elf slaughtering eliminating whole populations of people just to gain a level]), the way we can spin some more tragic tales in can provide even more impact. The story that got me MUDing wasn’t necessarily a funny one (although I could find humor in it as I’m sure many others could) was one on a standard DIKU H&S variant: the protagonist was working with others in a clan. The antagonist stole something from him or some such. Either way it started a bit of a clan war. It wind down to him walking into the cathedral (I’m sure many of you know which I’m talking about) where the antagonist was sleeping, dragging him out by his collar, and hacking him apart there on the steps. In fact, this story is so generic that I’d be willing to bet half of us have been on both sides of that story multiple times. But it hooked me. The intrigue of being able to work WITH other people AGAINST other people in such an environment, even one with such loose RP as a H&S, was attractive, with no intended humor involved really.

I think I’m out of points but for those who think I write too much to get my point across (an acceptable opinion) here’s a condensed version:
1) Don’t necessarily bank on the idea that we’re an isolated group of gamers, surrounded by a larger group of generic gamers that haven’t ever heard of MUDs, and requires them to be explained. Many people KNOW MUDs are out there. Others that don’t, don’t necessarily need them explained, or need to understand them, in order to get them hooked.
2) “Networking,” although I find it personally abhorred when job searching, is effective in spreading the word of MUDs, as “proven” by most player’s histories.
3) Don’t focus on one aspect of MUDs. They’re too complex to stop there. Humor is great, but there’s a lot more then can be presented in a MUD-story format, just or maybe even more, effectively.

[Molly]

Yeah I remember it. I thought it was the funniest thing I read since The Bohemian Mud Rhapsody.

[Brody]

[the_logos]

[Molly]

the_logos Dec. 04 2004,14:47
I think your entire post illustrates the difference in our 'personal values' better than anything I could say, so I am not going to dwell on that. Why don't you just stick to your advertising, and let the ones of us more interested in storytelling than counting numbers of hits develop this idea?

Now, if we are going to pursue this project any further, I think it needs some organizing to avoid unproductive work. Here are some thoughts:

1. As much as I'd like a separate section for storytelling to open on TMS, let's not lose track of the initial idea, which is to reach a target OUTSIDE the already establish Text Mud World. We need a paper magazine, or a Website directed mainly at a different audience, where we could get a chance to establish a 'column'. Brody mentioned RPG Times  already, are there any other potential targets we could approach?
(Still - one good thing with opening a new column here is that the efforts wouldn't be totally wasted if the entire idea turns out to be unfeasible).

2. A section for Mud stories on this site would be a great help in the task of collecting a large enough number of suitable stories before we approach the targets. I think we need a minimum number of 10 good stories to even start this out. I have suggested a few already, maybe somebody else could point us in some other direction? Some stories will also have to be written specifically for this venture, and perhaps a small reward for the authors would be in place? (It doesn't need to be any fancier than the already existing system of putting an icon next to the name of the author's home mud for a month).

3. The main problem with using already existing stories is probably the length. Although there are a number of very good stories to choose from, for instance in the earlier Storyteller competitions, most of them are way too longwinded. The stories we need for this venture would have to be comparatively short, or most people would never bother to read them through. We should probably settle on a max length right from the start. My initial suggestion would be a max of 1200 words, perhaps even 1000.

4. If we use already existing stories, we obviously need to seek out the authors of those and ask their permission to publish them again in another context. While this usually wouldn't be hard to get, it might present some difficulties in the cases where the authors have left the Mud world or even the internet, and old addresses are no longer valid. I am not sure of a solution to this one, maybe we'd just have to drop the stories in these cases, however good. Copyright should always be respected.

5. It would be a help if any people who wish to take part in this venture would announce their interest either in a reply to this thread, or in a E-mail/message to me or Brody. That would give us an idea of how many stories we might be able to get together, which in turn would be helpful to know, if and when we decide to contact some magazine. It would also be good if you gave a short synopsis or at least some idea of the type of subject you'd be choosing for your story. That could prevent several different people concentrating on similar subjects.

6. Apart from the stories themselves, I think we also need some light articles of more 'editorial' type, to explain some of the quaint features typical of text Muds to an audience that never played any. I was going to volunteer for the task of writing some of those myself, since that's the way my talents are leaning, but maybe some more people are interested in this type of writing?

[Angie]

As I said, you can have mine - though I'd like to go over it again and edit it (get rid of the typos and tighten it up a bit) first.

There is also another project I've suggested and Jaewyn might be interested in getting off the ground in - so if you want to give feedback or help brainstorm a name, stop by.

[Soleil]

Medievia's in-game newspaper, The Mudslinger, has been going strong for at least 9 years and has been archiving the stories and poetry since 1999.

You can visit the current Mudslinger at .

Or, better yet, you can access a list of all Medievian stories at

If you would like Medievia to be a part of this story project, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Soleil
Medievia.com, Inc.

[Angie]

I'd rather not, thank you.

[Eagleon]

[Dulan]

Wasn't Medthievia banned from the listings due to outright ignoring of the Diku license and worse?

Why are they still advertising here?

[the_logos]

Perhaps you should read the title of this thread. "Text mud promotion to the outside world." It doesn't say, "Creative writing." Creative writing is great. But this thread is about promoting text MUDs, and promotion is about numbers. If you're honestly concerned with promoting text MUDs rather than simply putting stories out there for the sake of putting stories out there (not that there's anything wrong with that at all), then it's all about numbers and hits. There's not really any arguing with this. Tracking the results of your promotional activities is one of the first things a marketing class would teach you, as without tracking them, you have no idea if you're wasting your time or not.

Again, if you just want to put out stories, I think that's great. But if you're really concerned with promoting text muds (which is what this thread is about), then I suggest you look at it from a marketing perspective rather than a writing perspective. And from any perspective at all actually concerned with promoting text MUDs, ensuring you can track whether you're wasting your time or not is crucial. In fact, I'd challenge you to find me a single reputable marketing text that urges otherwise.

I mean, if it turns out there's just no feasible way to track it (for instance, perhaps Andrew and Adam don't want to help track how many visitors are coming from the fiction site) then so be it, but to dismiss the idea of tracking your marketing results is extremely naive.

--matt

[Molly]

Soleil; Dec. 05 2004,13:11
Honestly, Soleil, you sound like a nice person yourself, but you cannot really be unaware of what most Mudowners think about Medievia and the Diku code licence, can you?

I don't think we'd want to involve Medievia in any common cause for text muds. At least I wouldn't. I cannot of course speak for the rest of the community.

So thanks for the offer, but no thanks, at least as far as I am concerned. If Medievia is in on this project, I'm out.

[the_logos]

Wow! Hypocrisy is on the march!

From Molly's mud's website: "Also there is another war going on in another Galaxy, far, far away. A group of the planets there, known as the Empire, are trying to subdue and enslave all other planets in the Galaxy. There are a few planets trying to resist the Empire and keep their freedom. The rebels fight a brave but losing battle against the overwhelming powers of the Empire, and a few Earthlings are involved in that battle too, although most of the contestants are alien races like Wookies, Twi'leks and Ewoks. Jedi Knights are leading the forces on both sides, some following the Dark Side, others the Power of Light."

But no doubt you have permission from Lucasarts right? In fact, obviously you don't, but you're not going to let that stop you from ostracizing Medievia. You don't have permission to use Lucasarts stuff, and, if the Medievia accusations are true, they're using IP without a license to do so. Seems exactly the same to me, except, of course, the IP you're using in a way you don't have permission to is worth billions of dollars more than the IP that Medievia is supposedly using without permission.

Note that I am not flaming your use of the Star Wars IP, incidentally. I decided awhile ago that if it's not worth it to the owner of the IP to do something about it, it's sure as heck not worth me caring about. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy inherent in your accusation.

--matt

[Molly]

The_logos; Dec. 05 2004,23:44
Oh yeah, you are not out to flame me, right?

Yes, we do have one zone (out of 187) that is based on Star Wars. How many other muds do?
We also have a small part of a zone very loosely based on LOTR. How many other muds do?
(There are entire muds based on LOTR or Wheel of Time and in almost every stock mud around you’ll find the Caves of Moria and the Hobbit Village, although it’s sometimes a smurf zone instead).

We probably have 2 or 3 other zones among the 187 inspired by other books or films. How many other muds do?

I like to use quotations and references to literature, myth and films in the zones myself, because that can create funny anachronisms along the lines of ‘A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court',  and because our theme is Time Travel. Since it has been such a widespread practice in all Muds right from the start, I never really saw anything wrong in doing it. I actually see it as paying reverence or 'fanzine' rather than IP theft. And since we never have been trying to hide it, I don't really see how the word 'hypocrisy' applies.

And I think only you could have got the idea of comparing this to abuse of the Diku licence. We all know your opinions about the Diku licence.

But since you weren’t out to flame me, I won’t delve into that.

Now, could we possibly go back to the topic of the thread?

[the_logos]

I'm not out to flame you, no. Why would I bother looking to flame you in particular? I would have posted the same thing to anyone who criticized Medievia for using IP in a way that it doesn't have permission to use when said person is also using IP in a way he or she doesn't have permission to use.

I guess this really is where our worldviews differ. I don't see much strength in an argument based on the logic that "Other people do it too!" or "Well, we have lots of IP that's not infringing!" I wonder what your reaction would be if someone logged into 4 Dimensions and just took a bunch of area descriptions, en masse, and incorporated them into their own mud. You'd be ok with that I assume?

And no doubt if you assume that Medievia is DIKU-derived, they like using DIKU code. Just because you like to do something doesn't change whether it's right or wrong.

It's hypocritical to criticize them for doing something you do. Whether you hide the fact that you do it or not doesn't change whether it's hypocritical to criticize Medievia for it.

My opinion about the DIKU license is the same as about the Star Wars license: If the owners don't think it's worth enforcing, why should I care? It means the IP either isn't worth enough to bother protecting (DIKU) or the IP is so large that a few text MUDs using it without permission is relatively irrelevant (Star Wars).

Ahh right, it's ok for you to make a post shunning Medievia and implying they're horribly unethical, but can't have anyone pointing out that you do the same thing can we?

--matt

Well you're not using the Star Wars properties against their stated policies are you? Non-commercial, don't sully image.



OTOH, Mercthievia is violating the Diku license. Commercially too. Not even a prayer at a "fair use" defense. The other difference is they are dirty rotten liars.

No hyprocrisy involved.

Sorry Soliel you can't polish that turd here.