[Gaare]

I have been -trying- to read this forum for a couple of years, lately I decided to take an account. What I wonder is, what a common reader usually thinks about the posts here? As I undersand the admins of the forum give a lot of freedom to members and do not delete many posts.

I recently read posts just simply saying "You are fools", "You all suck", "You idiots do not know anything." Hehe..

Also I wonder if this forum has been like this from the beginning created for people who wish to insult each other.

[Aztecia]

[Sinuhe]

Gaare Posted on May 17 2005,22:32

This forum once was a great place, with lots of interesting discussions about various mud-relared topics among intelligent people who respected each other, even when they had different opinions. This however was before either you or Aztecia joined, so naturally you know nothing about it.

You just see what it has now degraded into, a place where most of the intelligent posters already left in defence of their sanity, whereas the few of the remaining oldtimers are now acting almost as immaturely as the forces they oppose. And yes, I am one of those myself.

Most of the old time posters are very well aware of when this degradation started it and what caused it, which was mainly one obnoxious poster in combination with their own reactions to his frequent flamebaits.

Unfortunately the List owner and his moderators don't seem to share that insight, or they may chosen to turn a blind eye to it. If they one day realise that the decay has to be stopped and decide to do something positive about it, that might have a chance of changing things in the right direction. Until then I am afraid that the more interesting discussions will take place elsewhere.

[Eilanis]

Could you aide us in where to find these places? I too am an observer seeking to learn more of what is going on in the mudding community as well as roleplaying possibilities, but unfortunatly for the time I have been watching these posts all I have pretty much witnessed was slandering.

[Aeran]

I have yet not seen a MUD forum without a creepy atmosphere. The thing is that, unfortunately, MUDs might be dying. Everyone are absolutely frightened so none will acknowledge it. I have heard from developers such as Zuggsoft that their sales are declining which is a pretty bad sign. zMUD is probably one of the most used commercial clients.

The mmrpgs are taking over as the MUDs are being forgotten. The occasional mmrpg player who enters the text MUD I play laugh while mentioning how much better their game is. Still a few have actually stayed a while and enjoyed the game.

Why aren't there then many discussions here to save the MUDs? I believe the reason to be that currently the MUDs are competing to get the players who are left. My theory is that there's very few totally new MUD players. Most of the "new" players are likely to be players leaving another MUD.

[Brody]

And books will kill campfire stories.
And movies will kill books.
And television will kill movies.
And the Internet will kill them all.

MUDs have always been a niche; they will always be a niche. Populations ebb and flow. We will persevere.

We've got a Roleplaying forum here at TMS that's been getting more use lately. Feel free to join in and start your own chatter there about the topic. The first step toward changing the quality of what's in the top-listed forum topics is adding substantive topics to replace them.

[Ashon]

Oi, break out the doomsayers. The problem with mud's and their forums, is that there haven't been a lot of places where developers can get together and discuss design thougts, design processes and other high level issues, without getting bogged down with advertisements (banners, and for staff or players), Flame-wars, doomsayers, Psychologist longing to try and psycho-babble at us demented folk.

zMUD's sales are probably dropping because of the popularity of custom clients. Most MUD's are not spending a lot more time on them. They've learned from MMO's that you can do a lot of nifty things with them. And at some point Zuggsofts sales had to slow down. Most people already own a license. And other people use custom clients.

The idea that we are absolutely frightened by MUD's dying is so out of left field, it makes me laugh. While some people may want a lot of people playing their muds, most of the people who contribute Ideas and thoughts, and content to forums, usually could care less about being on the top 10 list, or even the top 100 list. It's a hobby, it fun.

There are tons of discussions going on. But as I said, we aren't worried about trying to save MUD's. There's a core community out there, and they will be around for as long as there is a telent protocol. They've been here since before there was a telnet protocol. Your theory, is more of an opinion.

[Threshold]

Everyone is frightened? Speak for yourself. There are a lot of muds out there that are growing quite rapidly. There are companies who make muds who have no problem successfully making more.

As for zMUD's sales, as someone already mentioned, a lot of muds these days use custom clients. Custom clients are definitely the way of the future. This is slightly off topic, but I think a big reason so many muds are not supporting zMUD actively any more is because so many of zMUDs features can be used to cheat. Zuggsoft has never given mud administrators the ability to disable zMUD features on their own games.

Basically, Zuggsoft made a decision to only cater to the whims of players who often like cheating. That might work in the short run, but not the long run. In the long run, it is the game creators who control what client(s) can be used to connect to their game, so that is really the group of people a commercial client programmer should be most concerned about.

I am not bashing Zuggsoft in any way. zMUD has played a significant role in making MUDding more accessible to thousands of people. That has been a huge boon to the hobbby of MUDding. I am only pointing to an aspect of their business strategy that is resulting in less zMUD usage now despite the fact that the actual mudding population continues to grow.

Can you provide statistical evidence of this? All existing evidence seems to be to the contrary.

They must be visiting crappy muds then. The average MUD has tons more features than even the best, most feature packed MMO. If they are laughing about the "graphics", then why the heck did they login to a MUD in the first place?


Probably because they don't need saving.

The only types of MUDs that are suffering are the stock crap muds who have a much harder time getting suckers.... er I mean players now that there is enough competition to make better choices very evident.

[Jeena]

This is an interesting statement. From personal observation I have found that many players who left the MUD environment and went to games like WoW soon found themselves bored or frustrated.
These types of games come with limitations that do not plague textbase games.
1. Text base games can be played on almost any computer that is equipped to go on the Net.
2. Text base games can be almost limitless in size, zones, equipment, because...well...it's text based.
3. Graphic games are expensive to play, usually requiring monthly or yearly subscriptions. A big turn off for a lot of kids who can't afford it because of school or other reasons.
4. Graphic games usually will require players to upgrade and require an up front outlay of cash for the initial game.

I know that a lot of people were very excited when WoW came out (and please I'm not flaming WoW or criticizing it anyway so don't get excited), but eventually came back to the MuD because while the graphics are great the play is very limited compared the what players do in the MuD environment.

Obviously, I haven't run a survey, though perhaps it would be a good poll idea... to find out how may people left MuDs for graphic games only to return and why. But it' seems to me that this is mostly part of the 'mobile gaming community'. I've met many newbies who have left one mud for another just to try greener pastures, to get away from frustrating situations, only to find themselves driving back. It's not surprising that these same players might be lured by bright graphics only to find the games far more limited than the text game they have grown accustomed to.
I wouldn't ring the deathbells for MuDs just yet. They all still offer far more variety than the graphic games, for far less cost.

[Sinuhe]

Eilanis, Posted on May 18 2005,08:28
Sorry, but I think posting links in one discussion Forum to other discussion Forums is a bit overboard, almost equivalent to the people who log on to other muds just to shout the address of their own mud over open channels. That’s where I draw the line personally. Especially if the link is to a place where a large number of the former frequent posters from here now dwell.

You might argue that I should draw the line at not criticising the List owner. But if there is no open criticism, how could we ever expect anything to change? I think the List owner should be made aware of what a large number of the former posters are upset about, and why they have chosen to go elsewhere for their valid discussions. At least that provides a chance, however slim, of the boards here being restored to the quality they once had.

Those who really want to know the address will most likely manage to find out. I suggest asking one of the people that left over e-mail or messenger as one possible method.

[Stilton]

You haven't read the site rules, have you?

"How can I qualify to have my site on the list?
If you run a web site that pertains to MUDs (or MUSHes, MOOs, MUD hosting, MUD clients, and so forth), whether it be for a specific MUD or about muds in general, then you can have your site on the list. "

If other resource sites can compete in the rankings (and get direct links in their listings) you'd think it would be ok to mention a URL in a discussion thread. At least once, a resource site has been in the top 20, too.

Stilton