Top Mud Sites Forum Return to TopMudSites.com
Go Back   Top Mud Sites Forum > MUD Players and General Discussion > Tavern of the Blue Hand
Click here to Register

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 11-01-2011, 07:45 PM   #1
camlorn
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 144
camlorn is on a distinguished road
may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Hello,
So, first, let me say that the thread title is perhaps a bit misleading: I suck at writing them. Then again, it may fit perfectly and just be my perception of it; the particular issue was making the title fit the response I'm looking for. But I digress.
Essentially, for some time I've been thinking about starting a mud. This, obviously, has gone nowhere, mainly for lack of motivation. The long and the short of it is that players are good, and I'm curious what's either not been done before or not done to the point that I'd be targeting a market with no potential for players, kind of.
Essentially, I'd be curious, for those of you without a "ideal" mud, what that would be. I'm basically looking for common factors that people want to see and that haven't been done before, have been done before but not to death, or that every mud should have; in addition, if you mention which mud you took it from (if you did) and I like it, I might just log on. Bear with me, the common thread here isn't immediately obvious; I'll put a note at the end that summarizes what I'm getting at, for those who think I'm rambling (this is a common response to me).
My personal thoughts are either a fantasy mud that actually has a lot more freedom or the other option below; crafting comes to mind, as does some sort of new magic system. I briefly considered gw2-esk combat along one axis, ala dark legacy, but that'd be hard to pull off in a fun way, and I'd probably end up frustrating a lot of people. Magic is another lacking field that I've seen; as a mage you "cast fireball"...what. You should at least have to chant something, or have the freedom to make it a fire stream, or my current idea, some sort of dynamic system where you chant runes with the strength of the spell being dependant upon how long between each one (don't go too far, or the power blows your head up or something). Mind you, this idea changes just about every other day, so.
On the other hand, something like miriani or star conquest; my ideal mud is fantasy, but it looks like the market for this type of game is more lacking. From what I've seen, if you write a mud like that, you get players. This is pulling from mudstats, so beware of that; however, that is a useful tool. Essentially, think slipgate legacy; I never played it, mainly because I was waiting for them to be more developed, but they took the idea of miriani and actually gave it a much, much more complex piloting system with headings and such. Ironically, starting, this is easier to code, especially on top of moo: in moo, you can write a lot of small pieces and get immediate feedback. But why the two major versions of that are coded on top of moo and my probably incorrect thoughts are for a different thread.
So basically, I'm interested in which of the two above or something else you think would be fun and would bring players. If I wrote something, got it to a releasable state, and actually kept motivation through that project, I'd go after the non-mud crowd; for the second, a graphical client, even with 3d graphics, wouldn't be too hard to write, though it would of course take time. Unfortunately, I'd have to get someone else to do it, but I digress again.
Essentially, I wasn't sure where to put this thread so I put it here; I'm interested in possibly coding a mud or moo or something but my Ideas aren't fully formed, but this is because I've not found something that keeps my interest for more than a few months at a time, so I'm kind of a bit looking for reccomendations.

Anyhow, I hope that was followable; I'm sometimes outright cryptic or way over on mars, or something.
camlorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2011, 08:11 PM   #2
Newworlds
Legend
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Name: NewWorlds
Home MUD: New Worlds
Posts: 1,425
Newworlds will become famous soon enoughNewworlds will become famous soon enough
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Hello Camlorn!

I thought I'd give you the famous link that everyone should read prior to even considering starting a game. So here it is:



After reviewing and considering the link perhaps some other suggestions will come your way to help you succeed in this endeavor.
Newworlds is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2011, 08:32 PM   #3
crystalsouls
New Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Home MUD: New Worlds Ateraan
Posts: 2
crystalsouls is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

I have to say I'd like to see more muds with -enforced- roleplay. Right now it seems that even if roleplay isn't enforced it isn't there at all, and without RP I might as well play an MMO. I also prefer muds to be quest and cooperation driven, rather than focussed on PvP, though I know that's just my opinion, and that it also means more work for the builders. Lastly my vote is for fantasy.
crystalsouls is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2011, 09:47 PM   #4
Darren Brimhall
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 243
Darren Brimhall is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

While what the MUD is doesn't concern me, what I would prefer seeing are MUD's with impartical Staff's not pulled from the Player Base to to insure no 'friends helping friends'--as what appears to occur in MUD's with such systems.


Darren Brimhall
Darren Brimhall is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 09:55 AM   #5
Addonex
New Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Home MUD: Seven Kingdoms
Home MUD: The Burning Post II
Home MUD: Lusternia
Posts: 11
Addonex is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

I'm kind of split in two on that one. Where as impartial, outside admin would be able to provide impartial judgement, an admin taken from among the playerbase would know the players, know what they wanted and, hopefully, how to implement it.

But, onward to the main discussion. As crystalsouls mentioned, I'd definitely prefer RP being enforced/mandatory, as in the Iron Realms MUD's (Achaea, Aetolia, Lusternia, Imperian, and Midkemia), versus the MUD's where the main draw is just ooc chatter and gaining skills... hence why I lost interest in BatMUD and RetroMUD. Both were great ideas, just the Rp was... non-existent.

Also, others may disagree with me on this, but I prefer class and level based MUD's. The class-less MUD's always seem... I don't know, but they just aren't really my style. And the level-less MUD's, for me atleast, fail to differentiate between (Using Star Conquest, as an example) the guy who's been playing for a year or two, and is fairly well off with an org, a load of money, and a decent ship, versus the guy who goes on a few salvage ops, gets a ****-ton of money, and then buys the best ship, not knowing what it's like to work for it.

Now, to get to another popular subject, races. Personally,5 or 6 races is too few, but more than 9 or 10 is too many. Also, don't differentiate the stats up too much between the races. I mean, orcs that are strong, and have decent constitution, that's all well and good. But they shouldn't be ridiculously over-powered in that field as compared to, say, and elf. The game should be focused on the Rp, not the stats behind it. As I learned from someone on a game I play, "Roleplay is not a fight between who's faster, but who can portray their character better."

As for, in the case of magi (Which I usually am) the spell system. For most MUD's, it's a continuous "you reach X level, you get Y spell, which does Z damage." I prefer a more versatile system. For example, the one I've become accustomed to in a MUD called Seven Kingdoms.


It's based upon several factors. Mainly, upon the amount of skill in each of the "realms" which are basically schools of magic (Necromancy, Summoning, etc, etc). Then, it's based upon level, with each spell only being able to be unlocked at a certain level. Then, it's just a roll of the virtual dice, and see what you get. Hell, there are always anomalies. Level 5 mage who's barely learned his skills, ends up getting a level 35 spell. I, on the other hand, the level 32 mage, end up not getting a single spell since level 26.
Anyway, It's a great system, and aside from the fact that it's in development, only 3 or 4 people play it, and most discussion is INVOLVING the development so Rp is lacking, it's a pretty good MUD... it's got potential.

Anyway, enjoy the random ramblings of my mind, as seen above.

Addx.
Addonex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 09:59 AM   #6
camlorn
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 144
camlorn is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Ok, so, first I don't think I made this clear: this isn't -likely- to happen. I recognize that I'm new at mudding and coding in general, but it sure would be great if I pulled it off. It's something I've wanted to do for some years now, and just haven't, mainly for lack of motivation. I'm finally building up that motivation, a bit at a time; it's something I think about more and more lately.
Darren, your comment about staff is somewhat true, however, it isn't the responsibility of the admin to find staff outside a particular group. It is the responsibility of the admin to log and address complaints, but I can't ignore the only major source of mud staff: mud players. That said, favoritism is bad and should be dealt with; the best way, probably, is to keep server-side logs of all immortals.

Newworlds, I'm aware of most of the stuff on that link. I've never managed to work somewhere for any long period of time, mostly because I've never become greatly attached to any muds. I tend to bounce around about 6-10 muds, in a cycle of about a year.

Crystalsouls, rpi is just about the only thing I'm not interested in; I have nothing against rp, but have nothing for it either. I've played both rpi and not-rpi muds and honestly don't have a preference. I do kind of agree with your statement, however, being visually impaired means that I can't go play a graphical mmorpg. There are a lot of things that mmorpgs have a better time modelling, but that also holds true for muds. I've never heard of a system of atomic quests like the one lyannic's working on, seen lost souls' system of knowledge modelling (you know that something's made of black stone; you identify it and the black-stone longsword might become the warpstone longsword, etc; this is extended to all items), and you can almost forget about modelling flight like some muds do, unless your entire game is based around it for a variety of reasons. That said, a main quest line would be nice, something along the lines of a text adventure, for people to do when others aren't around. Heck, you could even do something like a lot of browser games do where the main quest is the goal with a lot of side quests, and once you finish the main quest you start over with some benefit, going round and round forever. There are problems with this and I am aware of them. I'm not saying I would, just that it could be done.

All this said, there's no telling if my project will ever reach the light of day or even have a quarter of the stuff I'd want to see; writing a mud is a lot of work, and if I don't think I can honestly open it and keep it open, I won't; we don't need another mud that opens for a year or so and ends up in the mud graveyard or opens and starts dieing on the first day.
camlorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 10:07 AM   #7
Addonex
New Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Home MUD: Seven Kingdoms
Home MUD: The Burning Post II
Home MUD: Lusternia
Posts: 11
Addonex is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Amen to that.
Addonex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 10:08 AM   #8
Addonex
New Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Home MUD: Seven Kingdoms
Home MUD: The Burning Post II
Home MUD: Lusternia
Posts: 11
Addonex is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

And, again, this may be considered advertising if you want, but check out Seven Kingdoms. It's a great MUD.... in theory. Once the head admin actually gets his **** together and updates it, then it should make a great MUD.
Addonex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 11:48 AM   #9
KaVir
Legend
 
KaVir's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Name: Richard
Home MUD: God Wars II
Posts: 2,052
KaVir will become famous soon enoughKaVir will become famous soon enough
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Then why not aim for something small? Write an elevator pitch for a fun game that can be developed relatively quickly, and see if you can sell it to yourself as something you'd enjoy playing.

Things like RP, PK, classes, levels, races, etc, are all a matter of personal preference. So pick whichever you prefer - if you don't like your own mud, you'll never be motivated to finish it.
KaVir is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 01:12 PM   #10
SnowTroll
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 183
SnowTroll will become famous soon enough
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

You're doing things backward. Make the best mud you can, then try to sell it to people based on all the neat things you've accomplished making it. Don't ask the general community to tell you a bunch of things it likes, then hope we're still interested a year from now when you finally get around to making your first crude attempt (if you ever even get that far).

Have a core group of friends who will be your first devoted players. Poach them from the mud you play now if you have to. Players make the mud, not features. And it's not features that attract your first players. I've never tried out a mud because it had unique races or an automated quest system. I've tried out a mud because fellow mud players I know or like recommended it. Even if your mud meets everybody's lavish desires to a T, we're all going to log in, see nobody there, and log out in 3 seconds because it's not worth taking the time to write a character description or figure out your unique systems.

Also, if I were you, I'd make a really awesome mud. All about Pokemon, but have it take place in the world of Harry Potter. But add unique races. I want to see Pokemon wizards who do battle with octopus-rabbit hybrid monsters in between charm and potion classes. And make sure it's adult oriented, because you bet your sweet butt I want to have some furry child-aged pokemon magic cybersex.
SnowTroll is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 04:20 PM   #11
camlorn
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 144
camlorn is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

SnowTroll, no cybersex, sorry. Not going to happen; I do have some respect for the idea of quality. If you need that, go find an urban fantasy novel or something; there's quite a few out there that people think are...a bit explicit.

KaVir, I like that idea kind of; do you mean a small mud or just a game in general? My problem is that I'm an overachiever, kind of; my project ideas are long, complex, and usually are an excuse to read wikipedia articles and various tutorials about, for instance, x86 assembly (which I did for fun, once; I can understand the basics of it).

And, a generic response; I wasn't asking what the community "wanted", not really. Asking what the community wants is a way to serve another purpose: to find out what would bring in players. The issue is the threshold of players required to keep players on long enough to try; one sollution to this is the aforementioned questline, such that the game is fun to an extent solo. That said, I can probably get a few people to log in, from various places; I'd be on i3, and I think there's an advertising channel on that too. Also, running events is always a good way: be on at 9 every Saturday for such-and-such; if you're new come try then because there will be players. I was, in short, trying to find not something that everyone wants, but something that, if done, would at least get people to try; it is also my opinion that we don't need yet another fantasy mud with dnd mages under another name,. To be honest, there's a ton of rpi muds out there with features that'd be good for hack and slash; no one seems to do that, for instance. Ideally, that's what I'd want to do, add the crafting and skill system and such of an rpi into a hack and slash mud. But that's only my thought on the matter, and the only way to really know is to make it and seel.

Unfortunately, the mud community is stable, meaning that most have a fixed mud. I play here, that is all. It may also be dieing, but then again, it may not; I can't read the various graphs that people have made because of the aforementioned blindness.
camlorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 05:05 PM   #12
Anjanas
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 44
Anjanas is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Since when was iron realms games roleplay enforced or mandatory. Don't know where you've been playing Addonex, but it isn't Achaea, Aetolia, Lusternia, Imperian, or Midkemia. Everyone one of them is hackslash hackslash hackslash hackslash and yes hackslash.
Anjanas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 10:01 PM   #13
Darren Brimhall
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 243
Darren Brimhall is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Concerning cyber-sex, that's a dead horse. Given the creative level of players, they'll find a way around it that works.

This is a bit of a long shot, but you can try creating a MUD based on Robert A. Heinlein's World as Myth concept.



and




Right now, though its not truely definate, such an ideal as how the charaters come into Eternea (the game I'm helping to build) by way of The Otherrealms--where the Fanasty of one realm is the Fact of another.

Hopefully, I'll know by Friday on this. But think the ideal over.


Darren Brimhall
Darren Brimhall is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2011, 10:27 PM   #14
dentin
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Home MUD: Alter Aeon
Posts: 245
dentin is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Players are like women (or men, if you're female): They think they know what they want, and they'll tell you what they think they want, but they don't actually want that. They want something else, they just don't know it.

Asking the players what they want is a Bad Idea the vast majority of the time. Not 100% of the time; but definitely more than 90%.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD
dentin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-03-2011, 09:38 AM   #15
Burningpost
New Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 8
Burningpost is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Make the MUD you want to play. If you like it there, at least you're guaranteed one player! Honestly, if you don't love the theme and everything else about it, you'll burn out quickly.
Burningpost is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-03-2011, 03:45 PM   #16
camlorn
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 144
camlorn is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Well, Darren, without reading those links, it sounds like some sort of pan-dimensional probability physics, or something; probably not my cup of tea.

Dentin, I'm agreeing with you on this one, to an extent; this topic, however, has been helpful. I'm kind of at square one again, though, which is work on it when I feel like it and write what I want, and something might come of it eventually. That said, it is also a good learning experience, dealing with a wide variety of coding issues that a lot of people don't even need to know these days, or so it seems to me. I should probably go pick a language now, learn it, and just start coding and see what happens. Now I only need a fully cross-platform library for everything that's not ansi c, but that's for another thread and probably not for this forum, either. Or I could do lpc, but if I'm going to do this for real, I should probably do something that'd transfer to a job, down the road. I'm in college atm, for computer science.

And finally, don't get me started on ire. It is rp enforced. I'm giong to stop there and say that it's not my cup of tea.
camlorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-04-2011, 12:42 AM   #17
Newworlds
Legend
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Name: NewWorlds
Home MUD: New Worlds
Posts: 1,425
Newworlds will become famous soon enoughNewworlds will become famous soon enough
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Not to get you started, but in IRE games the roleplay is "encouraged" not "enforced". There is a big difference Camlorn, but this isn't the thread to detail those differences.
Newworlds is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-04-2011, 08:31 AM   #18
Will
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 90
Will is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

For what it's worth, there are two basic things I've learned about building games, mostly the hard way:

1. If your goal isn't building a game that's fun for players, first and foremost, you've already failed.

2. If you don't know what's involved in building a MUD and aren't highly committed and highly motivated to making it happen, your project will never see the light of day.

Just sayin'.

Last edited by Will : 11-04-2011 at 04:10 PM.
Will is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2011, 03:45 AM   #19
Nexxx
New Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Home MUD: Atonement RPI
Posts: 5
Nexxx is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Hmm... a 3.5ed AD&D game. There's several settings you can use under the OGL and several books to help you with the creation process or you could easily just use the rules and create your own setting.

For one, there's not a single MUD out there that uses solid 3.5ed rules, so you would be the first. Most are very old games that run 1-2ed rules and are mostly just hack and slash with little to no content matter. What I'm suggesting is more of an RPI-style game:

-Skill & Perk based character system.
-Permanent character death.
Nexxx is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2011, 08:47 AM   #20
camlorn
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 144
camlorn is on a distinguished road
Re: may start a mud: what would you prefer?

Heh, this thread is kinda old; I'm surprised to see another response.

I have actually considered using the dnd stuff, at least for inspiration, as it's even got a crafting system. Unfortunately, iirc, it's got a lot of grid based stuff: we'd be looking at ascii grids at the least and I'm blind rl so I can't even develop that, let alone use it. That said, it's been a very very long time since I've looked at it.

What I kind of want to do, actually, is write a codebase from scratch with no intent of opening. I'm giong to college for a computer science degree, and it's good practice: you touch on every part of c++, and maybe someday I can open. The long and short of it is that when looking at starting a mud I have more interest in how the codebase works, so that's what I'll probably do if anything. And then I can eventually publish it, maybe.

Finally, for the moment, this project is on the back burner; I'm about to go off to college (I already was, but I'm switching and will be in a dorm).
camlorn is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:09 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Style based on a design by Essilor
Copyright Top Mud Sites.com 2022