[Newworlds]

Hi folks,

I am personally proud of those people who are spending their time and effort in making MUD's (all of them) more well known and gaining notoreity.

Proph1515 has done a fantastic job of this with his RPMUD network. I don't always agree with him but I respect his groups efforts. Stop railing on him and thank him for his work. He is not trying to make all MUD's cater to his network. He is trying to build a community within the MUD community. There is way to much in fighting here and that needs to stop if we want to collectively gain more players

FredBauder is another one who started MUDWiki. Nice.

Someone did WikiMU*.

All of these people are working to bolster are community. Good work and carry on. Many of us back you up!

(Disclaimer: NW is not part of any of the above groups or communities, we just support the actions to build such things.)

[ShadowsDawn]

Originally Posted by Aeran Edit: Also who/what is the "RPMUD Committee"?

The RPMud Committee is a group of people who are in charge of managing the RPMud network, making decisions on how we will manage our website and make policies of how to handle the various tasks we are setting out to do.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Hi folks, I am personally proud of those people who are spending their time and effort in making MUD's (all of them) more well known and gaining notoreity. Proph1515 has done a fantastic job of this with his RPMUD network. I don't always agree with him but I respect his groups efforts. Stop railing on him and thank him for his work. He is not trying to make all MUD's cater to his network. He is trying to build a community within the MUD community. There is way to much in fighting here and that needs to stop if we want to collectively gain more players

Thank you for the kind words of support but the RPMUD Network is not me alone. There are five of us (and a recently elected sixth member) who have ALL been working hard now for week after week, month after month. Every Monday night for the last 4-5 months has consisted of 4-5 hour long meetings refining and re-defining the site's purpose and trying to find the best way to accomplish the most good, then the coders in our group have worked through the week on the various aspects while the others have begun some of the other non-code aspects of the site design. If anything, my role has been more in terms of organization and management of the group itself than the actual nose-to-grindstone coding of the site (codetard that I am). But the Operating Committee as a whole has determined our course. ShadowsDawn and I are the two members who participate here on TMS but there are also three others who don't participate on the TMS forums. Together, we've got a variety of perspectives on the various types of RP-Enforced MU*s and every decision we've made has been the result of our combined determination, weighing everything as fully as we can before proceeding (in fact, we've discussed everything to such minute detail that with only a few exceptions the final results of our discussions have ended in 5-0 decisions).

I do thank you though and I'm sure the others do as well. Hopefully our efforts will yield a result which can fill a void in the community, at least so far as enforced RP MU*s are concerned.

Take care,

Jason

[Lasher]

(Not directed at NewWorlds, just responding to his quote)

Originally Posted by Newworlds All of these people are working to bolster are community. Good work and carry on. Many of us back you up!

It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war, but in the interests of community building and bringing more people into MUDs, RPMuds could do with taking a serious look at how they treat people who obviously don't want to roleplay.

We often get a lot of people on Aardwolf asking about roleplay. We tell them that some clans do some roleplaying and there is a channel/forum for it, but roleplay is not an integral part of the MUD. We also tell them that there are many fine MUDs out there that do focus on roleplay and direct them here, TMC, etc. There is no implication of what is right or better, just differences in style.

It has been a while since I did this, but I used to hang out on RPMuds from time to time. Newbies who appeared new to MUDs and were probably looking for a more hack and slash environment were often derided and looked down on. Either that or they were told to learn to roleplay and they'd like it eventually. No idea what happened to those folks, but if they were new to MUDs they might not be aware of the huge range in styles of MUD, decided it wasn't what they wanted, and gone back to WoW or whatever. The same applies to "Hardcore PK" vs non-PK.

If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

[Kleothera]

Permit me to reiterate for the record once again-

a. No one is railing at Prof1515. No one is questioning the value and contribution of the group he is associated with to the MUD community. Disagreeing with a single post on a webforum (perhaps based on ambiguous syntax), does not constitute a question over personal worth, commitment or contribution. This, however, works both ways.

b. What I am saying is in the context of what Lasher has also just said, it would help to have THOSE games to be also professional and maturely run. I belong to the extreme end of the RP end of my MUD, there are new players we get to whom we have to explain the difference between IC and OOC. I have seen some of these same people (without any previous background of tabletop RPGs etc) move on (in a recent case of my clan) to join the local branch of the Historical Anachronism Society after 6 months of DE. New people need to try out RP before they begin to like it. This happens in non RPI MUDs. Some people eventually end up in RPI games. Some still don't want to play RPI games- preferring other forms of MUD gaming (anything from social MUDs to more engrossing hack and slash). Others stick to the same mix of OOC sociability, hack and slash and RP (but usually with a heavier tilt towards RP as they get used to the mechanics of the game). Its a matter of choice for the individual in the end.

However, as I said the last time, my intention is NOT to launch into a huge digression on the H&S-RP Encouraged- RP Enforced- RPI muds continuum (which is really outside the purview of this discussion). We were discussing valid and reliable sources of information on MUDs (of all stripes, including RPI) and ways to make the community more professional before it got side tracked (largely because of me I guess). Sorry for taking everyone off topic for almost half a screen.

In this context Lasher's point about pooling players and sending them along to the places they might like- be they sending budding RPers who have outgrown their context onwards to heavier RP MUDs or people who login into heavy RP Games and find themselves unhappy, to games with a less intensive RP, has a lot of value.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by Lasher It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war....

JIHAD!

(Laughs as he realizes the CIA probably just flagged this site and discussion)

[Parhelion]

Originally Posted by Lasher (Not directed at NewWorlds, just responding to his quote) It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war, but in the interests of community building and bringing more people into MUDs, RPMuds could do with taking a serious look at how they treat people who obviously don't want to roleplay. We often get a lot of people on Aardwolf asking about roleplay. We tell them that some clans do some roleplaying and there is a channel/forum for it, but roleplay is not an integral part of the MUD. We also tell them that there are many fine MUDs out there that do focus on roleplay and direct them here, TMC, etc. There is no implication of what is right or better, just differences in style. It has been a while since I did this, but I used to hang out on RPMuds from time to time. Newbies who appeared new to MUDs and were probably looking for a more hack and slash environment were often derided and looked down on. Either that or they were told to learn to roleplay and they'd like it eventually. No idea what happened to those folks, but if they were new to MUDs they might not be aware of the huge range in styles of MUD, decided it wasn't what they wanted, and gone back to WoW or whatever. The same applies to "Hardcore PK" vs non-PK. If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

I am jumping in on this thread a bit late, so please forgive me if I've missed something (which I probably have). It's also filled with a lot of my opinions and observations, so don't twist my words as me stating fact. They are merely observed trends.


I agree, to some level, that what your suggesting is a better alternative to simply rebating new players about roleplay; however, there are some problems with it that make it a little unfeasible to expect out of every (or even most) MUDs.

First off, more MUDs would need to cooperate, and that's just not going to happen. In my own personal experience, we've fought for so long against each other that we just don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves and our own interests. We are not willing to cooperate with other games of any genre, generally speaking. Administrators or PR staff would have to become more familiar with games outside of their own private little circle, to provide the best alternatives to new players, and we'd also have to actually start caring about what those players actually want.

The ignorant alternative to providing direct, personal insight is to direct a new player towards a directory website; however, there really aren't any out there that provide quality information and are easy to search. ((I am aware that there are plans out there for an objective, quality site, but the content will still be restricted to certain genres and its not yet up and running.)) TMS and the Mud Connector are not sufficient or appropriate, because these sites are mostly overrun by bigot fanaticals and hobbiests who just want to fight with someone or bend the truths about their own favorite games in the hopes of catching one more player. The search engines at these sites are both fairly weak, and the entries are out-of-date, easily falsified, or are misleading. In the long run, any newbie to MUDs who comes looking for a game is going to get tired very quickly of trying to find a game to play because of these weak interfaces. Some may even be put off by the community's overall 'aggressive' feel.

(( I am not trying to say that none of us puts forth the effort to be friendly -- I've seen a lot of helpful people here, but the bottom line is that it often gets lost in the immature trash that bubbles up on these forums. ))

Lastly, there is an issue with presentation; it's sometimes friendlier to suggest to a player that they should learn to RP -- if done correctly, its easier not to send the wrong message this way. By out-right suggesting other games, it tells a new player that we don't want them on our game (of course, we probably don't, especially if they are adamant about spoiling the environment), that we are elitist, and that other MUDs have smiliar environments. I'm not saying that everyone is going to treat their new misfit players this way, but because most games are staffed by volunteers and (let's face it) amateurs, very few games have any PR individuals who possess good tact or know how to handle a funky situation.

[scandum]

I've never really noticed a substantial difference between 'role playing allowed' and 'role playing encouraged' in TMC listings, they all seem hack and slash muds. I'd go as far as to say Godwars II makes a better roleplaying environment than 95% of the roleplaying encouraged muds out there.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Lasher If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

Very well put. I try to do the same. The beauty of our MUD community is the variety. Different people have different ideas of what is fun. Some have several ideas and play several styles of MUDs.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Parhelion First off, more MUDs would need to cooperate, and that's just not going to happen. In my own personal experience, we've fought for so long against each other that we just don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves and our own interests. We are not willing to cooperate with other games of any genre, generally speaking. Administrators or PR staff would have to become more familiar with games outside of their own private little circle, to provide the best alternatives to new players, and we'd also have to actually start caring about what those players actually want.

That's too bad that you have this attitude. I can tell you that NW's staff make an effort to get to know different MUDs and we constantly will recommend and support other formats and games. Usually the one's we have played and enjoy and hopefully have something unique to offer.

On that same token, those that are negative and isolationists, we are happy to not recommend and/or warn against.

[Lurker94]

Don't forget the mud community also includes people who simply play muds and aren't coders, creators or admins.

Speaking as one such person, I can attest that I watch out for newcomers to whichever mud I happen to be currently playing and if they express discontent with that mud's style of play, and I know of another mud that would be a better fit, I send them there.

I've quietly done this over the years and I suspect I'm not the only one who does this. There is no one mud that is right for everyone and the more people who acknowledge this the better.

So whether you are a player, owner, admin or whatever. Do the right thing and help newcomers get placed in the right sort of mud for their tastes. It's really not too difficult to educate yourself to the different styles of muds out there and teach people how to find them.