The problem is that you can't guarantee a level playing field, because you can't stop people from creating their own clients. All you can do is stop them from using their favourite clients, and that's going to put a lot of people off even trying the game.

I don't disagree that it'll turn some people away, but just as anything, if you want to prevent something - you can only take the steps necessary to discourage it as much as possible.

An example of what I refer to is the combat dev concept of scripting and howmuch it should be allowed to effect PVP combat(or discouraged from effecting combat). There are certainly precautions you can take that will reduce scripting's effectiveness, and those precautions may turn players who are very script reliant away from your game - however, there will still be some hardcore, talented players who find ways around your precautions. I believe the same could be looked at here - it's a dev choice, just like anything else, and they have decided that their target does not include people unwilling to try their MUD without running zMUD/etc. This could definitely bite them in the ass, as you predict - and as long as they are aware of that and aim their marketting well, then perhaps they will not suffer more than they are willing to for that decision.

It'd be my personal suggestion that they keep it open to a a possible future change. If it seems that they could be doing much better if they go back in and make the interface zMUD/etc compatible, then they could have that option at a future time.

I have to add that we have not really decided yet which strategy to use.

1. Make !ao clients illegal to use.

2. Put up a specification and data files for download for those who wish to code their own. Possibly writing a proxy server that simply strips off every extra protocol info we have and send simply raw text to the player.