Searching for a Mud
 

While we are heavily arguing the topic of "What is Free?" and a push for change is in the works for more options in the search engine, I have found some serious modifications that need to be changed in the search engine to better categorize what players may look for.

The first change should definately be in the drop down box about Number of Players. The present system here (if anyone uses it to find a mud) is severely inadequate. Who would search for a mud with 6 to 10 players or 11 to 15 or 21 to 25. That is rules out way to many muds that sit on the verge of this. Much better would be the following options:

[ ] 0..10 Players
[ ] 11..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[ ] 50..100 Players
[ ] Over 100 Players

Anything in between is virtually the same in most games.

The second change I believe that is needed is an option on Age or Maturity. Rather than "Adult" game which normally categorizes highly sexual content.

I would think this option box could be:

[ ] This mud is for all ages
[ ] Under 16 Allowed to play
[ ] 16 or Older Only
[ ] 18 or Older Only

NW requires you to be mature to play in the environment as a RP Enforced Game. Most players on NW and those that find our game do not enjoy roleplaying with immature players who use chat speak in game and cannot maintain a mature disposition. Many players have said they have had a hard time finding a game with the required maturity that we demand. I think this option box would help such players find the mud they seek and the peer group they seek.

What do you think of these options and what other options do you think might enhance the search engine?

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I would go one step further and make it a broader range here:
0-20
21-50
51-100
over 100.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I agree. I might even consider grouping the first two categories together (0-25 Players), though I suppose an argument can be made that there are likely a significant enough number of players that would see a real distinction between a mud with 10 players and one with 20.

I think the two age distinctions should be kept at 18 and 13. If a mud feels they need to restrict access based on age, they are probably doing it at 18 (the age of majority) or at 13 (the age below which COPPA restrictions kick in).

There is also no real need to distinguish between the first two is there? Aren't both just variations on "all ages allowed to play"?

Some more options could be added to the "Category" entry. There is, for example, an entry for "Medieval Fantasy" but not one just for "Fantasy." Given that the fantasy genre, both in games and literature, has expanded well beyond the Dark Ages with Dwarves motif, it might be worth making this distinction (or just dropping the "Medieval"). The game I'm currently working on would certainly fall in the fantasy genre, and it has a feel to it that would appeal to people looking for a fantasy RP environment, but it is definitely not a "medieval" fantasy.

Some additions to the Codebase options would be nice as well. Many of the newer (and even not-so-newer) bases are not listed, including my own favorite (nudge nudge wink wink say no more), the Genesis ColdC Server.

The "None" and "Accepted" options in the Roleplaying category could probably be rolled into a single "Non-Roleplay" option (unless "None" is supposed to mean that roleplay is actually forbidden). It might be nice to see more distinctions made between roleplay styles. Players looking for consent-based RP aren't going to be happy with the RP style of Armageddon, just as players who enjoy Armageddon and similar RPIs might not be as thrilled with a game like Threshold which, while RP-mandatory, also has a number of gamier elements (static quests, level grinding) which such players might consider more appropriate to hack-n-slashers. I'm not really sure how I'd propose going about categorizing the roleplay style of muds in a meaningful way, however. This is likely information better left to the muds' info pages and websites.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I like that.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

It's not so much that, but rather the fact that all those fly-by-night stock muds with 0 players would be in the same category as the muds which have an average of 20 players (with perhaps a lot more than that during peak hours).

Not all players want to find a mud with hundreds of players online at all times, but most want at least a reasonable number of other people they can interact with. As such, I think it's a good idea to keep the first option within a fairly low range, although I'd agree that both the current "0" and "1-5" are perhaps a bit unnecessary. Either "less than 5" or "less than 10" would be pretty reasonable though, in my opinion.

And before someone comments on my motives, let me clarify that my average playerbase is currently 30.53 (calculated over a 127.5 hour uptime).

One thing I really would like to see, though, is for the search option to let you pick multiple playerbase sizes, perhaps even with a quick way of selecting "anything above/below this option".

Personally I'm not so keen on listing an explicit age, mostly because it's so arbitrary (although I can understand muds including it for legal reasons). My current mud doesn't have any sexual content, but it does contain excessive violence, and has no rules about language - thus I've selected the "adults only" option as an informative suggestion/warning. But I'm not going to ban people for being under a certain age.

I think just "Fantasy" might be a bit too generic, except perhaps as a placeholder (for when a particular Fantasy subcatagory isn't available). I'd also really like to have a "Dark Fantasy" catagory for my own mud - there's already a "World of Darkness" catagory (which is a specific type of Dark Fantasy), but nothing for other types of Dark Fantasy. For info about the subgenre, see:

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I must agree with Kavir on this. Though I wouldn't turn down more players, if we had them....
Having what I consider a mud that treats everyone with respect, and where we are all good friends,
is ideal for me. 10 - 20 players is the perfect not too big, still paying attention to individual player
needs type mud for me. We at 6 Dragons are like a close knit family, and I know a lot of other muds
out there are happy to be the same.

Vladaar

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I can see the reasoning behing both this post and Kavir's. Perhaps the 0..20 is a bit high and maybe this model might work?

[ ] Under 10 Players
[ ] 11..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[ ] 50..100 Players
[ ] Over 100 Players

This allows for five options: 1 low, 1 high, and three in the middle ground. And the categories I think will allow players to find the nitch that works for them. Under 10 being the new or very tight group. 11 to 25 being the small but still relatively workable base. 26 to 50 giving a medium range. 50 to 100 large but not huge, and over 100 getting the players that are searching for a big playerbase game.


On the age/mature debate. That's a tough one for me. While I like defined ages, I through in the 16 + age because it seems that if a person is 16 or older than seem to be able to roleplay. This is a bit selvish as NW is a rp mandantory and we seek good roleplayers, as apposed to anyone playing, but I'm not sure how else to break it out. Suggestions?

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I think broadening the ranges would be helpful for the small muds out there like mine as there would be a greater chance of coming up in someone's search. However, I think keeping the current ranges and letting the player use checkboxes to check the ones they want would be best. When I use this search, I generally end up doing 2 or 3 searches.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

One of the problems with player counts is understanding what it means.

First, let's assume that the MUD is being truthful. But as anyone who knows statistics, "average" is really not very meaningful in itself. For example, a MUD that has 50 people on noon to midnight then none from midnight to noon, might say 25. But for someone who can play only midnight to noon, the number is meaningless. And for the others, it doesn't really represent the true population.

I'm not sure what the correct metric is... but maybe it would be better to allow the average to reflect a 6 hour period, and for the game to declare what that period is.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

The correct usage here would be "fewer than 5" or "fewer than 10".

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Symantics. Kavir's point was cleary understood.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

And that would be "semantics". :D I am sorry, the fewer/less distinction is one of my pet peeves.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

No worries, I understand your point, I just don't care as much about fewer/less perhaps as you do. You win the typo award of the month.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Fewer than 5 players online at all times, but an average player base (mass noun) of less than 5.

I always tend to think in terms of "average player base", probably because I keep track of it in fractions rather than whole players.

Re: player base by time zone
 

If they declare the time zone, and that peak time, it can be confusing also. At least I have have only rough guesses of those time zone TLA's, usually in the way of "not my time zone".

Most people can do the math if time is announced in GMT/UTC.

I suggest that 4 hour slots are fine, making 6 numbers.

Average player base at given time (GMT/UTC hours):
00 - 04
05 - 08
09 - 12
13 - 16
17 - 20
21 - 24

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I feel your pain, Ogma. Fewer/less is one of mine. The bigger one for me is when people use "over" instead of "more than." Makes me twitch.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Maybe some people like to be "over" 10 people. ORGY! :eek:

I think there's a really big difference between 10 players and 20 players, but there's really not that much difference between 5 and 9. This seems like the most helpful one to me:

[ ] Under 10 Players
[ ] 11..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[ ] 50..100 Players
[ ] Over 100 Players

Now, my question has always been is this "peak time" count or total playerbase count? Does this mean that when you log on, you should expect to find around 25 players, or does it mean that you log on and between 5 and 10 of your dedicated players are online?

I've always assumed that it was a "peak time" count, but I've logged on to some of the games and wondered.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Unfortunately muds with an average of 10 players wouldn't be able to select any options, while those with an average of 50 players would need to select two :P

I'd propose either:

[ ] 0-10 Players
[ ] 11-25 Players
[ ] 26-50 Players
[ ] 49-100 Players
[ ] Over 100 Players

Or:

[ ] 0-9 Players
[ ] 10-24 Players
[ ] 25-49 Players
[ ] 50-99 Players
[ ] 100+ Players

I favour the latter, as the milestones are (mostly) round numbers, but that's just personal preference.

I'd also rather see the values go above 100, even if it's just the extra option for 250+ that we've got already.

The listing refers to it as "Avg Players Online", which seems fairly clear to me. If you've got 25 players online for the 6 hours of peak time and 5 players online for the other 18 hours, then that's an average of 10 players online.

TMC instead lists it as "Min. # of Players Online", which I find to be far less useful.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

This is already coming up in some of the posts in this thread, but I'd like to lend my support to the idea that playerbase size in some way needs to convey peak vs. off-peak times for a given MUD, where applicable. Peak times will be similar for most America-based MUDs, but some will have strong European or Asian followings to round out other chunks of the day and others won't. It does me little good to find a MUD with an average 50 playerbase (if I'm looking for that) if the hours I can play are the hours it's hanging around 10. A MUD with its prime times coinciding with my play times will probably feel like a 'bigger' MUD to me even if its average is lower than another game.

I'm not sure what the best way to convey that information in a searchable way is, though.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I actually messed up on the 4th option here. It should have been 51..100. So here is the new list:

[ ] Under 10 Players
[ ] 11..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[ ] 51..100 Players
[ ] Over 100 Players

As for time frames. I putting peak hours will muddy the waters and is confusing EST, MST, Euro time, etc. I think better would be a listing (if it's not already in the search engine) of where your game is located. Europe, U.S.A., Asia and/or what your games standard clock is or your playerbase (for example NW is based on Eastern Standard Time, location doesn't matter much, we have many players from Europe and elsewhere). I know many muds are listed as Euro based or Asian, etc.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Ah, thanks! I think I just copied and pasted one of the other posts since I got the gist of what was being stated.

I went back and looked at the listings, and it said "Average Number of Players Online", which is not very clear to me. Our peak times definitely has way more players at any other given time, but we have a good number of people except for the very early hours of the morning. Are we supposed to take our peak times and divide it by our lowest times? How are we supposed to arrive at an "average". Peak can be anywhere from 90 to 110 and stretches for approximately 4-5 hours while low points can be as low as 35 to 50 for about 2 hours of dead time. Figuring out a player per hour ratio while factoring in weekends vs weekday usage would be a pain!

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I just factor in how many players RIGHT after a reboot. So NW is in the Division by Zero Range. Heh.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

You still need to decide where "10" goes.

I suppose you could use the median, or even the mode, but personally I find the arithmetic mean to be the most accurate as well as the easiest to calculate - simply add up the total number of played seconds and divide it by the uptime. Thus if there are 600 played seconds and the mud has been up for 60 seconds, the average number of players is 10. Calculated over hundreds or thousands of hours uptime, it can provide a pretty reasonable average.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Ugh, okay this should do it and to fix some wording:

[ ] Fewer than 10 Players
[ ] 10..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[ ] 51..100 Players
[ ] More than 100 Players

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Why make checkboxes to search for a range of numbers? You could simply allow people to determine minimum and maximum themselves and do a greater than or smaller than search.

As for checkboxes, Playerkilling, for example, is too broadly defined. One thing PK system needs is a textbox where admins can describe the PK system of their game. Few checkboxes should also be used to narrow down the option that TMS search would give to you. These questions are some people could find somewhat relevant:

Is there an option to opt out from PK?

[ ] Yes [ ] No

Does the game have safe zones?

[ ] Yes [ ] No

Some other options could also be useful here.

Roleplay category would also benefit from a text box, as admins could then describe there what they expect from a player roleplay-wise or how roleplay is seen in their MUD. There might also be some relevant check boxes in this category also, but I can't think of one right now. Personally, I think that more category-specific text boxes would benefit the info file and would result to the info files having higher quality of information about the MUDs they describe.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Could the TMS MUD Database include whether a MUD allows or does not allow multi-playing? That's a feature I've used when searching at TMC and would like to see that added here as well.

Some Hack'N'Slash muds are very difficult to play unless one is grouped and it's handy to know in advance whether a potential player can make their own group.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Ah! You mean like a

Mud population desired [ ] to [ ]

The player would input "50" to "1000", and the engine would spit out whatever MUDs would fit that category?

I'd be fine with that since anyone lying would just get some seriously disappointed players. :)

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Hmm, how could you group with yourself. Sounds difficult and odd.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

By playing multiple characters at the same time. Thus his question about multi-playing.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

The player would enter "50" to "1000" if he considers 1000 as upper limit. You could also have an additional option that defines how the numbers are interpreted a drop-down menu or such where you can choose between minimum, maximum or range as search method. Of the two parameters, the parameter you don't want to define is left blank.

What comes to MUD admins lying, isn't the treshold to lie smaller when you can excuse yourself with the available options not describing your MUD adequately. A 30-60 player MUD would type in 30 as minimum and 60 as maximum. In the checkbox system that admin would check

[ ] Fewer than 10 Players
[ ] 10..25 Players
[ ] 26..50 Players
[X] 51..100 Players
[ ] More than 100 Players

"Because 26-50 shows my 30-60 MUD in a poor light." So, it will be rounded upwards.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Multi-playing of course also influences the number of players on line. If half of them are duplicates or triplicates it totally skews the real number.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

Right you are, Molly. This thread helped me notice how the Beta Mud Database was missing a Multi-playing option.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

The same with bots and idlers. It starts getting difficult to accurately calculate numbers the more factors you want to take into account, though. I could have the mud only count unique IP addresses, but that would clump together people who share a connection, while ignoring those who can multiplay from different IP addresses. I could estimate the numbers, but I prefer to have the mud do it automatically if possible, as it's harder for people to argue with.

Having an option for multi-playing would at least let the player know that the number of players may well include duplicates. As with many of the other proposals, I'd also like to see a text-box for clarifying details. For example, a mud might allow you to multiplay, but with a maximum of 2 characters - or multiplaying might be banned, except for transferring equipment to storage characters.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I think we may be getting a little technical/complicated. Remember, the average mud player doesn't hang around these (or other) forums and all they want is to find a mud or a pool of muds to try out. One of the irritating things I found when I was searching for new muds (back when I was just a regular player) was that there were too many options and they required prior knowledge. Like the whole "26 - 50 players" category, for example, requires the person to know what a mud with a 26 - 50 playerbase plays like. Or, for PK selections, they would have had to have experience with a mud that has safe zones or whatever the choices are.

Just to propose a radically different idea: how about phrasing it similar to how people ask for mud suggestions when they post in the forum? For example:

How do you feel about the following statements? (1-highly negative to 9-highly positive):

1. A large playerbase is important to me.
2. I prefer as few PK restrictions as possible.
3. I need an environment that encourages and monitors high quality roleplay.

Or whatever the questions are, I just made those up. My point is that mud searches tend to focus very much on numbers, whereas people (especially non-technical people) want "feelings" - basically all they want to know is "is this a mud I will like"? Of course, that would bring up the mud profiles which would show the numbers. So someone who put 8 for the one about mud size, would end up getting the larger muds. Kind of like a search engine that has a percentage score for all muds and lists the highest ones first, rather than the "you're in or you're out, even if you just missed one category" searches that mud sites tend to have.

I agree that it would be a lot harder to do something like that, but I'd argue it would end up being more useful and mean that fewer games would be overlooked.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

I'm totally confused now. What database are you referring to?
Your own or the one for this site?

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

That would be the one on this site I assume, since the link at the top of the forum says "Mud Database (Beta)".

I think a multi-playing option might also be something to add, as I myself prefer games where it isn't allowed so being able to search for them would be of benefit.

Re: Searching for a Mud
 

It's very easy to group with your own account if the mud allows multi-playing. This is often found in muds with low populations but are designed for grouping in mind. Not all games are solo-friendly, and some games are solo-friendly only to a point.

Multi-playing has become mainstream in a lot of the bigtime games. You simply buy two accounts, run them on two different computers. Viola! You have an instant group (often to the detriment of anyone else playing with you).

Dark Age of Camelot was notorious for this, and it actually seemed to become a part of their business model. You had another account that you leveled up with your main account, and you would use them to buff your original account. They were commonly known as "buff bots". I had the misfortune of partying with someone who was running 3 accounts at the same time. It was horridly painful.

So, in most cases, it IS difficult to do this, but sometimes, in a very underpopulated game, it's really the only way to survive parts of the game depending on how the game is designed.