The "Health," of Muds
 

Over on another site that has limited participation I've been responding to KaVir and his weird logic that Muds are healthier now than ever before. The subject was brought up by a poster stating that MMORPGs are doing better than ever and more and more space is becoming available from the servers offering Mud space. He thought Muds were fading. He was immediately attacked by users over there for this opinion. I'm posting it here, because over there it's the same few people posting and they worship KaVir.

I believe Muds aren't healthier on a whole than ever before. I believe we're starting to see a "downcline," in users as well as Mud numbers. Users is really hard to prove. Mud numbers is easier to prove.

KaVir provided a list of how many Muds were created on the TMC listings and in what year:

Date New Total
1990 15 95
1991 31 126
1992 40 166
1993 36 202
1994 60 262
1995 76 338
1996 91 429
1997 71 500
1998 66 566
1999 133 699
2000 72 771
2001 61 832
2002 67 899
2003 74 973
2004 71 1044
2005 64 1108
2006 70 1178
2007 102 1280
2008 61 1341

He also has provided data that 802 Muds were "Removed," from the listings in a series of purges in 2005. From September of 2005 to the last purge (end of 2007) 208 muds were removed.

My logic states that 1010 muds were removed since 2005. While 297 were added. Certainly some of the 1110 muds were created in that time frame. Even if you go back to 2000, the number is 1010 vs. 642. Obviously quite a bit of the 1010 were created since 2000. Occam's Razer says it's easier to believe more muds "died," than were "born." I admit the hole in my logic is we don't know when the purged muds were created. We just know that 1010 muds that once existed but currently do not and that 1341 muds are currently listed by TMC.

KaVir says my logic is faulty. To quote KaVir "252 muds were added since September 2005. 208 muds have been purged since September 2005. Therefore there must been 252+208=460 muds added since September 2005, in order for there to be 252 left after 208 were purged. 460 is twice as much as 208. Thus more than twice as many muds have been added as have been purged in the last 2.5 years"

I say KaVir's logic is faulty.

If we dismiss the 802 that were purged in September 2005 my point is still proven by my logic. We know from KaVir that 252 muds were created since September 2005. We know 208 muds were purged at the end of 2007. Since they only purge every few years we have no idea how many muds should be purged since the last purge. We can use the data from September 2005 until December 31st 2007:

191 New Muds. 208 Muds Deleted.

My logic says more muds deleted than started. KaVir's logic will say that 399 muds were started.

Whose logic is better and since we finally have some statistical data about Mud Health getting worse: What are your thoughts?

I've been doing a lot of research and I think we can adapt and grow again. First we just need to acknowledge the downcline and figure out what universal changes can make up for it. I in no way believe Muds are obsolete and or inferior entertainment. I think that some issues just need to be addressed that could turn things around.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

MUDs will be around for years to come. They may not, however, be things of success without falling into certain categories.

What I mean by that is, the average "MUD" is a thing of the past -- this is your run-of-the-mill, hack-and-slash, fresh-out-of-the-box Diku that allows players to run around and kill stuff for experience and to socialize over channels. These are being replaced by MMOs, of which now there are a large number of freebies and games that are capable of being played over any sort of connection. They will always be around, of course, in theory -- so long as the code is out there, people interested in playing around with code of experimenting with the idea of running their own game will be setting these up until they finally get bored with them and shutting them down again.

The MUDs that will survive will be your Pay-to-Plays (*shivers and gags*) that are financially backed and offer high-quality customer service and development. RPIs will also strongly survive: despite all the shiny things an MMO can provide, nothing graphical has yet to hit the market that can offer the creative and descriptive freedom of roleplaying on one of these types of games. They have cornered the niche market, but will suffer from fierce competition among one another as more and more of them open and vie for already-thin playerbase. Players who choose these types of games are also usually very loyal (atleast in my experience) and are not easily swayed by shiny advertisements.

MUDs will be around for a while yet, but they'll be evolved from what they were in the 90's.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I just did a graph of the numbers, and it's fairly clear what's happening: Barring statistical anomolies in 1999 and 2007, the new-muds-per-year graph has a quick run-up until 1996-1999, and gradual decline. The number of MUDs is basically a linear ramp over time.

In 2006 I did a similar analysis in MMORPG.com and found the number of new MMORPG/year was still increasing. In 2006 it was around 24 new MMORPGs. I don't know if MMORPG creation has leveled off yet, but I suspect not. I expect with Multiverse, Realmcrafter, the Hero Engine, etc. that a flood of MMORPGs will appear over the next few years, probably equivalent to the DikuMUD spike.

Another thing to think about:

(a) The work involved in a MUD = an huge amount of up-front work + continuing maintinence (admin and server fees). Diku greatly reduced the initial up-front work. Cheaper servers have reduced continuing maintinence. Better (GUI) tools have also reduced up-front work and maintinence.

(b) The amount of people available to do work on MUDs = the overall MUD population x the 1% to 0.1% who are willing to work on content. (Each MUD, in turn, requires 1-20 contributers. Meaning there is someplace between 1 MUD per 100 players and one MUD per 20,000 players.)

(c) Therefore, the number of people playing MUDs is proportional to the number of MUDs TIMES how difficult it is to create/maintain a MUD.

(d) Since 1990, MUDs have gotten easier to create, easier to maintain, and cheaper to maintain... which means more MUDs per player.

(e) The graph of number of MUDs has been fairly linear, which (if MUDs were just as difficult to create/maintain as ever) would imply a linear increase in the number of players. However, since MUDs have gotten easier to create/maintain, another factor needs to be included...

If you assume that it's half as much work to create and maintain a MUD in 2008 (when there are 1341 MUDs) as it was in 2000 (when there were 771 MUDs), then then there are rougly the same number of players now (1341 * 1/2 as hard to create/maintain = 670) as in 2000 (771).

If MUDs are MUCH easier to create/maintain, there are far fewer players.

If MUDs are only slightly easier to create/maintain, there are slightly more players.


As a percentage of the number of people on the internet, there are certainly fewer MUD players now than in 2000. Compared to the number of MMORPG players, there are fewer MUD players per MMORPG player.



2006 info from MMORPG.com:
Year New MMORPGs (MMORPG.com) Subscribers (MMORPGChart)
1996 2 10000
1997 5 30000
1998 2 150000
1999 3 800000
2000 1 1500000
2001 7 2800000
2002 8 4000000
2003 19 5000000
2004 17 6500000
2005 22 9000000
2006 22.66666667 13000000

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

If forgot to mention:

Once a MUD is created, the amount of work to maintain it can be far less... or at least this is the case with MMORPGs. Many failed MMORPGs cost millions to create, went bankrupt, but were resurrected on a "shoesting budget" of only hundreds of thousands (per year) to keep alive and (barely) kicking.

If you assume (wrongly) that all the work goes into creating the MUD, then the number of players is proportional to the new MUDs created per year (a slowly declining 60-ish) times the difficulty of creating a MUD.

If you assume (wrongly) that all the work goes into maintaining the MUD, then the number of players is proportional to the number of MUDs still alive (1300 and counting) times the difficulty of maintaining a MUD.

The true number is someplace in-between.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Nicely twisted and taken out of context. But let's put this into perspective, shall we? This is what you said on the other forum:

I responded that "the total number of muds has grown since that article was written, and the number of "big" muds has also grown".

You disagreed, claiming that your mud used to have 256+ players online at all times. I provided a usenet post demonstrating that the figure was actually 60-80.

You claimed that AxL's DikuMUD list had "nearly 180 muds" in 1994. I posted a link to his 1994 list on usenet, pointing out that it actually had only 73.

You continued to post such figures, and became increasingly angry as they were each disproved, claiming that we were lying, that the usenet posts were wrong, or simply attacking us with direct insults.

That is the real reason why you were laughed off the other forums.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I first encountered MUDs in the early 1990s. At the time, most any game I visited, even "brand new" ones, had a huge playerbase, compared to the average MUD of today. I would even venture to say that there are more MUDs with what I would consider to be huge playerbases today, than there were back then. The difference being that today, there are seemingly thousands of MUDS that have from zero to very few regular players. Just because your every-day up-and-coming MUD has trouble bringing in new players, is no reason to believe that MUDs- as a whole, are on the decline. Yes, there are games that die off and go away. There are also games that sprout up and pull in a ton of players.

My impression, through no scientific research; just what I've seen over the years, is that there are infact more MUDs and more MUD players today, than there were in the early '90s. You can argue the percentages, but until MUDs become true anachronisms in today's society, I'll hold firm to the belief that any MUD developer willing to put in the time and effort towards making a game succeed will be rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing that he or she has provided quality entertainment to to a group of persons that will appreciate what he or she has done.

-obit

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

To be fair, there are no text MUDs today that even come close to the playerbase size of the biggest text MUDs historically. That's just one angle to look at this from though, so take from it what you will.

--matt

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I'm not claiming the early 90s were the "best days," but that muds are on a "decline," right now compared to 1998 to 2005. I also believe as I stated at the end of my post that Muds should be able to adapt and grow again. Certain Muds seem to be doing things that most Muds aren't and they also seem to be getting the rewards of a healthier playerbase for those differences.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Matt,

That is what I thought. Thanks for pitching in. I think it says wonders actually. I don't think Muds are as healthy as they were and I think there are reasons that perhaps can be fully overcome.

I've spent the last 3 months logging into over 100 muds and tracking pbase numbers as well as playing the muds and seeing what the differences are. I've noticed distinct differences between the muds with 200+ on and the Muds with less than 5 on (as well as a Mud with 20 on). I've got a theory that I plan on testing out on my Mud. If it works I'm planning on sharing the changes with the community, but maybe I'll throw it your way first as I for one have always appreciated what you've done for the community.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Here is something relevant to the conversation. I am not sure how accurate it is. But it is interesting.



I was originally directed there from Raph Koster's site.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Thanks Jeremy!

It actually matches some pages I found with the way back machine. As the link mentions the purge time for TMC isn't a constant thing. Still it is the best data we got and it also shows what I was thinking that around 2005 things started to decline.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Tips and tricks for producing more successful MUDs, particularly those that attract and entice non-MUD players, would be helpful to the community, whether or not MUDs as a whole are declining, holding their own, or growing.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

If you're talking about Gemstone, etc, then I did actually go into that on the other forums as well (it's difficult to summarise a 24-page thread in one post)

"The big pay-to-play text muds are losing popularity, but I see nothing to suggest that the popularity of text muds on the whole has decreased."

"I've not seen many adverts for the pay-to-play text muds, but the largest of them (Gemstone IV and DragonRealms) have fewer players than they did a decade ago. However the big pay-for-perks muds of today either didn't exist or weren't yet making money a decade ago. And there are a larger number a 'big' free muds than there were a decade ago."

It looks like an accurate representation of the number of listings on TMC, but I'm not sure how well it reflects the actual number of muds (back when the number of listings was around the 1800 mark, I recall complaints about how so many of them were unreachable).

Also, as has been pointed out, if the question is the 'health' of muds as a whole, a lower number of muds would probably be preferable. For example, after the original GodWars code was released, new ones kept appearing all the time (and vanishing just as frequently). There were around a hundred of them listed at one point, but even the most popular of them never came close to even half the playerbase of the original mud. When there were only three muds using the codebase, all of them did well - but when there were dozens of them, none of them did well.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I do not think TMC listing numbers is a good way to track the "health" of muds. There are far too many variables there. We do not know exactly when muds were purged, or why.

Also, historically, a huge percentage of the muds listed on TMC are at best developmental, and at worst pure stock clones that will never have more than 5-10 total people on them.

If there were a way to track the player base sizes of the top 100 muds, that would be a useful figure.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Surely this whole issue is almost impossible to prove one way or another? You could go round every single MUD listed on TMS or TMC, gather average player numbers, and it would still be pointless because no-one did it 10 years ago. This is assuming, of course, that every MUD admin told you the truth. Otherwise you'd have to spend a week or so at each MUD to figure it out yourself accurately, and you'd have to do it twice in a year since MUD player numbers generally go up during the big school/uni breaks, and does anybody really have the patience and interest to do it?

You couldn't even say "Let's do a census now" because how, exactly, are you going to get every MUD admin involved? Not all of them read the TMS/TMC boards. Many of them wouldn't be bothered, many wouldn't want you to discover their listing of "Average online players 10-25" is more like 2, and some are insular enough that they have no interest in the MUD community as a whole. Some may even allow or encourage multi-playing, in which case the 10 characters online might only be three or four actual players. How are you going to determine this if you're not able to check the IP address of everyone connected?

Extrapolating based on a selection of different MUDs, whilst an acceptable statistical gathering tool, is one of the reason statistics are often distrusted and are mentioned at the end of the phrase "Lies, damn lies, and statistics". If you select your representative sample carefully enough, you can get statistics "proving" ANYTHING.

Most of the argument seems to stem from certain people believing the number of MUD players hasn't declined but just spread out more as the number of MUDs has increased over the years, whereas others argue that just masks the fact the number of actual players is in decline. At the end of the day I don't see any statistics that either prove or disprove any of the theories, and I don't think any will be forthcoming either.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I think (but could be wrong) that one thing we would all agree on is that, as a percentage of the total number of active internet users, the number playing traditional text MUDs is massively lower than 10 years ago. Your "market share" can decline 90% but if the market increases 10-fold you look like you're staying even : 1% of 10,000 == 10% of 1,000, etc.

I still believe a big part of the problem is awareness. Someone made the light-hearted comparison to clog dancing in another thread. The difference is, while I don't know much of the details of clog dancing, I know it exists and have enough of an idea of what it is to know I probably don't want to join a clog dancing forum.

Anecdotally, 2005 sounds about right for the start of the decline, but I wasn't involved in TMS then other than as a member and when your focus is a single mud you never really know if it's just a local decline or a wider issue.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I'd agree with that, but the argument here is that there are actually fewer muds and mudders (not as a percentage, but in actual numbers) - lotusofro was even claiming that the number of mudders had dropped from nearly 1 million in 1994 to less than 50,000 today, which (to quote his post) meant the total number of mudders today would be "5% of 14 years ago". That's what I disagree with.

2005 being the year when Icculus purged 802 muds for being unreachable, following years of complaints about how so many of the listings were out of date. I'm afraid I have to agree with Threshold - that the TMC listings include too many variables to be reliable in tracking the health of muds.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

While we can't know exact data it is interesting that in 2008 there are less than 1400 muds listed for the first time since 1999.

Not knowing exactly when muds were purged or why doesn't alter the fact that you can see that TMC was purging muds as early as the year 2000 when you see a slight drop in total number of muds listed.

So the fact that currently the list is lower than it has been in 9 years does show some data that proves there are less muds today than before we just can't know a true rate of attrition or other facts. Just that there are less today.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

All I'm going on is logging in at different times in the day typing who or similar command and counting people seen. Which is a rough estimate to be sure. Although I'm not doing it to "prove," anything but to see which muds seem "popular," and comparing them to the "unpopular," muds to see what they may be doing differently.

As for "health," we can prove there are less muds to day than in the past. The graph that has been put up on here shows that TMC is at it's lowest point since 1999. While we have no idea exact numbers we can learn from it that there are without a doubt "less muds," we just don't have solid numbers. We just know there are less.

Combine that knowledge with the knowledge that Matt provided that there are no muds currently running today with a pbase like the best muds of years past. We have an idea that the market is in decline.

This doesn't mean the market can't have another upswing. My findings are that it may just be possible to get a major upswing going. Unfortunately with the coding, etc. I won't be done to test this until June or July.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

No, we can only prove that there are fewer listings on TMC today than there were at certain dates in the past. Whether there are also fewer muds is a completely separate question, and something we only speculate about - there are, after all, currently 1771 listings here on Top Mud Sites.

Also, as has been pointed out already, "more muds" doesn't necessarily mean "healthy". If every stock mud were to vanish overnight, I suspect the mudding hobby overall would benefit.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I've been sceptical to statistics ever since i read a book titled 'How to lie with statistics'. It seems people - politicians in particular - can and do twist statistics to fit whatever they prefer them to show.

That said, I too think that Text Muds are declining. Actually I think they have been on the wane ever since it was made so easy to download, start and run a stock mud. In the old days, when it still took some coding skills, the 'community was kind of 'self regulating', because every Tom, Dick or Harry couldn't start their own Mud. As it is, they can - and do - just because they can.

I have no statistics to back it up, but my general feeling is that the total number of people that are playing Text Muds is declining, and consequently the Muds tend to prey on each other. I also have a feeling that the commercials are sucking up a larger percentage of the total player base, because they can afford to advertise, and because players generally are very faithful to their first Mud, regardless of the quality.

I generally base this feeling on what I read on various discussion boards and what I see in my own Mud. In one way we could be described as heaving a 'healthy' playerbase, because it is relatively stable, and our players usually stay very long and also tend to return after they strayed. But is has never been very large. partly because we consciously target the 'smarter' players. Still, when I look at our player base now, it is only about half of what it used to be around 6 years back. (It's true that we have had some specific problems lately; we lost over half our players when our server disappeared from the face of earth some months agoand the Mud was closed down for ten days. We still haven't recovered from that totally, even though we've had a small but steady inflow of new players lately. But in general the tendency is pretty clear - a slow, but steady decline).

So what could be done to improve the situation for text Muds?

I know that I probably will be flamed for 'elitism' for saying this, but my belief is that the biggest problem for Text Muds is the sheer number of pretty crappy, next-to-stock clones that swamp the net. A player, who is totally new to Text Muds, wouldn't really have a clue about what to look for, and the statistic chances are high that they'd just make a random choice and land with one of the stock clones. If they repeat that a couple of times, they will probably be convinced that all Text Muds are more or less similar, and not very good either. The comparatively few high quality games that exist drown in the line noise.

I think the best service that the Mud listing sites could do to the community would be to filter out at least the majority of this 'line noise'. There is only one realistic way to do it, since no list owner would have the time to actually review all the listed games, and that is to make a separate, and less displayed list for 'new muds', and put everything newer than 1 year on that list. It takes at least a year's work to create an even remotely decent Mud, and most of the fly-by-night Muds disappear again before they reach that stage.

And it wouldn't be a totally negative even for the new games, since there actually are players who like to test-play, and who consciously seek out the new games even now.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

A proposal to end this debate:

1) Find a volunteer with no axe to grind and copious amounts of spare time. (Unforunately, my time isn't copiously spare, so I feel reluctant to suggest this idea because it means someone else has to do the work.)

2) Have him/her come up with the list of the top-50 populated MUDs. (Or by committee, or whatever.)

3) Have him/her come up with an average number of players logged on. (By checking the who list once in awhile at different times of the day.)

4) Publish this number.

5) Repeat the same exercise a year from now, and then a year after that,. Perhaps indefinitely.

If there is only a mild increase/decrease in the number of players, the numbers won't show a pattern. If it's signficant, there'll be a noticible rise up/down movement within two years.


Alternatively:

1) Someone should contact the top-50 populated MUDs for logs of usage over the last few years.

2) Add up as much data is available.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

As far as I'm aware, the two text muds with the highest number of simultaneous players are Gemstone IV and DragonRealms - but both have been steadily losing players since they left AOL. I suspect that's primarily due to their (monthy pay-to-play) payment model though, as (from what I've seen) the bigger pay-for-perks muds seem to be doing okay.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Then their players should be moving to the next 48, or below (but I wouldn't expect someone to check all 1300-ish MUDs.)

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Most of them end up going to World of Warcraft. The same thing happened back when Ultima Online came out. They left in droves from Gemstone to UO. But Simu maintained a healthy player base even then. Last time I checked, there are still more people logged in to Simu games now, than there were before they became an "internet" game. Prior to that they were only available to play through the online services AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, and GEnie. When they "went internet" they had a second boost (their first was when AOL became unlimited access for no extra charge, which didn't last very long), and the population shot up again. Then the novelty of playing via internet wore off, and Simu had some administrative and staff changes, and various other things happened, and the spike dropped somewhat.

At their peak they hovered around 2000 accounts logged in during the popular time of day, if I recall correctly. That's all on one server.

Now, if my memory serves from reading discussions on their "unofficial" forum, they are usually less than 750, and usually more than 400, with occasional spikes when there are game-wide official events.

That's still more than when I used to play, and in fact when I played from Prodigy the server was closed to new logins after it hit 100 players already logged in. You'd have to just keep typing "enter" and hoping you'd slip through if someone else logged out.

Also important to note that many people who play Gemstone have multiple accounts they maintain. So that 400-750 isn't individual players, it's accounts logged in. It -could- just be 200 players total. It's probably closer to 500 though :)

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Sorry for piping in late here. I'm posting with only have read the OP's post and skimming post of the others.

I think that the number of muds created are pretty irrelevant, honestly. Tons of people start up muds thinking that they can do it better than it's ever been done before, and hosting is so much easier to get now. Muds are going up and coming down pretty rapidly, but players are pretty split up with the number available now.

Total number of users would seem to be what's important, and that seems to be incredibly difficult to get. It would have to be postulation. There are more "big muds" out there now with a steady and often growing user base. Thus, players get a lot more choice. So, while there may not be any one mud that has the old school numbers, there could easily be a larger total number spread across many more "big muds". There's definitely more people online now than back in the "good old days", and I'd really be surprised if we haven't caught quite a few of them. There's just so many online games available now. In another ten years when there's 50 huge MMOs, MMOs may never reach the 8 million account mark again simply because people are so spread out.

Anyway, even though muds may not be declining, we're not the only choice anymore. Ultimately, that means working harder for players rather than sitting back and waiting for them to come to us.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

This can definately hurt MMO's. It is supremely costly to manage and maintain a huge MMO, and to lose 75 percent of your pbase to a new MMO is crippling to say the least. I personally think MMO's in the current form are a fad and cannot believe that WoW will be around in 5 years as strong as it is today.

As for MUDS, we've been through it for years upon years. Will MUDS change? Maybe. Maybe not. Do you still play D&D at tabletop? Has the number that play that gone down in the last 5 years? Do books still sell? Will they ever go away?

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I like Muds for the same reason I like my CLI.

It's geeky

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

i feel as an ex builder of 2 muds, its at a long steady fall, as an avid player of materiamagica, the lack of players amuses me now days. but statistics show improvement! yet i seen none really anywhere

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Speaking as an owner and producer of an RPI, I tend to agree with the argument presented that the RPIs have cornered a fairly stable niche. Shadows of Isildur has been steadily growing in average peak time player logins over the last couple of years, which goes against the general trend.

The statement that the pay to play muds will be the last to fall (if it ever comes to that) is also very true. There aren't any other MUDs out there that are really even competing in the same league as the market leaders like Iron Realms. It's actually kind of a shame, I'm sure Matt and co. would love a good competitor. Unfortunately I don't think there is anybody out there with the commitment, vision or skill to pull off what they did.

Nonetheless, the RPI field draws very heavily from Iron Realms players. A fair proportion of our regular players come to us from Iron Realms, having been well conditioned by the Iron Realms Mandatory RP policy, many of them want to take the step up to RPI. The quality of roleplay can be very good on Iron Realms (I played there for 3-4 years, I remember what it was like), but it would be poor business policy and bad for the game balance (which is Iron Realm's big strength) if they went as far as RPIs do with roleplay.

So as long as the big pay-to-plays exist, RPIs will probably continue to exist. We have to get better though. Numbers will probably decline, and we need very much to make the most of what we have, to keep our market share as strong as possible. Number of players is a slippery slope. The less players you have, the less room you have to do certain things that the players enjoy, and the less in game economy, in game interaction, and whatnot works. Which in turn can lead to lower numbers.

All in all though I think MUDs are healthier than some people give them credit for - at least the genres of MUD that dominate the Top 20 here on Top Muds. The day of the casual Diku / LP may be past though. But who knows what the future holds?

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I haven't really noticed a change in player numbers or movement to or from Graphical games and Muds anymore than what has existed the past four years. No huge increase nor decline from NW. Increase and decline seems more seasonal than from Graphic to MUD. Though I will say that MUD to MUD movement seems to be more prominant than Graphic to MUD. Unlike the previous poster NW tends to get more players from ASF Muds than anywhere else. I'm sure many of them enjoy that style of play but want to take the step up to an more rounded and robust roleplay environment where you can achieve actual advancement.

Who knows, but simply put, I do not see the health dipping at all. I will say that MUDs have much more infighting than Graphical games. Likely founded by lack of confidence in the product and market.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I develop and run my mud because I enjoy it, and would continue doing so even if all the players were to leave for WoW or whatever else.

Can the same be said for pay-to-play muds?

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I know this is old but I was wondering what the general consensus on this is now.

Also I think a major way to solve the issue about total players is to actively try to recruit from outside the general MUD world new players. That's what I attempt to do with most of my recruitment activities. The players will continue to shrink from the community as long as the community focuses mostly on itself and ignores those who have barely heard of MUDs.

Loss of players FROM the community mainly is due to; People moving on in their lives and getting into non-MUD games. Some MUDs can maintain players for a long time because of the type of player they have but a majority of players only stick around in the community for a few years. This starts to feed upon itself as people leave their MUD friends lose interest as well (to a degree) and are likely to follow suit some time after.

The community will never disappear completely but the overall enjoyment of the community suffers when the players are so few they end up rationed amongst the available MUDs.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Wow, resurrecting long-dead threads. :P

My opinion on the matter is still exactly the same as it was back in early 2008 (I gave the first reply to the OP).

However, in the past two years, I have become more involved with community work and so I'm painfully more aware of in-production MUDs. It seems to me that while player numbers are dwindling (on most MUDs that I've tried, very few can boast a base that's even as half as strong as what it may have been or even was several years ago), the number of MUDs being opened continues to rise - which suggests that the entire argument that the number of MUDs is an indication of the health of the entire MUDverse is extremely unsound.

Most of the MUDs that I am aware of that are being worked on sound like carbon copies of what we already have in the community, and I doubt that seeing 10 more stock MUDs open is going to do us any good.

On the brighter side, many of these in-production MUDs appear to have a great deal of work going into them, as well as lively advertising. I know of at least five games (in alpha and beta) that appear to be very strong candidates for being "successful" long term. A concentrated effort from a few very high-quality games may be just what we need to get the ball rolling again.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I don't think you'll ever find a consensus, as some people have been announcing the death of text muds for the last two decades, while others continue to start up new muds all the time. But I have made a couple of observations.

The main difference between a text mud and a graphical MMO lies in the client - text muds are usually designed to work with any client, while the MMOs have their own which provides graphics and sound. But it is becoming increasingly popular for muds to offer their players custom/ised clients with graphical interfaces, and several client developers have been introducing ways to make this easier for mud owners to achieve. I think we're going to see this trend continue, with some muds edging their way into the fringes of the MMO and browser-game markets.

Conversely, there also seems to be an increasing number of visually impaired players drifting towards text muds - either fully or partially blind, these players enjoy gaming as much as anyone else, but can't really play the graphical MMOs. Introducing a few blind-friendly features results in your mud name being thrown around in their community: currently around .

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I haven't seen a large change since my previous post here (about 5 down if you want to read it). The only change I have seen is a few more people from WoW and other Graphic MMO's have become turned off with the roleplay there and joined the text community.

As for personal clients. I disagree in creating personal clients with robust sound and graphics. I maintain that the beauty of the text world is text and description and is only muddied (no pun intended) by premade clients that you must download or hugely graphic based web clients. I see the enjoyment of them but find that the large playerbase at NWA have come here to get away from that not embrace it. The argument is that when they want these massively graphical clients they play WoW or Runescape that completely blow away anything the text community could hope to compete with.

I am not against those MUDs that use or like the personal graphic based clients. We just don't for the reasons above and several more that are specific to how we gain graphic players to our text environment.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Agreed, although there are two benefits that most MUDs possess that most of the MMOs don't have. The first is the cost to play, or lack thereof. Regardless, if people want graphics and sound, they are more likely going to a WoW or other such MMO to satiate their H&S needs.

That's the second benefit of MU*s over graphical MMOs. The flexibility of text allows for so much more than can possibly be stuffed into MMOs. And while MMOs have their ability for text interface, it requires a switch in mindset from a purely visual reaction to the text interface to replicate such nuances. In the end, it's a very awkward and very shallow substitute for the simplicity and elegance of a complete-text form.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

This is definately true at least now. If any text MUD jumped to the Multi Server platform (which is required when you reach between 750 and 1000 players), that would change in a big way.

I agree 100%.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I'm not talking of clients you must download, but of recommended clients for those looking to play (particularly first-time players). In the old days many muds didn't even bother with websites, and simply advertised a telnet address, but things are changing. Many players don't even take a mud seriously these days unless it has an attractive website with decent information about the mud, and if you're marketing at first-time mudders it makes a lot of sense to have a section describing how to connect.

A basic telnet client is not going to offer the same features as a dedicated mud client, so if you want newbies to have the best possible first experience, it makes sense to recommend a decent client. This is pretty common - I notice you do it as well, offering a Java client and recommending VIPMud and GMud.

However quite a few muds are starting to offer something a little more graphical for those who prefer it. This doesn't change the nature of the game, it's simply a prettier interface - you could even use graphics to emphasis the text-based nature of the mud for example, providing a parchment-coloured background within a frame designed like an ancient tome.

Either way, love it or hate it, it's becoming more popular. I'm guessing that in a decade or so people will view graphical interfaces in much the same way players today view ANSI colour (which was also opposed by many when people first started using it).

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

In that case I agree. The newer clients are better and if there were a better java client I'd like that as well. The current Java client we use is better than telnet but is missing alot of features that are on the Flash client. I'm not a fan of the flash client - mainly because of the flash security protocol. It would be nice if someone revamped the Java client with the features of the flash. It wouldn't take alot, I just don't have the time or the inclination.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Would have to agree with Kavir here..... while a MUD developer may choose not to design their own custom MUD client for users to download and use, if they so choose to do so over the other available MUD clients out there, it brings a more robust and well rounded MUD into the market.... the more the options, the more likely that it'll be a bit easier to attract a new "customer" base. I started writing one for my MUD using Visual Basic... it's still fairly "beta", but completely functional. While I haven't had the time to program features found in other MUD clients, it does allow me to add in more control to what the player sees and hears when using the client... whereas other MUD clients are limited in the sense of what I can communicate to them to do through my MUD's source code. For example, I can implement a text box into my client, and feed into that box, website links throughout my own website (or other websites). These links would scroll (or appear in some other form) depending on a command that the end-user executes. The user types "HELP HIDDUKEL" and a link would appear in the text box, allowing the user to click the link, which would then bring them to a page within my own website that gives more information than I could ever (or would want to) give within the MUD itself. Things like this open doors for a MUD that would otherwise be closed. And as long as it isn't a "required to play" client, users will always have the option to remain with their own MUD client if they so choose to do so.

As for the MUD listings....

I always remembered seeing a lot more than what were listed by Kavir... granted, the list is completely subjective since it's hard to measure a total amount based on MUDs that are actually active and playable... as he had pointed out that while there were a lot listed, some of them listed were defunct listings. But, that's always been the case (even so today), and if you were to look at the trend based on what was listed at TMC (cached pages via web.archive.org), I see numbers that pretty much jive in line with the trend graph listed at findmud.com

I took the total listings from several page caches through several months of every given year from 2001 thru 2010. Put them in Excel and calculated an average. On average, we see something like this:


2001: 1723
2002: 1795
2003: 1903
2004: 1731
2005: 1714
2006: 1690
2007: 1582
2008: 1428
2009: 1119
2010: 1115

Not much of a chance from 2009 to 2010... but a big drop when compared to the peak year of 2003... nearly a 50% drop in listed MUDs. One could say that those listed in 2003 weren't all functional... but the same goes for 2010 as well... while there isn't a constant value of listed MUDs being defunct, I would bet that there's an average percentage for each year.... and with that, you still see a drop over the last 7 years by nearly 50%.

As with Kavir, I too am seeing a lot more blind or partially blind MUD gamers...... using text readers to play. But all in all, I doubt that MUDs will ever get near as popular as what they once were... too many graphical alternatives, and with today's hardware, you don't need to break the bank to get your hands on it.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Actually as I briefly mentioned earlier, several client developers have been working on making their clients easier to customise. This is particularly nice for mud owners, as it allows them to offer the full functionality of a well-established client in combination with a completely customised graphical interface.

In terms of trends, I think it would be more useful to monitor player numbers. Perhaps something like the , but going back over years. I doubt anyone has collect this information to date, but I'm hoping MudStats will continue to do so, and perhaps in a few years we can see some interesting results.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

There are some newer JavaScript clients, such as jmud, and the (hopefully forthcoming) in-development Decaf. I think these might successfully replace their Java counterparts.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I certainly hope so. I'm all for checking out Decaf if and when it is available.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Why did this turn into a discussion on clients? I mean I understand how the conversation got to that but I disagree with the notion that clients have much of an affect on the number of players available to the MUD community. I don't think the problem personally lies with the way MUDs are presented to people. I mean that can be an issue but it's the type of issue that would pop up with any medium. Interface can always turn some off and appeal to others.

Introducing the "bubble".

What I think the issue is mainly that MUDs are cut off in their own little "bubble" world unnoticed by most people. That has always been the case true but it has been getting worse along the same line of decline that is easy to notice. If people don't know what MUDs are, that they exist, or that they may interest them then they aren't going to try them out.

Even looking at MUD listings. They advertise to fellow MUD enthusiasts and rarely to people who find them in searches. The "outside" internet isn't easy to break out to with information on MUDs that might grab the attention of people who may indeed be interested. I've met far more people who have never heard of MUDs than I have people who have. Let alone people who have PLAYED a MUD. Not to mention a person I heard from recently who was shocked that MUDs were still even played. That means that person had at one time either played a MUD or been familiar enough with them. Yet they hadn't done either for so long they were shocked.

So that's the million dollar question. What can be done to appeal to those outside the "bubble" information wise. That seems to me to be the best solution. Clients and interfaces are all well and good and have a good chance to appeal to those who happen by but mostly they just will milk the same core of players already in the "bubble". I don't know if there even is a solution to this core issue but it's at least worth talking about.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Because, as I said earlier, the main difference between a text mud and a graphical MMO lies in the client.

Offer a graphical downloadable client and you can start breaking into the MMO market.

Offer a graphical web client and you can start breaking into the browser game market.

These markets have a huge number of players who enjoy playing the same sort of games as us, the only difference is that those players expect some degree of graphics.

But because muds can be played with a wide range of different clients, we can cater to those who like graphical interfaces while still catering to those who prefer a pure text interface, simply by offering multiple clients.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I agree with the sentiments of this post.

I also want to point out that the websites of most MUDs and our small communities have rather shoddy SEO and do not play well with search engines. I've spent hours sitting on Google sticking in all sorts of keywords, and I usually have to get extremely specific before I make a hit. In fact, it is MUCH easier for me to find information by clicking on random "associates" and ads on various community sites than it is for me to trust a search engine with keywords such as "MUD", "game", "text-based", and "roleplay". In fact, any word that a "n00b" might try usually turns up really crappy results.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

I understand that point but I don't happen to agree with it. I mean to a degree that's true but I don't think any level of client is going to make much of an impact. Not to discourage you or anything on making better clients. I can readily agree that a better interface can help draw people in.

I don't think it's so much that people crave graphics (I'm sure that's true in most respects) and are opposed to all text games. I think the main problem is most people don't even know there are text games or how exactly they work. I think it's a simplistic notion to just look at people playing graphical games and think that the graphics in the game is why they play those and not MUDs.

I seriously doubt more than 5% of them have tried a MUD (pulling it from my ass). I seriously doubt likewise that 10% of them have even heard of MUDs in detail (more than a passing comment between a second and third party). I believe that's the main reason MUDs don't get more players than they have anymore. With older players in the MUD community "retiring" and few people penetrating the "bubble" it has lead to this decline.

Text games are neither out of date or left behind by graphical games. They are an entirely different take on games that I believe most people could come to enjoy if they knew enough about them to choose. You can't choose something you know nothing about.

Myself as an example I got into MUDs back in 1999. I found out about MUDs by searching for free online RPGs. I had no idea what a MUD was at the time. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Now this was back when MUDs had a larger player base in general if I'm not mistaken. Yet I only found out about them on accident then. I was heavily into forum RPing and browser based games like Utopia/Earth 2025 as well. There are still a great number of people like that out there today (greater actually) who would be willing to play MUDs but haven't heard of them.

I'm starting to ramble now but I hope my point was at least understood :(

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

Then we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. You want to attract players from outside of the "bubble"...but where are these people going to come from? What audience are you trying to appeal to? It can't just be "people who haven't tried muds" - that's far too vague, you need a coherent audience that you can explicitly target.

In your case you might try targeting DBZ fans, for example, while a mud based on a novel might try targeting readers of that novel. You know what your target audience likes, and can market your game accordingly, focusing on things that fans of the show/book are likely to find appealing.

But what do you think is more likely to catch the eye of a prospective player who's never tried muds before: A description of the game, or a screenshot of a fancy graphical interface? I think most of us in the mud community recognise that eye candy is no indication of a good game, but the sad fact is that pretty pictures will sell your game far more effectively than pure text.

Appealing to MMO players is difficult, because they tend to have high expectations in terms of graphics - but many of them will have played text muds in the past, and some eventually return to text muds because they know the gameplay tends to be deeper. Offering some sort of text/graphics hybrid, like Primordiax is doing, may provide a more appealing compromise for such players.

On the other hand, browser games are somewhat different. They tend to offer simplistic graphics that are far more achievable for hobby developers, and shallow gameplay that can't compete with most muds. Offering a graphical web client would bring your mud to the attention of players who would otherwise never give it a chance.

Re: The "Health," of Muds
 

When approaching the debate "Why an MMO and not a MUD?" I do think that graphics play heavily into it.

I spent a year recently almost submerged 'in all thing gaming', and when I polled the people around me as to why they chose to play World of Warcraft over another game, the resounding response was "It's pretty!!!" Not, "It's fun to play" or "The mechanics are great," but, "It's pretty!!!" This became even more prevalent in casual gamers - they liked shiny things that they could click or point at.

When it comes right down to it, I think MUDs take more energy and effort to play and do not offer the same sort of instant gratification that our graphical competitors can provide. To get into a MUD, you have to go through this huge process of typing up a bunch of information (name, email, etc) and reading all sorts of details. (( You may laugh, but to a player used to graphics, or maybe just an impatient one, these are real issues. )) You can often get spammed to death at login with MOTDs and other "read this!" messages. Killing a monster often isn't simply an issue of clicking on it, but rather a complicated series of commands of "e,e,n,hit monster" - and God forbid the thing runs away from you! And even when it's dead, you still have to LOOK at it, read through its inventory, "GET" everything you want (sometimes individually!), and then "sac" it. Of course, if you're on any of the larger roleplaying MUDs, the above scenario is even more complicated.

Then, of course, there is Wall-of-Text Syndrome. Most standard MUD clients do not provide a whole lot of support to combat this. We're keeping our games afloat in an evolving virtual world where the culture has come to frown down upon endless streams of words.


All of that said, I do not think that a custom graphical client, or even more complex clients, are going to give us the "oomph" we need to attract a lot of new players. They will, however, be useful in KEEPING new players and improving our image as a genre.