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7298: [MUD-Dev] Re: Medievia
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From: Richard Woolcock <KaVir@dial.pipex.com>
Newsgroups: nu.kanga.list.mud-dev
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 01:17:49 -0700
References: [1]
Organization: Kanga.Nu
Koster, Raph wrote:
>
[snip brief overview of Medievia]
> It's also, I think, the most popular free text mud there is.
Realms of Despair has around the same number of players, possibly more -
additionally, it doesn't accept donations like Medievia does. Is a mud
really free if the only way you can compete with other players is to send
a fat cheque to the implementor? Is such a system is comparible to the
'reduced functionality' games which are given out freely in the hope of
tempting people to purchase the full game?
> Why? All of these players can't be wrong... Anyone familiar enough with
> what it has become to be able to give an analysis?
I've not played Medievia, but I played Realms of Despair for a couple of
years (94-96). I think the main reasons for their success are that when
they opened up, there was less competition - and so their playerbase has
had a long time to grow; the features they have added have tended to be
favourable towards players; they have never wiped their playerfiles (other
than unused ones). Finally, the release of their source code (smaug) has
helped advertising greatly - although perhaps not as much as Medievia's
"bad publicity" campaign.
KaVir.