nu.kanga.list.mud-dev

31187: Re: [MUD-Dev] Richard A. Bartle talks MUD Design

Wow. What a great artical. I totally agree with that. He hit on many
major points, and only brushed on one I think is the main lure for
oldbies/newbies alike. He did hit on the farmiluraity issue, and
socialism briefly and I believe this to be a big part of the game. 5
years ago I started my MUD carrier on one called A Dark Portal. Now,
that mud was pretty stock (It had tons of mods, but nothing to take
it away from the true feel of ROM) except it was largly based around
RP.  I found that once I got to know the people more and more, the
more I wanted to stay. ADP shutdown for re-construction and totally
re-created the world. All the area's are re-done, the code is
totally different (It doesn't have the look or even feel of ROM) its
an entirly different MUD, yet, I still play. Why? The people. I have
an addiction to the social realm that is ADP.

Maybe, getting accepted into the cliques is what its all about. With
that said, Newbies tend to be thought of as plagues. Little annoying
twerps who think 'you' is really 'u'! So a certian level of
intellegence is required to surpass the newbie stage. But even those
people get accepted, it just takes much longer.

Because it takes a long time to get accepted, who wants to stay in a
place (especially when they arn't forced [Highschool, without
friends would want to make anyone leave and not show up, but you
have to be there, but not with MUDs, or MMORPGs] ) that wont accept
them? Not I.  Usually when one player stays, many will. If a player
comes to a MUD with a group of friends, the mud is playable, and has
atleast 70% of the features they like, I'm sure they'll stay because
they are already thier own group, they need not get accepted,
however, I'm sure with a group, one is going to get accepted quicker
than the rest, making the rest cool by assosiation.

This however, is something totally out of our hands, its in the
social skills of the newbie. I guess we can have our hand in things
though, creating a game to cator to a specific group of people so
they'll atleast have common ground for idle chatter (The begining of
all friendships!) also, keeping a loose atmosphere. No need to be a
MUD Nazi.

Anyways, I think this artical is great, yet, revolution of MUDs is
not something so easily thought of. Because of the lack of graphics,
we are stuck with a type of style. Other than formatting how our
output will look, a new feel or look to a MUD seems a bit out of
reach. I don't believe graphics are superior, yet they do have way
more flexibility. Due to the generic nature of clients now aday's,
we must fit that mold. We can create our own clients, but to do
what? Add graphics? :P Just some post-post thoughts :). Thanks for
reading!

------------------------
Aaron Smith-Hayes
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