Who here has not played a Multi-User Dungeon?

roshaoar

lo, folks,

To introduce myself, I am one of the longtime developers of a multi-user dungeon. I've helped develop the game for the past 15 years, and I'm still involved with it. Back in the day (I hear you groan), they were the only form of gaming available on the net, and we were all WOWed by it as this sort of gaming with other users around the world hadn't been seen before . But I digress.

I'm here hoping to persuade some of you to come and try out the particular dungeon that I'm involved with, and to solicit feedback - very specific feedback - about what puts you guys off the whole idea.

The only gain for us in this is quality feedback which, because it isn't a commercial venture but rather one put together for the hell of it by a bunch of guys who like their online gaming, is something we can't afford to do on a large scale.

This is the Wheel of Time MUD website, which is really your starting point. I'd hope that the explanations and guides offered there would be enough to explain what they are and why you should play. If not, please feel free to either respond here or in a private message.

What I'm especially interested in are the "dropoff points", ie the argumants inside yourself that persuade you to abandon the process of website => trying it out. In other words "this page made no sense" "this page put me off" "yuck, text" "too nerdy" - I really don't mind in the least as I'd love to have an honest assessment of what we need to do to convert some graphical players.

As an introduction, what MUDs generally bring you is a smaller but more adult community, and games which are more fluid. It's easy for us MUD developers to add in new features, quests, items - whatever. They bring faster PvP/PK because the graphical rendering isn't there, and they tend to bring more of depth of roleplaying feel to the whole thing. A lot of the above is because they're run by people like you and me, and even non-technical people can help run a mud by making things to enhance roleplay etc.

If you've ever used IRC or IM messengers before, you'll be familiar with using text across the web. MUDs are a bit like that, a glorified IRC experience in which you can roam a world and do your thing rather than being in the one IRC room.

Anyhow, please give it a whirl - as I said, your feedback would be hugely appreciated, be it through a PM or here on the thread.

Thanks!

Nass

WoTMUD.org, the Wheel of Time MUD

Rinic

Not enough people are willing to play MUDs anymore. I played Dragonrealms for about 5 years before quitting. The MUD community is gone from almost every MUD. It's pretty much a wasted effort to try and start playing one now. All the "old" players just sit around and talk or go to their homes and cyb0r. That's about it. Just pick up graphics. MUDs are dead.

nethervoid

I just started reading the Wheel of Time series.  lol  I'm almost through book two.  So can you be an Aes Sedai in your MUD?

And I would agree (although less harsh lol) that without any graphics whatsoever, I just can't see myself ever playing a MUD.

IMO you'd be better off trying to convert table top DnD players who don't have graphics, although even they have maps etc usually...and figurines.

Barring that, have you guys thought about porting your MUD over to a new media, say NWN2 or something similar?  I know a lot of RPers are using the NWN1 and NWN2 media to build their RP worlds in.  In fact, I loved the RP of a certain NWN1 world named Avlis.  Just insane what you can do with a blank canvas and some coder geeks.  =D

 

*edit* Gah I tried to go to your site and at least answer your questions, but there are spoilers on the front page!  I'm only finishing up book 2, man!  Agg!  lol

Czzarre

I will say that the MUD communities of old were a lot stronger than the MMO communities of today. The roleplay was more in depth and the player camradre was very high. May be due to the fact that you had to use your imagination a lot more and things were not spoon fed to you as they are now.

Torrential

Umbrood

I actually did play, ( or one of ), the wheel of time muds back in 96 or 97, that and amber mud are the only two I ever tried.

At that time I had a very active PnP group though and muds seemed like a step back from that and there really was not time for both.

Kinda doubt you have hold onto characters as old as 10 years+ but that would have been kinda cool..  

wjrasmussen

Originally posted by roshaoar

lo, folks,
To introduce myself, I am one of the longtime developers of a multi-user dungeon. I've helped develop the game for the past 15 years, and I'm still involved with it. Back in the day (I hear you groan), they were the only form of gaming available on the net, and we were all WOWed by it as this sort of gaming with other users around the world hadn't been seen before . But I digress.
I'm here hoping to persuade some of you to come and try out the particular dungeon that I'm involved with, and to solicit feedback - very specific feedback - about what puts you guys off the whole idea.
The only gain for us in this is quality feedback which, because it isn't a commercial venture but rather one put together for the hell of it by a bunch of guys who like their online gaming, is something we can't afford to do on a large scale.
This is the Wheel of Time MUD website, which is really your starting point. I'd hope that the explanations and guides offered there would be enough to explain what they are and why you should play. If not, please feel free to either respond here or in a private message.
What I'm especially interested in are the "dropoff points", ie the argumants inside yourself that persuade you to abandon the process of website => trying it out. In other words "this page made no sense" "this page put me off" "yuck, text" "too nerdy" - I really don't mind in the least as I'd love to have an honest assessment of what we need to do to convert some graphical players.
As an introduction, what MUDs generally bring you is a smaller but more adult community, and games which are more fluid. It's easy for us MUD developers to add in new features, quests, items - whatever. They bring faster PvP/PK because the graphical rendering isn't there, and they tend to bring more of depth of roleplaying feel to the whole thing. A lot of the above is because they're run by people like you and me, and even non-technical people can help run a mud by making things to enhance roleplay etc.
If you've ever used IRC or IM messengers before, you'll be familiar with using text across the web. MUDs are a bit like that, a glorified IRC experience in which you can roam a world and do your thing rather than being in the one IRC room.
Anyhow, please give it a whirl - as I said, your feedback would be hugely appreciated, be it through a PM or here on the thread.
Thanks!

Nass

WoTMUD.org, the Wheel of Time MUD

Did you RTM? This is an off-topic issue and should be posted in the appropriate forum.

roshaoar

Apologies, wjrasmussen, I looked in the "Off Topic Discussion" forum first and it had some thread about "increase your penis size" there, and in all honesty I thought this was of more relevance to the folks in this forum than the other one.

Thanks for leaving it open, it's not just an attempt to spam or troll but I'm genuinely trying to get some insight into what folk, and especially the MMO folk who are the new generation, think

The replies here merit a considered reply but it's very late where I am. In the morning, I'll do some explaining and so on - thanks for the responses, much appreciated.

Nass

Liago

Muds are great and will always be a fond memory of mine. I think that your site may need a bit more info for new users. In todays easy to play graffical game scene new users will have a hard time grasping what it is they are doing or need to do with the short one page explination that you currently have.

pyrofreak

I was afraid this was going to be an ad for an IRE game. That said..

 

I've played WOTmud in the past, and while it wasn't my style of MUD, it was pretty well made.

Tuor7

I think the very first MUD I ever played was Midnight Sun, back in 1994. It was in Sweden, IIRC. Then I found AmberMUSH and ignored MUDs for a long, LONG time afterwards. Later, I ended up playing on Two Towers, Mirkwood, and Aardwolf. I think Aardwolf is still around. I, too, played DragonRealms for a while and was favorably impressed by it.

Over the years, though, the whole MU* environment became increasing stale to me. New players stopped coming in, going instead to newfangled games like UO and EQ. At around that time, I think I was playing on ElendorMUSH, and I felt my interest waning, plus RL stuff was kicking in.

In the end I gave up MUDs. I did try Aardwolf again for a very short time, using my trusty zMUD, but it was a just a trip down memory lane, and it didn't revive my interest in the genre. Even now, I'm tempted to try Road to Amber MUSH, and I might do it. But ultimately, I think MU*s as a whole are pretty much dead with a very few exceptions.

I think that people these days don't like to use their imaginations much. They want to see and hear: they want to use their real eyes, not their mind's eye. It's too bad, and I would like to see that change. But as for myself, if I do give Road to Amber a try, it'll be my last effort in the text-based online realm.

Kevyne-Shandris

I liked playing MUDs because it's a fond memory of gaming from the 80s.

What has kept me off of them is that they encourage or enforce roleplaying. Not that roleplaying isn't bad (I liked going to sci-fi cons in costume and all), but it can be tedious trying to communicate with folks who are the town's drunk, or want to pretend s/he speaks some arcane language for the duration of their character (which for muds is 5+ years). When they hog the city chat with such talk, it no longer to me helpful.

Then they are stickliers to server rules in this same roleplaying environment (Remember roleplay? You can't talk about LAG BEAST, but GOD are you hit by 1001 server related rules!!), Some GMs try to mask it, but they forget that it is a computer game, with very computer related issues ingame and out. When you walk into a rooms and see folks scream, "LAG Beeeeeasssst!!!" hoping no one but a GM sees them, it just makes the whole roleplaying thing a farce. True, computing shouldn't be the basis of public chat, but there's times where it has to be addressed, and not have some city dweller pop a blood vessel that they see a question about lag; packet drops or disconnects.

Maybe some MUDs are better run, but that's has been my experience with the commercial ventures.

DeathMutant3

I agree with the above posters in that non-graphical (ASCII art doesn't count) MUDs are an artifact of an older era. Seriously, how many people still use (or ever used?) Lynx, a text-based web browser, over FireFox, Safari, Internet Explorer, or other modern graphical web browsers?

If you are interested in creating and hosting a MUD, I strongly recommend you check out Neverwinter Nights 1 (NWN2 is prettier but has some serious limitations in regards to multi-user support). There is a large and active (since 2001!) community of NWN1 Persistent Worlds (PWs) that welcome and support newcomers either as players, DM's, developers or hosts. PW's are like a MUD or MMOG in the sense that they are always (well, try to be ;-) up, characters are created and stored on the server so players can pick up where they left off, there are quests, crafting, PvP, adventuring, socializing and, of course, monster slaying. There is also a DM Client which gives certain users, as determined by the host, a special tool with elevated privileges from which they can "run" an adventure much like a Dungeon Master in D&D or just moderate like a GM/Guide in an MMOG.

The hardware requirements for running a NWN1 server are minimal too. There are several servers still running on Pentium III's with 512MB RAM! The largest ones can support up to 64 (might even be 128 now?) concurrent users -- which is approaching the population of some MMOG's!

Entire modules can be downloaded from sites like NWVault, you can build them from scratch or just download packages you want and can customize them to better integrate into your gameworld/setting and module.

NWN1 (and NWN2) uses Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition rules but you can, and several have, customized it beyond recognition with NWScript, a C-like (not C++) programming language.

There is, or was, a fairly major Wheel of Time (WoT) NWN1 server out there so you might be able to join their development team and see what it is all about before taking the plunge and starting up your own (competing) server.

Good luck!  

 

Gishgeron

I did not play MUDS.

 

I was (and still am on occasion) a DM for D&D groups.  I have always found teh PnP route far better because I can use visual references and there are standardized rules that everyone can both use and understand.  I also do not like overly "enforced" environments...as such my D&D games were always created with the ideal that I would ALWAYS do my very best to make the game whatever the group decided was fun.  I never forced roleplay (though most did it anyway...simply because it was funny AND fun because of what they played).

MUDS need more advanced tools to succeed today.  They need more visual ties, more constructed formats for players to use in order to attract people.  Its not even a huge programming thing...some basic stuff goes a long way.  A simple Windows Chess layout for locations and combat placement does wonders.

I rant, I miss the days of my constant D&D games.  I love designing and running games almost as much as I do writing and playing music.  Creating stuff is the only thing I love doing.

*sigh*

tifanny

Originally posted by roshaoar

lo, folks,

To introduce myself, I am one of the longtime developers of a multi-user dungeon. I've helped develop the game for the past 15 years, and I'm still involved with it. Back in the day (I hear you groan), they were the only form of gaming available on the net, and we were all WOWed by it as this sort of gaming with other users around the world hadn't been seen before . But I digress.

I'm here hoping to persuade some of you to come and try out the particular dungeon that I'm involved with, and to solicit feedback - very specific feedback - about what puts you guys off the whole idea.

The only gain for us in this is quality feedback which, because it isn't a commercial venture but rather one put together for the hell of it by a bunch of guys who like their online gaming, is something we can't afford to do on a large scale.

This is the Wheel of Time MUD website, which is really your starting point. I'd hope that the explanations and guides offered there would be enough to explain what they are and why you should play. If not, please feel free to either respond here or in a private message.

What I'm especially interested in are the "dropoff points", ie the argumants inside yourself that persuade you to abandon the process of website => trying it out. In other words "this page made no sense" "this page put me off" "yuck, text" "too nerdy" - I really don't mind in the least as I'd love to have an honest assessment of what we need to do to convert some graphical players.

As an introduction, what MUDs generally bring you is a smaller but more adult community, and games which are more fluid. It's easy for us MUD developers to add in new features, quests, items - whatever. They bring faster PvP/PK because the graphical rendering isn't there, and they tend to bring more of depth of roleplaying feel to the whole thing. A lot of the above is because they're run by people like you and me, and even non-technical people can help run a mud by making things to enhance roleplay etc.

If you've ever used IRC or IM messengers before, you'll be familiar with using text across the web. MUDs are a bit like that, a glorified IRC experience in which you can roam a world and do your thing rather than being in the one IRC room.

Anyhow, please give it a whirl - as I said, your feedback would be hugely appreciated, be it through a PM or here on the thread.

Thanks!

Nass

WoTMUD.org, the Wheel of Time MUD

i haven't tried that.. i dont even have  an idea about it..