I''m indifferent.

Actually, I have only one grievence with MUDs and MMORPGs, the lack of any significant goal. Kill monster, gain level, get item. Maybe if there was some kind of competition between players (that didn''t leave a big gapping hole for Grief Players to base their saturday afternoon on), then maybe you could get soemthing going.

I second Inmate on that one.
I love the idea, and certainly have no problem with the text aspect (being a fan of Roguelike games), but I just wish their was more depth than Door/Monster/Treasure.
Then again, I am sure some MUDs are better than that, but I have kinda given up finding them a while ago (particularly since I cant use Telnet from my school )

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Most MUDs are crap, but a few are truly ground-breaking in ways that graphical games will not be for quite some time. Such are the advantages of text...

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I think that the biggest problem in MUDs especially the text based ones is that everyone and there brother who has ever played one has tried to start one of their own. Normally this is a good thing but as mentioned before in another thread somewhere, MUD prgrammers tend to expect everything to be handed to them. I still enjoy playing them (for about 10 years now) but have long since given up any grandiose idea of creating the best and most innovative MUD around. I enjoy them not because there is a goal, but because of the sense of continuity. There has been a general trend of cry-baby MUDs to spring up which allow pk but encourage whiners who can''t accept the fact that they died and lost all their equipment by giving it all back to them or limiting how much the killer can take. I try to stay away from those as they become too laden with OOC politics. Text based MUDs will always have a place in my heart. If you want to be innovative with a text based MUD, work on the client side. Nobody who MUDs wants to pay for ZMUD and even wintin is just old and needs some help. Excuse my ramblings, I am trying to type and watch the NHL playoffs at the asme time.

quote: Original post by evillive2
There has been a general trend of cry-baby MUDs to spring up which allow pk but encourage whiners who can''t accept the fact that they died and lost all their equipment by giving it all back to them or limiting how much the killer can take.

One problem with these is that half the players see PK as being an added extra to their adventuring, and the other half of the players see PK as meaning "text-based Quake Arena". When these players mix, there''s always trouble. Personally, I''m not interested in the games where PK is done without any context or reason for it.

quote: If you want to be innovative with a text based MUD, work on the client side. Nobody who MUDs wants to pay for ZMUD and even wintin is just old and needs some help. Excuse my ramblings, I am trying to type and watch the NHL playoffs at the asme time.

Writing a new client isn''t going to be innovative... writing NPCs that are more intelligent than any game on the market is, though. (For instance.)



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I''ve played various MUDs from time to time.

Basically, there is no inherent advantage to a MUD. There is nothing you can do with a MUD that you can''t do with a graphical game, and the graphical game will be a whole lot more fun to play.

However, MUDs are a good thing because they are so easy to develop, comparativly speaking. In the good ones, the gameplay is the best, bar none, because every minute of development time is directly spent enhancing gameplay. A group of a 3-4 nerds putting in only a couple hours a day can create a game with gameplay many times better than the best commercial games that cost millions to produce.

Also, if one of the said nerds gets a really good gameplay idea, they don''t need to find a sponsor willing to invest millions in it to see it realized.

The upshot of this is that MUDs are a lot of fun for people who just like to play and don''t care about the interface. The more you value gameplay over interface, the more you''ll like MUDs. I love gameplay, and I play MUDs. But I also like a game that is easy to play, and having beautiful artwork/graphics is also a plus. Often I find myself playing a mud, and loving it, but frustrated because of the lousy interface. I can''t stop playing, though, because the gameplay is so fun.

quote: Original post by Michalson
Peh, MUDs are useless, especially the text (telnet) ones. I can''t understand how some people could waste 12 hours a day in one of those stupid things.

How ignorant can you be? Good MUDs are roleplay-designed. You know, somewhat for the D&D freaks who can''t get a game in their towns and such. And grief players aren''t bad on my favorite mud, Lensmoor (telnet://lensmoor.org:3500) due to great wizards.

Oh, and the one I personally work on is SuikodenMUD (telnet://temporal.genesismuds.com:2344). Come on by, I''m a wiz there. Look for Anselm.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Basically, there is no inherent advantage to a MUD. There is nothing you can do with a MUD that you can''t do with a graphical game, and the graphical game will be a whole lot more fun to play.

Show me a MMORPG with real roleplay. You won''t find one that''s at all popular. RP MUDs, on the other hand, are.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
There is nothing you can do with a MUD that you can''t do with a graphical game

Of course not... but practically? Muds are a whole lot easier for a lot of things. eg.
- Procedural generation of infinite items
- Natural language interfaces
- Arbitrarily detailed environments
- Adding new data or content to the game

quote: and the graphical game will be a whole lot more fun to play.

That''s pretty one-sided; a lot of people would prefer a well-polished text game, just as many people prefer a good book to an average movie.

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It seems like only a few people will have understood my post.