General Discussion

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

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.

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

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

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.. ;) 

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.

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

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.

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.

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.