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Saving MUDs?
chewedtoothpick asks: "My absolute favorite game of all-time, Exile [Archive.org mirror], is a MUD that is about to be shut down, and I've noticed that MUDs have been diminishing in number, especially lately. Why are they all quitting, and what does it take to resurrect them? Is it a matter of buying the code off the creator? Is it a matter of making your own and hope it comes close to the one you want it to be like? Is there nothing we can do to save the classics that define multi-player games?"
The big difference is that people without hundreds of thousands of dollars can succesfully start, build, and maintain a MUD. In many cases, if you can find people willing to donate hosting (there are some), you don't need a cent.
MUDs are also not generally "massively multiplayer". The largest MUD I've ever been on had a record of around 300 connected players at once. While some people prefer to have thousands or tens of thousands of people connected at once, some others do not. Personally, given the choice, I prefer a smaller, more social environment.
Also, with free environments, there's no burgeoning need to get more and more and more people connected. You get all sorts of freedom that you wouldn't if you were running a pay-for-play game, allowing you to push the envelope and try new things if you want.
As an example, if you find a particular player's roleplaying style to be lacking (whether it's simply "hahah lol i pwn j00 n00b!!!11!", or one of what EQ has termed a "griefer") you can kick him off with relative impunity, knowing that he doesn't really have a leg to stand on if he goes out and complains to everyone he sees. You get what you pay for. With cost comes the expectation of being able to please everyone.
On a slightly OT tangent: I was expecting that Neverwinter Nights was going to be the sort of graphical MUD (ie, non-massively, but still multiplayer online RPG) that I've been hoping for. With Quake-style user-run servers, user-mod support, and plenty of other things it was looking really good. Unfortunately the D&D combat system was really hardcoded in there, for one thing. They also provide no persistent world support at all (any persistent worlds have been a nasty user-made kludge so far). It's really unfortunate, NWN was very close to being in a genre all of it's own. Instead they ended up with a D&D-rules Diablo. Too bad.
Random and weird software I've written.
Being one of the four people who founded Exile, I can tell you exactly why it shutdown.
The first and foremost reason is drive. Exile was founded by four people, all of whom loved MUDs. We all mudded for years, and then decided to create our own. Eight long years later, three of the four happily moved on to other pursuits leaving only myself.
I was happy to apply my broken knowledge of C and Perl to building the MUD (I'm a sysadmin by trade, if that gives you any clue as to my programming skill, or lack thereof). But then we lost our "free" hosting. Now I'm presented with a hard choice -- dish out money that I don't have for NEW hosting, and continue on, or quietly let the MUD pass and direct my players to other promising MUDs.
To be honest, if I had the spare cash at the moment to pay for hosting, I don't think I would. Running a MUD isn't easy. There's all the hassles for any medium sized coding project, but there's also creative worries, and game-play worries, and the worst of all PLAYER WORRIES.
All the issues above pale in comparison to having to deal with a player-base. To be blunt, players are a complete pain in the ass. They're always wanting more, and always unhappy with the current state of things, and very vocal about it. I can understand those types. But then there are the cheaters, and the misanthropes... Believe me when I tell you, even though I'm sad to see my MUD go, there are a million things I'll never miss. Maybe I'll even stop turning gray... maybe.
By the way, if any of my non-pain-in-the-ass players are reading this, THANKS for a FUN time, and a ton of great memories. I'll miss you people!
-- Hextall, founder of Exile from 6/1/1996 to 6/1/2003