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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?"
Who needs a mud when you have Slashdot, our beloved MTF (Multi-Troll Forum)?
"Argh! I just took 3 points of mental damage from a Jon Katz post!"
"Does the vorpal sword work against the ravening Goetse?"
"In Soviet Russia, orcs stab YOU!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
MUDs are essentially MMORPGs without graphics. MUDs allow for greater developer depth (the Avatar MUD has 23 races which can be mixed with around 10 classes, and a huge world to explore) and player depth (you can be a lot more creative in a game with text instead of graphics), but it's not easy to go up against the fancy graphics and content factories of big companies like Sony Online. It's not just fun to look at better graphics, but can be easier on the eyes, and a lot easier for people with mild dyslexia (a surprisingly common problem). I think a lot of MUDs are going to dissapear, but I also think that they'll be around for a lot longer, and maybe never fully dissapear.
Blatant self-promotion: Jerek.net
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.
I work on a fairly old DIKU/VieMUD based mud called NCMUD (www.ncmud.org). The way we keep it running (11 years and counting now) is that when the current implementors get bored we just promote two more implementors from the immortal ranks to add new features and run the game. That's how we have kept going this long.
Some problems I have had with running a mud:
A) Hosting... I'm a broke college student and so are the other implementors of NC(at least the ones who currently run it). So we really can't pay much for hosting. When it comes to hosting a mud as large as NC, we transfer about 11 gig up and downstream a month, take up about 2 gigs of harddrive space, and chew up and spit out memory, it's hard to find anyone willing to host us. Right now we might be going off line for the first time in 11 years because we are about to lose our free hosting and can't find another.
B) Player Base... The player base is aging we aren't getting as many young players any more. Most of the people who start NCMUD are old verterns of muds or foreign teenagers. Seems like Everquest is kicking the mud communities ass in this area for sure. Eye candy seems to make up for a lot.
C) Implementors... Most MUDs are started by high school or college students who want to play around. This leads to an inflation of shitty muds. It's extremely hard to find a good mud, and even harder to find a great mud to play out there anymore. Everyone is using a codebase and adding patching, not a whole lot of people are doing their own thing.
That's a few thoughts from me.
- John
Actually, NWN has a persistent data storage system coming out with its next patch. It's in testing right now and a number of persistent world developers are gleefully hacking away at it -- the end result should be what you're looking for, a small-scale, MUD style world with full graphical support.
The D&D combat system is entrenched but that hasn't stopped many people from coding their own enhancements and replacement subsystems. For instance, I'm making a Final Fight / Golden Axe style arcade brawler using NWN, thanks to some custom spawning, treasure, and weapon systems.
It's not really as bad as it might seem in the first moment when one learns that one's favourite MU* is going to shut down. There are bazillions of them out there, and though I'll grant that most aren't that great (most seem to be ego-trips of their respective creators), there is still a great deal of stuff happenin' out there in the MU* world.
The "threat problem" that MMOGs pose to the MU* community is not so bad once you realize the limits of the graphical medium: you are, in all instances I have so far tested, limited in the choice of avatars to what the design team made available to you. Also, the expression of emotions and even just facial expression themselves are limited to a couple of macros, which are the same for all people playing the game.
All these leave the bitter taste of limitations that I don't want or need on my tongue. Though "MUD" is still associated with the hack'n'slash variety -- and no mistake, a lot of them are --, there are as many out there, especially when you get into the MUSH, MUSE, and MUCK codebases, where roleplay is stressed, not "rollplay".
While the fact that these games are text-only can be seen as a disadvantage, it's to be kept in mind that so are books -- and no one has yet proclaimed the absolute end of the written word as a medium of its own. For people with a leaning towards these things, text can be an expressive medium that can rival any other -- and more than that, because of its very nature, it leaves the entire world open to your interaction and modification, without the need for a feature-laden editor or other modding tool.
It begins with the fact that your characters are at your proverbial fingertip: from their background stories to their appearance, their mannerisms and speech patterns, it's entirely up to you and your imagination. The only limits you operate under are the limits set by the MU* canon -- but even those are open to change for those who have the creative energy to put into the history, physiology, philosophy, and whatever else there is to know about any given city, nation, world or race in the game you frequent.
There are enough people who love these games, and enough to keep themalive. These people frequent The MUD Connector or Top MUD Sites, which serve as a place from which to plunge into the MU* of your choice.
Granted, it takes a while to find a place that suits your taste, your imagination or style; but the rewards can be well worth it.
I myself (not being above a shameless plug besides the two resource sites given above) am a player and staffer on the games found at JoinTheSaga.com, which include OtherSpace, an originally themed SciFi MUSH that's been going since 1998, Reach of the Empire, a Star Wars-themed game where Luke and Leia have died way before the start of the original trilogy (and where the prequels are disregarded), and Chiaroscuro, a newly opened work-in-progress centered around an original Fantasy theme. The former two are completely free to play (though donations are welcome, and merchandise is available), while the latter follows a monthly pay-to-play approach like most MMOGs do, but with a guaranteed close connection to the staff -- and also offers the option to play a lowly peasant for free (only the higher social classes require you to pay to be set up).
The games run 24/7 on reliable servers, and staff is available for your questions if you drop by as a guest and want to have a look around.
As a final note: the entrance bar for these games tends to be high (you have to submit a biography and skill list of your character for approval, which you can all set up in-game), and the expectation is that In-Character Actions have In-Character Consequences. This is to keep grievers, "theme idiots", and similar people from ruining the fun of our other players. Elitist? Yes, but for a good cause.
~Khamura
Graduate of the LeRoy Funkified Badass School of Soul.
MUCH! MUDs had the nice property that they were for the most part self-limiting, meaning that you didn't have the average EQ person playing on them. Also muds, do to lower player amounts, could evolve their own personality, either for good or ill.
Also on MUDs, the line between Admin, and "end-user" was much more blurred, since the Imp of the mud was usually a player, and hence accessable to comments and suggestions. If you schmoozed enough, you could become a builder, or and admin yourself. Not so in todays MMORPGS.
Also being that there was a body of MUDs (as opposed to a handful of MMORGS) you had CHOICE in what you wanted to play. Today I could be playing Alter Aeon, tomorrow Vurt, the next day a nice Shadowrun MUSH. I'm not stuck in the swords and socerty crap forever.
Oh... and they were (mostly) FREE. Yep, no $50 to buy the game, then $20/mounth to have the privalege to hang out with the average MMORPG folk. Back in the day I paid $10/m for MBBS access, this MBBS had Tintin,telnet, and dialup support. Plus random inane chat possibilities.
Also muds had a sence of family, and fond memories, they weren't just another profit driven game, they were labors of love, a union between players and admin. Ask any old school MUDer and they will recount their favorite MUDs, with a gleam of nostalgia in their eyes, and how many of us will be doing that for EQ. I dare say most of us will try to keep that little phase in the closet ten years from now, with damn good reason.
Also, MUDs invented clans. REAL clans, clans that mattered.
For the record, I used to play on Bad Trips, Alter Aeon... And of course my two favorites, Genocide, and the ripped port NeoGeno. Plus I built on verious muds (including NeoGeno), and MUSHes.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
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