Zugg Software :: View topic - Death of SWG

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:22 pm

The biggest problem I always saw for muds wasnt the lack of graphics or anything else esoteric - it was the Administrators with wierd rules.

Wierd rules, I hear you say? No multiplaying, no scripts, no having babies on the second tuesday of a month containing a Y, no mention of any adult topics, no this, no that, you cant copy popular hollywoodian names, our word is final, I am God, dont pkill my alts or my friends. The list goes on and on.

The MMOs said 'give us all your money and you can do whatever you like (with the exception of hack/cheat)' and people went *glee!!!*.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:04 pm

You seem to be answering some of your own questions there, Rorso.

I was talking about the graphical and text industries as a single entity - I don't think you can draw a line when users clearly substitute one for the other. I also have many friends who say they'd never dream of playing text games. But when I suggested the idea to a couple of them, they really liked it - I guess people don't have enough experience with pure text interfaces any more, but all it took was a little prod in the right direction. But regardless of all this, you can't blame competition for people's preferences. If people prefer graphical games to text games, it should only follow that they buy more of them. There'll always be some demand for MUDs and there'll always be MUDs there to provide for that demand - the reason that we're here talking about them is because we're part of that group that wants them :)

The hobbyist thing you mention is true of almost any industry, and it shouldn't be a surprise that it's true in the MMORPG/MUD industry as well. Your local family-owned corner shop won't be making profits to rival Tesco any time soon. If people prefer playing graphical games to text games, those people obviously have a different idea of what "something great" is - again, you can't blame the MMORPGs for people's preferences. If the number of people who prefer text to graphics is smaller than those who prefer graphics to text, of course you're going to have a smaller number of players.

The developer thing is to do with the ratio of developers to users. In March 2006 WoW had about 6 million subscribers - Blizzard had about 1600 employees in total, including GMs and staff that have nothing to do with WoW. Even so, that's a good few thousand users per staff member - a MUD should be so lucky to get as many. But no doubt this intimacy is one of the things that keep MUDs popular.

And finally, to answer the question why would someone want to make a new text MUD - the same reason anyone would want to do anything: because they want to. If you're a hobbyist who enjoys making MUDs or a businessman who wants to make money from people's desire for text games, then that doesn't change because more people move to graphical games. It means you need to press harder to make your game better to get those users back.

EDIT: Ninja'd again! Doh!

I can't speak for MUDs, having played a very limited fraction of them, but WoW certainly has very few rules. Dictionary names are allowed. Swearing is allowed (there's an optional, default-on swear filter). Automation isn't allowed for many things, but WoW's addon system is very very powerful - it allows you to expand the UI in many ways.

I do often wonder about the rules MMORPGs have as well, though. Why is selling in-game items or currency bad, for example?

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:45 pm

That "I see someone swearing" is more "I see someone bypassing the filter" which is different to just letting your words hit the filter of people who've opted out. Note that it's up to Blizzard what's allowed and what isn't according to the ToS.

I'm sure both kinds have plenty of superfluous rules, though.

Magician Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 459 Location: USA

WoWInsider.com recently started up a guild for its readers. Being part of the JoyStiq network, they're owned by AOL. When they announced that they were going to hold a contest to let one of their readers 'design' their guild tabard, the legal department went nuts using words like 'Intellectual property', 'likeness rights', and generally being worried that the 'artist' will sue them if they get upset. The legal department fails to realize that the tabards are a selection of Blizzard premade designs and that Blizzard owns all intellectual property of all game content. Including the various tabard designs.