another example would be Aliens vs. Predator .... its a circlemud that uses
NOTHING from the original stock MUD,,,.. and as a result it is now 3rd most
popular mud according to www.mudconnector.com (this was awhile ago, so im
not sure if its still true).... go login and check it out.... and u'll see
what im talking bout.
avp.ml.org port 4000
-dmitri
At 03:36 PM 12/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Dec 1997, Mike wrote:
>
>> The strangest thing has been happening lately. I've been trying to
>> recruit builders and start a small playerbase, and many times when I tell
>> someone I use Circle, they refuse to come on, or even look at it. I'm
>> really not sure what to attribute this to, if it is because so many people
>> run stock, change one line and call it heavily modified, or what. But
>> these players go and play on a Merc based mud that is close to stock. It
>> is all kind of funny.
>
>This kind of thing used to be the bane of my mud administering existence.
>Why would players shun my custom coded, custom areas mud to go play on
>some out of the box Merc Mud? The only answer I can come up with is
>familiarity. "Most" mudders already know how everything works on Merc or
>Smaug, and they know their way around the stock areas and where every item
>is, etc. Why would they want to take the time to relearn how to do
>everything for your mud when there are literally hundreds of muds that are
>ALL THE SAME? Much to my chagrin, "most" mudders are lazy. They'd rather
>play on a generic mud and complain about its genericness than acutally
>take the time to learn a new mud system. Why? Because learning is "hard",
>"most" mudders want the mud to be easy. They don't want anything with a
>learning curve.
>
>With that in mind, its easy to see why X random Smaug mud has 200 players
>on at once, while I have to beg players to stay on. Smaug is a
>bells-and-whistles mud base, its very featureful, but if you want to do
>something other than what the Smaug programmers were thinking of, you are
>pretty screwed. Thus, it can be very limiting. But thats Ok for "most"
>Smaug administrators, because even though they wouldn't dream of touching
>the code, they know something we in CircleLand don't: They know that a
>generic mud base, generic areas, and a few non stock areas just for kicks
>will attract a massive playerbase with little or no effort on the part of
>the administrators. This is because there is a very different approach
>between the way Circle and Smaug view the mud world. Circle says, "This is
>a BASE for you to customize as you see fit, but it requires YOUR effort
>and imagination to make it good". Smaug says, "We have every feature you
>could ever need, and if you can think of another feature, you either don't
>need it or we are already working on it. We require no thought or talent
>to run or maintain, just unzip, configure, tweak (maybe), and go."
>But I digress.
>Basically what I am saying is that I used to get mad when a player would
>come on, and then immediately quit out, usually after about 2 minutes of
>activity. That player had maybe moved two rooms at the most, and in that
>time had somehow mysteriously figured out that my mud sucked and moved on.
>This used to piss me off, but now it doesn't because I learned what these
>players were doing. They were logging in, seeing that my mud was somewhat
>(re: completely) different from what they were used to, and then quitting
>out because it wasn't worth it to them to learn a completely new way to
>play. Seeing as I'd rather not cater to that class of mudder anyway,
>these things don't both me anymore.
>
>> Everyone wants change, at least that's what they say. Lets go to a
>> "different" mud, something that offers new features, new code. Ok, they
>> go there, then you see:
>
>An interesting thing about the english language is thaht "different"
>doesn't always mean "not the same". Eggs over easy and eggs benedict are
>two "different" things, but eggs are eggs when you get down to it.
>Players like different, so long as its "the same", which is a bad way of
>putting it. The best explaination is an example: Taking a stock mud base
>and adding on a couple of new areas to the stock zones is the kind of
>"new" and "different" that the players like. Hopefully, you get the idea.
>Note that when I say "stock mud base" I don't mean stock CircleMUD, which
>sucks. I mean stock ROM, Envy, Merc, Smaug, etc because although I think
>that they suck, they have alot more bells and whistles than stock Circle,
>which makes them "better" to play on. If a stock mud could ever be any fun
>to play on, which in my opinion it can't, but hundreds, if not thousands,
>of mudders keep proving me wrong. Its probably from my background as a
>player, most of my playing time was invested in a unique mud
>(tdome.montana.com 5555 actually) that was deemed "a hard mud" because
>learning to play it involved throwing out everything you knew about other
>muds and starting fresh, for the most part. I *like* that sort of thing,
>but sadly, most players apparently do not.
>
>>
>> Someplayer gossips, 'This mud sucks, I can't figure out how to do
>> anything!'
>>
>
>Just another euphemism for "This mud isn't exactly the same as X other
>mud, I can't deal!" So, the player can't deal, too bad, so sad. Read the
>help files or go back to playing in the Smaug sandbox.
>
>> or the more infamous:
>>
>> Someplayer gossips, 'There's a bug here, you don't have X'
>>
>
>My favorite response to this type of thing (as some people on the list
>have witnessed) is "Of course we don't have X, this isn't some lame MERC
>[Smaug, Envy, etc]" Seriously, my mud (Dark Pawns: pawns.guru.org 4000)
>has been around (open to the public) for about three years now, and I feel
>very privledged to work with the dedicated immortal staff of builders and
>coders there, you really couldn't ask for a better group of people to
>build a mud with. We only have one collective problem. We do things our
>way. Always. If a mortal wants to suggest a new spell or feature, or make
>a comment, we actively encourage them to use the bug, typo, and idea
>commands, as well as mudmail. As a coder, I do serously maintain and
>review those files (and the todo file) Because they are a serious source
>of input for the mud, lots of "cool" things on Dark Pawns started out as a
>one line comment in the idea file. Its a resource -- use it.
>
>> Then they leave, self-delete and go back to their merry, uneventful
>> life of complaining on some stock mud about wanting something new. Its
>> quite frustrating. So, the five dollar question of the day is how to keep
>> players on your mud in general? There's hundreds upon hundreds of stock
>> smaug muds, yet they have plenty of players. First people are biased
>> because of the code, then they won't learn the new features. If mortals
>> didn't make the game I would say kill them and be on with life.
>> Don't get me wrong, I love the Circle code base, and have been using
>> it for the past three years now. The problem is why won't new mortals
>> use it?
>>
>
>Well, aside from what I said before about generic mud players and generic
>muds, if you want to try to improve the relationship your mud has to
>prospective (new) players, you might want to consider the following:
>
>Is your character creation straightforward?
> Complex or confusing character creation can turn off a player before he
>or she even starts in your mud.
>
>Is you mud "newbie friendly"?
> That is, are the newbie areas easy to find, are the mobs easy to kill
>and the xp and eq decent? Are there copious help files? On DP, part of
>our "get more players" strategy was to redesign the newbie areas to be
>central to the city, and to make leveling from levels 1-10 "easy" (on a 30
>level system). So basically 1/3 of your levels would be a no-brainer, and
>you'd have to work for the rest.
>
>Is the mud in general straighforward?
> Are all the areas that are avaiable for the players connected logically?
>Are the player character classes in balance with the game? how about the
>mobs? how about the equipment? Is the main city laid out in a simple
>pattern that is easy to understand? Are there maps showing the locations
>of the major stores and guilds readily available? Are there lots of help
>files?
>
>
>> Anyone else encountering problems such as this? If so, how are you
>> handling it?
>>
>
>Sure. I'd think most Circle-type muds have this type of problem, unless
>they have been running for a long time or have been lucky. So far, my
>efforts towards getting more players have apparently been successful,
>there were alot of people on the other day. :) You just have to realize
>that if you are going to try and run a "custom" type mud, you aren't going
>to be able to make the players want to play if they aren't inclined to do
>so. So the best you can do I think is to write code and build areas how
>YOU want to do it, and while you are at it, try to make it as
>user-friendly as possible.
>
>Well, this was kind of long and kind of rant-ish, but I hope I helped
>someone out there.
>
>
>-R
>
>R. E. Paret
>Dark Pawns: pawns.guru.org 4000
>WHOD: pawns.guru.org 4001
>http://pawns.guru.org/pawns
>
>
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