When I refer to muds, I'm refering to roleplaying ecouraged or enforced muds (as you'll find in the www.mudconnector.com listing), designed to run on a telnet like interface without any statpanels or graphics, just pure text flowing through your output screen.
So, what makes them enjoyable (Based off my experience)?
1) They need to be slow paced, since they are text, text takes time to read. You don't want messages in your output area to be overflowing so fast that you don't have enough time to figure out what's going on, let alone enough time to stop and read the descriptions. Although most people today are fond of fast-paced graphical games, the fast-paced gaming does not belong in non-graphical text only muds. To enjoy the mud properly, you need to be able to read the descriptions and get an understanding of what's going on, and I'm not refering exclusively to combat. I've played some muds where the first thing that happened after I came out of the "Newbie Training School" was to be spammed by "It's really hot!" messages that also drain 1 point of my character's health, and prevent me from getting a decent read from any of the descriptions. Very unfun. I abandond that mud right away, which is good because it closed down shortly thereafter. (See what happens?)
2) They need human contact. A mud is a MULTI USER dimension/domain/dungeon/deathpit, and as such players need to know that there are other players around. This, however, does NOT mean that you should put in an open channel that everyone hears, because those are alltogether bad and I'll get into that later, nor should you put in a who list that lists every player in the game (Those are also bad). You simply need to start the players in a spot where other players are known to hang out and socialize at (assuming your mud has some form of socialization, and since most roleplay muds do, I'll assume as much).
Why are open channels bad? Because for a roleplay mud, it's not right to be wondering through the desert or forest all by your lonesome only to be listening to the "radio" so to speak as other players talk about what's going on in the city across the world. It's not gonna happen. Your player is lost out in the desert and they should NOT know what's going on with something when they have no access to it. Unless of course, your in a futuristic mud and players are in fact talking over radio, but that's a different story. It's nice to be able to come back to where the people are and hear stories about what's beeing happening.
Why are who lists who lists players bad? Well, these aren't as bad as open channels, but it's still part of the same case of "The character has no way of knowing" when his friend or enemy is online at the time. They should not be able to stock up on arrows because they know that their enemy is online and is bound to come shambling into town any time, and you'll be ready to pick him off when he does. No, the better alternative to this is just giving a number for how many players are online at the time. This tells the player that there are still people around to interact with, but doesn't tell them who exactly they are.
Back to the original topic. Have you ever logged into a mud and wandered around for a few minutes, tried talking to NPCs who didn't say anything, then got bored because there was no one to talk to, and no one to show you around? So you end up trying to kill one of the NPCs and (knowing muds) lost bitterly? Players need to have other players around to help them get their barrings. They need to have the world explained to them, and they need to know where the places to be are. Where do the players hang out? Things like that. Since these games are multiplayer, the point is to be around the players! If you don't want that, go play some interactive fiction.
3) A "Something out there that I want to see" notion. This is just my personal preference, but I'm much more inclined to stay in a mud where I feel there is a world out there waiting to be explored, but my character isn't ready to explore it yet. It gives me a feeling of freedom, that I'm not trapped socializing with a bunch of morons in a tavern or somesuch who are talking about nonsense I have no interest in. I want to be able to hear storries about a mythical golden bird several days' march north, and buy myself a bow and arrow and go a'hunting! Then I can come back brandishing my marvelous newly crafted golden-feather arrows, sell them for a bundle, and bask in glory until I get bored and feel like doing it again. The only thing in a mud that has ever left me "wanting more" so to speak is the idea that there is more out there for me to see. It makes me want to log back in and just go exploring.
The idea of having a huge world can lead to two things, it seems, unless there is a VERY dedicated, talented creator behind it. The first is hiring a bazillion room creators to write descriptions for their own littles areas and then link them all together in the end. The problem with this? You end up with a bunch of poorly written little rooms that make no sense. "Why did I just walk out of a tower window and end up in cloud city, only to get sucked down a drain and wake up at the bottom of the ocean?". The other solution is to have repeating terrain, which I've seen in quite a few muds but I've only seen done well once. You have the same description for a few thousand different rooms, same thing over and over, but occasionally you might spot something different in there like an opening to a cave or a branch on the ground or something.
So, here's my take on what I think makes the latter example "bad" or "good". I played a bad example, just last night as a matter of fact. I started in a "dark fortress" of some sorts, in a classic battered tavern that screamed unoriginality at me and wasn't a good beginning in the first place, but lets get on with it. I stepped outside onto the roadway the repeated for 5 steps west. Then I opened the gate and went through about 20 steps of repeating mountain terrain. Then I went down some slippery steps into what appeared to be some kind of city. So, what was wrong with that? Well, I was in an area that should have had detail. If I'm in a city, I want to know what's there, I don't want to see a bunch of repeating "There are towering structures all around you" type descriptions in every room, I want to see what's there to be seen; signs advertising shops, stores, inns, open markets, fish hatcheries, whatever, I don't care, even if the dark room is boarded up, I want to know what USED to be there. I don't want to see a bunch of cheap descriptions of the same "you're in a city" mess over and over.
Now, that was the bad example. This is the "good" example. I started in another tavern, for a change it wasn't all battered up it actually looked decent and there weren't any orc running around. I stepped outside and got lost right off the bad, even though I wasn't as lost as I could have been because the whole city had unique descriptions for each room. So I could still figure out where I was to some extent. After a while I went into the forest outside to the city to explore. The forest had the same repeating "forest" description every step I went, unless it was for example, "sparse forest" near a settlement or a trail, which widened the trail to 3 rooms wide effectively, another nice touch for helping poor lost players like me to get on the right path. These repeating descriptions in the forest were tollerable because I'd rather not be reading new descriptions of the same forest for every step I take. If it's a forest, that's fine, I know I'm in a forest. If there's nothing special out there, don't make me read the description of the same forest all over again.
Now, the latter example did have some problems. Like when you went out into the forest at night without a torch, you'd get a "it's too dark to see" message, but when you went out with a torch you'd still see a description with the sun shining, that needed some fixing. But still the point of this is that descriptions need to be unique in unique areas, but it's okay to repeat descriptions for areas that just plain don't have anything interesting, save maybe some items on the ground or something special like a cave. It's also okay to stick a set of unique descriptions out in the middle of the forest, because that's the fun of exploring.
That's my take on things. Since I'm building a vast text world of my own, I'd like some comments on this.
ID:154382
 Nov 8 2001, 10:17 am
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I've never played any of those macro muds, I like the slow paced muds because you can take the time to read those long descriptions. It seems like muds are more ideally suited for roleplayers while graphical games are more suited for action gamers.
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I never put much stock in RPG design rationales that boil down to "you shouldn't do X in a game because it's not right" or "don't do Y because you shouldn't do it." If I were to remove a "channel" or who verb from my game, it would have to be because I believe the change would be a means to achieve my end, which is a more enjoyable overall experience for my target audience.
If my target audience were ultra-stringent RP purists who preferred not to see any OOC verbs at all, I could justify removing the "who" verb. If my target audience were very sociable people, and I found that a game with a chat channel was attracting too many solo types who liked to hunt alone while listening in, I could justify removing the chat channel. I would do these things to make the game more enjoyable for the type of player I wanted... not because leaving those features in was "just not right." ;) There are all different kinds of MUDs, and I think the more interesting game design question is not "What makes a MUD enjoyable?" but rather "What would make a MUD most enjoyable for target audience X?" Or even, "What makes a MUD most enjoyable for *you*?" Z | |
Or even, "What makes a MUD most enjoyable for *you*?" That's the easiest question of all. What makes it enjoyable for me is not having to write 60,000 room descriptions for a forest, not being spammed over chat channels, and not having people know I'm online so I can do what I want when I want! I think we can ignore the me aspect of this and go right to the players. | |
GateGuardian wrote:
Or even, "What makes a MUD most enjoyable for *you*?" If you're trying to get player opinions here, you're in the wrong place--not many people in general come by here, and most of them are designers. I also agree with Zil here--the number one concern of game design should always be what you want. If what you want happens to be as many players as you can rope in, then obviously the best way to go about doing that is to find out what features would be most popular with players and put all those features in. But I think creating a unique game is an end in and of itself, even if it only ever gets played by a handful of people. | |
Leftley wrote:
But I think creating a unique game is an end in and of itself, even if it only ever gets played by a handful of people. I am certainly a proponent of creating games for oneself, not for others. Either for that, or for money, which involves creating for a market. But I know Deadron has a different opinion on it. Z | |
I am certainly a proponent of creating games for oneself, not for others. Either for that, or for money, which involves creating for a market. But I know Deadron has a different opinion on it. My opinion is similar, though I suppose I was too adamant in defending the "for oneself" portion than the "for others" portion. Really, I make games to have fun, and to see other peoples' opinions on it. But for the most part, if only one or two people dislike something, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. | |
I am certainly a proponent of creating games for oneself, not for others. Either for that, or for money, which involves creating for a market. But I know Deadron has a different opinion on it. I don't think it's that different, really. As I said... if you want a popular game, then by making a game for the players, you are making a game for yourself. | |
I am certainly a proponent of creating games for oneself, not for others. Either for that, or for money, which involves creating for a market. But I know Deadron has a different opinion on it. I don't think it's that different, really. As I said... if you want a popular game, then by making a game for the players, you are making a game for yourself. That sounds right. As I recall it, Deadron's point was that the discipline of anticipating how players will approach the game, and what they will hope to find in it, is a valuable preventative against pretentious artsy-fartsiness. That isn't to say that you should attempt to please everyone, but you should at least try to please the kind of people you want to play the game with. | |
1) They need to be slow paced, since they are text, text takes time to read. I agree with that philosophy. I prefer making/playing MUDs that are practical story books -- lots of text, but not so much that the mere action of walking into a room will inundate you with a flood of meaningless letters. 2) They need human contact. Not so much there. A MUD can be great if you have lots of things to explore and intelligent-seeming NPCs to interact with, even without so much as a single hint of other players. But to be really good, a MUD needs other players, yes... especially if those other players have a say in how the world is created -- not builder-powers, mind you, but some limited capacity, such as buying homes, etc. 3) A "Something out there that I want to see" notion. This is the major thing I play text MUDs for -- to find something clever. Unfortunately, I've only had limited experience with original MUDs, since most of the MUDs I've seen are almost, but not completely, entirely unoriginal. | |
Leftley wrote:
I am certainly a proponent of creating games for oneself, not for others. Either for that, or for money, which involves creating for a market. But I know Deadron has a different opinion on it. True. I should have expressed myself better. My thing is... you're better off if popularity of game isn't what's fulfulling to you as a game designer. I guess in the end it doesn't really need stating that it's easier to find fulfillment if the whims of other people aren't involved in the equation. Z | |
Zilal wrote:
Leftley wrote: Z *nod* Some people get thier inspiration for making a game because they want it to be popular. But some other people (like myself) make the game for the games sake ^_^ I dont care if people ever play my game. I have a god complex, and I am damned well gonna make a world >:P (world being the game in this case). Just the making is good ^_^ if people like it, then even better ^_^;; Anyways, Im tired and half-depressed @.@ so Ill shut up. Elorien | |
There are three types of fast-paced muds, in my MUDding experience(and over discussions with a few other owners)
1: The repetetive annoying message spam-muds, of which you refer to there.
2: Fast paced PK muds, meant to be fast to give a thrill, and require fast-though through quick choices. This is a thrill for some people, although in MUDs it usually boils down to things such as this: 'alias bs backstab %t, alias cc circle %t, alias t trip %t. alias attack bs %t;cc %t,t %t' then just assigning attack to a macro, and spam pressing it.
This is not the case in all PK muds(there are a few exceptions, but most are Roms, Rots and Godwars), I have played one exceptional one(Although there was room for massive improvement). It had a fine skill balance, and required you to think about the type of oponent you were facing, adjust your tactics accordingly, everything up to style of combat, stance, type of weapon, armor vs his weapon, etc.
This mud, as with all godwars went down after a half a year, because the owner went to prison. *Shiver*
3: Fast-paced scroll-muds. Massive descriptions of such length you dont want to read them. Attacks so incredibly long(15 lines) that its rediculous. These are the ones which are usually rainbow colored all over, which tends to be annoying sometimes. Per chance, DBX fit particularly well into this category(The single most popular DBZ mud, of which only a few people have the source code, until I gave it to one idiot of course :P).
I have grown fond of who, because of the simple fact that MUDs are usually around 13-15000 rooms. Without a who list, it becomes the exact opposite of a multi user dimension. You will have people wandering around, unable to communicate in any way, because either everyone has wandered off into foreign lands of where you start, or you can start in so many different places your chance of meeting anyone in hours is almost nill. A decently made where command would be plausible as a replacement(mayby)
As for open channels, I agree to an extent. It can be an extreme annoyance for administrative staff without one, and it can also be an extreme annoyance for there to be one. It really depends on the MUD, even if it is a roleplaying one.
I agree with the notions on exploration, I have found that a mix between repetetive descriptions and well-done detailed ones is the way to go(My opinion anyways). Too much repetetive terrain can make exploring dull, and its almost a relief when you stumble upon an ancient city with full-blown descriptions of everything. I have only played one MUD which was virtually unexplored, and still is(No one has explored everything yet). This was one of the well done PK muds of which I speak, a derative of the NiMud codebase(Emlen), a strategy group-war sort of game, classical evil vs good. The opposite alignment would simply appear as +*- A minotaur -*+ or +*- An Illithid -*+, so discovering who it was could be a fatal experience(names were shown when attacks were initiated. If you are taken by surprise, you are most likely dead).