This shall be my last post about MUD games
(paging @balooga)
...or, at the very least, the last in a very long time. This is not an article, this assortment of impressions is not meant to form a cohesive whole.
That is my attempt at leaving these thoughts and impressions behind.
The MUD community does not wish to be saved
Historically, the genres that maintain their purity either disappear or become an eternal niche. The film-noir is a kind of crime fiction made in the United States between the 1920s and late 1950s. It cannot expand over these limitations — similar movies after 1959 are, by definition, "neo-noir". The western is circumscribed to certain folk tales of the pre-20th century American frontier. Some stories outside of that are considered "neo-western", or some other kind of western. Those genres still exist, of course, but their presence in culture was greatly reduced.
That was not the case with genres such as comedy (which wasn't even necessarily humorous for much of its existence), action, or suspense. These are meta-genres par excellence, and their survival is a consequence of their promiscuity. Meta-genres will lay with anyone and are prolific in their offspring. Their malleability makes them hard to kill. So we have action-comedies, comedy horror, suspense noir, etc. The combinations are endless.
MUDs are in the purity spectrum. Most active MUDs were created in the 1990s, and their design is representative of that era of gaming. The vast majority of the users are entirely adapted and satisfied with how these games generally function. The term "graphical-MUD" was an intermediary, but it obviously didn't stick (nowadays, they're essentially MUDs with rudimentary graphics on top of them). Retroactively speaking, MUDs are text-based MMORPGs. They're defined by a relationship of similarity and opposition to MMOs. Proposals towards the implementation of additional functionalities that are not text-based will be promptly labeled as one of the following:
- Graphical MUD
- MMORPG
- Persistent Browser Based Game
Because most of the mechanical and narrative features that used to characterize MUDs were adopted by MMOs, the MUD community settled on the notion that MUDs are defined, first and foremost, by their (1) code-bases, and (2) adherence to a very specific set of text-interfaces.
MUDs are also in opposition to interactive fiction, given their focus on complex mechanics and systems (chiefly the ones related to combat). In IF, gameplay exists to support the story, while in MUDs the story exists to support gameplay.
MUDs are entrenched, with existential threats encroaching from all sides. This perception serves to reinforce purist attitudes in the community. The desire to maintain the integrity of their games prevents innovation, and the adherence to outdated designs makes it hard to achieve a wider audience. Notorious games survive with a player-base of 10 to 15, those with 30 people or more are considered successes, and only two or three ever cross the threshold of 100 concurrent users.
But still, their core base is satisfied so there are no efforts toward renewing the audience. The general attitude is that you should adapt to MUDs, and not the opposite. If that means maintaining a game with less than 10 highly-dedicated old-timers, so be it.
For the average MUDer, disappearing is preferable to change.
This makes me think: what would I have to gain by making a MUD game?
I gotta be honest, I don't like books all that much. That's just the truth. So the first thing would be the opportunity to craft a vast, living, and breathing fictional universe. As a game. Not many genres will allow a single creator (or a small team) to make a game of that scale. Making a MUD is the closest I could ever get to making an MMORPG, and to me, there's nothing as fantastic as a true MMO.
Ultimately, I'd want to show just how far MUDs can go when you approach them as you would any other modern game.
The potential is thrilling.
If I made a game with all the changes I envision (and I'm not talking about graphics!), odds are that no one would play it. MUDers would feel uneasy with systems they do not recognize. Non-MUDers are unlikely to play a text game regardless of how cool and modern it is. MUDs are really meant to be collective affairs, and I'm afraid that even the best MUD in the world would probably be played by no one.
That said...
The best alternative, in my view, would be to not make a MUD -- or at least a deceptively MUD game. By that I mean: pick up a MUD engine, deeply integrate it with either Godot or Mudlet, ship everything as one awesome package and explicitly do not call it a MUD. Yep... I can see that working beautifully[1].
That's it, I shall never write about MUDs anymore. Unless..
[1] To be clear, I'm not announcing that I will actually do a MUD game. For now that is largely hypothetical.
Lots of games never find an audience. Or if they do, it's often not enough to make the effort worthwhile.
If I wrote a game it would just be for me. More users, more problems. There are easier ways to get likes, I'd that's your thing. Also easier ways to make money.
Perhaps the people running MUDs feel similarly?
But it sounds like you have ambitions and want to make an important game? Or maybe a game engine?
Thank you for answering ;)
I do enjoy it when people show their appreciation through likes and similar forms of instant feedback. However, the interactions available in online games such as MUDs and classic MMORPGs are a lot richer and more fulfilling than that. I enjoy those as well.
I don't have any ambition of making an important game. What I mean to implement is uncommon in the MUD space, but not at all revolutionary. Mostly basic things people expect from regular games.
I don't need to make either an engine or a client since both already exist.
I definitely don't expect to make any money with MUDs.
EDIT: all of the above is IF I ever make a MUD game. That is hypothetical at this point.
I just wanted to chime in to say that I really enjoy your thoughts on MUDs and other MMOs. I would appreciate it if you continue to write about them.
Thanks!
The reality is that MUDs are taking a toll on me.
Generally, when I'm playing a game or even learning something as complex as the shell, Vim, or Emacs, the amount of effort I put in is commensurate to what I get back. I may sink hundreds to thousands of hours, but that time brings a level of understanding that allows me to navigate those programs with relative independence and ease. There's a logic to them that I can apply to new problems. It is very rewarding.
However, when playing MUDs, Aardwolf in particular (but not just), after 65 hours, the effort is still very high. Chiefly, my main activity now should be doing quests, but those are seemingly randomly generated, sending me throughout the world with no context or narrative. The areas are huge, and there is nothing in the environment pointing me in the right direction. Ultimately, I need to decipher player-made maps to build a path for myself. The process is laborious and utterly dull.
MUDs are generally made, not designed. There's no consistency, and QOL features are insufficient to make them stand on their own. These savage worlds require a lot of external guidance, which inevitably breaks immersion and enjoyment. I don't wanna spend most of my time reading wikis and looking up maps on websites. I wanna play a game.
MUDs are intriguing, but I can't justify the investment anymore unless I have the goal of making a MUD of my own. And that is something that will probably not happen, for reasons I indicated elsewhere.
Anyway, it's great to know that you enjoy reading those reports. Maybe I will write more about it sometime next year. But I truly need a break!
Cheers ;)
Actually, I'm not sure I've read many of your previous posts about MUDs. I guess they were comments, rather than posts, and Tildes only lets you search your own comments for some reason.
It was mostly comments on the weekly gaming thread.
Thanks, I'm sure I read some of those but reading them all at once gives a different impression.
Thank you for reading;)
Great write-up, lou!
I used to be really into MU* games, spending most of that time on a Star Trek MUSH around 2009. What really struck me about that type of game is the freedom and creativity allowed in building and describing things.
As an analogy, some games will give me color sliders to change the RGB values of my character's armor. But no game (that I know of) gives me the ability to import my own meshes and textures to make my armor look like literally whatever I want. That's the kind of freedom given to text.
Aside from just description, you make an excellent point about mechanics. The MUSH I played on used Aspace (originally from and still used by Among the Stars TrekMUSH) and that system is so incredible from a ship systems and command perspective. Easily the most fun I've had piloting a spaceship in any game.
The distinction between the various kinds of related games starting with the letter
Mis still hard for me to pinpoint. For example, I never imagined that a MUSH could have things like ship systems!Is this the game you're referring to?
I'm kinda into the idea of roleplaying some Star Trek, but the social interaction is hard for me.
I think that's where the various MMOs do shine. They serve as that organic shared experience that helps break the ice.
I do think matchmaking in gaming in general has killed a bit of that communitybuilding. When you wanted to have a full server to constantly play games, there was more motivation to kick the assholes and cheaters. With matchmaking almost everyone is a perpetual random, and even breaking the ice has little to no benefit.
It took more work, but then so does maintaining any nontoxic community.
Yeah, that's the site for ATS. They've got ship systems, some kind of commodity-based economy, and automated trading vessels going between stations; lots of really interesting mechanics which lend themselves well to players trying to generate their own content instead of having it randomly generated for them.
The social interaction is difficult sometimes, yeah. It's especially hard to get people onto the same timeframe for multiple scenes over an arc. But it just takes getting involved and putting yourself out there, just like any other community.
I've always taken MUDs to be one of the best multiplayer DnD/Roleplaying games. RPGs of various types hone the combat functions more, but in a MUD roleplay is much easier IMO. Roleplaying in most later MMOs didn't have nearly the same impact.
In the end, the lack of graphics is a feature for the same reason reading books is: It lets your imagination fill in the blanks. While I could see having a more refined UI, I think deviating from text input/output does mean it's no longer a MUD, the same way a 2D platformer is not a 2D platformer once you add a third dimension.
2D platformers still have found a modern audience. I think a modernized MUD (I personally would love to hear more details on your ideas) could find a niche, though probably not likely a large enough one to sustain someone's livelyhood.
Tangentially, there is HackMUD on Steam, and I've been eying it up, but I'm wary of the puchase. I'd love to hear a review if anyone here has played.
Mentions/pings don't work in topic text... so @balooga, this is for you. ;)
p.s. Please label this comment as offtopic