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What is the key 'gameplay loop' in a MUD game?
I'm currently building a basic MUD as a (very productive so far) learning exercise.
Obviously MUDs have the same mix of appeals as other RPGs do: exploration, progression, combat, PvP, online community etc.. But what in your experience is the key mechanic the game needs to nail to keep you coming back? When a MUD clicks with you, what itch is it scratching?
All examples welcome, even those that are not MUDs but may be applicable to MUDs.
I have sampled several MUDs in 2022 and wrote about them in several comments and one post. I am not a traditional MUD player, and I never played them back in their golden age. Many of my opinions about these games are not shared by "real" MUD players. For more traditional, and possibly more positive takes, take a look at /r/mud.
The vast majority of MUDs can be aptly described as "text-based MMORPGs". The resemblance is profound. Generally speaking, MUDs are games in which you are very concerned with the progression of your character.
That is, of course, not true for every MUD. Many have a relevant, and to, varying extents, mandatory roleplaying aspect. Some favor immersion more than anything, requiring you to be in character at all times and act in accordance with it. Exploration is certainly a major aspect of pretty much every MUD.
A MUD will generally "click" when you start to understand your character's build (like in Aardwolf MUD), when you have that one magical roleplaying experience (like in Legends of the Jedi), when you feel that the world reacts to you in ways that make it feel alive and rich ([like in Discworld MUD), or when you build connections to other players and chat becomes a new home.
None of those aspects are exclusive to MUDs, but some are more likely to happen in MUDs than elsewhere.
Other than the text-based nature, what makes MUDs unique is how they're developed and how this changes your attitudes toward them. You see, even though many MUDs will accept "donations" that grant some kind of non-pay-to-win "gift" (effectively purchases with another name, but don't tell /r/mud I said that...) the vast majority of MUDs are developed and maintained by non-professional volunteers. Most of these games were created in the 1990s, some even before that, and have been expanded and supported since then, largely by players that "graduate" into maintainers. Even openly commercial MUDs use lots of unpaid labor and are developed in a way that takes the player base's historical expectations into account. All of that means that you cannot expect MUDs to "just work" as you do with a regular commercial game.
Some things may never be fixed not due to incompetence, but rather because the ethos of mudding is that you are a bit of a developer. You must understand that engaging with the community is not optional, and if something is "broke" it is your responsibility to seek help to circumvent it, help others with the knowledge you accumulate, report a bug, or even put in a request to fix those things yourself when you are more experienced with the game. I am not saying MUDs are a buggy mess, but they're not like downloading a game on Xbox either. If you're not willing to really engage with the mechanics and systems on a closer level, expecting things to "just work", you may find yourself frustrated. You'll also have to take notes, by the way, as there won't be a neat questlog with all the details and narrative for you to look up, or an arrow on the minimap pointing exactly where you have to go (hence the exploration bit). You are pretty much on your own.
There is also the whole aspect of choosing a client and configuring it to your liking, which can be a journey in itself. Even more so because scripting is baked into the culture of the genre. While that is generally only mandatory for PvP, the way some people play can become so heavily automated that it is more like a coding challenge than "real" gameplay.
Different types of MUDs exist, with different expectations. The regular combat-focused MUDs (often DikuMUDs) are like a regular MMORPG. Roleplay Enforced (RPE) MUDs have an important roleplaying aspect. You are not required to roleplay, but there are rules you must follow in order to maintain a healthy roleplaying environment. Roleplay Intensive (RPI) MUDs require you to always be in character. They restrict or remove any out-of-character communications, and may even try to prevent you from disclosing in-character information outside of the game (like on Discord for example). RPIs often have a harsh, deadly, unforgiving vibe, but there is also a My Little Pony RPI that is the complete opposite.
Outside of MUDs you'll encounter MUSH (Multi-User Shared Hallucination) games, which are scene-based roleplaying with much lighter text-based mechanics that are only there to support roleplaying.
I'm blown away by the depth of this response.
I've gone back on your links and am reading through your posts and am really enjoying them! The most recent one about the effort vs payback for enjoying a MUD is something I've struggled to overcome my whole life with muds. I WANT to like them, I like the idea of them, but I just can't get over the difficulty of navigating them and the overwhelming speed of scrolling texts. The first one I tried was arctic mud in the 90s but I just couldn't get past that, then later I ended up joining friends on a dune mud that I started to get somewhat familiar with, but again the gameplay was just not matching graphical online games for me. Later I tried out achea mud in probably early 2000s and while I read and read about the world and gameplay, when I got into it I just did not enjoy the experience. So I've regulated myself in the end to just reading about them, which honestly I'm ok with that. So really, thank you for a fresh batch of mud content!
I played MUDs back in the early 1990s - I guess the "golden age". There were 3 main things that were super appealing, that drove my gameplay.
The first was the social aspect. Players in guilds were really cool! I wanted to be in a guild, but the guilds were restrictive.... you had to go on raids with players, show that you could collaborate, etc. to be able to join. Once you joined, you could enter the guild hall, which was restricted only to members. This was really cool!
The second was that (in the ones I played) once you hit level 18, you were a Wizard. The Wizards were the ones to coded the MUD and could create new areas, build the lore, new spells, etc. Plus, you could use all sorts of magic stuff that was not available to non-Wizards. The social collaboration continued on to the actual shared building of the MUD world, which was very cool.
The final was exploration. I grew up on Zork and other Infocom games and exploring a MUD was similar. It was awesome to map out a new area, figure out where various mobs were camped, find new mysterious locked doors, etc. As a lower-level player, mastering the knowledge of the game world could be a wholly single player experience or sometimes required collaborating (on puzzles, raids, etc.).
I have a lot of great MUD memories. There's something about not having graphics that makes the imagination go wild. I could visualize all of the areas of the games (and still can!) whereas now, you get what the devs choose to show you. That's not bad, just different. It's like the difference between reading a novel and watching a TV adaptation of it.
Hmm. Honestly I think that the thing I like most about MUDs is that there isn’t necessarily one way to play them. They can be social or solo. They can be combat-focused or story-focused or puzzle-focused. And probably most critically, you are given the option of changing how you play at any given time without needing to change characters. So I suppose the thing that makes MUDs appealing is the sense of agency.
I'd say social aspects of a MUD are essential, otherwise you're just making a text-based dungeoncrawler. Designing to facilitate them will go a long way towards building a community.
I'm a bit of an explorer and glitch-seeker (because they often fostered further exploration).
Also, solid mapping utilities would be a fantastic upgrade over the MUDs of old, which often required you handwriting your own.
What way do you personally choose to play most often?
It's been a while since I've played any because I can't devote the amount of time or concentration to get into them anymore. But at my peak I was mainly playing Discworld MUD or any number of social-oriented MUSHes.
I have a couple of questions. You say you're building it as a learning exercise; does that mean you're not planning to take it online? Or if you are, is there a limited amount of time you'll be hosting it before it's pulled?
I'm another person who hasn't played MUDs since the 90s. Although I wouldn't be surprised if things have changed somewhat over the years, when I played them MUDs were usually communities that people could get really invested in. If it's just a temporary side project, may I ask what you're planning to get out of it?
I don't mean to seem critical here; if I do sound that way, I apologize. I do think it's relevant to your question whether or not you're planning to try to build a lasting community, though. While I definitely explored, leveled/geared up my character, and completed quests, the main draw for me was hanging out with my friends (sometimes while doing the former, sometimes while just doing nothing but chatting). Which is... not exactly a mechanic that you can code into the game.
When I got into graphical MMOs, it felt like a downgrade in the socializing aspect, because your avatars were simply standing around stiffly while you chatted. You could no longer emote any action you wanted and have it meld seamlessly with the game world. So this is a feature I think of as integral to the MUD experience. While this ability is already mostly taken care of with the simple emote command, you could facilitate things further by having a good socials list (the premade emote actions), letting people create their own custom socials (with context variables), having good spaces within the world for socializing (both public and private spaces, maybe including a player-owned house system), and actively moderating out toxicity in the community. Most of that just feels like add-ons, though.
As mentioned by others, another feature unique to MUDs is the ability to let trusted players build new areas, which enhances the community building. So you'd want to have a system in place to let people create areas, items, mobs, quest and NPC scripting, etc., that's relatively easy to understand and easy to use.
None of this is a "gameplay loop", exactly. I'd call it more of an overall experience. But it's what kept me coming back to MUDs, back then.
The learning exercise relates to coding and game design, and on that front I've already got a huge amount of benefit from it. Coding a game requires a lot of components that I only knew about in theory if at all. Putting it together taught me how they work, how they relate to each other and most crucially, that the amount I knew was sufficient to link together into a (somewhat) functioning game. Not to mention, watching it take shape has been a confidence boost.
The question of putting it online is undecided for me for the exact reason you mention: whether or not I can commit to maintaining it. Until I can, I'll be satisfied with what I got from it as a solo project.
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad to know it's been worth it to you regardless of what happens with it afterwards. Apologies that I couldn't be of any help for the purposes you have.
Your top-level comment was a valuable insight!
Oh hey, I'm glad!
Are you using a MUD engine or doing it from scratch?
I initially looked into the Evennia engine but Python dependencies are the bane of my existence so I didn't get into concrete development until I opted to just build it from scratch. That made it more valuable as a self-directed "class project" but less likely to reach the standard required of a publicly-released game. I'm pretty glad I wound up doing it that way, even the low-level design decisions were new to me so not as boring as they would be for an experienced developer.
I don't know much about programming but I did feel that Evennia was awesome based solely on the documentation. I think it's what you would call "batteries included software". So I'm not sure if packaging would be an issue. Evennia itself will support a MUD from scratch until the live online server. It will even generate the game webpage. It's pretty neat.
It does make sense to start from scratch if you're doing a MUD for educational purposes.
What I find really sad about Evennia is that it is software ideal for the MUD of the future, but almost no one doing new MUDs that are meant to be released want something new. Evennia doesn't present any advantages to them, which is why most prefer codebases from the 1980s and 1990s. As of today, no full blown Evennia MUD exists. Evennias was created in 2006! I wonder how long they'll keep chugging along if no "real" Evennia MUD is ever done.
Even their own reference game, the Evennia MUD, which was made by the Evennia devs, ceased development.
Right now the most interesting Evennia game is probably Silent Heaven, which is a low-scale, horror, RPI/MUSH hybrid. There's also Arx, another RPI/MUSH hybrid. But I believe they're currently on hiatus.
Anyway, let me know if you ever need any creative assistance on the non-coding front, Evennia or otherwise. I have a bunch of ideas about MUDs.
From being staff on a mud, one of the very limiting things was the scripting language created for the mud was very limited. E.g., no variables, no loops, etc. (But we were lucky that the mud had that as that wasn't common functionality.) We had to get very creative to write quests/content such as having a hidden/invincible mob write notes on a piece of paper or give the mob items and then trash an item each time going through the script as a type of for loop. Or have the script act based on what combination of items the mob had.
So for me, I think having tools for staff to use to create zones/mobs, automated quests, automated environment/mob triggers, and the ability to run live quests (e.g., control mobs, buff/debuff mobs, do room echos, spawn/despawn items/rewards, teleport self/others, etc.), have different staff levels/permissions, the ability reward/punish players (like removing their ability to talk on globals) is crucial. And really there's so much more like seeing players IPs for investigating things where on the lighter end may result in a temp/perm ban or the heavier end require contacting local police.
EDIT: changed some language to avoid some potentially triggering language.
Another pain point was players had a separate account for each alt -- the dream from the staff side would have been one account with all alts and for the player to use ID to create the account. (I can certainly understand the cons of this -- but from the staff side it would have made admin/investigations so much easier and people may have also been on better behaviour with their real identity tied to the account even if only staff would see that)
As a note: high-level staff had ability to see what a player was doing including whispers/tells -- with guidelines of when this was allowable which would be the most serious of concerns during an investigation.
This suggestion has given me so many thoughts.
I'm happy to hear that. Also it's awesome of you to challenge yourself with a project like this.
And just spit-balling here -- but such a project could also be converted for someone special to go through. E.g. You could customize a zone of rooms and quests/mobs/triggers to share with a friend, a kid, to tell a story, or for a marriage proposal, etc. So many options for the future to have fun with it beyond the traditional mud game. :)
I spend more time than I should on project1999 - it's everquest if everquest's last expansion had been Velious. I don't know where you're drawing the line between mud and mmorpg, but most of eq's bones always felt like a text based mud with graphics pasted on top of it, so I'm gonna respond. I've had several chats over the years with others about why we're still playing a 20+ year old game.
Common themes from these conversations:
I also get the sense that the things that seem most annoying about the game are the very same things that keep those of us on project1999 coming back. Travel for non-porting classes is a royal pita - boats from 1 continent to another can take 20 minutes for the boat to arrive and another 20-30 riding the boat. Some of the bigger zones can take 20+ minutes to traverse if you even can with your current level/gear/spells/factions. When you die, you lose 4-16% of your xp, which can de-level you and make new spells/gear unusable until you regain the xp. You can get your xp back by way of resurrection, but that requires a class that can resurrect you, and they need to be transported to your corpse. My best guess is that the more you suffer/have to work for an accomplishment, the more rewarded you feel when you achieve that accomplishment.
project1999 is free to play and is pretty close to a snapshot of Everquest in its heyday. Might be worth rolling a character in Freeport and surveying people buying/selling in the tunnel 1 zone over. Most of us are over 40 and chatty (I know several retirees who just log in to chat).