10 Jun, 2006, Justice wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Initially a mudlisting was considered out of the scope of this site. Because of the recent discussions about having one here, Samson asked me what my thoughts were. So I'm asking you…

Should MudBytes have a MudListing?
Why?
What features should it have?
10 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I would say yes.

Why? Well, the more places a MUD can advertise, the better for that MUD. As far as what this site has to gain, well… more traffic for sure.

Also, consider having a pay for perks, or payment optional, or commercial thing? Being able to better represent the types of MUDs in regards to whether or not they are free would probably get a lot of other people behind the project.

I know the main focus is the code repository, but even still, if people are used to coming here for MUD listings or code, they are bound to end up using the other features, as well. If other sites basically work as a one-stop for all your MUDing needs, then that might discourage people from branching out unless other sites (like this one) can serve the same purposes.

Plus, for those of us that refuse to list (or those that have been banned from) a certain other site, this would "make up" for the lack of advertising we would be taking by not listing elsewhere. If this becomes a viable alternative, then perhaps more people will withdraw their support from elsewhere and this site will benefit as a result.

Features? I dunno, I suppose the standard stuff. Player reviews, general MUD stats, a description of the MUD… totally free/payment optional/payment required.
10 Jun, 2006, Midboss wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
I'd personally like to see a MUD listing here. I just think that, with so many sites keeping inaccurate, unchecked listings, it'd be a good idea if MudBytes kept some more accurate ones. Hell, I'll volunteer to look into the listings and make sure that the MUDs are still active and list with some honesty. Also, with this site being a great resource for MUD administrators, it wouldn't be a bad idea to offer resources for the players as well.

Ah, as for features. They're not really that important to me, it's mostly about whether or not the listings are accurate.
10 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Oh, and that reminds me…

Perhaps have some sort of button on a listing where someone who is a registered member of the site can click to "report a dead MUD" or something similar. This can prompt the people looking over the listings to investigate, and if a registered user repeatedly abuses this, they can be dealt with. I figure some sort of button instead of having to email would work better because I know I never bother reporting MUDs I know for a fact are dead if I have to bother with email :p
10 Jun, 2006, Darmond wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
mmm i would say yes
why well because it would probobly greatly benifit both the sight and the players/coders of the mud world. Giving both a place to look for code and for games to play ( and posaboly see how the code that they might download works first hand)

as for features I would say we would need both a alphabetical listings and for it to search by theam. we could also posaboly have a ranking ( dont know if you even want to go there im just throwing out ideas as they come to me). i say there defenitly should be a comments section attached to each mud that way people who play there can leave comments on what they think and about who they think would perfer to play at the mud umm thats about all for now that i can think of.


(O_o wow in the time it took me to quickly wright that up two people already made 3 comments )
10 Jun, 2006, Midboss wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Ah! Darmond reminded me. The MUD listing here shouldn't offer the ability to refuse player reviews. So many bad MUDs on other sites hide behind the fact you can't offer reviews, that I generally don't even give those MUDs a chance.
10 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 7th comment:
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I definitely agree with those senitments.
10 Jun, 2006, Zeno wrote in the 8th comment:
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I dunno. What if the MUD isn't open to players? Then people may just post reviews like "this mud sucks! can't even play" or if the MUD is in alpha like mine, we don't allow reviews because players are testing.
10 Jun, 2006, Conner wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd have to agree with all of the above, I think it'd be a great benefit to every mud that chooses to advertise itself to have yet another place to do so, I think having another site that features mud listings will generate that much more traffic for us. I also think it'd make us a little closer to being the full portal thereby taking the extra step towards replacing MudMagic altogether for the community. Furthermore, I think we could establish a few of the features that The Mud Connector has had debated for years and never gone with and thus win a few more fans that way as well.

As for features, Again, I have to agree with the previous posts. Alphabetical listings are a good thing, along with the ability to search muds by name/category/codebase. Voting/ranking is nice because it gives players a reason to return regularly and it gives admins a way to 'better' their listing. Some rudimentary stats for the mud are pretty much mandatory otherwise it's just a bunch of links, descriptions help with that, but even google can provide that much. Some sort of java connect directly from the listing would be awesome, especially one that incorporated proxy, but then, you've heard my reasons for that a dozen times over already… Let's see, beyond that: A section in each listing for player reviews or even player/admin mini-forums would be cool… Some way to check on whether the mud is up or not is always nice and seems a pretty common feature… A button to report a dead mud is a great idea, especially since we've now already got a volunteer to follow up on those reports.. Someone to verify that our listed muds are in license compliance would also be a plus. As for sorting by pay/free/what-have-you, as long as we've got honest admins posting and fair category definitions, I think it's a great idea. Not sure I can think of anything else.. maybe allow each admin a way to include their banner in their listing if they have one.

———-<added after seeing other posts slipped in>————

Wow, talk about a hot topic.. like Darmond experienced, while I was writing two others snuck their comments in above me.. and along the lines of what they posted, I'd have to say that denying the right to refuse reviews may not be the way to go, but if the reviews section was done as a mini-forum on a per listing basis, for those muds that are like Zeno's, the admin could disable the reviews with a posted explaination.
10 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
While I understand "Rankings" and such, how often are those in any way a reflection of how good a MUD is? Usually it's a reflection of how much the Admins bug their playerbase to go vote, or how many in-game reminders or annoying prompts someone has coded to try to force their players into that.

Honestly, I think those could be done without. I think all of the other things are good ideas, but the more places that have ranking systems, the more I think that'll promote shady Admins trying to force their players to vote. Afterall, I can only imagine the MUDs at the top of every other site will dominate here, as well, so I think that bit is somewhat pointless.
10 Jun, 2006, Zeno wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
There's nothing stopping players from posting about the MUD on forums if they encounter something bad with a MUD. This is why I think that reviews should not be forced to be on for all MUDs.
10 Jun, 2006, Darmond wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
mmm well i do think myself rankings are a good thing but i never understood the whole once a day thing i think a once a month ranking with a scale (1-10) of how you think the mud is doing and progressing etc would work better it would also give one time to evaluate the mud before voteing again instead of just pumping in votes while you like it ( it would also make it harder for shady imms to force you to vote as you can only do it once per month)

also i would have to dissagree with zeno i think all muds should have player reviews if a imm deems a review not apropret ( all it dose is say it sucks and no reason why etc ) they can aks to have it removed but i know many muds that i have wanted to see comments on how the mud works etc that just dont have them but i guess in a way this can be a double edged sword
10 Jun, 2006, Midboss wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Zeno, what you have to consider is that, while you may not be of the few that deny player reviews simply to hide something, those who are severely outnumber you. It's like any number of features that one might avoid implementing; the potential for abuse is just so high. If you feel your MUD isn't ready to accept feedback in the form of reviews, then it's obvious (at least to me) that it isn't ready to be considered 'open', and as such, you probably shouldn't list it yet.

As for the rest of the thread; I'd really try to avoid rankings, because like it's been discussed, it leads to a lot of very annoying prompts and echos that in turn lower the quality of the MUDs run by such glory-starved administrators. It's just a bad thing in general.
11 Jun, 2006, Skol wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
If the site does start doing mud listings, I would say NO rankings…

Just do commentary, no inflating rankings, no biased bs, just simply discussion about the games.

Honestly though, I'm not sure how much the mud community needs another place to look for muds. Might though, you never know.
11 Jun, 2006, Midboss wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, consider this Skol: on TMC, 1757 out of 1755 listings are in the 'Free' category. I think that about sums up the inaccuracy of listings elsewhere, so if an _accurate_ one can be kept, there's really nothing but benefit.
11 Jun, 2006, Skol wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
True there heh.
11 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Darmond said: ( it would also make it harder for shady imms to force you to vote as you can only do it once per month)



Thing you need to consider, however, is it then just becomes a matter of who has the bigger playerbase. A MUD with 300 people (who clearly doesn't need anymore players) is going to be ranked higher, and thus gaining more people. It's a cycle that's hard to get out of. If the players are only taking note of the large MUDs, then all of us with a smaller playerbase will struggle even more to hold on to them. Besides, there's absolutely no way to keep a ranking system honest.

The best bet would be to have a small staff of "reviewers" that would be known for their objective reviews to go through and rank a MUD… but even this would be difficult.

In general, however, I see absolutely NO benefit to having a ranking system.
11 Jun, 2006, Midboss wrote in the 18th comment:
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Awww, but Diablos, you know that's only because I refuse to code a "Vote Now" prompt for you!
11 Jun, 2006, Darmond wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
you know i never thought of it like that and now that you mention it scratch the idea for rankings >_>
11 Jun, 2006, Hades_Kane wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Hah! Funny :p

All it would take for me to never play a MUD again is for them to have an annoying vote now prompt thing.
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