14 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
People on here have, in the past, had rather fixed and narrow ideas of what exactly MUDs are; Quix is probably right, on this point at least. When you start talking about separate windows for things like inventory with dragging and dropping, people always seem to crop up to complain about how it's not a MUD anymore.


Ah, I see. Silly debate, in any case, to argue over a name.
14 Oct, 2010, Runter wrote in the 22nd comment:
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This isn't your grandfathers MUD.. Wait. Yes, it is.
14 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 23rd comment:
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Bobo the bee said:
Ah, I see. Silly debate, in any case, to argue over a name.

I couldn't agree more and find it very frustrating. I feel like a broken record but I wish people were interested in "games" and not just "MUDs". Text is just a medium here, it's not some fundamental feature. It reminds me of somebody who posted a video to Youtube showing his Rogue-like game and somebody showed up to holler at him about what a travesty it was because it had real-time elements. It's as if any virtues the game might have had were utterly erased by this one feature.
14 Oct, 2010, Runter wrote in the 24th comment:
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I'm going to preempt the comparison what of david said to books vs movies. Movies do not have parity to books for the obvious reason that movies are designed to be watched in one sitting. They aren't just different mediums. One is severely lacking in content when comparing one to the other. The same can't be said for text based vs graphical.
14 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I couldn't agree more and find it very frustrating. I feel like a broken record but I wish people were interested in "games" and not just "MUDs". Text is just a medium here, it's not some fundamental feature. It reminds me of somebody who posted a video to Youtube showing his Rogue-like game and somebody showed up to holler at him about what a travesty it was because it had real-time elements. It's as if any virtues the game might have had were utterly erased by this one feature.


It's the Genre problem. People like to categorize things, and then people like to rabidly support "their" thing. The worst thing I hear is people defending the way things were done "Old School" like it's some sort of fundamentally correct way of doing things. People need to remember that the term "MUD" is just a general categorization for things with general commonly shared things: just because a few things are different from the standard doesn't make it not a MUD.
14 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
The whole thing boils down to people being resistant to change. But at the same time, change in and of itself is not an inherently good thing, any more than it isnt an inherently bad thing.

Im confused however: on one hand the proponents of the change argument seem to be saying that limiting the accessibility of the MUD is making it more accessible people. It is such a blatantly contradictory and hypocritical statement that I have to wonder if it stems ftom idealism or simply trolling.

Maya/Rudha
14 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
Im confused however: on one hand the proponents of the change argument seem to be saying that limiting the accessibility of the MUD is making it more accessible people. It is such a blatantly contradictory and hypocritical statement that I have to wonder if it stems ftom idealism or simply trolling.

With all due respect, I think that you dramatically misunderstood the argument if that is how you view it. :sad: Namely, you left out a crucial component. The argument is more along the lines of: let's make the game less accessible to population A, to make it more accessible to population B, where population B is many times larger.

If you truly have to wonder about people being stupidly idealistic here – for frankly, the argument you presented would be rather foolish to make – or simply trolling, then I in turn have to wonder how much time you spent thinking about what people were saying. :sad: Does the above clarification help explain why the position is not contradictory or hypocritical?
14 Oct, 2010, Runter wrote in the 28th comment:
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Lawl. David, why do you hate accessibility?
15 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 29th comment:
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quixadhal said:
No impact, other than it making those new players not want to bother trying the game, because they don't want to screw around with having to find and setup a client.

Well that explains why World of Warcraft was such a failure! However there are already several browser-based telnet clients that require absolutely no downloads - the player only needs to click a link and they can start playing, just like they would any other browser game.

quixadhal said:
No impact, other than no MUD out there being willing to use anything more than ANSI graphics, because attempting to move beyond them doesn't work for most existing clients

Are you seriously suggesting that my plugin uses "ANSI graphics"? That the BatMud client, the Maiden Desmodus client, the Primordiax client, the IRE client, are all "ANSI graphics"?

quixadhal said:
Yes, I know about MXP, but show me a MUD that actually uses it for more than cosmetic fluff. They can't, because they won't require all their players to have MXP compatible clients.

MXP is a poorly defined protocol. It's worth using for the links and perhaps the 24-bit colour, but IMO the rest is better handled through other protocols - and that's exactly what muds are starting to do.

quixadhal said:
The fact is, neither of us can cite examples of what text games MIGHT evolve into, because they REFUSE TO EVOLVE.

They are evolving. Take a look at the development that's been done on protocols and GUIs over the last couple of years, the evidence is clear.

quixadhal said:
"Until I see other tribes making use of this "wheel" thing, I'm gonna say it's a waste of time and stick to dragging stuff on skins. Our ancestors put a lot of time into figuring out how to weave ropes and make frames so those skins would last longer."

"Why do you keep telling people to replace their car's wheels with chicken feet? All the existing car manufacturers use wheels, and many of them have a lot of experience and have been very successful - you don't even own a car, let alone one with chicken feet".

quixadhal said:
Even if I were to put the time into making a new engine that worked more like a modern MMO but was still a text game (never did I say MUD's should become fully graphical), I suspect it would be dismissed by many here as "not a MUD".

You proposed copying games like Farmville. Are you suggesting that a text-based Farmville would share the same success as the Facebook application?

I think Farmville would probably qualify as a simple graphical mud, and MMOs are definitely muds, so unless you did something wierd (like make it single-player) I can't see why anyone here wouldn't think it was a mud.

quixadhal said:
It ain't the muds that I hate. It's the deep rut that they've been driven into.

And yet they continue to evolve, introducing graphics and sound, developing new clients to edge into the browser game market, or even attempt to edge in on the MMOs. So where's the rut?
15 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Well that explains why World of Warcraft was such a failure!

A somewhat fallacious argument considering the very different nature of single-purpose clients and the one-client-plays-all approach that MUDs take.
I agree that downloading "a client" should not be considered a show-stopper, but it must be admitted that MMORPG clients are very different programs and give you something quite different.
15 Oct, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
Another point that hasn't been properly addressed is why MUDs are supposed to create graphical interfaces with custom user interfaces when most MUDs are incapable of implementing a VT100 interface, and for that matter, most mud clients are incapable of implementing VT100 either. I also have a suspicion that several people wouldn't be arguing against VT100 if their favorite client supported it.

Another consideration is that VT100 interfaces offer more or less the same tactical information as graphical user interfaces, so the main advantage is eye candy. It should once again be pointed out that adults typically don't care for pretty pictures in their books. It should be noted that interfaces do give a significant tactical advantage, which is why people use them, not because they desperately need them in order to play.

Then there is the argument that MSDP, if implemented properly, is interface independent. Users can create interfaces using ASCII art, VT100, HTML, and whatever else their client provides.
15 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Infrastructure is important. Interfaces that work well with the most possible clients are preferable. If you start partitioning off parts of the internet to people who only use … Lynx, for example, you have issues. Lynx is old, doesn't display graphics, etc. The same goes for sectioning off support to CLI only MUD clients such as TinTin/TinTin++ and TinyFugue.

At the same time, partitioning off parts of the internet to people who only have Mozilla Firefox, while obviously less problematic than the previous example, is still denying a very large amount of market share. The same goes for only allowing a GUI client, or a custom-designed client.

It's just not good design, nor smart "business" logic. The less accessible you make your server, the less it will be accessed. It's … basic cause and effect, really.

Maya/Rudha
15 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Another point that hasn't been properly addressed is why MUDs are supposed to create graphical interfaces with custom user interfaces when most MUDs are incapable of implementing a VT100 interface, and for that matter, most mud clients are incapable of implementing VT100 either.

What is the relevance between these two statements?

Scandum said:
I also have a suspicion that several people wouldn't be arguing against VT100 if their favorite client supported it.

You're right, it's clearly superior to graphical elements. Someone get Blizzard on the phone and give them the news. :rolleyes:

Scandum said:
Another consideration is that VT100 interfaces offer more or less the same tactical information as graphical user interfaces

No. The VT100 interface is limited in resolution to the size of the terminal, whereas a graphical interface has as many pixels as the screen does. You also have far more colors available in a graphical applications than you do in a terminal. In other words, you can display more information with a GUI application than you can with text only, even with VT100.

Is this the part where we have suspicious about people arguing for VT100 because the client they develop supports it? :rolleyes:
15 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
At the same time, partitioning off parts of the internet to people who only have Mozilla Firefox, while obviously less problematic than the previous example, is still denying a very large amount of market share. The same goes for only allowing a GUI client, or a custom-designed client.

It's just not good design, nor smart "business" logic. The less accessible you make your server, the less it will be accessed. It's … basic cause and effect, really.

I don't think you're arguing with people who said what you seem to believe they're saying.

You are also making all kinds of inappropriate assumptions. For example, you assume that all client spaces are mutually compatible. You assume that you can cater to them all at the same time. You assume that work toward one client space does not give an unfair advantage to those players over players using other clients. You assume that all client spaces are of equal size or relevance. You're assuming that people will be making things "less accessible" without making them more accessible elsewhere. And so forth.
15 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
You are also making all kinds of inappropriate assumptions. For example, you assume that all client spaces are mutually compatible.


If TF/TinTin/MushClient/zMud are mutually exclusive, as you seem to imply, then please tell me how you feel they are. I suspect, however, they are not, and moreover I suspect you're making an apples-and-oranges comparison to graphical MMORPGs that frankly, is irrelevant to the topic at hand (text-based games).

David Haley said:
You assume that you can cater to them all at the same time.


Nothing except the amount of time involved is stopping me from supporting the majority, if not all, MUD clients.

David Haley said:
You assume that work toward one client space does not give an unfair advantage to those players over players using other clients


So work towards them all; I don't see how that was a difficult answer to provide. It comes with it's own problem (amount of effort required) but its not unfeasible nor undesirable so I'm not sure why people don't do that.

Quote
You assume that all client spaces are of equal size or relevance.


I never said that, and I wish you wouldn't put words into my mouth, as you seem to have a tendancy to do.

David Haley said:
You're assuming that people will be making things "less accessible" without making them more accessible elsewhere.


If this is such an easily-made conclusion as you seem to suggest that it is, surely it would be a trivial task to provide evidence of this. I suspect, however, you will find concrete evidence of this quite elusive.

Maya/Rudha
15 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
Rudha said:
If TF/TinTin/MushClient/zMud are mutually exclusive, as you seem to imply, then please tell me how you feel they are.

Please read what I said more carefully and then see if your question is applicable. Most of your post is based on this misunderstanding so I won't address it. If you have questions, feel free to ask for clarification. To save you some time, I said "client space", not "client" – just as earlier I had said "single-purpose", not "single". These distinctions matter.

Rudha said:
I never said that, and I wish you wouldn't put words into my mouth, as you seem to have a tendancy to do.

Your whole argument is based on some notion of interesting accessibility to players. If a client space is of uninteresting size or relevance, I can't possibly see why you'd be saying everything you're saying other than an irrelevant, uninteresting and impractical point. So either you're making an inconsistent argument, or your argument makes the assumption I gave.

By the way, I could snidely and insultingly tell you to stop your own tendency to put words in my mouth when in fact a point was simply misunderstood. I address the points you bring up instead of attacking your character. Please show me the same courtesy.

Rudha said:
David Haley said:
You're assuming that people will be making things "less accessible" without making them more accessible elsewhere.

If this is such an easily-made conclusion as you seem to suggest that it is, surely it would be a trivial task to provide evidence of this. I suspect, however, you will find concrete evidence of this quite elusive.

I'm afraid that I have no idea what you're objecting to. Could you elaborate?
15 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
[quote=[url=/topic-3136-51832#p51832]Rudha[/url][quote]It's just not good design, nor smart "business" logic. The less accessible you make your server, the less it will be accessed. It's … basic cause and effect, really.[/quote]

I don't see that as being the case at all, actually, especially in electronics. A successful game does, in my mind, do two things: [b]a)[/b] it gives the highest quality product [b]b)[/b] and allows access to the most number of people. Those two things are inversely proportional, though to a large extent: the more effort you put into a quality product the less you're going to be able to develop that game for other platforms. It's one reason that a lot of video games come out exclusively on one console: it allows the funds powering the product to be sent towards making the game [i]good[/i] rather than making it accessible on even two consoles.

It's the same thing with MUDs: if I want to make something that makes the game [i]better[/i] I would rather do that using the tools that best allow me to do that to my audience – like VT100 or GUIs if much of my playerbase supports those, and maybe offer some uglier in-game option in the prompt, or something like that, but maybe not. If a player refuses to upgrade their hardware to support the features that you want to put in, do you stop your developement? No, you make [i]them[/i] change for [i]you[/i]. Especially when there's a free client like MUSH that supports pretty much every protocol out there, as far as I know. Certainly the biggest ones.
15 Oct, 2010, Mudder wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
David - Rudha.

I feel you two just don't quite like each other. Am I right? Almost all threads somewhere have you two bickering back and forth. While I enjoy reading both of your posts because I think the two of you provide valuable opinions(and insight), I think it would probably be a good thing if you two could tone down the feelings of dislike towards one another.

I bet the base of all this is that you're both quite alike. Soooo....
15 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder said:
I feel you two just don't quite like each other. Am I right?

No, you are wrong, sorry (and fortunately). :smile:
15 Oct, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder said:
David - Rudha.

I feel you two just don't quite like each other. Am I right? Almost all threads somewhere have you two bickering back and forth. While I enjoy reading both of your posts because I think the two of you provide valuable opinions(and insight), I think it would probably be a good thing if you two could tone down the feelings of dislike towards one another.

I bet the base of all this is that you're both quite alike. Soooo....


Sorry, Ivan, wrong again.
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