02 Apr, 2007, Omega wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
muds won't die if the lack of shit muds vanish's, as there are less players, and more imms. If those imms instead of starting new muds, join other muds, and we cut the amount of muds out there, we'd all have large player-bases, and perhaps quality muds that people will want to stay on and play on.
02 Apr, 2007, Justice wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Okay, just had to put my 2 cents in, although most of this has been said already.

When I first started mudding, there were probably fewer mudders than there are muds now. Definitely not a sign of a decaying community.

I also don't buy into the idea that graphical games have hurt mudding for several reasons. First, a sizable portion of mudders play from work or school. Most schools and workplaces discourage the installation of software on their computers. Second, most mudders engage in other activities while playing their muds. This can be studying, working, chatting, browsing the web, etc. While not impossible, graphical games discourage this type of behavior.

Personally, it's my opinion that web games are a larger threat to muds than graphical games. They allow users to engage in the same types of activity as a mud does and often have a chat program to allow social interaction between users. Drop in the fact that most schools/businesses use a firewall to filter out most ports, often including telnet… And finally, web games are by nature… a text game, with the use of a graphical user interface to make it easier for new players to learn.
02 Apr, 2007, Davion wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
It better not be dying. ;)
03 Apr, 2007, Skol wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
I've tracked our online players for the last.. 6+ years, our best year so far? Last year. I mean granted we're no Batmud or those behemoths, our max was 40 players on at one time before last Thanksgiving. But heck, on a mud the size of mine, that's doing alright in my book. The game I want is one where people know each other, and not just little clicks, but like a big group of tabletop gamers…

I've had many players get sucked into the dark side sure, WoW and EQ/EQ2 etc, but know what? They come back usually, why? Depth of game play, and.. here's the kicker, the people.

Scandum, I'm not sure I've ever seen you post something from a non-negative stand point. If you think mudding is so dead, why hang out still, why continue to do it? I'm not saying that as any kind of slam, I hope you see that, simply wondering if it's the regular 'doom and gloom' or if you truly think we're all screwed.

Me, I'll be coding my little online game as long as I can type, even if it's just me and my 20 closest buddies.
03 Apr, 2007, kiasyn wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
MUDs will always be out there, because people enjoy making them. :)
03 Apr, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 26th comment:
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Skol said:
I've had many players get sucked into the dark side sure, WoW and EQ/EQ2 etc, but know what? They come back usually, why? Depth of game play, and.. here's the kicker, the people.

My own players haven't come back. Most of them had been playing since 1994 though.

Skol said:
Scandum, I'm not sure I've ever seen you post something from a non-negative stand point. If you think mudding is so dead, why hang out still, why continue to do it? I'm not saying that as any kind of slam, I hope you see that, simply wondering if it's the regular 'doom and gloom' or if you truly think we're all screwed.

I've been of the opinion that our entire civilization is doomed since the average intelligence declines with each generation. A dying mud community isn't as bad in comparison. Besides, mudding is the coolest thing since sliced bread, even if the majority of the internet population disagrees.

I've also switched from mud to client development. TinTin++ gets over 1000 downloads a month which is more than enough for me to bother to develop it.
03 Apr, 2007, Sandi wrote in the 27th comment:
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Scandum said:
TinTin++ gets over 1000 downloads a month.

Dude, that's the most encouraging statistic in this whole thread!
03 Apr, 2007, Guest wrote in the 28th comment:
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I would have to agree that 1,000 downloads a month is a really good statistic to measure by. That's assuming it's 1,000 uniques a month and not just 100 people downloading it 10 times.

Still, the overall decline is noticeable on muds that once supported 50 people a day on a regular basis. Muds of this size are relatively scarce. My own mud once held an average of 30 people a day, peaks of 50+ until Evercrack came along and sucked the life out of the place. Once the players were gone, the staff had no real motivation to do anything. Plus the fact that life stepped in and occupied the rest of our time. But it wasn't all bad, our decline in players eventually led to the release of the codebase. :)
03 Apr, 2007, Skol wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Lol, right on Scandum!
I hear you on the intelligence, although I wonder if that isn't just us aging and looking at the idiot kids (when we were kids were were smarter than a flip phone, which is saying a lot since they didn't exist ;p).

On the 1k downloads a day, that beats ass! And, should be a sign that there are quite a few interested in MUDs still.

I'm thinking of a new advertising campaign, embrace the demographics… "Are you geek enough for us?" heh, along those lines.
03 Apr, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
I would have to agree that 1,000 downloads a month is a really good statistic to measure by. That's assuming it's 1,000 uniques a month and not just 100 people downloading it 10 times.

It's possible there's this huge tintin fan who inflates the downloads to keep me interested in development. Fortunately ignorance is bliss.

Samson said:
My own mud once held an average of 30 people a day, peaks of 50+ until Evercrack came along and sucked the life out of the place.

I lost 10 active players to Runescape in 2005, that was pretty much the beginning of the end.

Skol said:
I hear you on the intelligence, although I wonder if that isn't just us aging and looking at the idiot kids (when we were kids were were smarter than a flip phone, which is saying a lot since they didn't exist ;p).

Idiocracy is a funny comedy about this subject. There hasn't been a lot of scientific research though.

Skol said:
I'm thinking of a new advertising campaign, embrace the demographics… "Are you geek enough for us?" heh, along those lines.

I once considered advertising on Utopia: http://games.swirve.com/UTOPIA it's expensive but could draw in a lot of new players.
07 Apr, 2007, Brinson wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
I found this article interresting…

http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipity/in...

In it the writer calls IREs earnings modest millions…heh, I wonder if that is right.
07 Apr, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Brinson said:
In it the writer calls IREs earnings modest millions…heh, I wonder if that is right.

It entirely depends on how much the average player is willing to cough up in order to own the uber sword of slaying, or simply impress the ladies. If it's indeed true that some players spend 5000 dollars on their characters you only need 200 degenerates a year to make a million.

I'm not sure about the amount of employees, but assuming 2 for each game, and including the owner of TMC and TMS to the payroll that'd be 10 salaries to pay of probably around 30.000$ each. Add another 60.000 for Zmud and other advertisement costs, 20.000 to keep the servers up and running, and 120.000$ for the big owner (trolling all day long on mud forums is hard work) and you have a grand total of 500.000$ a year.

Given they cannibalize on the MUD community's (limited) player base at large, and the biggest morons will eventually get bored with spending money on every new IRE game opened, I expect the entire scam to work for at best another 4 years after Medievia goes down, which will probably be 2 more years.
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