29 Mar, 2013, dracmas wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I played a mud years ago that used to have 8-15 people on regularly. Then about four years ago it started dying
off. People couldn't be on as much as they used to. Eventually even the IMMs weren't even logging in anymore.
Since then, only thing that has been changed is the newbie mud school but that's about it. The website won't even
load anymore. The information on the mud advertisement websites are either giving (now) false information or
missing parts. No code is being updated and fixed. No suggestions to better the mud have been implemented.
It still is my favorite mud, even though it's not fun to play on it by myself.

My question is, "How do you go about getting immortals to a mud to want to do their part, or if that's not possible,
try to somehow ask for the code nicely so that it can be updated so more people will want to play it again?".
30 Mar, 2013, arholly wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Ask nicely. It's what I did. Either they will be grateful for you stepping up or they won't.
30 Mar, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Yep, if the admins want the game to do well, they'll likely be happy to let someone with more time and/or energy take over. If they're too protective/selfish of "their" code, they'll likely drag it into their grave. Either way, asking nicely is really the only option you have, if you want to legitimately continue the mud.
30 Mar, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Ask nicely, sure, but also keep in mind that there's a strong possibility that a revival may never happen. Nowadays, it's not just about having admins who log on. You'd have to promote the game full-time, while also developing its unique features. Running a game is a full-time hobby, and most people who haven't done it underestimate the commitment by a factor of 1,000. Make sure you're up for this before you ask.
30 Mar, 2013, Lyanic wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
plamzi said:
You'd have to promote the game full-time, while also developing its unique features. Running a game is a full-time hobby, and most people who haven't done it underestimate the commitment by a factor of 1,000. Make sure you're up for this before you ask.

This is a true statement. Whenever I bother to promote my game and I've got a steady influx of new changes going in, there are lots of players on. You'd think it was the 1990s again. However, when either of those two things drop off, and they quickly do (it's just me, and I have other responsibilities), there's a rapid decline in the player population back to near ghost town levels. It takes more commitment and effort than a single hobbyist (or even 2-3 of them) can reasonably put in without sacrificing in other areas of life.
30 Mar, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Need a very good community manager to drag and keep people on your mud. And you need to to it all the time, cause every player loss means a less enjoyable game for the other. (well unless your mud is more of solo adventure than a multiplayer one of course).
I am motivated to code, fix bugs, add features but community management..what a drag. I am not a people person type.
Also I think it is a lot harded to build a playerbase incrementally than a big one from start. Kind of a hen and egg problem as well.

Quote
It still is my favorite mud, even though it's not fun to play on it by myself.

Unless you are an experienced coder (or enjoy coding for whatever reason) , and/or do it for you own fun as a hobby, better find another mud to play IMHO. You will probably never get the old people do anything but drop by to talk. If they left it rot, they are probably in greener pasture now. And there are many more project that wlil probably be happy to implement the good ideas your mud has.
31 Mar, 2013, dracmas wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
So far I haven't gotten a response yet, but I'm hopeful that I will get an answer soon enough. I've addressed all the problems that I
felt have hindered the mud from keeping a player base. I'm nowhere near a top noche coder, but I've been programming for years
as a hobby. I've learned from going through different code-bases such as rom, smaug, circle(tbamud) now, and coffee-mud.

I've been on various muds looking at what people like, what people like as far as features, games they like to play, competitions, and so forth. Advertising
through the different mud listing websites has also been promoted through websites and using an INFO social on muds as well. Information that is posted
on websites to help people understand the gameplay is also something I've been looking through, since for some reason our mud hasn't had anything
other than relaying information from on the mud. I feel giving enough information can encourage players to want to spend more time on a mud advancing
their character, instead of getting frustrated and quitting. All this can be done without giving away every detail. A better introduction/in game hints ect would be more ideal, but it solves the short-term problem until the newbie game-play can be fixed. I was told players having no idea where to lvl/equipment was a serious problem in our mud. I just want to fix the short-term while working on the long term as well. Half the features requested in a discussion on the mud were things in the game already that were disabled or messed with, such as hit-dam rates and things disabled such as vorpal weapons. Also, small things like crafting and adding skills/mprog quests really aren't difficult to add within a mud. It's these things I've keep observing while we were discussing what we could add to the mud, that allot of players wanted, but the IMMs provided no feedback.

For a while now I've kept myself content doing scripting client side and leaving matters alone on the server side. When our IMMs recruited two new IMMS at the end
of the year after months of doing nothing, I felt that everything was left in good hands. But they were put in a low-class position where they could do nothing to
work on the mud, and then the IMMS that were supposed to teach them stopped coming on the mud once again and so they couldn't learn or be promoted.

I'm not that great at coding by a long shot, but I make up for it with persistence, and researching what I do wrong until I come up with the right solution. So if you're asking if its a hobby that I can dig my feet in and work for the long haul to make the mud successful again, then yes I can and will do so. But it will only work if the other IMMs will let me take on the task. Otherwise there's not really much I can do. It's just frustrating when you know you can do allot to contribute to a mud, but aren't able to.

I like mudding and coding. Maybe a little too much with the comments about me being online way too much. I can't help it :P
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