12 Dec, 2014, Oliver wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
Not to say it's not worth graphically integrating (as others have voiced, many very successful games began as MUDs doing the same thing)… but, well:

I do think it's worth mentioning that my interpretation of the MUD as an artform (insofar as video games are that) is doing what a graphical game does with text. Efficiently and beautifully representing a world (and interactive mechanics) using nothing other than prose is a challenge all of its own and presents difficulties that are different from those of a graphical game. Of course there are hybridizations of the two, much like you can merge elements of any two archtypical videogame genres.

The MUD is different in that it's a blended medium/genre, because the medium affords it some of the genre-making possibilities that you lose as you get more graphical.

Edit: as an easy example of what I mean, think about the way that objects are portrayed in the pure MUD versus the graphical; in a graphical game, the task of making "a twenty foot statue of Zeus" is just that: rendering an appropriately scaled visual of a figure. If you describe it in the pure MUD as "majestic and thirty feet tall" there is no question that the player interprets it as just that. Adding a visual element removes the possibility of this element of interpretation, or detracts slightly from how much players invest into it at the very least.

That is, as some other people (again) have voiced, why you need to put a lot of work into the graphical side of things if you're going to visually integrate. If your graphical frontend doesn't closely match the tenor that you want in your game, it will be impossible to achieve your vision… and in my experience, designing a visual interface that closely matches your expectations for every user is one of the most challenging things software developers are ever faced with.
12 Dec, 2014, plamzi wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Oliver said:
That is, as some other people (again) have voiced, why you need to put a lot of work into the graphical side of things if you're going to visually integrate. If your graphical frontend doesn't closely match the tenor that you want in your game, it will be impossible to achieve your vision… and in my experience, designing a visual interface that closely matches your expectations for every user is one of the most challenging things software developers are ever faced with.


That's true. What's also true is that if you don't make the effort, there's a very high risk that your vision and all your amazing work on the server will remain irrelevant, as in only a handful of players will ever experience it.
12 Dec, 2014, Ashlan wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
I think being realistic with your progression is important. I've seen fully developed MUDs that were made to house hundreds of players near launch, with 2-3 people online and the game didn't work at all with so few people.

Similarly, the time and effort to get themed graphics in is probably beyond most of us working on our hobbyist projects. My plan is to start small and with simple, silly art I can do myself, then try to work on up from there.
23 Dec, 2014, Nathan wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, there are marketing angles to the problem too. It probably helps if the game staff numbers in the 10+ range and everyone in it is similarly engaged such that they all play the game. There is some threshold below which it will probably be difficult to ever get anything going in a multiplayer game if the system depends in any way upon players. The way most MMOs work their most basic mechanics don't quit working if there is only a small number of players. In terms of making player feel like the part of the game, etc that's a loss, but it's a practical sort of decision for a game that needs to make money.
20.0/24