This is my ideas why MUDS are much better at RP player base. With muds you get older people playing the games, and older people want to RP. This is true with graphical games also, most kids that play dont RP they dont understand what the word means. There for makes a bad experience for other people.

Muds arnt advertised on the stores so a lot of people dont get to see the these games, and so only people into muds really play these games.

I played a text based mud before and found it very boring, I am more of a visual person. But you will find in some games they will have a server just for RP. Then you got your other servers.

quote: Original post by Michalson
It seems like only a few people will have understood my post.

I found it somewhat funny, as I say the same thing about Everquest players. It''s also somewhat funny because my parents say the same thing about me, regarding any games.

The important thing to note about MMORPG''s...

repeat after me: CASH COW

200,000 users paying $9.99/month? Yehaw!

What about all the people you have to pay every month with that?

Lets do some math.

200k people paying basically 10 dollars a month. easy math shows us that is 2 million dollars. w/ 12 months we get 24 million.

Now I don''t know how big a staff is for keeping an MMORPG up and running but lets say 20 people. And those 20 people make 50k a year. That''s 1 million in expenses for staff.

The company is left with 23 million.

Now we gotta pay off all the money it costed us for servers. Lets take a quick trip to Dell.com

Each of those 20 people need computers, and of course we need about 15 servers (13,333 people per server).

Dell PowerEdge 8450 - $22,759 (x15) $341,385
Dell Dimension XPS - $ 2,497 (x20) $ 49,949

Total Computer Cost: $391,325

Then there is software cost: 20 people about 2,000 each (I''m too lazy now) = 40,000

Computer and Software costs: $431,325

Then you have Rent and Furniture which...
...etc...blah...blah...

Point is it looks like a lot but after all your expenses...Wait it is a lot . After all the expenses you''ll most likely end up with a 10 mil profit at least. There''s my crap post for today!

quote: Original post by Michalson
It seems like only a few people will have understood my post.

Then post coherently.

MUDs are boring to me. I''ve tried to get into them a couple times, but after a few hours of staring at scrolling text and trying to force myself to have fun, I really just noticed how bored to tears I was.

Furthermore, I think I''d also be bored to tears to develop one. There''s no challenge that I can see. The most challenging (and fun, if you think challenges are fun) things about writing games are exactly the things that MUDs lack: a cool interface, graphics, and sound. Granted, game design is fun and challenging, too. But it''s funner to try to incorporate your design with the graphics and sound.

So in other words, I would have to say that MUD developrs are either lazy or simply lack the skills necessary to do the stuff typically found in games (that make games fun to develop and play). Or perhaps people do find MUD development fun? I can''t imagine it, but to each his own. Maybe I would have liked it when I didn''t know how to do anything else except sockets.

BTW, people on forums tend to get angry when someone else posts different views from what they have. Please don''t get mad over such a silly reason. Just post your views.

I personally think that MUDs are boring!


Even though I''ve never played one ;-)

quote: Original post by ColMustard
Furthermore, I think I''d also be bored to tears to develop one. There''s no challenge that I can see. The most challenging (and fun, if you think challenges are fun) things about writing games are exactly the things that MUDs lack: a cool interface, graphics, and sound.

Graphics bore me, sound programming is trivial, and so is an interface once you work it out once. What really interests me is depth of gameplay. Graphics and sound are just eye candy; after all, I still enjoy reading books.

quote: So in other words, I would have to say that MUD developrs are either lazy or simply lack the skills necessary to do the stuff typically found in games (that make games fun to develop and play).

Please don''t say "fun to develop and play" as if it is a fact when it''s just an opinion... there are hundreds of thousands of mud players, so there must be some fun there. As for the ''skills'' argument... it''s funny to see how many people have got 3d engines but have no idea where to start with programming sockets. Not to mention the pathetic AI that most 3D engine developers come up with.

It''s just a different approach, and I for one am glad that not everybody wants to make the next Doom.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL Docs | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost
Asking Questions | Organising code files | My stuff | Tiny XML | STLPort]

LOL I am with you on that one Kylotan !
Like I always say, once you know how to put a pixel on screen, you nkow all there is to know abuot graphic programming, the rest is just eye candy !
What I like about MUDs is the fact that it forces you to focus on data structures and on the general design of the game rather than on the bells and whistles that will usually distract a beginner programmer.
In my experience as programmer and as computing lecturer (well, assistant, but hey) I think MUD are more interesting for what they teach you.
It''s not to say you dont learn when you do pure graphic programming, that would be pretty biased. But I find that programming something like a MUD will give you skills that are very much usable in other types of non-game projects.

Personally, I am fascinated with the possibilities of using XML to store MUD levels, items and whatnots

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

If you''re a twitch gamer or think Baldur''s Gate is the best RPG series out there, yeah, you''ll probably not like MUDs. Those that know otherwise (I''m talking about Akalabeth vets) generally seem to have a blast.