[DGD] Current state of MUD-dom

[Stephen Schmidt]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, David Jackson wrote:
> I am saddened to see that MudConnector only lists 21 MUDs as having a
> population higher than 100 on a regular basis.
> I am also saddened to see the list of AberMUDs almost dwindling to
> nothing.  And only a few LPMuds on the list.

What types of muds are the ones on the list?

> I am wondering what the future of MUDs are; in my mind, a good game is a
> good game is a good game.

The telnet protocol may be part of the problem. Not too many
casual users use it anymore. I don't know how many people know
that they can type "telnet://astaria.org 5555" into their Web
browser and it'll work.

> But...the facts don't lie.  Where are MUDs headed in the future?  In this
> day and age of multimedia, have they clung to existence far too long anyhow?

Definitely some kind of WWW interface is necessary. But as Dworkin
says, that requires a much higher initial investment. Commercial
operations can handle that more easily than unpaid volunteers can
do so. In general, the days of the Web as a playground for amateurs
started to close about four years ago; I think what's happening
to LPMud is part of that broader trend.

What's needed is a mud system (either a new driver, or DGD with
a new mudlib - I believe the existing kernel can handle this
with an http interface and enough graphics to survive in
a web-ified environment. That will require changing some
fundamentals about how LPMud works, in particular it will be
hard to replace the long description of a room with a graphic
image.

The problem with an http interface is that it doesn't handle
two-way chat very elegantly. So some kind of support for that
is also needed; maybe Java, maybe something more advanced.
Some way that I can type "Mobydick shouts: The end is near!
Repent!" and the other users in the same room as me get a
message "Mobydick shouts: The end is near! Repent!" in real
time.

I think it would not be terribly difficult to use DGD to
produce a MUD that ran inside a browser window, used
enough graphics for standard things to get the point
across without having to draw an image for every room,
and supported real-time chat. It wouldn't compete with
commercial products, but being free, it wouldn't have to.

Finding access to a server with enough bandwidth might
be the problem.

Steve

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