[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud websites

[Matt Chatterley]

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On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Greg Munt wrote:

> How important are they? How relevant are they to telnet-only games?
> (Particularly to stock muds, where all or most of its features are known by
> almost all of its players.)

Perhaps the main way to capture attention of non-mudders, the 'random
surfer' can stumble onto a mud website, and so forth. For stock games in
the sense I believe you mean stock.. no, they are probably not really
useful to *existing* mudders in any way, only to complete newbies. For
games with some development, theme information can be made easily
accessible, and via a combination of ftp and http, all sorts of neat
resources can be linked together.
 
> What are their goals, and are they achieved? Do mud administrators provide
> what users want?

Every user wants something different. Quite interesting, a lot of muds
seem to be providing interactivity between the mud and the website
(Discworld for instance allows posting to online bulletin boards, which
are physically on the mud, via their webpage, IIRC). The most common
application of mud websites is probably the 'sales brochure' outlook, with
very little content for long-term or existing users.
 
> Are mud websites just a bandwagon, or do they achieve some purpose that is
> beneficial to the mud?

The *are* a bandwagon, no doubts. They also provide a useful forum for the
conveying of information. The fact that this information is largely biased
towards non-players is a current trend, I think. But then, what *can* you
provide on a website that existing players might want?

> My perspective is that mud websites, as a medium, are wholly under- and
> mis-used. Most are put up to say 'here we are' and/or 'this is what you can
> do at myMUD!' - not much more than advertising spiel. The web could be
> taken advantage of so much, even by telnet-only games. Mostly, to encourage
> internal socio-political and cultural development (the more RP, the more
> advantages to using a website that there are). You can have online
> newsletters, websites for clubs/guilds, maps, histories if the world, lots
> and lots of things that could not be effectively achieved through telnet.

We've actually been pondering using something like VRML for some of this
(an interactive global), or at the least a combination of links, maps
(both map, maps and HTML maps), and perhaps a java applet for obtaining
public information on parts of the world. Or rather, we were pondering it
some time ago.. who knows what we're thinking now.

Newsletters and links are useful! Let player-run organisational groups
have a page (or a link TO a page, more appropriately), and so forth.. the
possibilities are quite possibly endless.

- -- 
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.." -John Lennon (Imagine)

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