[MUD-Dev] Re: Medievia

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ryan Prince [mailto:jynx_ryn at mindless.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 1998 10:18 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Medievia
> 
> 
> Koster, Raph wrote:
> > 
> 
> [ the mighty hand of SNIP ]
> 
> > It's also, I think, the most popular free text mud there is.
> > 
> > Why? All of these players can't be wrong... Anyone familiar 
> enough with
> > what it has become to be able to give an analysis?
> 
> Why is it the most popular MUD out there? 
> IMHO ( Which May Be Wrong) Two reasons:
> 
> 1. It has an absolutely HUGE playerbase. People like playing 
> in places where you
> can be annonymous as far as most of the world is concerned. 
> This is the one and
> only reason role players ever touch that hideous monstrosity 
> ( I played it, and
> it is the WORST mud I ever played. ) [snip]
> Simply, a large playerbase begets a large playerbase.

Which begs the chicken and egg question--how did it get this huge
playerbase in the first place, especially seeing as how you say "it is
the WORST mud I ever played"? When I played it, there were maybe
(literally) a dozen people on it.

> 2. It panders to the #1 most common type of MUD player there 
> is: The Adolescent
> Male With Severe Mental Problems. In other words, killers 
> love the thing. It has
> a huge database of monsters and badies to kill, and a maze 
> that shifts around.
> Quake players AWAY!

Well, here's an interesting comparison: LegendMUD and Medievia started
at almost exactly the same time. LegendMUD went on to "critical acclaim"
but not a huge playerbase. Medievia went on to "critical lambasting" and
a huge playerbase.

Figuring out WHY is probably a very worthwhile exercise.

If you see mud design as an art and a craft, and art's purpose as
essentially communication and the fostering of exchange of ideas, you
could therefore argue that Medievia is more successful than Legend. (And
anyone who knows me might know that I agree with those premises but said
conclusion horrifies me).

-Raph