[MUD-Dev] Re: META: list "peerage"

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 12:36 AM 1/25/99 -0800, I personally witnessed Andy Cink jumping up to say:
>At 08:06 PM 1/20/99 -0800, Matt (diablo at best.com) wrote:
>
>Hosting services like mudservices cater to newbie mud implementors.
>They sell server space specifically for the purpose of getting new
>people into running a mud. 

Having been deeply involved in Telmaron, the first reasonably successful
commercial MUD provider, I take that a little personally. ;)

Our goal at Telmaron was to give people a place to host their MUD where
they didn't have to try and explain what a MUD was every three days. We
expected that the MUDs we hosted would be run by knowledgeable people,
people who were tired of having to switch servers every time someone
changed jobs or didn't get his [expletive] stroked enough for providing the
server space. 

Basically, we had noble intentions. One MUD can't afford a high-speed line;
but fifty can, and if they share hardware and bandwidth like a bunch of
polite members of a community, then they can pay a small amount on a
monthly basis and get a lot more than they might get otherwise. Plus, as a
real bonus, we could actually make a small profit from this. 

What a lot of providers started thinking, and Telmaron was guilty of this
as well (which resulted in my leaving the operation), was that hosting MUDs
could be your day job. I was happy with meeting expenses and having an
extra couple hundred bucks here and there for upgrades. Yeah, it would have
been nice to just run MUDs all day for a living, but that wasn't realistic
-- because the market just wasn't there. 

>>By way of example, I mentioned once in a thread that I think a well-done
>>player v. player combat system is the most intense experience one can have
>>in a MUD. A bunch of people wrote back saying things like, "You don't know
>>what you're talking about. Player combat is just a matter of getting the
>>best equipment and then typing KILL <whomever>." It had never crossed
>>their minds that combat could work otherwise.

Or, conversely, that if this is what PvP combat boils down to, something is
seriously wrong with it.

>I do however think that a major problem is that talent is simply spread too
>thin out there. 

Interesting. The MUSH community often whines that all the good MUSH staff
are concentrated on a few small, popular games. Is the opposite true in the
combat MUD community?

>I feel as intimidated as hell. Every time I post I wonder if
>everyone thinks I'm a yutz or not. 

Ever have the unreasoning fear that everyone already knows what you're just
discovering, and when they hear you say it they're all going to shake their
heads and whisper about what a complete boob you are off-list? I worry
about that a lot.

-----
| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban at darklock.com 
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/ 
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