[MUD-Dev] Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or against each other?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Greg Munt wrote:

> A couple of things that I just thought of:
> 
> Is it possible to get even a rough guesstimate on the proportion of members
> and/or posters that are involved with pay muds, rather than free muds?

First, I run a pay mud, not a free mud. It doesn't charge (yet) for
on-line time, but to advance the strenght and variety of your abilities
very far upwards takes money. Players buy credits to raise their skills
(as a particular skill goes up, they gain more abilities that are
contained within that skill). Maxxing out all your skills isn't something
most people do, but to get, for instance, all three of your class-related
skills to Transcendent (the max), would cost, if you bought the largest
amount of credits at once that you could, about, $330. Maxxing out your
character takes about $1200. You can, however, get credits for mentoring.
Once you are an experienced enough player, you can apply to be a mentor.
You can then take on proteges. If your proteges buy credits, you get 1/4
of whatever they buy, for their first four purchases.

> 
> How do pay muds get all their players to part with their cash, when there
> are so many free muds around? Is it in the interests of people involved with
> them to promote the idea that all free muds are stock (rather than let's say
> "higher quality") muds, or so-called "derivative muds"? (Please don't get
> defensive about this one.)

It is definitely in my interest to promote the idea that stock muds are
crap, but then I felt that long before I started Achaea. There is an
attention to detail and customer service in a pay mud that doesn't exist
in free muds generally. It's a simply principle. In a pay mud, the
customer is king. In a free mud, all too often, the admin is king. Players
know this and can sense this. Most of our players rave about Achaea
(though presumably they wouldn't stay if they didn't), and their primary
compliment is basically two-fold. They think we are well-done, and they
like how original we are. Stocks muds of a particular flavour are, by
their nature, similar to stock muds of the same flavour. 

Basically it comes down to the difference between a professional product
and a hobbyist's product I think. A pay mud operator is just likely to be
much more concerned about quality than a free-mud operator. The same
principle applies nearly everywhere in life. You might say "But what about
the linux vs. windows debate? Surely linux is simply much better, and it's
free.", but I disagree with that argument. From an economic standpoint,
something like linux is total crap, because it's too difficult for the
average person to install and deal with. I don't level any of these
specific criticisms at muds (indeed, mine is annoyingly difficult to
learn), but the idea applies. Free products are rarely, if ever, as high
quality as the top professional products.

Some people are willing to pay for quality and have the money to do so.
Some people are willing to, but don't have the money to do so. Some people
are not willing to pay for quality. Some people feel they can attain
sufficient quality in free muds. I don't disagree with any of these
viewpoints. I just know that there are enough people in the first category
to make money off of.

> 
> Is it a given that any pay mud that wants to have any noticeable profit
> needs to be GUI, GUI, GUI, all the way? Obviously it is expected that if you
> are going to pay to play, then the mud needs to be *substantially* 'better'
> than free muds - if they weren't, they wouldn't get any players (?) - so
> what would happen if mainstream free muds gradually started to become higher
> quality? If the stock muds of the future came saddled with GUIs? How would
> this affect the pay mud arena?

You make the assumption here that a GUI is automatically better. I, for
one, would disagree (at least as far as Achaea goes). In the end, stock
muds will never, as a whole, be better (and by better I mean from the
player's standpoint), because they are stock. People crave variety.

 
> In terms of advancing muds in general, what role do pay muds play, and what
> role do free muds play? Does a pay mud need to be a certain 'type', or cater
> to a certain group of players (cf Bartle's Suits) more than others, to be
> profitable? Can a pay mud be profitable without relying on combat-related
> player conflict? (That seems to be mainly what UO is about, maybe its just
> the misrepresentations of the media?)

I don't think a pay mud has to be a certain type. Gemstone III, for
instance, is VERY different from Achaea. It relies, from what I can tell,
mainly on player vs. mobile conflict, whereas Achaea is player vs. player
conflict (not just combat). Both of us are profitable (they more so than
us, I'm sure, given that we do not even approach a glimmer of 4000 players
online at once). They achieve profit through vast numbers. We achieve
profit through high margins. 

> 
> Sidenote: I tried Avalon a few years ago. Text-only (even when you used the
> custom-written client!), and looked and feeled not dissimilar to any old LP.
> What gives? WHY would people pay to use that? I remember being dumbfounded
> at the time.

Why are you so obsessed with graphics? I won't even play a mud that
requires me to use a GUI, as I can't stand them for muds. I did play
Avalon, for several years, and spent probably $3000 or so on it over time
(they charge by the hour). Also, Avalon is significantly different from an
LP (before avalon I had only played LPs). You must not have played very
long if that's the impression you got, frankly, as there is really very
little similarity. 

I know many of our players have gone off to try out Merdian 59, or UO, or
Everquest and nearly all of them came back (I mean no slight on Raph or
whoever is listening here who is involved in those games) saying how much
they preferred Achaea. Clearly the games cater to a different sort of
customer. There's room for many many types of pay muds, I feel.

--matt




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