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

[Richard Bartle]

"Greg Munt" <greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
 
 >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?
        Sometimes, I think we should have a yearly census for this list..!
        I'm a pay MUD programmer.
 
 >How do pay muds get all their players to part with their cash, when there
 >are so many free muds around?
        There are a number of ways:
 
1)      Get the players before the free MUDs do.
        People often think their first MUD is the best, as they've never
seen any other. By the time they realise it isn't, they've made an
emotional investment which they don't want to lose. This makes wresting
players from free MUDs hard, so pay MUDs try to pull in players from other
sources.
 
2)      Be a better MUD.
        Anyone can write a novel, but most novels written by anyone are
rubbish. Some people really just are better at writing novels than others,
and so it is with MUDs. If a commercial MUD is written by people who are
better and more experienced at MUD design than the people who do stock MUDs,
their game ought to be better. If they spend all day, every day, working on
the game, it should also be a better MUD. Better MUDs may be deemed worth
paying for.
 
3)      Support.
        Newbies can buy the manual, ask questions of people who do game
management for a living, phone the hotline and complain about that crash,
wear the sweatshirt...
 
        There are other ways that commercial MUDs can distinguish themselves
from free MUDs (stability, user base, client software etc.) but they usually
come under one of the above headings. Graphical software gives an indication
of professional competence, for example; advertising pulls in people who
haven't played MUDs before; a dynamic and vibrant user base can make for a
"better" MUD.
 
 >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.)
        Personally speaking, I try instead to promote the idea that not all
MUDs are worthless, confusing, impenetrable garbage. It's the players that
the MUD community in general loses because they try a bad MUD first which
concern me. I don't mind people playing a better MUD than mine, but I do
object to people not playing mine because they think all MUDs are trash.
 
 >what would happen if mainstream free muds gradually started to become
 >higher quality?
        You think that commercial MUDs won't gradually improve too?
        It shouldn't matter that mainstream free MUDs improve, if
commercial MUDs also improve at the same or a faster rate.
 
 >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?
        Traditionally, major money-making pay MUDs have appealled primarily
to socialisers but have had enough of a game component to keep their churn
down. This, coupled with massive numbers of captive newbies, has been the
winning combination. However, if the newbie hose is turned off, the games
rapidly decline.
        So: if you want to make money, and expect to have a ready supply of
newbies, go for a MUD which promotes social play; if you don't have the
newbies, go for a MUD which promotes a balance between social and game
play.
 
 >Can a pay mud be profitable without relying on combat-related player
 >conflict?
        Sure they can.
 
 >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.
        Well they get the players before other MUDs do - see the perpetual
ads on www.mudconnector.com . They have professional people working on it
day in day out, adding new quests and ironing out bugs as soon as they are
spotted. You can buy the manual, look at the smart artwork, and get help as
soon as you enter.
        It's not my cup of tea - I don't like the run-on-rails skill system
it adopts - but plenty of people like their hands to be held in this manner.
        I also think that maybe you answered your own question, in part.
You looked at Avalon "a few years ago". How many non-commercial MUDs could
you have looked at "a few years ago" and still play? Stability builds
community, community makes for a better game, and people will pay for a
better game.
 
                Richard


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