[MUD-Dev] attracting players

[David Bennett]

On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Par Winzell wrote:

> of the key elements. You have to present a fascinating world, populated with
> fascinating people and places. Precisely what fascinating means varies much
> with the player, of course -- don't take the word to mean you have to sell
> them anything. But like a good movie trailer, you need to instill some kind
> of desire to see more, and with a text Mud, that means what you need is a
> strong writing style and something worth writing about.
> 
> Critical mass is key. Not until you have a society to join will people join
> who are looking for a society. Many successful Muds I've seen start as some
> friends playing around a bit, having fun in some somehow inclusive fashion
> so that new players feel welcome to join in. Many things can go wrong in
> those early stages. An admin that hovers over the sole player like a hawk
> is pure poison.

Critical mass is definately the key...  Once Discworld got over a certain
threshold of people it grew significantly faster.  As to what gets the
critical mass in the first place...  Lots of things.  Some muds with a
trully horrible inteface and really interefering admins manage it, others
with a nice looking descriptions and nice admins don't.  You need
something to make yourself stand out and a way to keep players hooked once
they are there (initially).  In the case of Discworld this was obviously
the books...  There are other methods though, advertising is one.
Although I found this to have limited effectiveness.

Flying in the face of elipsis...
David.




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