[MUD-DEV] a shrinking pool of players?

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000 23:22:32 -0600 
Ryan P <ixiterra at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I've played EQ before, and I would say roughly 80% of those people
> have no clue what a text-based mud is. EQ is a commercialized
> video game in every sense of the word. It is akin to UT and Q3A
> except for the fact that it focuses more on a roleplaying aspect
> rather than kill, kill, kill.  

My impression is that EQ is essentially a standard HnS DIKU (all the
way down to CONSIDER and corpse retrieval) with spiffy graphics: a
standard linear levels process with bigger and bigger numbers which
is climbed via combat with the appropriate targets where the basic
challenge pattern are the bigger numbers and resulting techniques
required at each level (50 hit points, 500 hit points, 500,000 hit
points, etc).

It is understandable why they followed DIKU's pattern -- its been a
popular and successful model in the text MUD arena.

UO would seem quite different.  To quote from the C|News article at:

  http://www.gamecenter.com/Features/Exclusives/Onlinerpg/ss10.html

--<cut>--
   UO is arguably the most open, free-form game in the genre. Your
   character and the world he or she lives in can be who and what you
   want, not what a class system dictates. Freedom always comes at a
   price, though, which is that many players try to force their world
   on you, and it's often not a pretty vision.
--<cut>--

There are UO players who spend their lives as fishermen, barkeeps,
mayors, etc and who never (modulo Marian's little problem and Dr
Cat's Dilemma) engage in combat.  I don't see that existing in EQ.

AC however I don't fell I have a good handle on yet.  They're
definitely doing some intersting things.

> EQ/UO are video games, plain and simple.

Certainly a great many players _play_ them that way (trained to that
view by their prior gaming history), this is a simplistic and rather
dismissive view.  Its tough to argue your position in the face of
things like...(awww, damn, what the hell was the name of the city
and the Inn in UO that caused all the kerfuffle about a year back
with the heavy RP'ers and the Inn getting burned down etc?)

> --Ryan

>> JD
>> 
>> 
>> 
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--
J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                              Other: coder at kanga.nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--


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