[MUD-Dev] code base inquiry

[Richard Woolcock]

Ben Greear wrote:
> 
> Richard Woolcock wrote:
> >

[snip]

> > You're not listening to what I said.  What I said was that if there were no
> > restrictions on codebases, those people who *wanted* to make some easy money
> > could do so - as it stands right now, the restrictions ensure that people
> > either run the mud for no profit, or else have to put in a lot of work.
> 
> I don't agree with that last bit.  There are free mud servers out there,
> free from commercial restraints (GPL and all that.)  One that I'm familiar
> with is Scry. 

My apologies, Ben - I was under the mistaken belief that your codebase had
been released for running non-profit muds only.

> It may not be the best MUD server in the world, but it's at least on par 
> with most of the DIKU/MERC clones (IMHO).

To be honest I cannot comment, having never taken the time to look at your
codebase.  Having read about some of the features, however, I would agree
that it is probably more advanced than any of the Diku codebases (with the
only possible exception being Smaug, which - like your codebase - is very
feature rich).

Unfortunately it suffers from one big (dis)advantage - it's not based on
Diku.  You're going to have to bring up a whole new generation of mudders
on your codebase - a generation that *haven't* grown up on Diku - before 
you'll be able to gain the popularity enjoyed by most Diku codebases.  As
I'm sure you know, most mudders hate change - and generally stick to 
whichever codebase they learned to mud on.

Still, you've got your mud up and running - over time, your old players 
will slowly trickle away and new ones will join.  Some of those who leave
will do so because they disagree with things you've changed or not changed
and/or because they think they can do a better job themselves - and so
more and more ScryMUDs will start up.

So maybe in a year or two Matthew's wish will come true.

> In order for there to be easy money, you have to have a differentiated
> product.  In a 'market' as saturated as MUDs, where admins/coders/builders
> try hard just to get players for free, it requires a lot more than the
> lack of a restrictive license to give someone something worth charging for.

Agreed.  Sort of.  If you build up a large number of regular players and 
start offering them special perks in return for small amounts of money, one
or two of them will be bound to take you up on the offer (so that they can
get an edge over the others) - particularly if your mud is a very competative
one.  Other players who have put a lot of time and effort into their 
characters, not wanting to fall behind, will follow suit.  Keep upping the
money and the perks and before long you'll have a nice little bit of extra
cash flowing in.  I know of muds that have done this and got away with it.

However, in order to reach that point you have to have something good enough
to attract - and keep - a reasonably sized playerbase.

KaVir.



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