[MUD-Dev] Advertising Thread

[Matt Mihaly]

On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, Rayzam wrote:

> Then clearly you haven't been to the websites in question. I bet
> much of the population of say Afghanistan has never heard of EQ,
> UO, or Baldur's Gate. In fact, a large portion of the US
> population hasn't either. I know that I get comments from people
> who aren't at all into computer games going 'I just heard about
> Everquest from readin an article <here>. You play games, what's it
> about?'. Just got one today in fact.

Nearly every time I've ever tried to explain to a random stranger
what it is I do, and mentioned Everquest without graphics, I just
get a blank stare. The general public isn't at all familiar with
MUDs, whether text or graphical.
 
> So it's not a question of rarefied. Sure, there are less MUD
> players than computer game players, than console game players. But
> the same way you can say that the ads haven't reached a game
> designer of 4 years, you can say that game designers of 4 years
> should have been interested in/following up on the breadth of the
> field for their own edification.

Quite right.
 
> Why do many with years of experience in the text mud worlds cringe
> when they hear quotes by designers of MMORPGs that make claims
> showing they've never played any of the text games? Example:
> Horizons claimed 2/3 years ago when they were first explaining
> what they were, that they were going to be 'The First Online Game
> with Underwater Areas, Underwater Races, and Dragon playable
> characters'. I know that's not true and they missed the boat on
> that one by about another 3-5 years prior to the statement.

Ugh. I remember Shadowbane claiming they were going to be the first
online RPG with a PvP focus or some such thing. Complete nonsense of
course.
 
> If you're a researcher getting into a new question, you always
> want to read up on everything going on in that part of the
> field. Even for your own line of research, you want to keep up
> with everything available. Doesn't seem to be the case nowadays.
 
> Take a look at the MMORPG releases. Were the more successful ones
> developed by designers with experience in the text world? Were the
> unsuccessful ones developed by designers without that experience? 
> I don't have hard facts on this, but my intuition is that it's
> true.

UO: Developers with text experience.
DAoC: Developers with text experience.
Everquest: Developers with text experience.

Preach on. 
 
--matt


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