[MUD-Dev] Re: The Future of MMOGs... what's next?

[Amanda Walker]

On 6/13/02 2:40 PM, John Robert Arras <johna at wam.umd.edu> wrote:

> Furcadia, appears to be less competitive than most MUDs are.

I don't think of MUDs in general as being competitive at all, at
least in the RPG sense.  I realize that many MUDs exist as a medium
for playing RPGs, and that I may be unusual in thinking of MMORPGs
as just one example of a more general category (MMOVEs, perhaps?).

I'm going to show my age here...

For context, my first encounter with MUDs was tinymud, and my most
in-depth experience was LambdaMOO.  LambdaMOO was great--lots of
fascinating content (both areas and objects) created by
participants, interesting people to talk to, places to explore
... not an xp in sight.  I didn't "play" LambdaMOO so much as "spend
time there".  It was more of a "place" than a "game".

My experience with RPGs dates back to the 70s and early 80s, with
D&D and later Rolemaster (still my favorite pen & paper RPG), with a
little Traveller thrown in for variety.

To me, user-generated content is part of what makes a MUD a MUD.
With all due respect to their creators, current MMORPGs are closer
to computerized versions of those pen & paper RPGs than they are to
what I think of as "MUDs", even though they borrow a lot of MUD
concepts and approaches in their implementation.  Still fun, but not
as participatory in many ways.

Amanda Walker

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