[MUD-Dev] The Future of MMOGs... what's next? (fwd)

[Matt Chatterley]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Brian Lindahl wrote:

>> I very much agree with your statements, except for your optimism
>> for the future of massive grahpical MUDs. I don't think the
>> corporation mindset has a need to branch into other depths of
>> MUDs, such as heavy roleplaying. The fact is, the crowd that
>> loves

[Snip the rest of Brian's statement]

> Roleplaying is just one way to make a game more interesting than
> just hack n' slash. I have hopes for Shadowbane's group vs. group
> and dynamic organization building features.

Very true -- as do I. Also, just because there may be less
'dedicated' roleplayers than people who just want to play a h/s game
doesn't mean it's not worth doing!

Some free Muds which provide strict/enforced roleplay environments
are extremely popular, with over a hundred (even hundreds) of
players online at a time. Pen & Paper games are still hugely
popular, and if you think about how many Roleplay Muds are out
there...

The audience might be smaller (I would say it probably is), but it
is still a significantly large audience, and still IMHO viable as a
target for a commercial product.

It might be that this product would be marketed somewhat
differently, since the audience are perhaps less likely to go
shelf-hunting for a suitable game, and might not be so attracted by
a flashy box and the promise of stunning graphics; and also that
product quality would be vitally important (in my past experience,
hardcore roleplayers are incredibly fussy -- hack'n'slashers will
put up with a lot more glitches).

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens in the future,
especially with this project.

--Matt

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