[MUD-Dev] Text Muds vs Graphical Muds

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Anderson, David" <david.anderson at tfp.com>

> Any other ideas why text muds seem to stop growing at some point?
> The servers aren't slowing down, it's not like the box can't
> handle another few hundred people.

Threshold problem.  Each new player who joins the server is one more
player to interact with.  At around the 500-1000 mark (100-200 peak
population), each player that joins the server does more to increase
the number of bad interactions than good ones, and effectively
"crowds" someone else off the server.  Past 2500 (500 peak), this
turns around, the bad effects of additional people have gotten as
bad as they are going to and now each additional person is a net
gain for interactions.  You can hit other thresholds, your world may
have a "carrying capacity", and certain rulesets (especially
"agressive" PK+ rules) can push that capacity down.  But I think the
next social scaling problem would set in around 50,000 players per
world, and I don't know where stability would set in again (which
makes TSO especially interesting to me, since its population will be
in one world for social purposes).  The next one down is around 250
population *total*, or 50 peak.

Basicly, 500-750 players have many stable formations, as do
2500-15000+ (probably as high as 25K), but in between there are no
stable social structures (this is handwaving, I don't know *why*
there are no stable structures in those ranges, I've just observed
it).  You need a *major* influx of population to carry you past the
unstable population levels into the next stable regime.  There's no
reason you couldn't have a 2500+ player free MUD, except that
drawing that many players requires promotional resources a free game
isn't likely to have.  Social instability is interesting to observe,
but usually not a lot of fun for the participants.

--Dave


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