[MUD-Dev] size

[Sheela Caur'Lir]

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>
> From: Matt Mihaly [mailto:the_logos at ironrealms.com]

>> EQ probably does have as many players as all text muds
>> combined. But this isn't mud-player. It's mud-dev. It's also not
>> EverquestWannabe-dev.  There's a troubling (if understandable)
>> and ever-increasing trend on the list to focus on a handful of
>> games and worse, a handful of games most of which don't diverge
>> much from a single mold.

> That's not the fault of the people who've played these games
> though. Its with the people who haven't not posting here! Speaking
> personally, I just can't get excited by a text mud, but I've
> played most every Euro/American graphical MMO out there.

Agreed.  A graphical interface makes a hell of a difference, but I
also agree that it's far from all. Graphical worlds have some
obvious con's and pro's :

Pro's:

  - Easy for players to regocnize things, without reading half a
  page of text.

  - Easier to get immersion, since you have more than one type of
  input.

  - Usually have relatively big playerbases.

  - Can hold visual / audio Lore or Game Contend as well as written.

Con's:

  - Expensive to develop.

  - Have graphical and sound problems.

  - More costly tech support.

  - Takes more bandwidth and bigger servers.

  - More difficult to develop "zones" / "areas" / whatever.

Just to name a few.

So they require another level of dedication and money funding than a
Text-MUD. Which in return also often mean that they take more time
in creating quality game contend and game lore, since it's better
they get it right the first time around, than to have and use more
money on fixing it afterwards.

Mind you, they do that as well ... they have to.

> Anyway waiting anxiously for the Iron Realms game so I can use it
> as example fodder ;) I'm sure the EQ team are equally as tired of
> all the post-match analysis focussing on them!

Oh yeah - And the AO team, SWG team, DaoC team .. and ... and ...
every bigger-than-average online game out there have probably cursed
at the amount of post-analysis to be made.  More people = more
critisism = more post development work.  And you cannot please
everyone.

---
Jens L. Nielsen
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