[MUD-Dev] MUD client popularity

[Ammon Lauritzen]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Brian Hook wrote:

> Does anyone have actual data from their MUDs indicating what
> percentage of users are using telnet vs. dedicated/embedded MUD
> clients?

Hmm... I don't know that very many muds actually track that sort of
information since it's pretty much transparent on the server side of
things (unless compression or Portal extensions or some other
mud-client specific communication is going on).

What I do know is that in every circle of mudders that I have ever
dealt with, there is a very big push to make sure that people are
actually using clients. Players ridicule you for using raw telnet
out of ignorance and point you to their program of choice. It is
quite acceptable socially to explain away one's typos and slowness
of response on being stuck without a client.

I would expect that the percentage of people using vanilla telnet vs
mud clients depends on environment. People who are brand new to
mudding and who do not necessarily have rl friends to help them out
are more likely to simply telnet in, where people who've been around
for a long time are probably much more likely to use a specialized
client of some sort.

Likewise, I expect that more people are using plain telnet on mushes
and talkers where combat scroll is a non-issue, or on smaller muds
where the playerbase is likely less experienced as a whole.

Log on to Discworld via raw telnet and it'll whine at you for being
uncompressed; Stick around for too long on Three Kingdoms without a
real client to parse things out for you and you'll go blind from the
spam; however, on Ye Olde Localle Smaug Mud, you could quite
possibly spend your entire mudding career either in ignorance of the
existance of good clients or in absence of any real need for said
software.

--
Ammon Lauritzen
http://simud.org/
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