[MUD-Dev2] Text based MUD's - State of the art (if any)

[John A. Bertoglio]

Tiago wrote on Wednesday, April 08, 2009 8:56 AM

> Hey all,
>
> I know that this question surfaces from time to time, but, what is your
> opinion on developing text based muds these days ? I've started one from
> scratch, as a hobby, and to experiment stuff like multithread programming
> and creature AI without the hassle of building a GUI.
>
> I don't actually play any of those MMORPG's you all know and love :) (in
> fact I stopped at some clone of Envy Mud 10 years ago), and I don't know
> if
> people still care about text based games.
>
> Of course there are some advantages like: the developers can focus
> solely on gameplay and not on polygons, players can essentially connect
> from anywhere anytime (you cannot have a WoW window open during your
> working hours, but a telnet session will do fine), etc... 
>
> Thing is, is it worth it? Will anyone still care ? Is it a waste of time?

I have been dinking around with a text based mud for years. Like you, I
haveused it as a test bed for technology I want to learn or expand. 
Clearly,this is not a broadly based commercial venture. However, there
is still somelife in the genere. But I really think that telnet truly is
dead. A 25x80character simply lacks the information density to build a
UI that is bothpowerful AND easy to learn and use.

My work is totally web based with large use of AJAX and positional CSS.
Aweb based environment allows more accessibility and a much more
"modern"look. There are ways to deal with the inherent stateless of the
web. As longas you design a "relaxed" pace into the game, there is
almost no downside.

In addition, a web approach would allow you to add a nice Flex (or
similar)interface down the road if that was required.


John Bertoglio
503.330.6713
Consultant
jb at co-laboratory.com
www.co-laboratory.com
im: jbertoglio at gmail.com