[MUD-Dev2] Fallen Earth

[Tess Snider]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Sean Howard <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:
>> The number of innovative MMO projects out there hasn't decreased at
>> all. ?What has decreased is their visibility.
>
> Not to me. When I say that innovative MMO projects are less now, I'm
> talking about my experiences which are broader and deeper than the average
> WoW player's.

I guarantee you that you don't know everything that's going on out
there.  You probably never even heard of the last project I worked on,
even though it survived all the way to beta.  Heck, you might not have
heard of my current project, either. :-)

>> These days, between the growing population of MMO
>> developers and the secrecy of the companies involved, there just isn't
>> as much of a core community, anymore.
>
> So, you are saying that people who live and breathe MMOs just stopped
> being interested in talking about them? If that's even remotely true then
> it is because MMOs have become less interesting to talk about, period.

That's not what I said AT ALL.  Re-read what I said, with the emphasis
on the word "core."  It feels like there used to be a much more
centralized group of people talking MUD theory all the time.  It was
always missing some voices (the TinyMUSH scene was very isolated, for
example), but it was there.  Many of the first MMOs had a lot of MUD
folks working on them, so a lot of that continued into the MMO era.
Eventually, though, we saw games coming out that were coming from
unfamiliar corners.  We always made room in the tent for everyone, but
as time has gone on, we've really become part of a larger ocean of
discourse.  To say that WoW killed that discourse (which was your
original point) is not at all true.  If anything, it has brought more
people to the table.

Tess