Member Discussions

It seems to me that MUD design, these days (or maybe it's always been this way..?) is all talk, and no action.

I'm constantly seeing threads pop up about how this or that MUD has this or that feature, but few of these MUDs are actually done and open, and fewer still truly have what people say they have.

This goes for 'direction' as well, I often see posts about the direction MUDding is heading in, because of this or that reason.. and then a huge cascade of responses about how 'my MUD is like this' or 'this is how good MUDs truly are' when those MUDs rarely have what their staff says they have.

It just seems like it's all talk, and very few people really do anything. Lots of people seem to have good ideas, but they act as though these ideas were done, implemented, and PROVEN to work, when rarely they are.

Thoughts on this? Am I totally out of line or does anyone else seem to get the same impression?

Text MUD design is pretty stagnant and has been for a while. It's amazing how little innovation there has been. Many current MUDs don't implement parsers as good as the old Zork games had!

It is an area of precious little sharing and even less coherent organization and documentation. So many aspiring designers come in with grand designs, get frustrated re-inventing the wheel and then quit, never sharing their contributions. There are inane fractures and factions within the development community and unworkable liscences that leave developers in Limbo (with no Recall command).

A few continue to press on and try new things, so it's not all doom and gloom. But they are the exception.

I think a big part of the problem isn't a lack of technical ability, but a lack of project management experience and discipline. For many of the coders and developers who dabble in MUDs, it's their first attempt to work on a project of that scale... or their first attempt to work on a 'live' project where service must be maintained while their changes are introduced... or it's the first time they've done a piece of work without a professor or a boss setting deadlines and providing incentives.

An inexperienced developer is often amazed to discover how a software project can rapidly advance to a state that they describe as "about 80% done", and then everything slows right down. Nailing that last 20% typically takes at least as long as the so-called "80%" that preceded it.

Last week, I designed a spacecraft. It took an evening to write the internal room descriptions. Courtesy of my off-line editor, I created fifty objects before breakfast the next day, and the mobiles were ready. Twenty-four hours later, I had the .mob file all set to go...

In terms of the number of lines of text, this means my work was about 95% done. It remained just to add the .zon-like instructions that specify where each mobile should load, and which items it should be given, etc... and then a bit of playtesting.

That "bit of playtesting", and the changes it demanded, took me two days. It also uncovered a small bug in the ship code, requiring a game engine change, a recompile and a reboot... and more testing. Time and again, I see a file that's "almost ready" require weeks more work. And in some cases, sadly, the author runs out of enthusiasm before the new area is fully finished.

I think if we knew how much work it was going to involve, few of us would start a new area or ship... so thank goodness for that initial exuberance... even if it produces a certain amount of hype.

It seems to me that the main reason for this is people who build MUDs do so as solely a hobby. It seems also that there is no companies engaged in selling MUD creation tools (or very few) to the community of hobbists.

With these two facts in mind it becomes pretty easy to see why people of other hobbies are innovating and MUDs are not.

Also, it's very hard to come together with other hobbist MUD creators and express opinions. Most hobbists are "against" eachother in some way or another, or at least there is a feel that they are in direct competition.

In many other hobbies this is not the case. People are lauded for their contributions, such as new designs for model aircraft, or RC cars.

I think on a whole the MUD community does a bad job of getting together and actually analysing what other people have done. Everyone is interested in what their MUD has done and takes little time to consider others MUDs.

I think it is possible to fix this though. We could do so in 2 ways in particular.
1. Create a common toolset for MUD designers. Standardize, standardized, standarize. Possibly sell these standards and these development tools to hobbists.
2. With profits generated from the sale of tools to hobbists, host prizes and competitions that highlight others designs in practice. (Actually force people to go on other people's muds instead of just arguing about what any one mud has in theory instead of experiencing it yourself)

Right now the only tool that people have that is in common among MUD developers is their servers. As you can see the server people are the ones who are sponsoring the community sites. Maybe it's time for new tools, and new community sites.

www.ultimud.com

The only unfortunately side effect to standardization of tools is that in many ways it will put new innovations into a "dead-end". Someone else on another thread said something along the same lines with licensing, where certain licenses may halt further development, which is true.

I agree that part of the issue is the way the community interacts with each other. It seems less "cooperative" then most other hobbies. A lot of times I've seen people flamed when "sounding out" an idea, which may have merit if changed slightly, or was thought out more, only to basically disappear instead because of the flames saying, "thats idiotic" or "no one would play a mud with that!" etc.

Because of the flames (go to nearly any thread on TMC and you'll see tons of them), many would-be developers say nothing at all about their ideas, or have second thoughts about putting together a mud, releaseing snippets, codebases, etc. There was a whole builder vs coder tirade for a while, when in fact these two groups should be working TOGETHER in development. Many coders for muds remain behind the scenes, some take active roles on the muds they code for (especially their own..). Those that don't, when told something they coded isn't balanced, or might be difficult to learn, or whatever get ticked off or ignore what is said, instead of listening and coming together and seeing if a collaborative effort would bring about a good feature, or change. Somehow it seems like builders and coders have become almost antagonistic towards each other, which is a damn shame.

Sometimes though, an admin/builder and a coder mesh well, and there is a good, free flow of ideas from both sides, and they work together to make the idea into a reality. THAT is when the innovations happen. But, again, many of these innovations are never released to the community because of the antagonism, flamewars, and general competativeness (in the negative sense) so prevalent now in the community.

Personally, because of the attitude of certain parts of the community, I've decided to never release the codebase we're working on, nor any snippets of it, nor detail any of the innovations/features we've been creating for the mud. I decided on this course because when discussing even something simple as policies on my mud I've been ridiculed and flamed, as have many others. Why? What's it matter to others that I chose to not allow multi-logging, or sharing chars? Every mud is different, and the admins set the policies he/she feels are "right" for his/her mud. Why bust his/her stones?

The antagonism has been getting worse and worse, and even some of the mud hosts are being veritably attacked for taking steps to protect their livelihood from hackers and such. Other mudhosts act like complete asses and these same attackers say nothing.

It just don't make sense to contribute to the community anymore, when all it gets you is grief.

Random comments:

- I read somewhere (indie game developers discussion board?) that 90% of all games that are started never get finished. 90% of games that are finished never make money... in terms of free-to-play MUDs, it means that 90% of MUDs that are finished have virtually no players in them.

- Innovatation - http://www.mxac.com.au/mif

- Prizes and competitions - The interactive fiction community has an annual contest for a 2-hour adventure game. The 2-hour limit (a) means that it doens't take that long to code so it can be more experimental, and (b) playtesters can play a few of them.

- Standards - Most of the time, when a group of people arbitrarily define a standard, it doesn't work. Talk is cheap, and so are standards. Most real standards occur when a product dominates the market and becomes a de-facto standard.

- A lot more man-hours are (probably) going into amateur graphical MMORPGs than amateur text muds. I can't say much for their innovation though. They are mostly graphical diku-muds, like EQ and WoW. But then again, most text muds are diku muds.

you guys are all retards.

I was GOING to make a new post just now about my mud...FINALLY patched in that ascii pattern recog to direct nerve stim snippet (thanks OneEye!) and added a few new classes...aqua-ninja, jungle minotaur...but you know, I'm just not feeling you guys, in fact I'm NEVER going to advertise my mud here now. In fact, why do I even read these boards, all your muds suk anyway.

and you know what...I'm TIRED of you builders constantly whining.

>www.ultimud.com

dude, that website is crazy. Do you have four eyes arranged in a diamond pattern on your forehead?

But seriously now...for a far more cogent discussion of this issue than I am capable of:

http://www.skotos.net/articles/neo1.phtml

>>www.ultimud.com

>dude, that website is crazy. Do you have four eyes arranged >in a diamond pattern on your forehead?

Not only that, but his eyes are on tentacles that spin around his head.

> It seems to me that MUD design, these days (or maybe it's
> always been this way..?) is all talk, and no action.

There have always been the occasional mud owners who are more interested in talking about what they want to do than actually doing it - just as there are always mud developers who give up or lose interest before their games reach a playable state.

But IMO there is still plenty of innovation and progress being made. You just have to look beyond the stock clones and the wannabe mud owners.

It is one thing to design, it is another to code - and yet another bridge the gap. Most people fall off the bridge.

> It is one thing to design, it is another to code - and
> yet another bridge the gap. Most people fall off the
> bridge.

I'm not sure if that's really the main problem. There are certainly a fair number of projects that die during the design phase, but a lot of them do make it to the coding phase. It's usually not until after several months of coding that most of those projects tend to dry up and vanish.

Sadly I've seen a lot of innovative muds go that route - they produce the early version of something truly original, with the potential to become a really enjoyable game, and then things slow down...and stop...and a few months later the website has gone. There's a motivational bump in the road that can be really hard to get over.

What I mean is they go straight from the design to the code without stopping to plan how they'll actually implement it. It is at this crucial stage where you realize just how ambitious your project is, and decide to break it into smaller more managable projects. The plan can be vague or it can be thoroughly detailed - the point is to have one.

>It is one thing to design, it is another to code - and yet another bridge the gap. Most people fall off the bridge.

Sounds like a great DT room ;-)

Step off that high horse already.

P.S
Talking is good.

I think you'll find Kavir's horse has four sturdy legs and has been running at full gallop for the last decade. :)

Must be because he is a mud owner wannabe, as we all are...

> Step off that high horse already.

Huh? The original poster is the one saying it's "all talk, and no action". I'm the one saying "there is still plenty of innovation and progress being made. You just have to look beyond the stock clones and the wannabe mud owners."

I fail to see how you could be offended by my defence of mud innovation and progress...unless of course, you yourself fall into one of the two categories I mentioned in the second sentence...

I do? I don't believe I own and run a MUD. Can we stop being ignorant maybe? You do however, so hrrm... Irony?

How is KaVir being arrogant or ignorant? Did I miss something? ................ In case you misinterpreted something, I don't believe he ever attacked you, or said that he was better than anyone else.......

Best of Luck,
-Jess

> > Huh? The original poster is the one saying it's "all talk,
> > and no action". I'm the one saying "there is still plenty
> > of innovation and progress being made. You just have to
> > look beyond the stock clones and the wannabe mud owners."
> >
> > I fail to see how you could be offended by my defence of
> > mud innovation and progress...unless of course, you
> > yourself fall into one of the two categories I mentioned
> > in the second sentence...
>
> I do? I don't believe I own and run a MUD. Can we stop
> being ignorant maybe?

Sure - I'm not stopping you from educating yourself. In fact I'll even provide you with the appropriate link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannabe

"A wannabe (sometimes spelled wannabee) is a person who likes to imitate, or even wishes to be, another, but cannot achieve it due to physical, psychological, financial, cultural, political, religious, or mental limitations."

Sounds like I hit the nail on the head as to why you feel offended.

> You do however, so hrrm... Irony?

Ah, but I can "achieve it", and have been doing so for over 11 years. My mud may only appeal to a minority, and certainly has its flaws, but it also offers various features which are relatively innovative and progressive (at least among muds).

I don't recall including a quote from you or mentioning your name in my original post. I find it ironic as well funny how you assumed I was refering to you. I also find it funny how you had to go out of your way to define what a 'wannabe' is and why you're not it. As if it means anything to the topic.

The statement itself is pretty simple. Let me quote it for you again.

"Get off your high horse"

That means in short, to stop thinking you're above everyone else. If I was refering to your post Kevir, you could say it was in reference to your statement in calling those guys "wannbe mud owners". So the question is not "what is a wannabe" or "how much mud experience do you have" (irony 4tw), but "why are you offended by my statement (Offended from Kevirs wannbe post)?"

Well really, if I posted my statement because of your original statement Kevir. It would be because, game design isn't implemented first. It's designed on paper. Basicly, you're saying all of those who design and talk about game design, who never get to the point of implementation are "wannabe's". Hence the "ironic" statements in my follow up posts, being you are a game designer. Now, if you have something against game design as in putting it on paper and scratching the idea due to resources (Finding programmers, designers, and a team) or time. Then I would say, you're in the wrong forum and wrong line of work. No matter of who you are or how long you played here.

*Insert random mud experience statement here*

Cheers!

Seeing as your post was in reply to KaVir's, it was reasonable to assume you WERE referring to him.

> I don't recall including a quote from you or mentioning
> your name in my original post.

Your post was a reply to mine. Furthermore, when Keriwena replied to your post and mentioned me by name, you responded with "Must be because he is a mud owner wannabe..."

So yes, it is very clear that you were responding to me.

> Well really, if I posted my statement because of your
> original statement Kevir. It would be because, game design
> isn't implemented first. It's designed on paper.

It is. But the original poster is complaining that that's as far as it goes, and that mud owners talk about new features but never actually get around to finishing them.

My point is that that isn't always as far as it goes. For some people it is, but if you're looking for an innovative mud you have to look beyond those people.

> Basicly, you're saying all of those who design and talk
> about game design, who never get to the point of
> implementation are "wannabe's".

I said they are "wannabe mud owners". Not a very polite way of putting it perhaps, but if they never actually get around to creating the mud they're always talking about then that's a pretty accurate description. What would you call a self-acclaimed "mud owner" who doesn't actually own a mud?

Also note that my comments were specificially made in the context of those who discuss design ideas for their own "muds". There are plenty of people who discuss general mud design ideas or talk about concepts in general terms, but I'm not talking about them - such discussions can provide inspiration for other readers, and can often reveal problems with potential features.

No, my comments were explicitly made in reference to the original posters remark concerning "...responses about how 'my MUD is like this' or 'this is how good MUDs truly are' when those MUDs rarely have what their staff says they have."

Or to put it in even more simple terms, I'm talking about the sort of people who say things like "my mud has X, my mud does Y, my mud handles Z" when in fact they don't even have a mud.

> Hence the "ironic" statements in my follow up posts, being
> you are a game designer.

It would only be ironic if I myself didn't have a mud, or if my mud didn't have the features I talk about it having. But I do, and it does.