Modern Browser Based MUD (multi-user dungeon)

[legendre]

I am an avid MUD player and I see a lot of fun gameplay in MUDs that haven't been ported to more modern interfaces. 100% text, lack of newbie welcome/tutorials, requiring telnet or MUD client to properly play etc are some of the problems preventing MUDs from being mass marketable.

In fact, I am working on a graphical browser based game right now that focuses on just one aspect of MUDs that I find engaging. Just finished writing the web server and game client from scratch. Players can log in through my website, create their own chat rooms, or enter the PvP area where they can walk around and attack each other. I suppose I am in the polishing stage right now: will be hiring artists (have funding ^__^), buying music and adding more features to the game.

What do you guys find fun when it comes to MUD PvP combat?

The best thing about MUD PvP combat, which is missing in a lot of MMORPGs, is how tactical it is. For example, Diku based MUDs usually have a "Thief" or "Rogue" class who can perform a backstab attack for around triple damage. This results in a cat and mouse game where non-thieves tries to prevent being stabbed, while thieves use their skills to try to initiate a backstab (and figure out how to follow through). Some players come up with strategies to withstand the initial stab and punish the recovering thief etc. This makes for some exciting battles.

Modern MMORPGs, on the other hand, tend to involve a lot of boring skill spamming and attrition. -__-

[OldRod]

The project I am working on is in a MUD vein... totally text only for now. I really loved a lot of the aspects of MUDs, even though I never played any one MUD that long.

The original EQ was pretty much a graphical DIKU MUD when it came out and there were tactics like you describe. It was really fun and challenging. Then it became more of a "everyone stand in one spot and spam attacks/heals" type game and I lost interest.

[hallsofvallhalla]

PLEASE someone make a good MUD. I want to play!!!

[legendre]

PLEASE someone make a good MUD. I want to play!!!

Me too. But to be honest, I think MUD makers' too entrenched in old school beliefs to make games that appeal to new generations, or can be mass marketed.

I did some market research months before this project, trying out different MUDs and doing surveys in them. What I found were people who would argue passionately for "hardcore" aspects like crazy spawn camping, insane grind, extreme forced grouping (can't do anything significant unless you have a group of 9 people etc), lack of a newbie friendly tutorial and various inconveniences. They believe that people should put in many hours of hard work to play a game. Right.

My project is close to completion, so hopefully it'll be released in just a few more months. Unfortunately, it won't be a full fledge MUD. I am working alone here. So far its just small scale PvP. Hopefully, if people enjoy the PvP and I get a community going, I'll start adding features to expand it into a full scale MUD one day.

[Jackolantern]

I totally agree. I have seen the same views expressed in MUD communities, and thought "And you wonder why you have 5 people logged in during peak hours?" That and re-used content just to pump up room count stats. Good lord, I would rather have a game with 750 well made, all-original rooms than 10,000 rooms other devs have been using for 20+ years that were written earlier in the genre's life, and that come together to make a Frankenstein's monster of mis-matched content, where some is serious and some is goofy. I just log out of a MUD if it starts with "MUD School" (I am sure some others out there know exactly what I am talking about).

I think with the emergence of PBBGs as a popular genre, I think there are scores of people out there who are just fine with playing text-focused games, and MUDs can provide a level of real-time play, depth and immersion that a typical PBBG cannot. But there are bumps in the road and refinements that need to be made in the MUD genre to give it mass appeal, and re-using 20-year-old codebases that enforce 20+ year old gameplay mechanics just aren't going to cut it. I think MUDs could learn a lot from the last 15 years of graphical MMORPGs, cherry-picking good parts and flushing others.

[Callan S.]

What's mud school? It's not a tutorial?

I think really if the old muds are so great, well then they already cover that type of mud. Why keep making the same mud as the old ones, when the old ones cover that type just fine?

[xcalpro]

I have always heard of MUDs but never actually tried one or know much about them. I did enjoy playing text based games like Zork and Hitchhikers Guide. I had always wanted to created my own text adventure. I guess at the time Castle Wolfenstein was the big thing and so I bypassed the text games right to the FPS games. I am finding that they maybe the missing piece that I have overlooked all these years.

[OldRod]

My problem with MUDs now is that whenever I find one that looks good, the only people playing are people who have played for *years* and they aren't really that friendly to newbs like me

[Jackolantern]

What's mud school? It's not a tutorial?

Exactly, but it comprises about the first 30 minutes of play or so as it shows you how to walk around and interact through reading signs, how to set skill points, etc. It isn't actually that having a tutorial is bad, since they are in fact needed in MUDs. Rather, it is that the exact same tutorial, including all of the NPCs, rooms and quests in Mud School have been floating around codebase communities and in games for years, and people familiar to MUDs who have played several have probably done it 10+ times now (such as myself lol).

I think really if the old muds are so great, well then they already cover that type of mud. Why keep making the same mud as the old ones, when the old ones cover that type just fine?

Pretty much my thoughts too, except that most of the games running with existing codebases are not really trying to advance the MUD genre, but rather just get a handful of players and try to get on to one of the Top Mud sites and draw people in with huge room lists, ridiculous numbers of classes and races, etc, and they do all of that by just downloading packs of freely available content online. Many of the "game devs" don't actually know how to code beyond just writing a few scripts to glue everything together.

I feel there is still a lot that can be done with the genre, particularly moving away from telnet and more towards rich clients.

[LordG]

As a game designer who makes his living running MUDs, it's great to see interest from well-informed people like this. I run two MUDs from Iron Realms Entertainment - Aetolia and Imperian - and we're always looking for new ways to improve our existing GUI design and game-client interfacing. One of the biggest problems we run into when designing the interface is finding a way to make it work efficiently for both long-time players who know the ins and outs of the games, new players who are otherwise familiar with MUDs in general, just not to our realms, and converts to MUDs who are shocked by the very notion of a game without any real graphics to speak of.

As our games are built on a custom codebase, and all of the classes, areas, lore, etc. is unique to our realms, we generally are able to get over the hurdle of keeping player interest once they're suitably invested, but there's generally a pretty significant dropoff just within the introductory tours. Part of this is the design of the introductions, which are unique to the games and could stand to see some improvements across the board, while another big problem is, as discussed here, the interface itself. We have several embedded client solutions - Java, Flash, and HTML5 clients we've developed in-house, so we have the capacity to improve on those areas, but not always the best data, given that most of the feedback we receive is from people who are already very familiar with our games and how to play them.

In fact, it would be hugely beneficial to get some feedback on our clients (primarily the HTML5 client, as that is where the current developmental focus lies) do well, and more importantly, where they fall short. Feedback on Aetolia and Imperian's introductory tours would be helpful also!

If any of you are interested, please contact me and let me know you'll be giving things a run-through. I'll make sure to give your character some compensation as thanks. The new clients for each game can be found at http://client.aetolia.com and http://client.imperian.com respectively.