http://www.memorableplaces.com/mudwimping.html

I found this today, while reflecting on a MUD in which I was a dedicated player to for nearly two years. ...Came out of a google search for "How to ruin a MUD", but fortunately there were no good guides on how to cause a mud to die in a fire through technical means.

Though clearly the guy was burned and is strongly opinionated, it is a worthwhile read.

Thanks,

Vladaar

Too bad his ideas are flawed at a foundational level.

Is there a TLDR version?

@ David lol, nah, doubt it.

@ Kayle This kind of thing has happened at least once, and certainly in the case of the mud I joined mudding on.

Heh, a lot of whine, but no cheese!

Problems that are likely to doom a mud, IMHO:

1) Immortals playing favorites, often involving an SO. When the imm's buddies get perks, and those whom they dislike get big mobs spawning on top of them a bit too often, the game envrionment turns sour pretty quick.

2) The Tinkerer. This is the immortal who spends waaaaaay too much time coding things that are "cool", without really considering (or caring) how they'll affect gameplay. Yeah, my axe of insane-chopping-madness is a bit overpowered, but it's COOL!

3) CommitteeMUD. The opposite problem.... no innovation ever happens because everyone has to "vote" to make any real changes, and nobody ever agrees to DO anything.

4) What's an admin? This is probably the most common problem today. The admins get bored and go off to play WoW or something. The MUD runs on auto-pilot for a while, but eventually people will wander off and find somewhere more responsive.

So I just read it, and basically I think it's a bunch of crap with some gems hidden in various places. (Not a pretty picture...)

It's obviously completely biased. In the breakdown of pro-nerf and anti-nerf, pro-nerf gets a category called "believers" who (even though they believe in nerfing after having thought about it) give no weight to the position. But anti-nerf gets a category called "ethical/moralists" who are basically labeled as being 100% correct, they dare to speak out their minds, etc. In other words, people who agree with the author's position are completely correct, and those who genuinely disagree must be wrong and stupid!

It's interesting that he gives so much weight to what players think (going so far as to say that they're basically always right if they're against nerfing) but then in his first Q&A thingie goes on to say that players always complain and that you should ignore complaining. Huh.

Well, anyhow, I'm not going to bother dealing with this paragraph by paragraph, but there are some interesting things in there. Too bad so much of it is so virulent and absolute.

Good article. I've seen a few muds follow that pattern and die a slow death with the admins not even realizing it. I've even played a few on-line games that fit the same pattern. Typically the moralists get banned for daring to speak the truth and the a**-kissers sit pretty not daring to rock the boat and lose the perks his admin 'buddy' gave him. Pretty much the reason I've left all of them to start my own :p

I agree with 6Dragons, Kayle, and David. Obviously the guy got banned somewhere and had a beef to pick with the admin. He goes on to claim that anyone that disagrees with what he is saying is flawed. He's right about admins nerfing skills/items and players supporting it and not liking it, but I've never seen any MUD follow the course he describes, and I have seen several MUDs where immortals play favorites, nerf stuff for the benefit of the game, and people quitting over it.

I do find it funny the way he describes an immortal staff's progression from caring about the players to coming to think they are all whiners and cheaters, but at all not entirely true (from my own situation, anyway). When I first started administration, I did it because I felt the MUD I was on was no longer the place I remembered it being, so I started up my own little project. Eight years later, though, I don't hate the players or think they're whiners. I wouldn't be running MUDs if it wasn't for the players, and what is the point in not doing anything for them if the whole reason you opened a MUD was to attract players? You don't get paid for it (for us non-p2p anyway), so you're only doing it for the players.It makes me wonder if the author has even run a MUD.

Well, if you poke around on his website a bit, and go to his character's page, it seems to be that he had huge arguments with the imm staff and was basically kicked off. This is why I think that while he makes some good points, a lot of it is noise due to personal problems he was having with other staff members and maybe players.

The fact that he claims that all genuine believers are always plain wrong whereas the moralist types are the brave ones who dare to speak the truth shows his bias pretty conclusively. Making such extreme claims is pretty dangerous.

Anyone else concerned about:

"You May NOT Copy this page in whole or in part either online or offline without written permission from the author."

Something like that, as to try to take away my 'Fair use' rights, seems a little odd from someone who claims to be on the player side of things.

Just saying.
ayuri

Well, he can't actually take away fair use rights, even if he says he does. But yes, it's a little funny. To me, it just makes it look more like a feud of some kind. (In fairness, it's probably a boilerplate notice he puts on everything. Of course, it's implicitly true anyhow due to copyright...)

It's not a guide, it's a rant, and rants are generally full of angst and bias, and SOME of them have some value in one way or another. This, I believe is one of them, and I think that people should take a look and give it some thought. But again, this is just another opinion.

Who'd want to copy it anyway? Does he think some MUD owner is going to throw it up on their website as a guide to follow so they don't end up like that or something?