[MUD-Dev] Where are we now?

[Greg Munt]

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: 06 May 2001 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Where are we now?

> On Sun, 6 May 2001, Greg Munt wrote:

>>  It was an overexagerrated metaphor. It's quite disheartening to be
>>  surrounded by people who aren't interested in much else but sex
>>  and violence.
 
> Sorry to point out the obvious, but gee man, that's what most
> popular entertainment has been about throughout history in basically
> every culture. Sex and violence permeate not only most popular
> entertainment, but also most great literature. Granted, not explicit
> sex for the most part, but sexual tension is an extremely common
> theme, and for good reason. Everybody can relate to it.

Sex and violence. Popular entertainment? Of course. What people really
want?  Not sure. As an easy example, let's look at movies. Action
movies are popular. Big explosions. Special effects. WOW. KABOOM. Lots
of corpses.  Naked romps across the screen. Oh yeah. Popular,
alright. There can be no disputing that. Oh, you want plot too?

> Hey, but you don't have to worry if the majority of users are after
> a game you're not interested in authoring. Do an interesting,
> smaller project that will attract a few thousand people. There are a
> lot of on-line gamers out there, and number of them that are into
> MUDs of whatever kind is only going to grow. My strategy with Achaea
> has always been to try and work on providing experiences that the
> bigger, more mass-market games, either cannot provide or are not
> willing/experienced enough to provide them. They don't have to be
> "better" or "worse" experiences. They just have to be different, and
> hopefully intersect with the interests of a niche population.

Simply for comparison purposes, how many ppl are on Achaea at the same
time, on average? You may not choose to answer, but I'll ask anyway:
what's the minimum number of customer's you'd need to break-even?

>>  It could be argued that revolutionary muds will not be popular
>>  muds. In a world where giving the players what they want is
>>  all-important, and, bearing in mind that players aren't usually
>>  demanders of innovation, it's hard to see how they could be.

>  Yep. Thus the need for people willing to do smaller projects that >
>  don't require the backing of people whose vision is constrained by
>  > their corporate masters.

Is your vision not constrained by your customers? See my post on
"Innovation restrictions".

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