[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

["Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban#darklock,com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 1998 11:17 PM
> To: mud-dev#kanga,nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
> 
> An awful lot of people are building graphic MUDs, but an 
> awful lot of folks
> still play text, and it doesn't seem like that many of them 
> are *playing*
> the graphical MUDs.

I would guess that the majority of folks playing graphical muds are not
in fact longtime mudders. That's based on purely subjective impression
though.

>  Most people I know who play graphical 
> MUDs do so on
> rare occasions, not as a constant thing.

You probably know mostly text mudders. :) The usage figures for
graphical muds are quite similar to those for text muds. In UO's case,
half the players log on every day, and average usage is 4 hours a day.

>  Most people I know 
> who play the
> text MUDs (including myself) do so for WAY too many hours out 
> of the day,
> every day. So I tend to be of the opinion that my system 
> should be text
> based, since people playing for an hour here and an hour 
> there is all well
> and good... but I'd really like people to be addicted as hell 
> and playing
> all day every day. :)

I'd agree that graphical muds attract more casual players, but I don't
think the addiction factor is any less.

What are estimates of the current number of text mudders? Anyone got
any? I'd guess graphical mudders at around, uh, maybe 150,000?

-Raph