[MUD-Dev] Medievia

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

Sparked by JCL's post on game design and fun factor in muds.

I started playing Medievia before it opened (friends alerted me to its
existence). I watched several of my friends get kicked off it in the
early days. I didn't play it long, but at one point I was asked if I
wanted to immort there. I said no for various reasons.

Much later I found Medievia was at the center of huge amounts of
controversy. I knew people who immorted there, I heard much about
politics, there was the whole Diku credits thing... and there was much
demeaning of the mud as pandering to a lowest common denominator of
mudder. It spams you when you log in with self-promotion (or used to),
the interface was hideously colored, etc etc.

It's also, I think, the most popular free text mud there is.

Why? All of these players can't be wrong... Anyone familiar enough with
what it has become to be able to give an analysis?

-Raph