15 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Regardless, VT100 has been around for decades, and the number of muds who utilized it to create an interface can be counted on one hand. While an improvement over traditional prompts, it ultimately doesn't change all that much.

But it's still a text display, and the same sort of interface that puts people off. What I'm talking about is a graphical interface with pretty pictures - we all know it's just cosmetic and doesn't impact the actual game in any way, but there are many potential players who don't feel the same way.

Scandum said:
Maps are useful for people who easily get lost, but most people won't bother playing a text game to the degree where they do get lost.

Maps are a useful means of navigation - both in the real world and in computer games such as muds. They also provide a good way to introduce some pretty graphics alongside (rather than instead of) regular movement; adding a fancy map and some energy bars to the client can provide a psuedo-graphical "look and feel" without needing to redesign the mud.

KaVir said:
I'm not sure if we're talking about the same games, but the games I know of are simple point and click games, where typing is reserved for talking to other players, and everything is represented with crappy graphics and very little text. I guess you could make a mud more accessible by making the command interface optional and adding a point and click interface.

You could have optional point-and-click. You could also just add directional movement buttons around the map, so clicking the north arrow sends the command 'north' to the mud, etc. Perhaps you could also define hotkeys, so that people can move around using the curser keys.

But even if people had to use the command line interface to navigate, I still think a graphical display would be enough to attract attention from people who wouldn't otherwise give you a chance.
15 Sep, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Maps are a useful means of navigation - both in the real world and in computer games such as muds. They also provide a good way to introduce some pretty graphics alongside (rather than instead of) regular movement; adding a fancy map and some energy bars to the client can provide a psuedo-graphical "look and feel" without needing to redesign the mud.


The IRE web client is a good example of this. Essentially it's just a text interface with stat bars and a map window but it does have that graphical "look and feel". Personally I think it's too small but there is a full screen option too.

KaVir said:
You could have optional point-and-click. You could also just add directional movement buttons around the map, so clicking the north arrow sends the command 'north' to the mud, etc. Perhaps you could also define hotkeys, so that people can move around using the curser keys.

But even if people had to use the command line interface to navigate, I still think a graphical display would be enough to attract attention from people who wouldn't otherwise give you a chance.

I recently added MXP to our server and so far I've been pleasantly surprised at the number of players who use it. I had thought that experienced mudders would prefer a pure text interface but that's not necessarily been the case. We have clickable exits and right click menus for mobs and objects, as well as some other more game specific stuff, but I think the best use of it has been with listing goods for sale in shops. It's much easier when scanning a long list of items to just click the one you want and because internally the command uses a unique id number there is no possibility of mistargetting and buying the wrong item. Situations which need precise targetting and object selection are ideally suited to a "point and click" interface.

One area that hasn't been mentioned that I think can really improve the "look and feel" of a text interface is font selection. With MD we don't have any ascii art or other fixed width formatting so we're able to have the web client default to Verdana which IMO makes the whole thing look cleaner and easier to read than a fixed width font. People don't necessarily use terminal windows much these days so the fixed width font may be a big factor in making a MUD output look alien and offputting to some players. Most people are familiar with reading large chunks of text on a computer screen from the web, so being able to use a more familiar web font is a big benefit I think.
15 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
One area that hasn't been mentioned that I think can really improve the "look and feel" of a text interface is font selection. With MD we don't have any ascii art or other fixed width formatting so we're able to have the web client default to Verdana which IMO makes the whole thing look cleaner and easier to read than a fixed width font.

I make extensive use of tables and maps, so a fixed width font is pretty essential unless there's an alternative way to display the same information. A mud client could include some way to format tables I suppose - and of course the maps could be done with proper graphics. But that would obviously only work for clients that supported it.
15 Sep, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I make extensive use of tables and maps, so a fixed width font is pretty essential unless there's an alternative way to display the same information. A mud client could include some way to format tables I suppose - and of course the maps could be done with proper graphics. But that would obviously only work for clients that supported it.


Yeah I agree it's certainly not practical to move away from fixed width fonts in a lot of cases, but I do think that it's one of the single biggest things you an do to make a mud look more appealing to new players. Support for displaying tables would be a great client addition, perhaps as part of MXP or something similar, and ascii maps could be displayed in a dedicated window which still used a fixed width font for example. My view is that I don't think there's anything wrong with retaining a primarily text interface, just that there are better ways to present it than a terminal window.

Idealiad said:
Archons of Avenshar has exactly that (a nice graphical map, buttons, health bars) and a main text window. It's also a Flash client though.

I think their client uses non fixed width fonts and makes use of separate displays for tabular information such as inventory or shop listings. Although it can't be played with a normal telnet client, you could achieve much of the same effect with a custom client using telnet subnegotiation to maintain compatibility with existing clients if you wanted.
15 Sep, 2009, Dean wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Kavir mentioned early on that about the possibility of skinning Mushclient, I just had a few questions and I apologise if answers have already been provided, I'm not well at all and am liable to have missed things in a thread catchup. :sad: Anywho, is it actually possible to 'skin' Mushclient and transform it into a custom client? If so, are there any 'foreseeable' functionality limitations that might occur? And out of curiosity, if it has been done before, is there any guides or such?

Also on the client mentioned in the OP, when I saw this first posted on TMC, I was interested - right up until I saw the license costs then admittedly ran with my tail tucked between my legs like the poor man that I am. :lol:

In anycase, a custom client for DBAT is something that I am interested in down the line (and a project I'd find interesting to tackle :stare:) so I'll be watching this thread with baited breath, so to speak.
15 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Dean said:
Kavir mentioned early on that about the possibility of skinning Mushclient, I just had a few questions and I apologise if answers have already been provided, I'm not well at all and am liable to have missed things in a thread catchup. :sad: Anywho, is it actually possible to 'skin' Mushclient and transform it into a custom client? If so, are there any 'foreseeable' functionality limitations that might occur? And out of curiosity, if it has been done before, is there any guides or such?

I asked about it on the MUSHclient forums, and Nick Gammon responded with some really good links, but I've not played around with it yet - this is the thread: http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=453&a...

Dean said:
Also on the client mentioned in the OP, when I saw this first posted on TMC, I was interested - right up until I saw the license costs then admittedly ran with my tail tucked between my legs like the poor man that I am.

I'd honestly be surprised if he gets any serious customers considering what he's offering at that price (slightly over $350 per year for significantly less functionality than MUSHclient, which is free). But the skinning is an interesting idea that could still be applied elsewhere (including MUSHclient).

A MUSHclient skinning tutorial with a working example would be really nice for a lot of muds I think. I'd need to find some distraction-free time to familiarise myself with MUSHclient before I started doing something like that though, which is easier said than done.
15 Sep, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I'd honestly be surprised if he gets any serious customers considering what he's offering at that price (slightly over $350 per year for significantly less functionality than MUSHclient, which is free). But the skinning is an interesting idea that could still be applied elsewhere (including MUSHclient).


I'm of the opinion that dude is an object lesson is how not to market a
commercial product to a small mostly hobbyist community.

I've no comment at all on his product, but he reminds me of a newbie
playing Mario Bros. and hitting every single mushroom, koopa, and
fireball that comes his way.

I feel kinda bad for him personally, but it is good and right that his
fail be exposed. From claiming a price hike is a discount (!!!!) to
not knowing whom to target, to being forced in desperation to
do free trials, to letting himself be trolled by The Fury (of all people),
I'd be shocked if he turns a dime from this disastrous promo campaign.

Seems to me that a mud that can afford that licensing isn't going to
waste the money on an outfit that's clearly straight out of amateur hour.

I hope people don't take away from this the idea that commercial projects
with muds are faily. Faily efforts are faily.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
15 Sep, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
The IRE web client is a good example of this. Essentially it's just a text interface with stat bars and a map window but it does have that graphical "look and feel". Personally I think it's too small but there is a full screen option too.

That's the point I'm trying to make. Achaea has the whole graphical look and feel, spends thousands in advertising, but its playerbase is slowly shrinking, and most of their players aren't even using the web client.

The only real successes I've seen, with most players using the feature, is with server side VT100 interfaces, which zMud, TinTin++, all terminal emulators, and a few other mud clients support. For example: 193.1.99.89:4000, slackhalla.org:4321 and ar.static.net:4000
15 Sep, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
How do the IRE games not constitute a "success"? What are you defining as a "success"? You say that Achaea's playerbase is shrinking: well, ok, assuming that you are correct for the sake of the argument, do those other games have growing playerbases?
15 Sep, 2009, Orrin wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
That's the point I'm trying to make. Achaea has the whole graphical look and feel, spends thousands in advertising, but its playerbase is slowly shrinking, and most of their players aren't even using the web client.


I don't think they intended that client be used by the majority of their players, but rather as a quick gateway into the game for new players. They have used it specifically to target players who are unfamiliar with muds through flash gaming sites such as kongregate for example. Whether it's a success or not I suppose only IRE can judge, but as far as I am aware they are quite happy.
15 Sep, 2009, Ssolvarain wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
Honestly, I think doing what KaVir did, package gmud with mud info included, is the wisest course to bring in newer players. Many players I've talked to over the years have started with Gmud. The ones who prefer automation and customization tend to go on to Mushclient or Zmud. I've used Mushclient for its timed triggers alone, but I've personally never needed anything as complex as zmud. I think the source for Gmud is available, anyone know why there hasn't been a newer version of it made up with a few advanced features?

I was pondering it, and it occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to possibly set up a page on here with information about how you connect to a mud and downloads/links/info for the various clients.
15 Sep, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
I've used Mushclient for its timed triggers alone, but I've personally never needed anything as complex as zmud.

MUSHclient is arguably quite a bit more complex than zMud in terms of the things you can do with it, and I suppose that you think that zMud is more complex speaks to how well MUSHclient hides a lot of its power.
15 Sep, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
I don't think they intended that client be used by the majority of their players, but rather as a quick gateway into the game for new players. They have used it specifically to target players who are unfamiliar with muds through flash gaming sites such as kongregate for example. Whether it's a success or not I suppose only IRE can judge, but as far as I am aware they are quite happy.

I'm not sure how it could in any way be considered a success? If it was a success they'd have 500+ players by now.

This discussion aside, that's not to say things like MSP, MXP, xterm 256 colors, and other enhancements aren't useful. I put up the MSDP specification a while ago as a universal data protocol, it's easy to use, especially if you're familiar with MSSP, and might be useful for people wanting to add a custom interface.
15 Sep, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
If it was a success they'd have 500+ players by now.


These days, I think I would consider an active playerbase a success, whether it's 25-500. If it's active then it's successful. How many muds out there have actually more then 50 on at any given time? 10? 20? or less?
15 Sep, 2009, Vassi wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
I made this assumption a long time ago. It's the sole reason we've been quietly rolling our own client for the last three years.

I had entertained the notion that when it was done I would strip it of the custom art and release it as a customizable client, with ZMP as the lever, but in all honestly I doubt that most people would go through the effort of 'porting' their MUDs over to something new like that and I certainly won't have the time to implement every little thing necessary to make it painless for them to do so.

Besides, it's not done yet and I'm mostly using the ZMP syntax and not so much any of the ZMP functionality discussed so far. =x

Whatever the case may be, I strongly suggest and recommend that more people pay close attention to their interface - in more ways than one. A crappy website is worse than having no website, for instance. If you're happy with your 10-15 veteran MUD players that's fine, but a lot of people can 'forgive' playing a text game if it has an engaging and pleasing interface that at minimum includes a map and gauges.

Prompts are the worst things ever to players new to MUDs. They are scary, sometimes cryptic and not often updated in real time or are spammed too much.

This applies to other things though, too. MushClient might be god's gift to skinners and custom interfaces but if its features are relatively closed book or hard to get through then I'd argue that it really isn't designed to be used that way and could maybe use a branch to bring those features more out in the open or someone needs to take the plunge and document the road ahead more clearly for those that want to follow.

The problem with designing an interface is that it shouldn't be a trivial decision. While certainly you can 'throw up a couple of gauges and a map' it can certainly become a core part of your MUD's functionality. By providing more information visually you are able to increase the complexity and functionality of your game in ways that a pure text output doesn't allow.
16 Sep, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
tphegley said:
These days, I think I would consider an active playerbase a success, whether it's 25-500. If it's active then it's successful. How many muds out there have actually more then 50 on at any given time? 10? 20? or less?


According to mudstats there are currently 34 muds with 50+ as their 30 day average. No doubt that number might be plus or minus a few muds, but it's more than 20 at least.
16 Sep, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
That's the point I'm trying to make. Achaea has the whole graphical look and feel, spends thousands in advertising, but its playerbase is slowly shrinking, and most of their players aren't even using the web client.

The only real successes I've seen, with most players using the feature, is with server side VT100 interfaces, which zMud, TinTin++, all terminal emulators, and a few other mud clients support. For example: 193.1.99.89:4000, slackhalla.org:4321 and ar.static.net:4000


For all we know, Achaea's playerbase would have totally nosedived withoutthe efforts they've put into custom clients. Allow me to tell a few lies from my favorite site, mudstats:

1. Over the last year Achaea's playerbase has held steady using the measurement of average players per week. There was no significant drop or increase.

2. There was a significant increase in the winter of last year. I'm curious if this is when they introduced their client.

3. Let's compare this with BatMUD, a popular non-IRE mud, also with a fairly fancy client, but I believe one that is not targeted at the same audience (web-based) as IRE's. Over the last year using the same measurement of average players per week, there has been a not insignificant drop in BatMUD numbers.

Of course I can massage these stats all I want, but I think it's clear that Achaea's playerbase is not shrinking at least in the last year, and this may very well be due to their attempts at attracting new players through new media.
16 Sep, 2009, Stendec wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
Just recently I've started writing a web-based MUD client that's implemented with JavaScript, only using a tiny (2KB) Flash file to provide a socket, as JavaScript cannot use sockets itself. It uses jQuery, and in the spirit of starting things with j, I named it jMUD.

Since it's written using JavaScript and text is displayed via HTML, it's easy to customize it to look however you want and you can achieve perfect website integration. Just keep in mind that: 1) it's still under development, and not bug free yet. All the features it'll have aren't there yet either. 2) it's not just design to drop-in and have a working client. Of course, you could do that, but what is really nice is that it should be easy for a developer to customize it to their mud specifically. For the record, creating the basic client is as easy as:

$("#some-id").mud({port:1234});


jMUD supports full ANSI/xterm256 colors (including background colors) and does telopt negotiations for: NAWS, TTYPE, EOR, SUPGA, NEW-ENVIRON, LINEMODE, ECHO, MSDP, and MSSP. I can probably add new options upon request, and developers can use events to catch other telopts.

Check it out at: http://fourworlds.kicks-ass.net/media/jm...
16 Sep, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm definitely in favor of more javascript clients. Along the same lines everyone should check out an anyterm-like client over at mudBrowser (though that's a commercial service, the client itself is worth looking at).

Stendec, one thing with jMUD, there are still people running 1024 wide resolutions, and it seems like your default page is set to wider than that. It makes the client part have a horizontal scroll button. Keep up the good work!
16 Sep, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
Hmmm JavaScript might indeed be worth some consideration. My mud already uses FastCGI to generate some of its webpages (such as the who list), so I could actually skip the whole flash part, as I wouldn't need a separate socket for each player. That could also get around my firewall problem.
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