Actually, you are wrong because you are comparing apples and oranges. To say that something is the cheapest and the fastest is to assign it two definite qualities, i.e. that no car is at the same time faster and cheaper. You, however, merely assigned it one definite quality (cheaper) but one subjective quality (fast). This throws off the analysis because "fast" is a subjective term and is therefore up for interpretation. However, "fastest" and "cheapest" are quite clear in their meaning and therefore assign a definite claim of quality. Being "cheapest" and "fast" allows for interpretation and debate. The former does not.

Nice try though.

> > By that definition, every mud would be a
> > "massively multiplayer text-based game".
>
> How so?

Because every mud has the potential for far more players than most multiplayer games.  Gauntlet is a multiplayer game.  Tekkan is a multiplayer game.  Halo is a multiplayer game.  A mud, however, can support *far* more players - and is therefore "massively multiplayer" in comparison.

> You take what you are talking about in context. If
> I say GS3/DR are the largest massive multiplayer
> muds, do you honestly expect to counter that?

MMORPGs are muds as well.  In 1999, Kingdom of the Winds peaked at 12,263 simultaneous users in a single world, using distributed game servers.

> > Caledric, I do not have to counter both parts of a
> > claim in order to prove it false.  If someone says
> > "this car is the cheapest and fastest car in the
> > world", I can disprove that claim by either (1)
> > finding a car which is cheaper, or (2) finding a
> > car which is faster.  I do not have to find a car
> > which is both cheaper and faster.
>
> Actually you do. If you say "I am selling the
> cheapest fast car"

Irrelevent.  The original quote was not "the largest long-running massively multiplayer text-based game ever", it was "the largest and longest running..."

Topic starts good on page one, catches my interest, makes me think about 'bragvertising'.

Topic very quickly and... Not unexpectedly becomes a series of heated arguments over wording, and how stupid the other poster is. Without warning, my mind wanders, and I am now thinking about cream-filled pastries.

I don't think policing mud claims is practical, but it does hurt when some mud is falsely claiming something and you can't do anything to correct them. The best correction would be a timeline or rating system impartially done by someone like TMS, to which mudders could refer instead of the advertisement claims made to draw newbies.

I agree that every MUD has potential for far more players.  However, the design of a game, the types of interactions with players, techniques for running events, all of your mechanics are designed in a very different way depending on how many users you expect to entertain simultaneously.  A game designed for 60 players is very different from one designed for 600.  In turn one designed for 600 is different from one designed for 6000.

GemStone III was very different in, not only mechanics, but in the methods that we used to approach everything, back when it served 60 users.

Every game has to potential to serve a massive customer base ... but to do that, the game must transform into something different ... something "massively mutliplayer."

Melissa

Not really.  Quite a few of the stock codebases have the potential to handle hundreds of players; I believe Smaug has been tested with up to 650.

As I said before, the definition of "massively" is subjective.

Imagine if I advertised my mud as "the most popular and longest running multi-user simulated world ever created" - then when someone pointed out that it only had 1 player, and had only been online for a week, I said "Oh, well in my opinion my mud is the only one which qualifies as a 'simulated world'".

I was speaking, not in terms of being able to technically handle a large number of users, but rather, in terms of the experience offered.

You're simply deal with different types of issues with higher populations than you do with lower populations.  I'm sure, with your great amount of experience across diverse games you'll agree.  Depending on the size of a population, group dynamics change.

The types of systems, the types of events, and your customer service policies ... these things all change.  And they're not a simple thing to change either.

During it's years of growth between it's time on GEnie (with about 50-100 simultaneous users) and it's time on AOL (with 1,000 - 3,000 simultaneous users) the primary focus HAD to be modifying the game to handle so many users.  Certainly work had to be done on core mechanics and hardware so that the game didn't crash constantly ... but moreover, policy changes went into place ... not just for players, but for staff.  Systems in the game had to be adjusted to account for so many more users.  Techniques for how events were run had to be modified.  And so much more.

There is a lot more to making a game fun and playable than making sure it runs.  You must agree with me there.

The changes took YEARS of time even with an army of dedicated Immortals (we call them GMs), and a dozen or more full time employees.

---

I'm working on a modification to my blurb, which I honestly believe is truthful, but heck ... I'm flexible, and it won't hurt me.

However, I do firmly believe that "massively multiplayer" games are different.

Melissa

<snip>

Yes there is, but that's just making it even more subjective. You're saying that in order to be "massively multiplayer", the game must also be "fun" and "playable"? Fun for who? Playable for who? If I find your game boring, does that mean that to me it's not "massively multiplayer"?

As far as I'm concerned, (almost) all muds are "massively multiplayer". They can (almost) all support a "massive" number of players, compared to most multiplayer games. Even online games such as Counterstrike and WarcraftIII can only handle a small number of players compared to most muds - and those, I believe, are what the MMORPGs were comparing themselves to in their claims of "massively multiplayer". They were trying to point out to their audience, many of whom had never even heard of "muds", that they supported far more players than most other multiplayer games.

GS3 is a mud. It has, to my knowledge, the largest online population of any text-based mud. It is also (as far as I can tell) the second longest-running mud around, if you count from the opening date of the original GS.