This thread is to list (alphabetically) MUDs that are run by professional game developers who are paid to work on that MUD.

Achaea
Aetolia
Dragonrealms
Gemstone
Imperian
Lusternia
Threshold

I know there are a few more.

How about professional game developers who work on their muds on the side? If those count, add Tarmon Gaidon to your list.

That's interesting, but this is a list for MUDs that are professionally run by professional game developers whose job it is to work on that mud. Some players prefer a gaming experience where the people (or person) running the MUD does so as their full time job. For some players, this provides them with a sense of stability, permanence, and accountability that does not exist in MUDs that are more hobbyist in nature.

There are many excellent MUDs that are run as a hobby - some of them are, in some ways, as good as (or perhaps better) as MUDs that are professionally run. The purpose of this list is not to debate that question. With that said, there is also no denying that there are many players who prefer to invest their gaming time in a community that is professionally managed, maintained, and developed.

This is a list for MUDs whose operator(s) are professional game developers whose main, full time job is the maintenance, management, and development of that MUD.

I think you'll find that the majority of the staff on the muds you've listed are volunteers.

I guess you got a bit upset about missing out on the 'free mud listing', huh? :P

Well it's pretty obvious that this is just an attempt to hit back in response to the thread about free muds. Rather childish, if you ask me.

Fortunately, the criteria for this list is not that all staff must be professionals.

Why would I want to be on a list of free MUDs when I quite openly state that Threshold is not a free MUD. That would be like accusing me of being upset about missing out on a list of stock muds, hack-n-slash MUDs, or some other category of MUD that does not apply of Threshold.

KaVir, as a moderator of the TMS forums, your use of this thread to make a personal attack is very inappropriate. I did not attack or criticise anyone in any way. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for a list such as this. Many players prefer a professional experience to a hobbyist one. Please respect that fact.

I'm not making "personal attacks", nor am I the moderator of this forum. Your thread is blatant flamebait, and it's pretty obvious to anyone reading this forum that you're just offended at the idea of a mud list which you cannot participate in.

Ironic that a so-called "professional" mud could demonstrate such an unprofessional attitude, but perhaps not entirely surprising, all things considered.

KaVir, please be serious. This was not only a personal attack, but it was COMPLETELY off topic:

"I guess you got a bit upset about missing out on the 'free mud listing', huh?"

Furthermore, you can try to impute whatever phantom motives upon me you choose, but that does not make them true.

A list of free MUDs (as defined by Anitra, since she started the thread) has a value to potential players looking for the right MUD for them.

A list of MUDs run by professionals (as defined by me, since I started the thread) also has a value to potential players looking for the right MUD for them.

How can you possibly not realize there is a totally logical and legitimate purpose behind BOTH kinds of lists?

To make an analogy, some people use Chemlawn for their lawn care, some people hire Bob the local Gardner/Handyman, and some people make their kids cut the grass and pull the weeds. Different people have different preferences. Some want a professional experience. Some what a hobbyist/homegrown experience. Some want a bargain/free experience. I say give people the information and let them choose. More people finding MUDs that are fun and right for them is good for the entire hobby of MUDding.

Why is a list of free muds the only type of list that has any value in your eyes? Furthermore, why do you have to turn everything into a flame war? Can't you just let a thread stay on topic? I did ask you nicely, after all.

It could be that, or it could be that someone came up with a really good idea that another person decided to emmulate. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I really don't see how it's an attempt to "hit back" when in the same post that lists commerical muds he acknowledged that several hobbyist muds are exceptional. It's simply an appropriate list for our mud that is inspired by a different list and a different poster.

The immediate jump to flaming is what seems childish to me.

Is there a point to this thread? And if so, why is it in Advertising for Players?

A list of free muds has obvious value to players, as it gives them a way to find muds which have no costs (either obvious or hidden). It has become increasingly apparent that there is a demand for this sort of information.

But what possible value could your list provide? A list of pay-to-play muds, sure. A list of pay-for-perks muds, certainly. But it makes absolutely no difference to the players whether or not Bubba decides to quit his day job at McDonalds and live off "donations", rather than using the money to supplement his burger-flipping income.

It's not - in fact, for a long time I tried to push for the option to list pay-for-perks muds, but without success. If you were to put together a list of pay-to-play muds, or pay-for-perks muds, then I think that would be of definite use.

But I see absolutely no value whatsoever in your proposal here. It was quite clearly written to cause offense, with no thought behind giving it any actual value to potential players.

Some things that do not have value to you may have value to others. Believe it or not, some people WANT to pay for a stable game with staff devoted to the game first and foremost.

I am truly boggled by why anyone would be offended by any of these lists. The free muds list, like you said, lists mud that come at no costs at all. I totally can understand why someone might be interested in that even if I, personally, would not be. The last 3 free muds I played all shut down with a lot of tears from the players. They also had multiple player wipes (which I absolutely hate). [Edit starting here. Forgot the second part of my point.] I now play only pay to play games run by big companies. That's a personal choice on my part, but I don't think I'm the ONLY person who thinks this way. Thus, there's value in both sets of lists. I'm sure there'd be value in any of the lists that people want to make on this information sharing site.

Heck, I'd love it if someone made a list of muds with were-hippos.

Anyway, why start flaming and taking offense when none was obviously meant?

You forgot Medievia, the most 'professional' of them all.

Right - so why not make a list of pay-to-play and/or pay-for-perks muds?

How can you actually type those words and expect to be taken seriously?

Are you honestly going to claim that there are not players out there who prefer a completely PROFESSIONAL experience when deciding where to invest their gaming time and money? There is a level of comfort and security a customer has when they know the person providing the service relies upon that service for their livelihood.

Can you really not understand that there is a sizeable chunk of players out there who have more faith in a FINANCIAL MOTIVE (which exists on a commercial, professionally run MUD) than a good will motive?

Isn't the fact that commercial, professionally run MUDs send about 80% of the traffic to TMS pretty good evidence that there are indeed a lot of people for whom this distinction is actually quite meaningful?

The top Hobbyist MUD administrators often claim that their muds have as rich a feature set as many professionally run MUDs. I happen to agree that this is true in some cases. So why do the professionally run MUDs have so many more players? One of the reasons is because some people PREFER a professionally run game to a hobbyist game. They like knowing that the operators have a simple, basic, financial motive to do things like drive out to the server hosting facility at 4am if it has to be done, purchase redundant hardware and bandwidth, and a whole host of other things that are really not necessary, expected, or feasible in a non-professionally run MUD. Your proverbial burger-flipper can't reboot the server if he's pulling a double-shift at McDonalds. Many players are not comfortable with that fact.

You cannot reasonably or logically claim that the distinction of professionally run vs. hobbyist run does not matter to many MUD players. The proof is right in front of you demonstrated by the traffic of this site and the userbases of the games in the MUD community.

Now, I would appreciate it if you would stop engaging in amateur psychoanalysis in claiming I have some nefarious motive for this list. I do not. I was never critical of the free mud list, and there is no reason you should be critical of this list. Both lists serve very legitimate purposes and have value to players with difference sets of preferences. If one list is valuable, then both are.

Can't you just leave it at that? So far, it seems like all you want to do is turn everything into a flame war. That is disappointing.

Why not stay on topic, avoid personal attacks, and stop trying to turn every thread you don't like into a flame war?

If you think such a list has value, make the list/thread yourself. I happen to know that for a lot of people, it is the professional/full time component that matters a lot to them, so I chose that as the criteria for this list.

If Blizzard, Mythic, or a variety of other professional game companies made a free game, I'd try it. It isn't the fact that they charge money for their games that makes me willing to try them, it is the fact that they are professionals and it is their job to make those games. They have a financial motive to try and run them well, and that makes me feel comfortable investing my increasingly scarce gaming time in playing them. Heck, I recently tried Horizons and Shadowbane because they have just become free and yet were run by the same professional staff, yet I don't have the time to try out free, hobbyist run games these days.

In short, for some gamers, "free" or "not free" is not the salient point that matters most. But knowing a game is run by professionals whose job is to make that game good (and are not distracted by the committments of a different job) IS something that matters a lot to many people.

Okay. You tell me. What value is there to the prospective player to know that Bubba is now making his income purely through the mud, rather than from a mixture of the mud and flipping burgers at McDonalds?

A list of pay-to-play muds? Useful.

A list of pay-for-perks muds? Useful.

A list of commercial muds run by registered businesses? Useful.

A list of muds run by people who live off the income? Useless. It doesn't mean Bubba's going to put any more time into his mud, or that he has good programming or administrative skills or a professional attitude, or that his mud is going to be around for a long time, or anything else for that matter. I've seen muds like this many times over the years - some unemployed guy discovers that he can leech a bit of cash from his players. Is that really the sort of mud you want to promote?

I already told you. Please read my posts more carefully.

Furthermore, you are derailing my thread, just as Valg (the moderator of this forum) cautioned other people not to do in Anitra's thread.

If you don't like this list, fine.

If you actually want to claim (and completly destroy your credibility in the process) that there are not players who value knowing if a mud is professionally run, also fine.

But your posts in this thread are 100% off topic and should be removed.

None of the MUDs on the list fall into the category of being run by an unemployed guy who just wants to ripoff players. I atleast find the list interesting and useful.

On the other hand, I find your comments in this thread to be totally idiotic, flamatory and unwarranted, so why don't you do us all a favor and get lost from this thread, since you obviously have nothing of value to add to it.

No, you told me some points which would apply to commercial mud run by a registered business. None of them would apply to Bubba, however, who could quite happily join your list.

Well that depends on what your definition of 'professional' is. Based on your definition, in which unemployeed stock mud owners are 'professionals' while the Blizzard team creating a free game in their spare time are not? No, I don't think that would be of value to prospective players.

Well it's an open list - feel free to update it.

Funny how the list of free games gets "protected" from hijacking, when this one doesn't seem to get the same "protection."

Anyway, Persistent Realms will fall into this category. Once Ilyrias, our first game, is done I will be doing only work on our games and the overall company. I'd love to do it now, in the development stage, but wives are expensive and it's just not possible to live without other income.

Ooh, look at all the derailment, now you how it feels when Matt posts in an otherwise productive thread.

Other ones that should be on there:
* Avalon
* Medievia

I'm not sure how the operations of Eternal City work these days, so I'm not sure if they have paid staff running it or if it's volunteers only now. They might need to be on here. The same goes for Modus Operandi and Alliance of Heroes (other, very small, Simutronics text MUDS. I don't know if those two games are big enough to have paid staff working on them or not.

--matt

Avalon is still kicking? Only time I hear that name, expecially when it comes from players, there's never nice words around it.

KaVir, you answered my question on the other thread and I was satisfied with the answer. The answer was :
I'm fairly sure you could apply the same here - it's a perhaps perceived disadvantage and a group effort to advertise. They have their right to do so just as any other group of MUDs does.

I think the conceived insult does not necessarily come directly from the poster's post-text so much as even the name of the thread itself(implying that Professional Game Developers cannot run 100% Free MUDs, which is not true), as well as the timing to compare with the 100% Free MUD Advertising thread.

I won't go further off-topic and continue to post in this thread, and I think it is indirectly in everyone's best interest if we don't further the argument with the poster/etc, as it only fuels what is probably a negative-intentioned thread.

The fact that Medievia was just invited to join the 'professioan list' by the_logos really says a lot about both.

Hope you enjoy the company, Threshold.

This thread is just as much negative and flaim-bait as the other one. And it was already clarified that it wasn't a matter of professional game developers running 100% free MUDs, it was a matter of commercial motive.

Why not just add these lists to the wiki?

I need clarification. Do you mean "professional" according to its primary definition:

1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession

Or a secondary one:
2 c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return <professional football>

Please clarify, as I feel it would alter the composition of the list considerably.

So generally leaning toward the secondary definition, but utilising parts of the primary as well.

Davairus wrote; 2006,08:57

That is quite a good idea actually. Perhaps Crystal could oblige with the list of Quality Free Muds, since I am not very good at HTML myself?

Or maybe Wikipedia doesn't allow advertising?

Wikipedia generally doesn't allow advertising. And judging from the discussions page on the wikipedia link above, the lists wouldn't be appreciated there.

Valg (now that I know you are reading the thread), will you please moderate out the off topic posts (KaVir's most notably) just like you did in the free mud/no-perks list?

Thanks.

I already clarified this and explained it. For the purposes of this list, the operator(s)/owner(s) of the MUD need to be professional game developers whose full time job is to maintain, manage, and develop the MUD. I could perhaps also add that the MUD must be part of a legally incorporated business, but perhaps that is too limiting. Since I started this list and this thread, I will be the final arbiter of which muds belong on the list. This is nothing different than what Anitra is doing on her excellent free-muds/no-perks list, and you repeatedly told other people it was "her" list and that other should not derail "her" list.

In other words, it does not include hobbyist muds whether or not they are run by people who develop other games or software in their primary profession.

The funny thing is, most people fully understand the difference between a professionally run mud vs. a hobbyist mud. This is a distinction that does indeed matter to a lot of players. There are a lot of people who have more confidence in a game run by professionals who have a vested interest (that of their own livelihood) in making sure the game continues to operate and grow. In fact, it is precisely BECAUSE this distinction matters to players that many non-professionals do not like this issue being discussed.

Updated List:

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: September 1997 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: October 2001 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: February 1996 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: December 1989 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: April 2003 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: October 2004 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: June 1996 - -

Someone has a case of the Mondays. And it's Friday!

As for moderation, I kept a light hand on the other thread (I took action on a total of two posts), and I intend to be consistent here. I don't mind if various people have their say, but on the other thread it was hitting the 10th page or so with posts that were near sentence-for-sentence reposts of earlier posts.

Given that you've recently posted a one-line name-calling post ("a birth-control fubar"), I'll be sure to give your opinion on netiquette the consideration it deserves.

As for the list, you're welcome to found whatever web sites you want. I just wanted clarification of what "professional" meant, since the "ethical standards" portion of the usual definition might exclude a MUD or two from possible inclusion.

You really should be ashamed of this statement, and I hope Synozeer sees it and responds accordingly.

You, KaVir, and others are making your hypocrisy very plain to see for everyone.

Updated List:

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: September 1997 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: January 1998, -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: October 2001 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: February 1996 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: December 1989 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: April 2003 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: October 2004 - -

<span style='color:red'></span> - Founded: June 1996 - -

Updated List (there appear to be two different professionally run Avalon muds):

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: September 1997 - <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: January 1998, <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: October 1989, <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: October 2001 - <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: February 1996 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: December 1989 - no telnet -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: April 2003 - <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: October 2004 - <a href=" target='_blank'> -

<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:9pt;line-height:100%'></span></span> - Founded: June 1996 - <a href=" target='_blank'> -

I'll be completely straight with you, man. I've seen you say pretty interesting/constructive things on some other topics, but on this one, you're just acting like you're trying to toss your name in the hat for the drawing of world's biggest jackass.

If I was a random dude reading the TMS forums for the first time, the impression that this thread would give me about professional mud devs wouldn't be a favorable one. If you can step back from the ****ing contest for five minutes and try to read some of your posts on this thread, I think you'll see that.

That's not to say that other people haven't also been jackasses at times, but it is, as you say, your list, your thread, and your chance to put a professional face on what you do.

Could add:

Eaxia Online and Haelrahv. They are roleplayers.com's muds.

Account-based.

Gemstone III is now Gemstone IV, just as a correction.

You might want to check out , and --I personally don't know anything about them except they have payment options.

It's not about whether you're a professional; it's about whether you make money from your game or not.

A "professional" mud listing should be one that has games listed that are backed up by a known company rather than individuals that run it as a hobby. Also, IMO "professional" is a bad term.

The idea of making a list based on if "people" gets paid by running it is not very accurate. On most of those muds that actually charge money i'm pretty sure there are lots and lots of non-paid workers that do quite a lot of the maintaining of the games. Are these also professionals? What if there is only one guy getting "paid" and he just pays the game bills and his whole staff is un-paid. Is that game runned professional?

You should not call such a list "professional" rather "commercial". There are a lot of non-commercial muds/games out there that are much more professionally created/maintained than a lof of the muds that produce an income in varying size.

Is "benny the mudadmin" who downloaded diku and made it a pay2play game and now is getting "rich" a professional or is "frodo baggins" who graduated master's degree in computer engineering and created his own game from scratch using innovative features a professional?

I fail to see why people make such a big fuzz about this topic (though I have a theory). Maybe the word "professional" is confusing, though it was explained what it was aiming at. Also, given that the list is moderated, it should keep the worst ripoffs (stock DIKUs with an admin trying to cash in) away from it - can you list a single game on the list which hasn't involved a significant amount of work and dedication from its developer?

In another thread at TMC, I posted a comment about the absurdity of TMC/TMS posters always taking offense at commercial MUDs. I was assured that it wasn't true, but rather only applied to some "unethical" games. The more I see some of these same people now bashing the entire idea of having a list of games that do have a professional, financial backing, the more convinced I am that the MUD community has degenerated into a bunch of grumpy old geeks who refuse to face the facts about how the world and the Internet has changed since the 90s.

Threshold has every right to make such a list, and it will be useful for both players and admins to read it, just as Anitras thread on free MUDs. BatMUD doesn't qualify for either list, but it doesn't mean that I should somehow work against them.

I've been on vacation since Monday so forgive the lateness of this response. I also didn't take a lot of time to read the pages of posts (shame on me! ) so if Medievia has already been mentioned, so be it.

Following this definition from Threshold...

...Medievia is absolutely a professional game. Although Medievia is not as 'professional' as the IR games, Vryce does work on Medievia full time and it is considered his RL job. It is also a legally incorporated business. In addition, we have paid several employees in the past for work done, not to mention the fact that all immortals in Medievia do get 'paid' in donation equipment.

If I were backed into a corner and had to say what Medievia is, I'd say it is a mix of professional and hobbyist. The main owner and developer is running it professionally, but our staff are mostly still volunteers