Posted by Macheath on August 8, 2000 at 13:58:56:
In Reply to: Discussion of the future of Muds, and how they effect us... posted by Not An Immortal on August 8, 2000 at 12:20:52:
Approximately how many hours have you put into CF total, with all your characters? I'd estimate around 5000-6000 hours in the last 3+ years. That might be a gross over/underestimate. Is there any other form of entertainment that has taken near the number of hours as CF? Music comes close. But then, I was a music major for the last 3 years. Have you ever tried any of the graphical pay muds that are out there? Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Everquest, etc? My computer won't support them. But I fear the new computer I'll be getting within a week, because it'll open me up to these sorts of things. Do you think any of them could ever replace what CF means to you? I think I have an obsessive enough personality that one of them could, yes. Do you think text-based muds will be able to continue to compete in the coming years? Don't kid yourself. Carrion Fields doesn't even come close to "competing" with graphical games. There's a playerbase of, at best, 300-400 people. That's likely far more than there are in reality. How many people play Everquest? Diablo II? Will they evolve enough to continue attracting new players? Muds don't evolve. There are internal changes and modifications, but the genre is static. In the sense that the interface and basic premise doesn't change, muds don't "evolve" in the least. When you think of your life 5 years from now, do you imagine yourself still playing mud-type games? *sigh* If you had the time, and money/hardware was not a factor, would you spend 8 hours a day playing CF in its current form? If you'd asked me 2 years ago, the answer would have been a resounding, "Yes!" Now, though, it's rare that I even feel the desire to play that much, if at all. Would you play one of the graphical Pay-muds? Or would you divide your time between them, depending on your mood? I'll be able to more accurately answer that one when I've got a computer that can handle applications more complex than Zmud. Have you ever forced yourself to quit mudding, only to lose control of yourself at some point and find yourself back? No comment. Do you or others ever look at CF as an addiction or Illness? Absolutely. Have you ever lost a close relationship/job/class because you could not pull yourself away from the game? Yes. Have you ever seriously considered ways to make mudding a paying career or job? Have you ever mudded while working, even though it might get you in trouble? No, I've never considered trying to make mudding an occupation. Reflected upon how wonderful it might be? Yes. But I've never even thought for a second that it was feasible. To wrap up... I used to decree the evils of mudding to everyone I could. I believed that anyone who spent as much time as I did on Carrion Fields was ruining his life. Now, I realize that even people as obsessive as I am, who play for even more time per day than I did, may have less responsibility to worry about, or more motivation to complete tasks while not mudding than I have. It's not necessarily the case that anybody who plays like I did at the height of my addiction is ruining his life. But I maintain that it's still a very good idea to quit.