New text based MMORPG needs beta testers!

[ryemck93]

Hi all!


I've been working on a text based rpg that is currently in the very early beta stages. I really need beta testers to give suggestions and bug hunt!


I'm also after moderator/admin candidates so if you have experience in these roles then please let me know.


The game is based around growing your resources with workers and then building an army with those resources, it's set in a fantasy type theme (I'm edging towards Lord of the Rings type fantasy) but this can all change.


Here's the link - www.velrania.com (Yes, it DOES look crap at the moment, but it will get better).


Thanks for reading

 

[GMMichael]

Wait a minute. A TEXT based game? That would require players to imagine, contemplate, and analyze!

To be honest, I'm not very excited about it if it's an administrative, Age of Empires-style game. However, if it's a Zork- or Eamon-style game, count me in!

 

[Zhaleskra]

You mean a MUD/MUCK? Unfortunately, beyond "Multi-user" I can't expand the second abbreviation, the first is "multi-user dungeon".

 

[Zadmar]

You mean a MUD/MUCK? Unfortunately, beyond "Multi-user" I can't expand the second abbreviation, the first is "multi-user dungeon".

MUCK? It's just a play on the the term "MUD". Note that MUCKs are also a type of MUD (more specifically, the original MUCK was called "TinyMUCK" and was based on version 1.52 of the TinyMUD codebase).

Even MMORPGs used to be called "graphical MUDs" until Richard Garriott rebranded them as "MMORPGs" in 1997 (which is why I always find it amusing when people refer to MUDs as "text-based MMORPGs").

 

[Jhaelen]

I hadn't heard the term MUCK before. But I'm aware of MUSH - Multi-User Shared Hallucination, which seems to be applied to MUDs that focus on the roleplaying aspect of online gaming.

 

[Zadmar]

Similar situation. The first MUSH (TinyMUSH) was based on TinyMUD 1.54, and the others branched from that. MUSH, MUCK, MUX, MAZE, MUSE, etc, are all codebases derived from TinyMUD. MOO is a little different as it was actually written from scratch (rather than extending the source code of an earlier game), but it was developed by the same guy who wrote the original MUCK, and has enough similarities in the design that it often tends to get grouped together with the rest of the TinyMUD family.

TinyMUD is one of the three main MUD families, the other two being DikuMUD and LPMud, and they each have their own extended tree of descendants. All three were originally inspired by AberMUD, which in turn was heavily influenced by the original MUD, from which the genre gets its name. Note that the "Dungeon" in "Multi-User Dungeon" doesn't refer to D&D or an actual dungeon, it is instead a reference to a popular single-player game called Dungeon (better known today as "Zork").

The three families each have their stereotypes - DikuMUDs are traditionally combat-focused, TinyMUDs are traditionally social, etc - but as the only limit is the imagination and programming skill of the owner, there are plenty of exceptions. There are also various smaller MUD families (such as the Avalon and SocketMUD trees), along with individual codebases that can't easily be categorised.

Just like roleplaying games, each MUD family, each codebase, and each individual game, has its proponents and detractors, so it's not difficult to find people claiming that their favourite codebase is the best, or that it offers a superior roleplaying environment, or even that it's such a special snowflake that it should no longer be called a "MUD". Elsewhere you'll find others slamming the very same codebase for being boring, poorly designed, generic, etc. But what you really have is a vast tree of game engines that can (nearly*) all be traced back through either code, design concepts, or both, to a single game developed at Essex University in 1978. One could draw many parallels with the roleplaying community, I suspect.

* Scepter of Goth was developed independently at around the same time, and has its own descendants.

 

[Zhaleskra]

What I remember is that most MU*s generally devolved into in-character chatrooms.