Notability of MUDs in general; Armageddon in specific

[Rahnevyn]

I'd like to thank Synthesis for calling attention to a rather big flap between the MUD community and Wikipedia with this post. Apparently there is a huge debate (to use a polite term) going on right now on Wikipedia if another MUD, Threshold, is notable enough to be included in their encyclopedia.

I've been playing MUDs since I was in something like 6th grade and I'm sure there are many of you who've been playing for several years, too. We'd probably all consider our hobby notable and interesting enough to be included on Wikipedia. But the problems Threshold is running in to in their debates against Wiki-users not familiar with MUDs are looking pretty insurmountable. Wikipedia's standards don't seem to allow for sites like TMS, TMC, et al. to be included as sources (or at least that's being argued by the editors who want to delete the article). Without allowing for sources like those, it'd seem pretty hard for any MUD to meet notability. Sites such as those are epicenters of the greater MUD community, a niche hobby that barely ever gets coverage by mainstream media or printed sources. Even when games have a wealth of information and over a decade of history, all of that is only interesting to the people who play the game itself. MUD communities tend to be very insular, closed off things.

Reading over all of this got me thinking: How is this going to impact the future of Armageddon? Threshold is a much larger and more popular game than us, and commercial, and nearly as old. Are we going to be doomed to being deemed "non-notable" in a few more years?

Luckily I think Armageddon has some things going for it, if we take advantage of them. We're not just another hack-and-slash, kill the dragon "game". Armageddon tries to be, and succeeds in many aspects as, an immersive virtual world that offers roleplaying opportunities that few other games, whether text or graphical, can. MMOs are going to continue to take gaming to new levels and probably eat up most of their competitor MUDs, but until you can get fully immersive virtual reality roleplaying, I don't see many things topping Armageddon and similar games in that respect. I think that's our key to notability, but it's a vision both players and staff will need to pursue.

In the end, Wikipedia really isn't important, but I think being notable, respected, and admired both as a MUD and as an immersive roleplaying game is. To get there, we need to keep working to make ourselves better internally, and promote the game externally - not just by voting on sites, but actually participating in MUD communities outside Armageddon and bringing people back in. Finding ways to get ourselves media and outside coverage would be awesome, too.

At this point I'm probably rambling/bloviating, but I thought I'd post, since this has had me thinking the last couple days.

[AJM]

I will volunteer myself to take on a mud forum to spread Arm, and its awesomeness.

[Tisiphone]

Irrespective of the notability of MU*s in general, Armageddon has a unique (using the term in a loose, non-exclusive sense, hah) position: it perpetuates its own real subculture in a way that no other MU* I've ever seen does. The reasons for their "failure" in that regard boil down to one or more of the following:

1) Being much more casual than ArmageddonMUD. Most MU*s are hobbies, shared by a group of people. ArmageddonMUD has at least a core of people who see it not just as a hobby, but as an occupation, and culturally definitive. Reference APMs, player-staff meetings, the tone and implicit understanding of our GDB, and our peculiar relationship between players and staff.

2) Being, rather than the wellspring of a culture, the offspring of it. New Worlds (if you'll pardon me for mentioning another MUD in order to make a point that denigrates neither it nor ours) strikes me as a decent approximation of this, as do many of the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings MU*s in existence.

3) Related to the first - being much less socially immersive than ArmageddonMUD. Again, here we are all players of Armageddon who do other things. Elsewhere (say, with Threshold) people are folks who happen to play the same MUD. In other places, individual friendships and even networks of friendships form, but not the sense of community we've built here.

4) Lack of people. I've seen places that might grow their own subcultures rather well, like Twisted Kingdoms MUCK, but they just don't have the necessary number of people.

Thus, methinks as stated above, ArmageddonMUD deserves mention whether or not MU*s, as definitive of its own subculture.

[staggerlee]

It does however have an entry for MUD with links to sites such as RPI mud:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD#MUD_resources

The disputes about the other MUD seem to be drama related to current players and former players, and basically an internal dispute. I'm not sure it really is a broader issue, so much as blown out of proportion.

It does bring up the difficulty of citing things without academic sources, but that only really becomes a problem on wiki if there's a dispute, plenty of stuff sits on there without proper citation.

I realize that this isn't entirely the analysis or answer that you're looking for, but I think it's worth nothing what wiki does have:

-Extensive information on MUDs and subcategories there of.
-Links to sites such as Mud connector, TMS, etc.
-Information on documentation about MUDs, video games, virtual worlds, etc.
-Pages on individual MUDs such as Armageddon.

To reiterate what I was saying, the issue is that an internal dispute has risen and the lack of citable sources has made the conflict difficult to resolve. I don't believe that the issue is that Wiki is in any way failing to represent games.

I think that this is fairly telling:

Threshold RPG's wikipedia entry has recently undergone a lot of vandalism from a bad intentioned, disgruntled ex-player. Unfortunately, this person (who goes by the name Mendaliv on Wikipedia) is a hard core Wikipedia user, so he is well versed in their archaic, acronym heavy rules and has a lot of "friends" (cronies?) to help him with his campaign.

Original Article: http://www.topmudsites.com/forums/tavern-blue-hand/5287-defense-all-muds-our-genres-noteworthiness-being-questioned.html
Wiki Discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Threshold_(online_game)

[mansa]

Lawl delerak posts

Who can find armageddon in usenet posts?  That'll be good reference in the ArmageddonMUD wiki article

[staggerlee]

I was thinking about it, and one thing that I think that those who are concerned about the history of MUDs becoming lost could do is write. The one thing that seems to be nailing Threshold is not having independently published articles... if people do feel that Arm is more than just another game, or that there's something special about RPI muds that is in danger of vanishing, go publish articles. It doesn't need to be in paper magazines, I'm sure there are credible blogs and only periodicals that would welcome well put together articles.

I think that MUDs played an often overlooked role in the development of virtual worlds, and with their rising popularity I think it'd be fascinating to see more writing done and attention paid to the subject.

I think Sanvean may already have a citable article on The Escapist, though I don't remember whether it made mention of Arm or not.

[deviant storm]

I used to play Threshhold, long, long ago. And I can tell you it's always been a powder keg. Without going into dirty detail, there have been any number of personality clashes and fireworks and I am really not surprised that there's quite a lot of debate going on about it in the Wiki community.

I would never recommend it as a game to others, and that's all I have to say about it.

Armageddon, on the other hand, doesn't hinge around one or a few personalities. It's a true community. There are contributions by many, some some greater than others. I think it is worthy of a good deal of notice, however because more and more people get drawn into MMORPGs I don't forsee many MUDS to get a lot of repute except by those of us who really are drawn to play text-based muds. The hardcore.

[Salt Merchant]

I'm certain that games like Ultima Online and (subsequently) World of Warcraft were largely created by programmers that had played MUDS.

They're just MUDS with graphics.

[Gimfalisette]

I'm certain that games like Ultima Online and (subsequently) World of Warcraft were largely created by programmers that had played MUDS.

They're just MUDS with graphics.

This is true; for example, Raph Koster, who worked on SWG and EQ2. In fact, the way I came to ARM was because I was reading up on game design stuff and found references to ARM on Raph's blog. Such as:

there's lots still to mine from the history of MUDs. Not just Legend either -- all those players who wish there were more immersive RP should look at Armageddon, or all those virtual world fans ought to check out DartMUD. In a lot of ways, MMORPG design has followed only one of the many currents that were followed in the MUDs.

One of the most interesting virtual world designs I've ever seen was Castle Infinity, designed for kids. It made a point of nifty little exclusion tactics: there were levels you could not go into, but that you could see other players entering and leaving — it made you want to advance and get in there. It's the old velvet rope effect.

We've seen similar effects in virtual worlds for a long time. I remember working carefully over a profile for a character I intended to play on Armageddon, a game that enforced roleplay very strictly despite being a DIKU. If you didn't craft your character carefully, enough, you weren't allowed in.

"Only one living character per player is allowed at a time. If you attempt to circumvent this rule by making multiple accounts, you will be banned for a month after the first occurrence, and banned permanently after the second.

Characters are created via the main game menu, and will be reviewed by staff members generally within 24 hours and approved or rejected. Grounds for rejection may include: lack of congruence with the game world, failure to approve connections with existing clans with the appropriate staff member, typos and grammatical errors that are at variance with the overall writing guidelines, lack of the proper keywords, insufficient background, etc."

In some ways, this is the same as an elite raiding guild, only selecting for different characteristics. Experts only need apply. Similar characteristics to the GAT City approach were also seen in entire worlds, such as the many many muds run solely for friends to hang out in.

[Rahnevyn]

Gimf, that's awesome. I had no idea Raph Koster even knew Armageddon existed, much less wrote about it. Maybe we should toss those citations in our wiki article.

I was thinking about it, and one thing that I think that those who are concerned about the history of MUDs becoming lost could do is write.

Exactly. Even if they're not in media or "scholarly" sources, any publicity is good publicity. The more active we are, the more noticed we become.

I do have to disagree with Tisiphone's points, though. I think every (large, enduring) MUD would be able to argue that it has its own peculiar culture and social network, and that people take the game seriously rather than just as a hobby. Armageddon is assuredly not the only MUD to have player meetings or a forum culture (our forum has evolved to be somewhat distinct from the game itself, but I'm not sure that's unique either). Our culture is distinct from other MUD cultures, but I think every MUD culture is distinct from others in its own way, while sharing many characteristic traits we no doubt share. And even if we somehow knew we were completely distinct for a fact... it'd be hard to prove it to standards anyone outside (probably even inside) the MUD community would agree with.

[Gimfalisette]

And here is the link to the interview of Raph as posted on stratics.com which mentions Armageddon: http://uo2.stratics.com/content/exclusives/general/raph_koster.php

I nominate mansa to add these to Wikipedia. I don't edit there.

[Gimfalisette]

Here's one of Sanvean's articles at The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_43/262-As-Sands-Through-the-Hourglass

Oh here's another one where she mentions ARM: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_47/286-Sponsored-by-Microsoft-and-Apple

[Angela Christine]

I do have to disagree with Tisiphone's points, though. I think every (large, enduring) MUD would be able to argue that it has its own peculiar culture and social network, and that people take the game seriously rather than just as a hobby. Armageddon is assuredly not the only MUD to have player meetings or a forum culture (our forum has evolved to be somewhat distinct from the game itself, but I'm not sure that's unique either). Our culture is distinct from other MUD cultures, but I think every MUD culture is distinct from others in its own way, while sharing many characteristic traits we no doubt share. And even if we somehow knew we were completely distinct for a fact... it'd be hard to prove it to standards anyone outside (probably even inside) the MUD community would agree with.

Yeah, that's the problem.  You can't just make an argument about your MUD, you have to find significant coverage in notable sources that supports your argument.  TMS and TMC are being discounted as legitimate sources.  Being considered important by the MUD community itself isn't enough, they have to be considered legitimate by their "journalistic peers".  Threshold got a mention in Computer Gaming World magazine back in the day, which was a pretty big deal at the time, but the wiki people don't consider that "significant coverage" because it was just a line or two.  Online sources from the '90s may not exist anymore, and may not even be recorded in any kind of public internet archive.

Second Life made it into Time magazine, it is unlikely that a MUD ever will.  The problem is that when MUDs were new and exciting on the Internet, the Internet itself was barely on the radar of the mainstream press.  By the time that the Internet was an area of interest, and things that only existed on the internet were making it into the mainstream press, MUDs were already considered an obsolete niche of the Internet and not worth writing about. 


It is quite possible that while MUDs will be considered Notable, no specific examples of MUDs will be Notable enough to rate their own articles.  Or maybe a few of the old commercial MUDs may have significant coverage, I remember some of the $/hour ones used to advertise in gaming magazines.  If they were big enough to pay for advertisements, they were probably big enough to get reviewed or at least mentioned in the magazines themselves.  But now days, any little flash game on Pogo.com will have more players online at a given moment than almost any MUD.  You can't establish that particular MUDs are Notable now, and historical sources to indicate that they were Notable in the past either do not exist, or the sources themselves are not considered legitimate.

[Halcyon]

Would Dragon magazine, or other gaming industry periodicals, be sufficient sources?

[Angela Christine]

Would Dragon magazine, or other gaming industry periodicals, be sufficient sources?

Probably.  It certainly couldn't hurt.


Heck, if one of the editors didn't specifically have it in for Threshold as a disgruntled former player, the combination of a mention in Computer Gaming World and coverage in TMC and TMS might have been enough.

[SMuz]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think the problem is that most MUDs try to become MMORPGs or vice versa. Treshold looks like one of them. They basically feel and play the same, but are a lot uglier than MMORPGs. In that way, they're bound to be phased out.

Armageddon has a relatively small player base, but that base is loyal enough to keep the game active even when there aren't really that many people on. The way Arm is played, it can't simply be replaced by a MMORPG. Heck, if you had virtual reality MMOs in the future, they won't replace Arm.

[Delstro]

I do believe G4 mentioned ArmageddonMud during one of their Xplay shows.
Their website isn't working, I'll keep trying to find the article.

[Vessol]

I try to mention Armageddon as often as I can on various forums I visit and to whomever I meet in other online games, especially when they talk about roleplaying.

Also Wikipedia is pretty messed up. Delete MUD articles yet keep 32-page articles on William Shatner? There's a lot of double standards there.

[SMuz]

Wikipedia is the essence of Internet intelligence. Ever had an Internet debate? Geez, people on the Internet are a lot more political.. Wikipedia's particularly nasty, especially when you see all the 'badges' and stuff they award to Wikipedia contributors. About a quarter of them have to do with flame wars and trolling.

It's just another political act. I've seen enough crap like this that I'd want to stay as far away as possible. Even if it's mainly an issue with Treshold

[Xagon]

Wikipedia is the essence of Internet intelligence. Ever had an Internet debate? Geez, people on the Internet are a lot more political.. Wikipedia's particularly nasty, especially when you see all the 'badges' and stuff they award to Wikipedia contributors. About a quarter of them have to do with flame wars and trolling.

It's just another political act. I've seen enough crap like this that I'd want to stay as far away as possible. Even if it's mainly an issue with Treshold

Something about world war II and nazis come to mind. So does Isolationism.

[staggerlee]

I try to mention Armageddon as often as I can on various forums I visit and to whomever I meet in other online games, especially when they talk about roleplaying.

Also Wikipedia is pretty messed up. Delete MUD articles yet keep 32-page articles on William Shatner? There's a lot of double standards there.

I think a lot of you are missing the point here:  Independently published articles are necessary for proper citation. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources

[mattrious]

Wikipedia is the essence of Internet intelligence. Ever had an Internet debate? Geez, people on the Internet are a lot more political.. Wikipedia's particularly nasty, especially when you see all the 'badges' and stuff they award to Wikipedia contributors. About a quarter of them have to do with flame wars and trolling.

It's just another political act. I've seen enough crap like this that I'd want to stay as far away as possible. Even if it's mainly an issue with Treshold

It's all about Wikiality.

[Rahnevyn]

This is from Raph Koster's blog just today. He's talking about the lack of a wiki entry on LegendMUD, his old home...

But if you had to take the thousands of muds that have existed throughout the decades, and pick 50 to cover, [Legend Mud]'d be in the 50. If you had to pick 25, I think it's possible it would make the cut. I personally would not put it in the top ten — my top ten would likely include MUD1, TinyMUD, Penn, LambdaMOO, TinyTim,DikuMUD, Aber, Armageddon, HoloMUD, EmlenMUDs, BSX Muds, MUME, DartMUD, even Medievia, maybe the original Star Wars one, certainly a few key LPMuds like Nightmare... OK, ten is hard.

I dunno if that means anything to the rest of you, but to me, it's HUGE.

[Marauder Moe]

Raph is a pretty influential guy in the game development business.  I met him once.  I just wish I'd known he played Armageddon at the time.

[SMuz]

I'd like to see Richard Bartle talk out on the issue. I'm sure he could lecture long enough about it.. and with all his talk about how modern MMOs should have player death, I'm sure he'll love Armageddon if he doesn't already.

Wikipedia has an article on wargames. Who plays wargames anymore? It even has a long article on the Zip drive, which doesn't even have any historical or practical significance, aside from failing. MUDs are a significant part of multiplayer RPG history and people still play them.

Arm has always been out there. It's spread almost purely by word of mouth and quite a lot of people who enter stay. I think if any MUDs would survive a major MUD wipeout, it's Arm. And maybe DartMUD, Shattered Kingdoms, Treshold, Firan, GodWars, Shattered Kingdoms, The Eternal City, and one of those furry ones for Krath knows why.