I have no right to expect an answer, but I am going to ask anyway.

Do the imms track the number of new email addresses added, and therefore keep a check on new players joining? Is any kind of analysis done on the playerbase (apart from average player/hour) to monitor the health?

Are the number of new people joining in decline? Or serious decline? Or same as its ever been?

How long does the average new player stay? How has this changed from previous wipes?

I ask these things because I am interested in the health of this game and want to see it keep going. I've introduced as many friends as I could to the game, and short of walking around the mall at lunch time with an A-Board over my shoulders, I'm not sure what else we, as players, can do to help revive things.

Maybe the state of the game hasn't changed. Maybe my (our) perception has changed with each passing year we spend on-line here.

Unfortunately I feel that the game it dying. And I hate that. This has been a great game for so many years to me. I hate to think that Imms are flogging a dead horse with all the effort that they are putting in. It sucks to see an increasingly unappreciate audience.

Can we please get a little perspective on the health of the game?

As I said at the start, I have no right to expect an answer. But I am genuinely interested in what Aristox and other senior imms think about the future of this game as a whole.

Paul

arctic officially died when sancho became a 34, or was it 33? not sure

[color=blue]It's not really just an Arctic thing. Text MUDs in general are getting smaller because there are more and more graphical online games to play. Ask yourself, how many people do you know that have left Arctic to play Ultima Online? Everquest? DAoC? WoW? EvE? Guild Wars? You get the idea. As a game, Arctic is better now than when I first came here, but the playerbase is much smaller, and things are not as hard as they used to be (unlimited EQ, easier to roll good stats...etc)

Perhaps a reason Arctic seems to lose people easier than other MUDs, is because Arctic pwipes. Now, I'm not saying this is bad, as the game would die if they stopped doing it, but to alot of people these days, the idea of starting over every year or 2 isn't appealing, despite the fact it takes about as long to hit 1x here as it does to hit level 60 on a game like WoW.

But to answer this guys' question, yes, there has been a drop in players since 5 wipes ago.[/color]

I have been playing a little for about six or seven years, over the last 3 wipes tho I have started playing a lot more. I have tried to get some of my friends to jump into the game and learn it up. I, and others, can tell you at least one reason why the number of players goes down. This game is not, in any way, friendly to newbie-casual players. Occasionally you can get ahold of someone individually and ask another player for a little help. But it's primarily a learn it yourself game. I enjoy this aspect, I love exploring, figuring things out. But, the fact that asking for help/advice can get you anywhere from deleted, to highlighted by some jackass clan, makes it extremely difficult to learn things. The casual guy that plays a little bit a day and does not dedicate his entire being to a damm game is not going to get anywhere unless he gets himself sucked up into a clan, in which case he cant do anything anyways because half the rest of the mud has his ass highlighted. I know this from experience.
And from before, to note on the decline of players, I have actually noticed a slight increase on the number of average logged in characters this wipe. I think maybe the unlimited gear has brought a few people back, and made being pked a little more tollerable. It has for me. Last wipe most of the time that I was online there was maybe 40-50 on at one time, 60 if there was pk going on. Now, during the peak times that I play 60 is typical, then you get the clans on and it seems upwards of 70. Maybe its just me. Maybe I play at wierd times. Anyway, thats what I think, and now you know.

Crapfully yours,
Ross

First and foremost, I do agree that all the graphical online games right from Ultima Online to Everquest to Guild Wards and WOW does take some of our playerbase away.

The fact that we can BS our boss we're doing linux programming while mudding helps a little, but I'd agree graphics is a little more visualized than text, but do note that even the core of graphic based mud is still text, and the fact that you can do so much more on text does hold it's intrinsic value.

I'd agree that the way it's played is not very encouraging for newbies. Even being on so many wipes, I feel the only way you'll learn is to invest time and explore yourself. And if you're clanned, most of the time u'll end up PKed or getting the end shaft of eq if u can't lead. Like you said, most of the time you'll only be assisting kills. The real learning comes from studying logs and even the main leads do try to hide keywords and secrets.

So yea, revealing game info will get you to a comfy room with Stox for about a week amongst others.

O well... It's just that I feel I'd like to see this game still grow. Been here since 1995 and hope to see this game will be up and running when I'm 60. And yea, Stox did pour lots into this game. :)

Cheers to all still playing!! It's been nice and hope it continues to be so.

Graphics Shmaphix, gets prettier and prettier every year but they will NEVER GET ME!! BWAHAHAHAHA. At least not until they mix real-time strategy with rpg, sort of a command and conquer with magic and main characters (like a constantly ongoing warcraft 3 where you could progress individual characters and still had minions!)

Pedro offers you his protection.

[color=blue]An RTS MMORPG would be unbelievible terrible.

Ofcourse, You could consider the large wars in DAoC, or fleet battles in EVE to be RTS, as you need some planning to win, and good plans can beat superior forces, but I know it's not what you mean.[/color]

Yeah, it's not the shiny graphics that got me. Graphics are overrated. I don't really play now because I just got married, and my wife hates it. It's too hard to play casually and enjoy it.

I'd like to see a RPG, RTS, FPS combo. Level characters, control groups from overhead, and zoom in to take control of individual units during the battle. That would be crazy.

That is the ultimate game! The MMO-RTS-FPS-RPG!

Pedro offers you his protection.

[color=blue]So you basicly want a massive version of Battlezone? It would fullfill all of thsoe requirements.[/color]

Must be fantasy genre.

Pedro offers you his protection.

this game sucks.

play WoW.

[color=blue]And when you're bored of WoW because you've hit the endgame in under a month, we'll see you back here on Arctic.[/color]

the worst staff? .. i'd like to see some figures here before you make such a bold statement.

Starcraft was lame. And yes it's worth paying for (otherwise the tons of people who play it wouldn't be there. Arctic isn't worth being paid to play for (hence the title of this thread).

You've had sex with an STD infested hooker? damn i hope she didn't give you herpes. At least syphilis and chlamydia are curable.

I find it hard to believe the blizzard staff would treat any of their customer's this way. I've had a long standing of interaction with blizzard staff and i've never been treated this way. If you notice half the forums are full of people that bitch more about this game, and treat the staff like shit. It's hard to get a positive response from a person working help support when your opening line begins with "I CANT BELIEVE I PAY FOR THIS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE MY FUCKING GAME WONT WORK OMGFG ASSDAFS "

I've never been at the top of WoW, but it does appear a large part of the game can at least be enjoyable or maintained at a level that does not even compare to rival the slave intensive type labor that Arctic requires. Does your friend play WoW as much as mavlad plays arctic? I'm sorry if he does (might want to have him seek help), and I'm sorry im wrong about that if it's true.

... doesn't change the fact that WoW is a game that Arctic will never rival in its present state or with its current staff.

You just admitted something I don't think id ever be proud of or really care to share with other people. It's good to know that you know people who are good at the game. Maybe you can get their autograph for me?

why would i do that? then you wouldn't have people to blather about bullshit with. you need me here. You want me here. You're damn proud and happy I'm here.

C'mon malthros. I want to hear about that time you solo'ed scorch the red dragon.

there are areas that are worth comparing and areas that are not worth comparing.

The major area worth comparing : treatment of playerbase and accordance with one's own policies. Arctic is nothing more than a fraternity for a bunch of older idiots (late 20s to mid 30s) that get paid to telnet into a box while they're at work all day. Game is nothing but favoritism and bullshit in the manner that it's run. Maybe that's just how games are run when people run them in their "spare time". So maybe the better argument is. not just arctic. .but all games that are run like this will never match up to a game that is run professionally? I guess i can accept that. Should take the form of.. don't be surprised when the staff fucks you over, because that's the what you get when you put your time into a
game where nothing really matters anyway right?.

Never had a shortage of things you can do? Well I have had a shortage of things I can do on that game. I know you havent played as long as I did, but I guess I did get bored. It's not worth putting 5 hours into something to see it reversed in the matter of 30 seconds. Maybe it is to you idiots who have nothing better to do.

DO you really think i give a shit about the people you know malthros? Do you really give a shit about the people I know? You are just pixels on a goddam screen. Who really gives a fuck about this one.. Would you really care to know that i have a net worth of over 50 million dollars? I guess you would.

How could you get by malthros. With rurh and haley out of the loop. I figure youd need someone more than Benwa to respond to, since you seem to be more active in surfing suf's/mud forums than pursuing even women (or men if you swing that way) .

[color=blue]I think the only mistake I amde in replying was forgetting that you've got some fucked up thought in your head that a MUD run by people in their spare time should be compared to a game run by dozens of people paid to work on it hours a day.

Besides as you said, you've never been at the top of WoW, yet you think that it's somehow more enjoyable than this. Personally I've never had a shortage of things I can do on here.

I'm not sure what you're getting at by acting like meeting a few people who turn out to be good at the game they play to be something not worth admitting. I know people who are now pro athletes and a couple rather well-known actors, and atleast 2 professors in the last year who are world renown in their fields. Ofcourse those people have nothing to do with this conversation, the gamers did, so they were mentioned.

As for not having any bullshit to read/respond to if you were gone. I'm sure I'd manage to get by if you stopped trolling these forums.[/color]

under a month my ass.

and hah . you couldn't pay me to come back and play in this shit hole.

Yet no one's paying you to come back and spout drivel on the Arctic Mud Forums.

AdamG

Kamij $.02

I think we just sufferred a declining number of finns, like, all of them

Why should we care? Blizzard is making you pay to play in their shit hole. It's much smaller and shittier than ours.

The one reason I have not played this wipe is stats. I don't mind leveling up. I don't mind losing all my stuff when I die, I don't mind losing XP and deleveling when I die, and I don't mind characters getting old and useless because of age. The one thing I hate is rolling for stats, because it takes so long and it's the end result is just a character on par with everyone else who spent time rolling for stats.

For graph view about online players, you could check:
[url]http://tirannon.tky.hut.fi/arctic/stats/players.gif[/url]

Based on average player hours in help stat series (e.g. 'help stat aug 2005').

The trend indeed seems to be declining; last wipe peak being lower than any other since '97. Although left Arctic quite a while ago, I still consider it best game I've played. Modern MMORPGs feel far too, uhm, easy and forgiving (perhaps Eve has the right direction; dying really hurts).

-Lasse
scared to start a new char

Drakantus, they changed stat rolling and made it a hundred times easier and less annoying, probably because of valid criticism like that. Enjoy.

It's not easy being greeeeeeeeeeeen...

Raz, you need to check the WoW forums if ya don't believe WoW has some of the worst custumer service ever. Malth is right, it's absolutly horrible. PvP is all but ruined there as well. It's the only game I've played that if you play enough, technically you could be the #1 ranked PVP'er and never kill one person. Pretty dumb eh?

And as far as being able to play it less than Arctic? I'm in a guild that does MC, BWL, and Onyxia alot! If wasn't in one of those instances, I was helping newer members on quests or gathering for fire resist pots. All this required 5-6+hrs a day.....

And don't say, "Well I'm not talking about MC/BWL." becuase if you haven't been through them, you haven't experianced a huge part of WoW.

5-6 hours is nothing. you generally need to dedicate more then that to be #1 in this game. more like 4-7 a couple days and heightening out at 8-10 on the long days. Unless you're mavlad. then it's 14-20 hours every day

did i say i wanted them to? moron.

Blizzard has a product worth paying for, the type of customer support a player deserves, and the types of policies the arctic staff really coudln't careless about. A major difference between the Blizzard staff and the Arctic staff is that the Blizzard staff actually cares about its playerbase.

Smaller? hardly. Less work intensive? Yes. WoW is a game you can succeed at and still have a social/work life. Arctic does not fit into this frame. If you disagree then you have obviously never been at the top of this game before, and it's been made harder to stay at the top over the course of the last 5 years than it ever has been in the game's history. This is also why the majority of the arctic playerbase is in highschool/college and it has ALWAYS been that way.

That graph is pretty sobering.

Walking the Dark Path Alone

I agree with that Raz, though try making a run at the top spot for PvP'er on you're server. Better buy food for the week first.

[color=blue]It's pretty obvious you've never played any other MMO, as WoW has by far the worst staff/player interaction, ranging from help to player input.

A product worth paying for? Yes, to the hordes of retards who'd also shell out $50+ for Scartcraft 2, even if it was only SC with better graphics. To many, sex is a product worth paying for, doesn't mean the quality you're receiving is any good. Playing WoW is like having sex with an STD infested hooker.

You've never had any iusses that nedded you to contact the Blizzard staff, otherwise you'd relize they basicly give you the cold shoulder and a feeling of "go fuck yourself" because they have so many peopleplaying that it doesn't matter if a few pissed off people would leave.

There is nothing special about WoW, it's your standard fantasy MMO, with the only exception being that it's based on a successful RTS. There's so much bullshit thrown into that game that I'd need hip-waders to play it again.

Also, you're utterly full of shit as far as being at the top of WoW. It does take commitment to be elite there, as it does in any othr game. Do you happen to play on the same server as Rdeedfrey? I've known him for a few years now, and last time I checked, he's still #1 for pk on the Alliance side for his sevrer, and if you think he's(r any other 'elite' player) at the top of the game by playing just now and then, you're legally retarded.

christ, you remind me of the moron carebears in EVE who bitch because despite the real-time based learnign setup, they ultimately get owned by pvpers who play the game 5x as much. If you consider simply hitting the max level on wow to be success, then have fun being 'successful' like EVERY_OTHER_PLAYER.

Go ahead and tell me I'm wrong about WoW. The simple fact is I know several people who've been more 'successful' at the game than you'll ever be. Same goes for decent FPS like tribes. One of my best friends IRL was in Plan 9, which was one of the best, if not the best, group in tribes 2, and like Rdeed on WoW, Mavlad on Arctic, Tank CEO or Istvaan on EVE, they've gotten there because they put a fuckload of time into the game, and all (well maybe not mavlad) have an equally active social life.

In short, shut the fuck up and go away, or better yet, kill yourself.[/color]

wow doesnt even come close to arctic gameplay wise. WoW is a horrible grindfest where only goal is to gather the equipment. In the end you end up wasting horrible amount of time just for pretty pictures on your character. The fact that you cant do anything meaningful with your gear there just sucks. Here at least you geared up and worked to defeat your enemies (cant comment for recent times as i havent been active).

The only game that comes close to arctic gameplay wise is Eve. There at least you work hard for your team to be better against other players and if you suck you get owned horribly with concequences, just like back in the day on arctic.

I would like to eventually see a graphical MMO based on general ideas that made arctic work so well before, like player competition, unrestricted pvp and limited gear worth waging wars over all on the same server. Related idea worked for CCP with eve (they have 20k people online on the same server on the weekends), so i am hoping somebody will come forward and makes a graphical game eventually which is a lot like arctic. Fact probably is that text games will eventually become extinct whether we like it or not, and with WoW pushing MMOs into mainstream, a more proper game would be nice.

[color=blue]EVE is also a Niche game, and will most likely never become one of the large MMOs like WoW or EQ, granted I'm hoping that's the case sinceit's most likely going to be forced to shard within a year or two, as you can only have what, 65536 connections to any server at a time? EVE uses 2 of those per client connected to the server.

I don't think that many people on Arctic would like it that much though. You can't 'powerlevel', and while numbers that're organized are always effective, even a 10-20person fleet would be nothing compared to what larger corps and alliances put together for wars.[/color]

Eve actually uses clusters already, so they don't really worry about the 65k limit. The last record number of simultaneous users I saw was ~21k anyways.

It seems from their current dev posts (http://myeve.eve-online.com/mb/devblog.asp) that they're bottleneck now is I/O, RAM, and just raw CPU cycles.

I played EVE for a bit, but its pretty hard to get into. I think its one of the games that actually ended up peeling people away from here (Umarth!) and I can't help but think with the recent added suck of SWG, more people will be joining.

Doubt eve will ever shard, would probably need to wipe entire playerbase if it ever happened as all the old people would want to stay on the server.

And i have to disagree with you about numbers in that game. Numbers dont matter at all if you suck. Few months ago Imperium decided to try a POS takeover of one of our stations (I am in reikoku) and came down with a big fleet. We literaly managed to disrupt them from onlining the stations and killed quite a few of them for 2+ hours while our main fleet came down with just tech2 frigates and regular cruisers. So you dont really need high skillpoints to be good at that game, just need to think right.
I know i got peeled away from here to eve myself...

but anyway the original point of my post is that eventually would be cool if arctic evolved into something graphical, thats probably the only way to ensure its longevity. Unfortunaly that would require major $$.

Can't even get Mithas finished and you want graphics now? Start busting out the ASCII.

I think text games will always have a place. And when I play Arctic I think more of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure DragonLance themed Book than MMORPG or FPS or whatever.

To that end, I don't think MUD will ever die, it will continue to exist in some form or another. The more specific concern of ArcticMUD dying? That's possible, but only when there isn't anyone left out there that is interested in putting in the time to keep it up for the people out there that are interested in playing it <-- those people will always exist, despite the naysayers here).

[color=blue]Alot of newer EVE players are from SWG, because it's similiar, niche-wise, only it's not fucked over like SWG was by SOE. Two new pilots in the corp I'm in are both former SWG players.

It is hard to get into I'll admit, but it's wroth it. Sure it sucked being stuck in a caracal for two months while I trained skills, but my Harpy makes me happy. Just wish Cerbs wouldn't have doubled/tripled in price due to the missile changes in RMR.

Still, while a 10-20man group from here wouldn't be nearly as powerful there as they can be here, they could do well, with some exceptions like the GHSC.

Also, EVE is sharding for when the Chinese server opens, due to gaming laws in china, not that it'll matter much, Tranq is still going to be full of sweatshop isk farmers.

I partly want to see sharding there, just because I shudder to think of the utterly insane lag I'll get anytime I have to go near Jita. 400 people is sick as it is, but when there's 1k+, it's going to need several nodes for just 1 system. :P[/color]

I understood 5% of what you said.

i think EVE is a computer game, and it might take place in space, and it might suck

Hi old fellow mudders.

Used to play some years in the old BSP.

After returning to Arctic time and again from other bad habits, I feared playing WoW would turn out just as mind-numbing and repetitive as any other game, and that I would eventually quit it too.

After playing the endgame (excluding levelling) for almost a year, I can assure you that it is still equally fun.

Although the lack of death penalties is a bit sad, it is terribly fun to be able to measure yourself against other players all the time without risk of loosing 6 months of work in 5 minutes. The thing that was the pinnacle of Arctic was fighting group against group, showing off skills and preparation, but seriously how often did it happen? Once a week? Month?

I like joining guild runs in the WoW battleground, to meet up against other guilds having long, even fights where every persons effort is needed and where, if you loose, your entire guild isn't set back to day 1 with the risk of mass quitting.

[color=blue]So you like playing a Quake deathmatch in MMO form in other words? ;)

Guess you wouldn't like EVE...[/color]

Eve rules you. Hard. I've been playing it since release. I've taken a break here and there (currently about 10 days into a recent hiatus) but it's truly a whole new thing with regards to gaming.

The farming that occurs on eve doesn't even come close to approaching the levels you see in wow, comparitively speaking. As for the lag in core empire and in fleet flights, it's been improving ( a bit ) despite the record numbers. Hopefully the cluster upgrade this month will improve things a lot. In any event, none of these problems exist much in 0.0 -- where I would expect to find any player from a game like Arctic.

Haha, someone lauding TankCEO and Istvaan.

[color=blue]
Name/corp?

Last night I notced there's a Tarsis Shriner corp, any connection to Arctic?[/color]

The shriners had an on/off thing for a few years on eve. We started out as "Pierre's Fine Tarsis Hams" and then took on the regular banner. We've since disbanded and puttered out, but one or two of us are still playing eve.

[color=blue]I take it Pierre's and the shriners had non-Arctic players in it too, or was the person I saw with those corps in her background just lying to me? :/[/color]

A number of the accounts were sold. That or it could simply be someone that hates you. What was the charname?

[color=blue]Trying to remember. It was a woman, I think minmatar. Saw she had joined the ham corp 2x i think, and she was in Hageken last night (when I noticed the corp).

I suppose they could've been lying because they hate me, but really why on earth would anyone hate me? :(

If a bunch of the accounts were sold (never knew that was legal in EVE :P), that could've been one of them though. How many other Arctic players play EVE? I can only think of 3, maybe 4 (excluding me).[/color]

HEM do u still read these forums?
they're talking about eve dude!

IMO both wow and eq2 are kiddies games, I've played wow and eq2 to max lvls on both games, wow and eq2 are just zerg/aoe group games, it's pathetic. Unlike the eq1 model where crowd control was needed in some form. Arctic has that type of skill due to tank only taking damage model/rescue which no other games mmorpg graphical days has done.

eq2 pvp is coming out, and I will be there though, they have some damn decent pvp rules in places - actually get coin/item loot and faction vs. faction

I opened up DAoC again for the classic server but, it's too dated, I rather play arctic

I do play eve-online ;) Our alliance is at war with... well everyone - great excitement, travelling time blows though - it's a different type of game though

To be honest only reason I don't play Arctic more is declining number of players. I truly love Arctic, it's the best game I've every played. But it needs to be advertised most importantly.

I'd also like to see scouts be the bashers/damage, theifs = most damage, warriors/barbs be the MA's. Mages need love also, as well as druids. But thats personal opinion.

Incidently I was Zervun in Zoners/Supremacy in the massive curse alliance wars - great days, sold account (worst mistake ever flog myself with raw spiked noodles each day while standing naked in cow urine mixed with moldy ham in tribute to my favorite loved tarsis hams). Got my buds account since I've been playing since, Torvail in IEEX Stain Alliance, but hell everyone at war with us - it's exciting though - pain pain though for having less sp's - I'm definately making a new char to get rid of my 26cha next patch.

I do love eve though - I'd love for BoB and Stain to call a truce, become friends and take over the world though ;)

Every other damn alliance that bandwagoned is so pathetic though... and don't even get me start on the Fix crybabies.

I'd say my haydays though was by far with Zoners/Supremacy - 100v100 fleet battles and coming out on top was incredible

[color=blue]I think everyone is making a new character in the next patch. Last I heard, Achura could start with Science V if they make the right choices, so one of those is going to be an R&D alt for sure.

An Achura monk can also get 9 wil/mem/per/int and 3 charisma to start(doubt science V as well though), and I'd so give up my measly 7mil sps Deteis for one of those. After learning skills to V and adv learning to 4-5 we're looking at 23-24 in those 4 stats with +3implants, a very nice combat char I must say.

They need to rename Blood as 'achura', since everyone's going to be one. :/[/color]

This forum is about ArcticMUD, go cream about EVE on some EVE forum.

i remember a while ago(about two years) i quit because i made someone mad and they highlighted me found out all my character names from other ppl and then tracked me down. got most of my characters low level. sure it was fun running but after time it got boring... pointless... so i quit. i think if people would just give others a break sometimes they would still play and maybe if when someone lower then level 10 dies give them free training gear? yes that can be abused but still it might help if not keep it or get rid of it ur choice. anyways i would like to see arctic get more people as well it is a fun game to play and i like it much more then the visual games because it is more challenging and envolves more intellegance...

anyways just my two cents^.^ thanks for listening bye bye-.-
-hinata~

-hinata~

because w/ text the game rocks. People that have imaginations don't need all the graphics. That, the ability to type, and *ahem* *cough* *cough* the ability to read is all one needs. Text makes arctic fluid and changeable, many swayed away to real-time graphics come back when they get bored, or from their unoriginality, or after they finish them. Here, one can never learn every secret, constant changes and new zones make exploring fun, you don't need a mouse, telnet access means can play/log in anywhere (work!). It's free too.

So graphic games may be fun, and to many worth paying for, but there will always be plenty of players here. Yes, sheer numbers have reduced since 5 years ago when the many choices of graphical real-time didn't exist. Let them go.

Btw, and I have no idea how to go about doing this, more/better advertising could restock the playerbase too, no?

was is the average load for a typical day?
i saw a max of 31ish users today.

I think 2 things are causing the abnormally smaller logins, concurrently: the announcement of a pwipe, though some ways off, and the current time of the schoolyear (finals, year end, etc.) the start of summer & vacations may also be adding to this.

I do believe many of the changes happneing, code changes, item changes, nerfs to scouts, and other things will bring a better balanc to the game and make the game more fun for all, be it soloer or groupie, clan elite, or newbie neutral type. I also know that pwipes bring old players and those bored with the current game situation out of the woodwork. I wouldn't be surprsied to see the 150-200 players online during the first week of after the wipe occurs.

A few others things I know.. new zones are currently being worked on and sometime within the next months new zones will be available for exploration. Myself included, many immortals have been actively seeking out new players and assisting them, a little hand holding and nudging, but mostly answering questions and pointing them in the right direction. It has been quite successful. Today alone I met and pushed 4 brand new players on their way, all who were hooked and played 5+ hours each. As well Kragg and a mortal have been working on some more newbie assistive things which will hopefully be in game in the near future. The same non_staff member is also working on some hard core advertising of the MUD, that along with the ZMud icon, will surely bring new players to our game.

Of course everything boils down to keeping the new players here, which is working better recently than in the past. Hopefully new players will also see the abundance of old players at pwipe, hook up with them, get in some groups, get a feeling that the game is thriving, and stick around. We also need all mortals to assist in helping new players learn the ropes, not killing them so they learn the PK game, but helping them find their way to zones and the basic workings of the game. Once a player is hooked on Arctic, they will be here a while.

-Sancho

I just had this conversation with Hrothgar. Arctic, being text, is relatively simply coded. The characters and game play however, are the most complex many of us have experienced. The freedom and versatility of simple text and your imagination work the wonders graphical mmo's offer to do for you. It's also got a better 'twitch'

This being said, graphical mmo's are easy street. They give you the story, the eye candy, the quests etc. What they don't give you is world interaction. UO does to some extent but notice how its graphics aren't top notch?

The more graphics, the slower the game, the more you just click a few buttons and the less immersed you are in the game. Read some MMO forums like mmorpg.com and you see these complaints everywhere. People are just to lazy to type though. They don't see the next best thing as the next set of rules or constructs in game without graphics because it just doesn't have that 'wow' factor when you first look at it.

Those people haven't moved to text which just goes to show you how much the gaming community is comprised of many bitches who think fun can unequivocally (spelling?) be handed to them.

If anything they're afraid of being called a nerd. I date about four new hot chicks a week and fly my Airwolf around blowing shit up so I'm ok with it.

Don't fear the Reefer.

Don't fear the Reefer.

Arctic has the best graphics. They will never out date. The fact that their text, they will never look old, they always look as you should. unlike when you play final fantasy 1 and think how horrid the graphics are, compared to when you first played that...or doom. Thats why mud's haven't been completely wiped out.

Arctic is competetive. Infact, after playing DAOC on mordred (the pvp server), WoW on PVP servers, Shadowbane, Guild Wars, and Neopets, You realize that arctic is a survivial game. The fact that their is such a huge DP, and you can loot eq, pk anywhere etc, makes the game truely enjoyable, and limitless. Since, atleast a few years ago, Everyone was saying if they made a MMORPG like arctic, they would play it instantly. The fact is, a game like arctic wouldn't appeal to many players. In any game i've played, even the worst arctic players are considered "Elite"... i shutter to use the word.... Put a typicial guild wars, or WoW player in here, and you got someone who will reach level 10-15, get killed in the solace sewers, DT off the tree several times, and get pk'ed. In the end they will just quit. It's not that arctic is changing, it's really the internet. Adam's added a ton of stuff, and all but his DAOC phase where really good things. The fact is when arctic started, it's rivial was what, sojourn? It didn't have 600 other games. The only people on the internet where the brilliant kids, and colleage kids. Now, the average age is way out their, and the people who want to enjoy games like this, would rather buy guild wars, and not pay a sub, pay a sub for WoW, or pull a lan party for NWN.

The one thing you guys need to think about. Arctic is older then some of its players. It's one of the oldest mmorpg type games on the internet. If it hasn't died now, it wont. Though either way, it's done it's time, and survived this long.

Funny thing is that I played Guildwars for about 2 years...used to play Arctic back 5 or 7 years ago...after playing guild wars I realized how mindnumbingly boring the PvP and PvE aspect of the game was...now I am back to arctic loving every minute of it. The amusing thing is that you are quite correct about the quality of players in arctic compared to Guildwars. My guild is within the top 100 PvP guilds (Xx The Final Thrust xX tag RIP) and the majority of us are former mudders. Arctic is just an amazingly well done game that beats the other games out there hands down for pure fun and the ability to do most anything.
Just so you know though...I don't make it to lvl 10-15 then DT myself to death...I make it to level 20 THEN DT myself doing something stupid...though in my defense I did PK someone within 10 minutes of coming back into Arctic with a LvL 1 thief...got him twice...and remembered why I love this game...you can have real grudges and nemesis here that make the game fun...anyhow...

This is by no means a complete fix, but we really do need to be more newbie friendly. Arctic has always been a 'veteran' mud for experienced players who whet their teeth on other muds, or simply put in their dues learning on the hard one (like me). Back before the rise of MMORPGs, there were enough mudders in general that we could do this, but I don't think we can anymore. Now, especially since browser based multiplayer games have gotten popular, I fear we're about to see another mass exodus from mudding.

Say what you will about Arctic, but cheating is certainly not as rampant as you make it sound. Years ago, perhaps favoritism was an issue, but those days are long behind. BSP, the most successful clan in the game (arguably until recently) has basically zero representation on the staff, especially above the 33 level where it begins to matter. It's something of an open secret that my clan has some representation among the immortal staff, but no objective observer will ever tell you that we've been involved in any sort of favoritism or cheating. Even when we were logging on regularly, we weren't by any stretch at the top. Sure, we had loads of fun, but we didnt have that much in terms of 'shinies'.

In fact, I can confidently say that only possible staff interference I've been involved in is more along the lines of 3 basher mobs targetting me, or Tsu running out and stabbing my healer sort of "cheating."

Full disclosure: I do not have an imm, but I have been damned by them.

Kyplin's absolutely right. Its easy to say that you "need" to play a lot in arctic, but the same is true for any game. Any well designed game will reward you somehow for playing a lot. Sure, WoW makes things a bit easier with lack of decay and rent, but if you play casually, you can only certain parts of the game. I have a decent amount of mudding time now, which lets me maintain several alts, but If i only had an hour or two a day, I could still have a pretty good time. Instead of working to keep up alts, just play one character you really enjoy. Decays might still hurt, but if you're only looking to equip one alt, you'll have more gear available to you. The really elite groups require people with pretty good sets and stats, but for most zones, as long as your main can rescues and your tanks don't miss too often, you're okay, and if you know how to lead or follow orders well, nobody cares that you dont have 8 dam on you. If you have close to zero time and can't keep ANY gear, play a healer or druid. You might mem a bit slower, but a druid with 18-20 base wis can still do everything a group needs, and 5 heals is enough most zones, especially if you now how to flee/remem. And of course there are ranks-- thanks to the fairly easy rank system, my backup healer has 8 heals naked.

Quite frankly, if you're the type who cant have fun unless you're doing the "best" zones in Arctic, then you won't have fun unless you're doing the "best" instances in WoW. And when this type of person tries a game where playing for an hour a day gives you the same rewards as playing for six, they tend to get bored with it pretty fast.

I've never thought of it this way (your observations of the changing internet user), but you're absolutely right. Very astute observation and analysis of its effect on arctic.