Spamfunet Nanny Forum

Who here still reads this forum?  Just say "aye" if you're still breathing.

And maybe we can start a topic.  While it's likely that for most of the people this question is targetted at necessarily won't be reading the question, I'm wondering what the number one cause is for people stopping playing NannyMUD.  Here is a speculative list:

1. Career, marriage, kids, etc. and thus having no time for Nanny.
2. Same as above, but you wouldn't play Nanny even if you had the time.
3. Discovered new games that are more interesting or less demanding.
4. The game has just, somehow, lost something for you, and isn't as fun as it used to be.
5. Realising that NannyMUD was more of an addiction than something genuinely or legitimately fun.
6. Discovering that wizards are better at idling than coding.
7. Too many downcodes or disagreeable changes to the game that ruined the game for you.
8. Getting pissed at how your area or yourself were treated by certain admins.
9. Getting banished.

If you could rate which is the truest reason or combination of reasons then that would be helpful, or come up with your own if it isn't on the list.

My next question is, is there anything that could conceivably rekindle your interest in the game--or someone else in a similar circumstance--in the role of a wizard or of a player, and if so what form might it take?

I think the more people that respond to these questions the better, because if one answer keeps reoccuring more than others it might point a direction the MUD needs to go in.

I'm still here, AND still active on Nanny :)

I definitely think #1 is the most important reason for people losing contact with Nanny.

I think some sort of advertisement would be a possible way to get attention from some of the "lost souls", and hopefully they will try to connect again.

Btw, good with some action here again!

Action? whats that? ;)

And RL definitely is a factor in anyone leaving such an addiction :) We all know the best way to kick an addiction is saturation. (Looks over at those that never log off)

It's always encouraging to see activity.  Maybe that's a lure in itself--people playing begets people playing?  If all the logged in wizards logged in as mortals for a day we'd have more than enough players we need.  I don't think that's going to happen, so I'm wondering what their own individual reasons are for their apathy toward the game.

1. No time.

I play when I can and want to (not too long ago I had a couple of weeks of play and I had a lot of fun), but of course, free time is short-lived. I do miss Nanny though.  :icon_frown:

I am still playing actively. I have more RL responsibilities but intend to keep playing as long as I can.
My child is grown  :D as many of you may know she is Gemfibrozil.  If something happens and I am unable to play I will let you all know... If I cant Gem will I am sure.
I am sure #1 is a big reason that some don't play.(some have spouses who do not understand our love of Nanny.)  I also think some have opted for #3, but I wont. 
Happy Mudding all and for those of you who aren't playing a lot any more at least stop in to say Hi now and then.
Shar/Noble etc.

Thanks for the replies so far.  None of you are the guys I was trying to reach, but I guess I expected too much.

I think we shouldn't jump to conclusions about what other people's reasons are.  I'd like to actually hear it from their own mouths.  As I said though, any feedback is helpful.

Is that because Nanny is better? :)

My main problem with Nanny is that the game is not suitable for casual gaming. Call me a noob, but it takes me about an hour to collect (non-unique) equipment before I can start to enjoy my gaming session. And that hour might be the only one I have available for gaming this week or month. The game can be up for 300 days in a row, but my equipment is lost after what, a week? I would like to see my locker keep all my gear until reboot, and with with some lpc-wizardy I am sure that some equipment could even be saved over a reboot. If I then spot an old friend online, I can go straight into the game, use the equipment I gathered a month (or a year) ago, and join a party for an hour of pure entertainment.

Hmm, now THAT I didn't expect to come up.  I've never had a problem finding stashes, but I suppose there are a finite amount in the game (and I know a great many other people's).  Opus, how can you be a noob and the second-highest quester?

I suppose if we can do multiplaying we can do permanent eq for non-unique equipment, and maybe even unique equipment (reclaiming would still apply when the person is logged out!).

Aye :)


It's not any one thing, I suppose.

Having to gather equipment to get going again, after being gone long enough has some part in it. I suppose. Also time is a factor. Whether you like it or not, if you don't have a lot of time to spend playing. It gets harder and harder to motivate yourself to play Nanny over something else where you can just instantly get going and spend your time actually playing, not suiting up or otherwise prepare to actually play.

Anyway, hello again ... nice seeing some familiar faces :)

I would like to see permanent storage of both unique and non-unique equipment. I think that would not only help suckers like me to find it easier to spend that hour playing Nanny, it would probably also make the game more interesting for active players. Think of the effects on the economy of the game. In the old days it was worth spending four hours only to get a special weapon or piece of armor because you knew one of the other 60+ players would pay 150k+ in an auction for it. And when you logged back 24 hours later the same piece of weapon was still circulating among players. Today the number of players limits the demand and in many cases there are not even players online to buy your new artifact. With permanent storage of unique-equipment demand would increase as you could sell it later and it would of course be easier to motivate yourself to find something rare for yourself.

Sounds good.  I think one would have to draw the line at things in containers, though.  It would be too unbalancing as you could hoard so many things.

I think this idea would work.  The rules for reclaiming still apply when you're logged off (as if it were lying around on the ground somewhere), so it's essentially eliminating the need for you to get it every time you login.

I agree we should do something about storage of items. I feel that you should be able to store nearly anything at very low cost. I'll think this through a bit further and discuss it with some other admins.

I even think you should be able to store uniques, and it won't be taken away until another player goes and fetches it from its source. This may take some time to implement because it may need an update to every unique out there, but at least we could put the framework into place.

Given the choice (this question is for everyone), which do you prefer the idea of:

1.  Inventory-saving.  Effectively/invisibly, when you quit out your inventory (but not deep inventory, i.e. container contents) is moved to a secret room and tagged as yours--when you log in it is moved back to you.  Reclaiming rules still apply to items that do that so you may lose your equipment.  You are forced to choose which items you want to hang onto if you have stuff in packs.

2.  A similar thing but you have to store your items in the storeroom manually, otherwise it is more-or-less the same, perhaps with a limit on number of items stored attached to it.

I favour the first, Vulcan favours the second because it is more in keeping with what we have now.  Which do you prefer?

Please make it optional such that wizards can create truly rare items that are not taken back even if a player goes to the source.

Number 2, no doubt. There should be a risk to enter some areas or fight some monsters. It should cost to quit in dangerous situations. This would also be a way for certain items to return to the loop if wizards choose not to fetch back items stored in the locker (see my previous post).

Fair point.  I didn't actually consider quitting out and losing your eq.

I personally think _all_ uniques should have _some_ sort of reclaiming on them.  My favoured version is moving the item back once the owning monster is killed again (and it isn't in use).  That way you can hold onto the item but it doesn't get in the way of other people getting it.

As for non-uniques, a system of item deterioration has been suggested.  I think right now the best of the average equipment is too easy to get and you can hang onto it for a long time.

I prefer number 2, as I feel it's more in line with the "feeling" of Nanny. 1 would be awesome, but "too easy". The opinion is coming from the heart, not as much from the head, I might add.

But if I can loose a special item only one or two hours after I log off, what is the difference from the situation today?

You might not.

True. Actually this would encourage people to explore new areas and find less popular artifacts.

When it comes to not automatically reclaim uniques, there are ways of doing this (which several wizards already employ). But it isn't the standard way of doing things, so the change would be welcomed (as it would mean it would be the default behaviour).

As for storage options ... as long as items can disappear from your inventory/storage, I prefer the active choice of storing the item. That way when you store or claim, you know what can or cannot be stored as well as knowing when something was lost.

You have cursed and fragile items, things being balanced upon quitting working as it does today etc. Changing that would mean more than just keeping your equipment.

I would say RL gets most of us. And of course, when enough of your close friends have left, you leave too. And some of us left because we couldn't stand some of the other players.

What, did money suddenly become a problem? We used to wade in it, and not knowing what the fuck to spend it on.

Same same. The one differ from the other only in the form of a client macro.

For me reason #1 is the culprit.

The free time you get is smaller and you have to manage this little time between your hobbies.

But the bright side is you'll get plenty time for Nanny at retirement  :lol:

NannyMUD got boring after some years of doing everything, over and over again. No new content = dead game.
I've seen lots of old content comming back when logging in to read announcements, but where's the
new stuff?  Where's the creativity we all were part of back in the 90s?

Anyhow, couldn't possibly find time to play as it is right now anyway. Family and work, not much sparetime inbetween.

Family and work? Doesn't stop me :)

Woohoo! So Iznogoud is still alive! Hehe, nice to hear from you.

I don?t know if I would ever come back to Nanny in the sense of becoming an active player simply because I don?t think I will be able to find that kind of time. But well... here are some thoughts.

I have always thought that Nanny would have a better chance of retaining players if there was something for higher level players to aspire for in terms of power. I rather enjoyed growing in terms of power in any guild. When I reached maximum power in the guild, that closed off one dimension of the game. When a high level player starts bitching about not having goals, people usually treat him like an idiot telling him about all the stuff he hasn't done. I guess in most games it is kind of fashionable to mock ?powerplayers? (or whatever that silly word is... not sure I fully understand what it means). But I don?t really see anything wrong with enjoying the process of growing in power and being able to do things that were impossible at lower levels. When you reach the end of that process, that leaves exploring. I think that happens too quickly in Nanny (at least in most guilds).

I know that most people would argue that exploring is supposed to be the major part of the game. The fact is, not everyone likes to quest and explore tiny puzzles. There are some people who enjoy questing simply because they want to finish all quests. In other words, they look forward to ?mastering the game?. I don?t think about it like that. If a quest is too tedious, or if the clues are too weird, I would rather not bother with it. It seems as if a lot of quests are simply built to be annoying. There may be people who enjoy them, but I don?t and so I simply don?t bother to do them. There are some ?standard? areas in the game that I never bothered to explore simply because I did not like the crude descriptions in them.

To put it briefly, if a player runs out of enjoyable goals in the game, the game is over for him. It doesn?t matter if you think that the game still has content that he has not tried out.

Personally I think it might be too late to do anything about this, but if I could have made a suggestion several years back, I would have suggested making it possible for high level players to get powerful in a genuine sense (not something meaningless like paragon levels). Of course, that would have required high-level content for them too.

Ereshkigal

I feel that NannyMUD is very flexible and that I am in control of where I go and what I do much more and my imagination comes into play just like when I read a book and I like seeing the descriptions in rooms.  I like interacting with my friends there also, its kinda like a Nanny Family.
I have played games that are visual and I find that it takes away from the feeling of being there for me and inhibits my searching abilities.
About the inventory I think it would be nice to have storage also.
I have not been playing as much lately, I have more RL responsibilities and so do a few Facebook things now when I don't have a large block of time to spend in Nanny.

Not sure why I don't play.  It's just always so quiet and no knights are ever on.  Perhaps I should hop on more and encourage others to do likewise?  The game could certainly stand to lean a little less to the hardcore side and be more friendly in allowing people to hop on and immediately start the action.  Not many people have the time or attention span to take 10-30 minutes to get optimally set up for a 2 hour killing spree.  Generally I rarely have more than an hour to dedicate to playing any game, so it makes Nanny terribly difficult. 

Oh, the other issue is with the very nature of the game:  no map, memory to get around, take a year off and you are lost again.   Unless you keep good notes, or have an insane memory.  I do not.  Exploring isn't my primary play style, I want to kill big things, it makes me happy. 

That's why I use CMud. I love its mapping feature  :lol:.

Here, take a look:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9466/cmudscreenshotdu2.png (http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9466/cmudscreenshotdu2.png)

How does this go so far?

Anyhow, what kept me away (for the periods I was away) was the lack of players.
Nanny became such an addiction to me because of the player interactions.
Less players, less interaction. Ok, right now with multiplaying allowed many things
turned into "playing with oneself", but there are still events where we have to
interact with each other.