Is Nanny dead?

[lillstrumpa]

Ok, after pondering a bit... What I mean with an active admin part in the advertising is the strive towards exposure. Nanny need to take more space, be seen more at other places then just the mud. This forum is one way... Another pretty cool thing that I saw for another mud is some sort of wiki about nanny stuff. There generally is loads of really cool stuff that can be done to enhance the mud a great deal.

[Opus]

Ok, after pondering a bit... What I mean with an active admin part in the advertising is the strive towards exposure. Nanny need to take more space, be seen more at other places then just the mud. This forum is one way... Another pretty cool thing that I saw for another mud is some sort of wiki about nanny stuff. There generally is loads of really cool stuff that can be done to enhance the mud a great deal.

I think you have a point. One of the most important parts of any online game today is a good community. And a good community is not only limited to the game itself. I think Nanny need an official off-line forum for players to meet. In that way new players can see that there exists an active community without having to log into the game (remember, not everyone has a telnet client and last time I tried I could not log on Nanny with Windows XP "out of the box"). The absolute best solution is to have a web interface for the in-game discussion boards. If you could read the boards from the home-page and even post messages from outside the game, important discussions would not get lost between the two systems.

I don't think a new player will continue to spend time on Nanny just because there are a certain amount of newbie areas. New players will stick if they like the community and the game concept. For my first characters I spent about one month advancing from low level to high level and then I spent ten years playing at that level. I didn't stay because there was a kobold cave close to Ingis lane, but because the community was much better than in other games I have played.

[Opus]

For me personally, the best way to make me play more would be to change the deposit lockers to keep equipment for at least one week. I would love to play more, but I only get good time slots for playing during the weekends. It is quite boring to spend two hours during Saturday to gather some good equipment, only to log off and do the same thing one week later. If I could save my killer non-unique equipment for at least a week, I could log on for two hours every Saturday and do something constructive with my character (and for the game). I would consider that to be much more rewarding.

[lillstrumpa]

New players will stick if they like the community and the game concept.

Well, this is key to a successfull mud. A forum is just an extension of the community and if it manages to trap one innocent surfer, then it was all worth it. 

[Aeneas]

This was at 2:30 am(GMT -05:00). So it was kind of late, but still...

> who
============================== NannyMOS 1.17.5 ==============================
High    Titleist? (Troublegum)
High    Banshee the Master Chef (**********) (workaholic)
High    Mami's in the arms of an angel (Blessed)
High    Gabe loves Mami (forever)
High    beldin is writing off the world (with sloppy misspelled words)
High    Brom Non Plus Ultra (ARS MAGICA)
Elder   Profezzorn is back (Akasha's|Daddy|cryptic|enigmatic|get used to it|Google)
Elder   Whizz the Warlock (dwarven friend)
Elder   Earendil will meet the girl of his dreams Wednesday (when she and five other EMTs
  try to free  him from a hellish cocoon of molten glue)
Elder   Vulcan the Conjuror (spellbound)
Wizard  One way, the only way, Weronoop's way (Superfuncalisticdodaley)
Wizard  Contains: carbonated Lonewolf, caramel color, aspartame (tasty)
Wizard  Koff Koff Koff Koff Koff Koff (Sixpack)
Wizard  Zem the mattress (also known as Aeneas) (flolloping)
Wizard  Drelic is lost within himself (backtracking)
============================= Shown: 15 wizards. ============================
> wiz who killed all the mortals?
Wiz Aeneas: who killed all the mortals?

... silence.

[Carrion]

This was at 2:30 am(GMT -05:00). So it was kind of late, but still...

> who
============================== NannyMOS 1.17.5 ==============================
High    Titleist? (Troublegum)
High    Banshee the Master Chef (**********) (workaholic)
High    Mami's in the arms of an angel (Blessed)
High    Gabe loves Mami (forever)
High    beldin is writing off the world (with sloppy misspelled words)
High    Brom Non Plus Ultra (ARS MAGICA)
Elder   Profezzorn is back (Akasha's|Daddy|cryptic|enigmatic|get used to it|Google)
Elder   Whizz the Warlock (dwarven friend)
Elder   Earendil will meet the girl of his dreams Wednesday (when she and five other EMTs
  try to free  him from a hellish cocoon of molten glue)
Elder   Vulcan the Conjuror (spellbound)
Wizard  One way, the only way, Weronoop's way (Superfuncalisticdodaley)
Wizard  Contains: carbonated Lonewolf, caramel color, aspartame (tasty)
Wizard  Koff Koff Koff Koff Koff Koff (Sixpack)
Wizard  Zem the mattress (also known as Aeneas) (flolloping)
Wizard  Drelic is lost within himself (backtracking)
============================= Shown: 15 wizards. ============================
> wiz who killed all the mortals?
Wiz Aeneas: who killed all the mortals?

... silence.

Definitely too late for me... If I'm up that late I'm working

[lillstrumpa]

To revive this old topic... I have been logging on sporadically the last years, mostly to read notes. But is it just me, or has there been a definitive drop in mortals logged on? It was really long since I saw more then 10 mortals online, sometimes there have been only 2. Seems like no one is seeing this as a problem though because there has been nothing on boards about it and I have seen nothing on the wiz /rev either. Then again... There are really successful lpmuds out there like 3k, ancient anguish, bat... They are about as old as nanny, I cant help wondering what it is that let them thrive while nanny die. Because... I feel Nanny really has far more potential then those.

[Ereshkigal]

Well, there certainly has been a drop in the number of players over the last few years. No one denies that. Right now the number of mortals varies between zero to 10, depending on the time of the day. I think the most worrying aspect is that we rarely see any genuinely new players. I am not sure how many active players we have, but I guess there are about 20 people or so who play different chars, maybe less.

I think there is no discussion about this anywhere because most people have accepted it as a fact of life. A lot of people think that games like World of Warcraft have sealed the fate of text based games.

I don't think that is entirely true and I think it is unfortunate that not everyone sees that. It is true that text based games will never be quite as popular as they were in the past. But I think there are and will continue to be enough people who prefer text-based games for various reasons. As you pointed out, the fact that some muds continue to flourish seems to prove that.

Personally I believe that Nanny lost players because it became stagnant. Sure, we get new areas and new quests all the time, but those things don't actually change the "feel" of the game. Very little has changed in the mechanics of the game ever since I started playing. I don't really understand this degree of stagnancy. The game needs to be sensitive to what players want. It needs to keep changing accordingly. That doesn't happen much on Nanny. Just to give an example, let me refer to the note above by Opus. Yes, a dramatic increase in the amount of time for which lockers save equipment would help a lot of players enjoy the game. I don't think it will be very difficult to do this or that it would affect the game adversely. But I think the admins tend to be very suspicious of anything that would make the game "easier" for players. They are just terribly afraid that it will make the game too easy and break something. And so nothing ever changes.

That's why I gave up on Nanny, because I feel like players are never heard. I think this is because the admins gave up on the game ages back. I don't think there is any future for the game unless that changes. Just to give an example of how things could be done differently... a few months back the admins on 3kingdoms had a mud-wide poll about the kind of changes people might want to see. They picked six of the best ideas that were suggested and asked everyone to pick the one they liked the most. The wish that got the most votes was granted. As a result of this wish, players will be able to share questpoints between their seconds, i.e. if you do a quest with one char, all your chars get the qp. Is this "too good"? Sounds like it. It does make the game a lot easier in some ways. But that's what most people wanted and so the wish was granted. If Nanny were to become this sensitive to what players want, perhaps things could change. Or perhaps it is too late already.

I do agree that it is a shame that things have come to this. Nanny has some really beautifully done areas. But well... I got disillusioned with a lot of things and gave up on the game some time back. Now I keep logging on but that's largely because I have some friends here who have played a big role in helping me get through a difficult period in my life. I haven't played for ages.

Ereshkigal

[lillstrumpa]

I think this is because the admins gave up on the game ages back. I don't think there is any future for the game unless that changes. Just to give an example of how things could be done differently... a few months back the admins on 3kingdoms had a mud-wide poll about the kind of changes people might want to see. They picked six of the best ideas that were suggested and asked everyone to pick the one they liked the most. The wish that got the most votes was granted. As a result of this wish, players will be able to share questpoints between their seconds, i.e. if you do a quest with one char, all your chars get the qp. Is this "too good"? Sounds like it. It does make the game a lot easier in some ways. But that's what most people wanted and so the wish was granted. If Nanny were to become this sensitive to what players want, perhaps things could change. Or perhaps it is too late already.

Well... Not sure where to begin... Anyway, I think your right. I just didnt want to offend anyone by saying that admins have given up, but sure, I think you are totally right. I wizzed when Kittens were up, can it be some 8 years ago? Maybe 9, not sure. Back then already I had that feeling of admins giving up, nothing happening. Stagnation. What did I do? I went elsewhere. I have coded on 3 different muds since then, none of them where huge or had lots of players. One of them barely had players. But I remained and was motivated. Why? Probably because admins had a vision, a drive and the ability to motivate and encourage people. So how much code have I done at these muds? Well... Areas to a total of around 1200 rooms and that is areas with lots of stuff to do in them, fun items, cool mobs, etc. 3 quests. 2 guilds that opened. 1 that began playtesting. Coding on 4 other guilds, but nothing that never really led to anything. Clubs, stuff and lib work. Thats what Nanny lost due to the apathy I felt from admins. I still code a lot. Sometimes I think, maybe I should code some over at Nanny. Open some area and start work on a guild. Then I log on and check around, then I think nah... Why bother?

As for 3K... I happen to play there as well. It really is a great mud. But I think Nanny has a much better base. There are some stuff in 3K that is just so crappy. But there are also things that are so much better then Nanny. The wish thing was great... But what I think is the best thing ever to happen there is the skills. Not that they added skills. But how it got added! An admin decided to do something new and totally different and added skills without prior warning. Now, how cool isnt that? Is that a stagnant mud? Granted, if you ask 3K players... 3K lacks lots of stuff... But the wish and the skills show that things do happen there. The mud is not dead. And so they got loads of players playing there. They got players and wizards promoting the game. I think I have seen one advert made for Nanny on Topmudsites (or any other forum) and that is lots of years ago by Brom.

Anyway... To bad to see Nanny go. But I think that either Nanny will go down the drain fairly soonish or tptb should give up their fancy arse positions and hand over the power of change to those with ideas, motivation and drive to do something. Not lazyheads who have Nanny as a chatline at work.

[Carrion]

Might be mistaken, but I've seen players last couple of weeks that seem genuinely new. I really hope they are, and will stay...

[lillstrumpa]

That would be great. If admins went out and advertised properly... Then I can promise you a quick burst of new players. Getting them to stick around is another thing. But if Nanny has something to offer, they will stay. The mud I code at is real small compared to Nanny, but when admins advertise about once a month... We see about 20-40 NEW players the next 1-5 days. Then we are too small for them to actually stick around.

[zozma]

http://mud.wikia.com/wiki/Nannymud

Advertising helps, and it couldn't hurt to have a wikipedia detailing this. Please help me edit this wiki.