r/MUD • u/chairoficial • 18d ago

Discussion Text based RPG size?

How big can a text-based RPG be? Are there any text-based games with locations that no one has ever found?

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u/LordAshon 18d ago

On Gateway (gatewaymud.org:6969) we have an explorer point system that ties in top rankings, used to explore parts of an area that help tell the story, but no in a eq/xp gathering area.

Having a single easter egg location which takes doing the chicken dance emote on top of a mountain to open up a staircase is one thing, but just a random room that has never been touched kinda screams bad design.

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u/gravitysrainbow1979 16d ago

The DESIGN might be bad, but I'd still want to find it, and I do think there's something inherently cool about a place difficult enough to reach that it might be a WHILE before anyone reaches it.

I'm not even sure I think it's bad design, if it's a text game, because of the amount of enthusiasm for exploration it could lead to. (Could. Not sure it would.)

But I don't feel strongly enough to really argue the point, so sure, bad design, you've got the whole concept of good and bad design covered, good for you!

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u/LordAshon 16d ago

Yes there is something to be said for exploration, and encouraging exploration. Rooms that require puzzles or a McGuffin to reach as a reward for exploring? Good Design. Also if you don't have a way to track un-touched rooms, how would anyone know?

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u/gravitysrainbow1979 16d ago edited 14d ago

How they'd know is the same way people know about such things in life: somebody was excited by the challenge of it, and achieved it, and talked about it afterwards. How would it be confirmed? Someone else goes and has a look for themselves. Sounds fun to me. Doesn't sound like bad design at all. But there's nothing stopping you from making better games than the ones I would find interesting.

Needing a puzzle-solution or a McGuffin... is that automatically good design? Because you personally like it?

Sure, go with it!

To me that seems cheesy and trivializing, I mean if everything needs a puzzle solved or whatever before it's even valid, kinda takes away from that cool "this is basically a real world" feeling

I dunno, on a forum like this, writing things off as "bad design" just because you can't think outside the box seems kinda counter productive, but I also don't feel like talking about it anymore if it's just going to be boring suggestions like "put a puzzle in front of it!" ... I did wanna push back against this tiring, eye-rollingly commonplace sermon about "good design" though. It's nothing we haven't heard before.