>Can it? I'm not convinced. I think you are comparing apples
>and oranges, because when people were introducing others they
>knew to cf in a big way, a mud did not face the kind of
>competition from online graphical games that it does now.

Half-life and it's likes have been around since since 199X, so has ultima online, everquest,warcraft etc. The only graphical game i see challenging is the World of Warcraft since a huge chunk of players is suddenly talking about it. I've not once seen someones leaving note saying they were off because of a graphical game. Remember as well that the majority of players that come to CF were students, they can't run a graphical game and get away with it.

Of course that just leads me to question who is CF's target audience and what is "Valg" doing to bring them in? (as opposed to just shaping CF to suit his playing style)