What are current methods that games are currently using to start out new players to their muds? And for what I mean as 'new' is someone that has NEVER played a mud for once in their life.

Example: I find alot of our new players logging in and doing things like 'hello' or 'how do I play' w/o the correct command tag like 'say', 'tell', etc. If they don't get an answer, they up and leave/linkdie.

We are implementing a database driven global hints system for new players, but still have the issue w/ the non-command users. Those that are accustomed to Diku-related or LPmuds (like our game), try out our mud school, get a few items from the equipment bin and start exploring.

I would like to hear about what others are doing to prevent this type of non-game behavior and what methods are being used at keeping these new players on-board.

-- Silver

The most elegant solution I can think if would be to have a more-helpful-than-usual response from the mud when it doesn't understand a command. Where must code bases often say "What?" if someone types "hi how do I play this game," it might make sense for you to have it say. "'hi' is not a known command. Type 'help commands' for a list of commands and how to use them." Beyond that, it'd be really difficult to try and determine the intent of the unrecognized input and provide any more specific assistance.

(Ooo, that's a great idea, above! )

One thing our wizards did is to put new PC's right into a 'Newbie Reception Center' with specific commands right in the long description. It tells them to try things like 'read scroll' or 'gossip hello'. The scrolls there are things like overviews, helpful newbie commands, and syntax info for communication... basically, the 5 help files they should read. ;>

I find the ones who try the command syntaxes the room tells them to do begin to understand the communication aspect a bit better. If they gossip and seem lost, larger players can go into the Reception Center and talk them through basic communication commands. This won't work on RPI's, of course, but having the first room they see tell them to try commands like 'score', 'help communication', etc, seems to go a long way.

It can work on RPIs, just need a seperate room that is OOC and seperate from the game. When newbies finish their apps in SoI and get accepted, they start out in their own private newbie room with info and stuff and it tells them that they can type assist and a guide will help them. There's also a guest room that is OOC where newbies can ask questions. Being nice to newbs can go a long way to having them stay at the mud.

I think that would indeed be helpful, but I could see experienced players getting annoyed with seeing it every time they make a typo.

Possibly set it to only give that if the player is below a certain level, or has played under a certain amount of minutes/hours/days or something?

We have an automated intro "tour" that new players get the choice to take right after character creation. The idea of it is that it introduces all the basic game concepts and commands, and also references all the help files they could need.

After that we also have a newbie channel on which they can ask questions (experienced players can answer over this channel too) and we have people to play "Guides" some of the time, in case they need someone to help them personally.

Of course it's still a massive learning curve, but so far these things have helped a great deal. We try to encourage all our players to be newbie-friendly and help any of them if they see they're stuck. For example experienced players can "mentor" the newer ones, which comes with possible rewards.

Haha, I set it up so whenever a very new player (under 5 minutes) typed a bad command, he would get something like this:

Are you trying to communicate with others?
Try the following commands:
ooc (xxx) - send a message everyone
tell (player) (xxx) - send a message to a certain player


This was in addition to a big help file of useful commands you see when you create a new character. And you'd be surprised how many people just couldn't get the hang of it even though I saw them see this message. You gotta accept the fact that a lot of newbies aren't just newbies, they're dumb too.

I have never seen it, but I wondered if anyone has ever tried to implement an intro system where the new player's choices affected their character potential and make up.

For example, if an NPC has an item people need and they are presented with a choice of killing the creature or bartering, does the choice affect their alignment, trading ability in the game, etc?

And if the NPC is stunned and drops the item, does the player take the item and leave or take the item and kill the NPC--does the choice impact aspects of their character as well?

And so on.

I know there is at least one game that gives you profession choices in the intro where if you decide to be a scholar you get certain bonusses and if you decide to be a woods guide, you get others, etc, etc. and you are told what bonuses the choice will give you.

I was just wondering if anyone created a game where you had choices and the repercussions were a little less transparent so that the character's potential is shaped more by the choices the player makes in accordance with how they envision their character to act and less by an attempt to massage numbers.

I use to play achaea. Then I realized you would always lose to people who put more money in it than you and I gave up. Too bad, nice game. But you got to have 20$ a week to spend on it to be any good really. Unless you want to spend your time bashing which is the second most boring thing in the world.