[nyanko]

"Lower Barriers to Entry, part two" is another great article by Optional Realities. Lowering barriers to entry for new players, who have never tried text games before, needs to be a major goal of any MUD. I, for one, never played a text game until I found the Iron Realms games mentioned on Kongregate.com in 2010. Once I tried one, I never went back to graphic games. Text games have so much more depth, variety, and limitless potential to have an impact on the game world. In comparison, a player seems more like a visitor in a graphic game, with little chance of dramatically contributing to that particular world. MUDs have as good a chance as any game to establish a lasting bond with a player. The trick seems to be in learning to ease a new player's transition from point and click with a mouse or console to entering text on a screen.