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Drealoth · 01-30-2006, 09:18 AM

Personally, I like the three choice menu.
1. New to muds?
2. New to this game?
3. Experienced player.

It's easy to filter the players and everyone's happy.

As for just making the player read the manual, you'll find that most of them leave. Sure, eventually everyone's going to need to refer to a help file, but it should be a goal that they shouldn't have to for the first 30 minutes of play. Help files are there in case they're needed. Players want to kill monsters, not sift through syntax.

On Aetolia (haven't played Achaea, but I imagine it's the same) the game throws hints at you such as
So and so says "Drealoth, STAND up. The guards are coming."
I think I'd be able to figure that one out regardless of if I'd played a MUD before.
If they'd have said "Before you begin, read Help Newbie1, Help Newbie2, Help Newbie3, Help Movement, Help Channels, Help Inventory and Help Combat." I'd have disconnected right there, and so would a lot of other players.

Play through the IRE MUD's newbie introductions and you'll see how easy it is to introduce a new player to mudding. A MUD shouldn't treat the player like they're stupid, but should cater to players of all experience levels. New players are very quick to pick things up, but they still need that helping hand at first. Besides, unless you are planning on making a stock DIKU mud (in which case you won't have to worry about any players) you're going to want to introduce the new players to the special features of your MUD, so it doesn't take much effort to add a quick explanation of how to move around if needed.

The only players that you shouldn't want are the ones that come to the game with the intent of causing harm to it. IRE has an advantage here - they live or die by the customer. Community run ones don't feel this to the same extent, but it's not hard to scare away your entire playerbase. Now a lot of community run MUDs do an excellent job of keeping people happy, but a lot of otherwise great games also screw up royally in this regard.

The other benefit is that if you can leave a new player with a good impression, they'll bring friends (as a new player probably doesn't have any MUDding friends yet). Everyone remembers the first MUD they played, not everyone remembers the fifth or sixth. (AVATAR for me).

On a side note, one of the cool things that CoffeeMUD does (I have no idea if other codebases do this) is that when a player types help for a topic that doesn't exist, it logs it so you can get a list of most requested help files that don't exist. If your codebase doesn't have this, I'd suggest adding it.

Alright, now that's over:
Features that I like.

Tasteful colour - it helps when you want to scan over something quickly.

Grouping - MUDs are multiplayer games, and a lot of MUDs forget this. I play MUDs to socialize. AVATAR did a great job of this. Groups with 20 or more people happened all of the time, and it's a blast ripping through mobs like that (and sometimes the mobs did the ripping, but it was still fun).

In depth combat. Aetolia's combat is fun, because it makes mobs seem less like 'difficult to open treasure chests' and more like actual competitors. Automatic combat leads to
'k goblin'
Alt+tab
come back a couple minutes later
'sle'
Alt+Tab
come back a couple minutes later
'wake'
Rinse. Repeat. Wipe hands on pants.

You have to keep the players engaged.

Also, keep global channels off for the first few levels for the player - they tend to make things spammy and even more confusing for a new player.

01-30-2006, 09:18 AM	#7
Drealoth Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Japan Posts: 74	Personally, I like the three choice menu. 1. New to muds? 2. New to this game? 3. Experienced player. It's easy to filter the players and everyone's happy. As for just making the player read the manual, you'll find that most of them leave. Sure, eventually everyone's going to need to refer to a help file, but it should be a goal that they shouldn't have to for the first 30 minutes of play. Help files are there in case they're needed. Players want to kill monsters, not sift through syntax. On Aetolia (haven't played Achaea, but I imagine it's the same) the game throws hints at you such as So and so says "Drealoth, STAND* up. The guards are coming."* I think I'd be able to figure that one out regardless of if I'd played a MUD before. If they'd have said "Before you begin, read Help Newbie1, Help Newbie2, Help Newbie3, Help Movement, Help Channels, Help Inventory and Help Combat." I'd have disconnected right there, and so would a lot of other players. Play through the IRE MUD's newbie introductions and you'll see how easy it is to introduce a new player to mudding. A MUD shouldn't treat the player like they're stupid, but should cater to players of all experience levels. New players are very quick to pick things up, but they still need that helping hand at first. Besides, unless you are planning on making a stock DIKU mud (in which case you won't have to worry about any players) you're going to want to introduce the new players to the special features of your MUD, so it doesn't take much effort to add a quick explanation of how to move around if needed. The only players that you shouldn't want are the ones that come to the game with the intent of causing harm to it. IRE has an advantage here - they live or die by the customer. Community run ones don't feel this to the same extent, but it's not hard to scare away your entire playerbase. Now a lot of community run MUDs do an excellent job of keeping people happy, but a lot of otherwise great games also screw up royally in this regard. The other benefit is that if you can leave a new player with a good impression, they'll bring friends (as a new player probably doesn't have any MUDding friends yet). Everyone remembers the first MUD they played, not everyone remembers the fifth or sixth. (AVATAR for me). On a side note, one of the cool things that CoffeeMUD does (I have no idea if other codebases do this) is that when a player types help for a topic that doesn't exist, it logs it so you can get a list of most requested help files that don't exist. If your codebase doesn't have this, I'd suggest adding it. Alright, now that's over: Features that I like. Tasteful colour - it helps when you want to scan over something quickly. Grouping - MUDs are multiplayer games, and a lot of MUDs forget this. I play MUDs to socialize. AVATAR did a great job of this. Groups with 20 or more people happened all of the time, and it's a blast ripping through mobs like that (and sometimes the mobs did the ripping, but it was still fun). In depth combat. Aetolia's combat is fun, because it makes mobs seem less like 'difficult to open treasure chests' and more like actual competitors. Automatic combat leads to 'k goblin' Alt+tab come back a couple minutes later 'sle' Alt+Tab come back a couple minutes later 'wake' Rinse. Repeat. Wipe hands on pants. You have to keep the players engaged. Also, keep global channels off for the first few levels for the player - they tend to make things spammy and even more confusing for a new player.