Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Hadoryu · 04-08-2006, 04:38 AM

This is pretty interesting. In my experience, if your commands are closer to the general language it'll be much easier for players to get into the game. You'll be eliminating a somewhat significant first hurdle. Having to read through HELP BASIC_COMMANDS when they're two pages long on a new MUD is something very un-fun to have to do and if you could just go ahead and type "get the sword from the backpack" it'd make things a lot easier on new players. There's no reason to not include some sort of condensed syntax in there as well for advanced players, of course.

Furthermore, you could make things easier by giving hints if a player enters a wrong command, ala Google's "Did you mean 'get the bardiche from the weapon rack'?"

Having multiple ways to tell the MUD something is a plus for players as well, since they can stick to whatever syntax works for them. I've found I much prefer inputting commands that make some general sense and I'll always prefer that to typing ID numbers (which mind you are still incredibly useful).

04-08-2006, 04:38 AM	#11
Hadoryu Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 102	This is pretty interesting. In my experience, if your commands are closer to the general language it'll be much easier for players to get into the game. You'll be eliminating a somewhat significant first hurdle. Having to read through HELP BASIC_COMMANDS when they're two pages long on a new MUD is something very un-fun to have to do and if you could just go ahead and type "get the sword from the backpack" it'd make things a lot easier on new players. There's no reason to not include some sort of condensed syntax in there as well for advanced players, of course. Furthermore, you could make things easier by giving hints if a player enters a wrong command, ala Google's "Did you mean 'get the bardiche from the weapon rack'?" Having multiple ways to tell the MUD something is a plus for players as well, since they can stick to whatever syntax works for them. I've found I much prefer inputting commands that make some general sense and I'll always prefer that to typing ID numbers (which mind you are still incredibly useful).