[Elvarlyn]

A graphical introduction of the sort you've demoed for Imperian and the other IRE games is something we've discussed a lot for Lithmeria.

It's undoubtedly a gorgeous introduction and whomever made it should be commended for doing a truly wonderful job. It's also a great way of getting people into the 'feel' of Imperian's Lore and giving them a crash course in the races, cities and so forth.

The concern we have is how to draw the line between making an awesome introduction that sucks players in... and creating an introduction that creates an unrealistic and soon dashed expectation of what the game is going to be like. I've played IRE games for more years than I'd admit to an age appropriate female and I can say with confidence that IRE games reach their 'fun' peak well beyond the first week of gameplay. After a player goes through your incredibly shiny introduction and reaches the actual game, they're going to be faced with plain old (comparatively) boring text and the prospect of typing 'SMITE ZEALOT/BAKUL' for 15 levels.

This isn't a bad thing in and of itself and I think the newbie zones in Imperian offer a cool, gently sloping learning curve for newbies. What concerns is me is how many will be instantly turned off, to the point of quitting, by the contrast between the sleek, shiny graphics of your introduction and the text-based game itself.

I think to some extent IRE can get away with this, because they're so well established that they have a lot of look-ins coming in anyway... and they've got a reputation solid enough to keep someone playing for an extra ten minutes, long enough to get over the shock of the transition and maybe get hooked on the game proper. As a new game, we just don't think we can pull that sort of thing off.

I guess we, and I suspect much of the MUDing community will be looking with interest to see how this front-end interface works out for IRE's games. Do people like it? Do a higher percentage of new players stick around post change? What's the feedback? Etc.