[Muirdach]

Pretty much all the muds out there claim to be newbie-friendly. Even those that have no differentiating characteristics say that they are. So, and this isn't referring to any mud at all, but just as a point of discussion - is it possible that a mud might leverage NOT being newbie friendly in order to gain an advantage? By this, I don't mean actively being rude or driving away new players, just not going out of their way to help them. By newbie, I don't mean every new player, but those who share traits such as needing to be helped all the time, always asking questions that could probably be answered in a help file, generally acting confused and getting in the way.

Seems silly, but my thoughts are as follows:

1. Firstly, it's different. Nobody advertises that they're not newbie friendly. You never know what some people like.
2. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense given the game's storyline. It seems kind of weird to have a dark, bloodthirsty, backstabbing political arena where anyone who's new suddenly gets a lot of attention and aid with no strings attached.
3. A lot of more experienced players really dislike newbies. They find them clingy, irritating and generally brainless. Would advertising that you are not newbie friendly help to attract players who know what they are doing and appreciate not being expected to pander to newbies?
4. I guess somewhat related to 2, you can have much harsher game elements. For example, permadeath, death traps, situations where a new, unknowing player would have no hope and would probably quit.

I guess it mostly revolves around the trade-off in point 3. Most muds these days thrive on numbers, they want as many players as they can get. However, there's a definite trade-off that I've noticed between getting lots of new players and getting/retaining some more experienced players - where new doesn't really mean "new to the game", but the kind of "confused" newbie who needs a lot of help, etc. Is there some point where a designer might say, look - we don't want people who need their hands held, we want people who either know what they're doing, or are comfortable learning for their lives, possibly in a backs-to-the wall type situation. Often times, MUD staff do their best to make their games newbie friendly, but the players obviously don't want to go out of their way to do so, making the whole thing quite a contradictory exercise.

Would you, as an experienced MUD player, prefer to play on a game where those who joined were already experienced in mudding, and able to learn and catch up quickly, and where true newbies were weeded out as soon as possible?

Thoughts?