Guest characters?

[Julien]

Hi,

I'm curious with the setting of Armageddon but I thought there ought
to be a quick login mode with a guest account (who might simply be a
character that cannot interact with the world and simply wanders around) so there is no need to submit a character just do discover whether or not Armageddon is the MUD to play.

Just my two euro cents.

[Mook]

Agreed that this would be nice - but in order to avoid abuse of these guest characters, they would need to be quarantined away from the actual game in some OOC lounge or such.  This is because so many of the plots running on Arm depend on rivals keeping information away from each other.. guest chars capable of watching the flow of events around them, even if unable to interact, could pass this plot-related information back to players abusing the system.

For an OOC lounge - many Arm players hang around on IRC at irc.darkmyst.org join /#armageddonmud and would be more than happy to introduce new players to the game.  Bersirc is a free IRC client, available at http://bersirc.free2code.net/index.php/home .

Edited for typo.

[Hexxaex]

If you can't interact with other players and be part of the game world, you're not seeing what Armageddon is like.  With a guest account, all you'll be able to see is the rooms.  Also, people may use this account to twink and explore the world outside all the cities, because they're invincible and unseen with it.  They may also use the account to spy on others.

[Ghost]

I think if the guest account can only log in to a certain place, and can't go out to explore observe, it can work.

They can even see random room descriptions from the game world.  I saw it in a mud once and liked it.

[Mean_Old_Bastard]

emote dissaproves

[amoeba]

You know one thing that might be interesting is a mini-armageddon.  Nothing big, maybe 10 rooms.  Starting with a simple tavern, the outside being like the rinth, with maybe a few desert rooms.  Populate this with a number of npcs and lots of good room echos.  The outside should be failrly deadly,  tweaked just enough so there is no insta-kill, but it's highly unlikely anyone could really kill most of them.  

Make this place only accessable by guest accounts, and have predetermined "personas" they can pick from.  This way people can not only get a feel for the game, but practice mechanics at the same time.  It would be nice for IMMs to occasionaly animate NPCs when a promissing newbie pops in, adding more of a real flavor.

Don't make it a training school persay, but just a small issolated village somewhere deep in the southern desert.  I think it would be enough to get a feel for the place, and would be relativly easy to maintain, and be issolated from the real world so it could not be abused.

[Maybe42or54]

Or they could just sign up the normal way?

[amoeba]

Or they could just sign up the normal way?

Really I didn't know that was possible.  :shock:

No seriously, a place to attract more players is hardly a bad thing now is it?

[Maybe42or54]

A place to confuse more players sounds more like what is going to happen with a mini Armageddon.

[Marauder Moe]

I think a lot of people here feel that had Armageddon had a "newbie zone" when they joined, they'd have been put off.  I'm inclined to agree.  Such a place could NEVER come close to presenting an accurate representation of Armageddon MUD.  Sure, our rooms and NPCs are well-written and the codebase is pretty good, but it's the people and the roleplaying first and foremost that make this game great.  A tutorial zone would have nothing of that, and prospective players might judge the mud based off those other things.

[Anonymous]

Such a place could NEVER come close to presenting an accurate representation of Armageddon MUD.

This is my feeling.  What got me hooked on Armageddon was getting thrust into the RP and seeing how dedicated to character everyone seemed.

[Julien]

Actually something that might be easier to do is to provide guest characters. The admins encourage starters to have a human fighter to start the game. What about providing "Bob the human fighter" for curious prospective MUDders ? Quick logging, none of the trouble associated with guest ghosts. You can make it more colorful if you provide "Bob the crippled beggar" or "Bob the slum's kid". Freeze character development so noone will play for fore than a few hours with this character. The only possible hassle is low quality RP, but maybe it's worth the hassle if it gets you new players ? With a generic description for Bob, veteran player would immediately know they are dealing with a potential newbie and may be friendly/take them around if they feel like it (or whack them :shock: )

Julien, still interested to play Armageddon some day.

[Maybe42or54]

And then you get rid of the thing we have now where there is no distinction and you make newbies feel singled out. Something I actually loved about this game.

[Mook]

Just whip out a quick four-lines for your desc and another four for a vague 'he's from <citystate> and likes food and whores, etc" background and hit the submit button.  Easy.

[Bestatte]

The problem with letting "guest" newbies into the game, is that it doesn't give them any opportunity to delve into any plotlines. So when some PC Templar singles him out and forces him to be hired right away as his lackey, the newbie PC would have to go all OOC and say "Hey I'm just a guest" and there goes the whole scene.

If they -know- he's a guest, just knowing that would be disruptive, even if the guest isn't doing anything, because the concept of "guest" is an OOC mechanic that has no place in the game world.

Then there's the whole other mess of people who come in as a guest, learn something really interesting ICly, lose their guest status and guest PC after the allotted time, and BECAUSE they haven't had much opportunity to "learn how things work" would come back with their new character knowing what their guest PC knew.

I'm all for a room after the Hall of Kings and before the location they show up in, dedicated specifically to experimenting with the necessary commands such as talk, say, help, wish, ooc, look, tell.

Anything more than that, I believe would detract from the RP, and the game would cease to be what attracts people to it in the first place.

[IntuitiveApathy]

For an OOC lounge - many Arm players hang around on IRC at irc.darkmyst.org join /#armageddonmud and would be more than happy to introduce new players to the game.  Bersirc is a free IRC client, available at http://bersirc.free2code.net/index.php/home .

Hey Mook, I can't connect to irc.darkmyst.org.. is there a specific port I should use?

[Mean_Old_Bastard]

(sticky post in IDLE OOC chatter. see recent post on it for updated address)
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6069

Info:

Agent is correct. The new server is irc.darkmyst.org
port 6667 is the default I get when my client automatically loads up, so I'd suggest that I guess for the port.

The rest of the information should work just fine.

but you can 'just' (as John says) try:

Some of us can just click here and it will work. It works with Chatzilla for Firefox.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Thanks MOB.

Seemed I had things right, but it wouldn't work without an e-mail address.

Anyway, sorry for the derail guys.

[Manhattan]

i'll help write the rooms in mini-armageddon
its needs to capture the very essence of the game itself
so how can u do that with ten rooms hmmmmmmm
well desert is one, tavern is one,....hmm what else.

well i'll brainstorm later

[Agent_137 (2L2L)]

Hm... guest accounts are definitely bad. The problems have already been aptly described.

I think a mini-armageddon is an interesting idea, though not necessarily great. I wish maybe42or54 would explain why he's so against it. usually I've great respect for his ideas. Though, I really don't see how a mini-armageddon would be confusing, espescially if it was an option only, and clearly described as a representation.


Personally, I think that greater interaction between helpers and newbies is the key, since they can customize their assistance to better serve the needs of the newb.

Strong reccomendations upon creating new accounts to talk to a helper is what I would suggest, and perhaps even to go so far as to use email notification for helpers for when a newbie joins.

[Maybe42or54]

I think a mini-armageddon is an interesting idea, though not necessarily great. I wish maybe42or54 would explain why he's so against it. usually I've great respect for his ideas. Though, I really don't see how a mini-armageddon would be confusing, espescially if it was an option only, and clearly described as a representation.

Well. The reasons I don't like it.
1. I used to play a mud where you could log on and then go to an area that was basically guests only. I found it horribly confusing to myself as to what reason did they actually have to have these 30 rooms set aside with no goal and only npcs there and nothing else to do.

Do we really want guests to log onto here to talk to other people that have never really played the game and expect them to be Armageddon-ish about it? We could have guest PCs for each account I suppose. THough that would ditract from the IG experience. Since the newbies that do log on see 1 or 2 or maybe 5 less people then normal because they are currently helping guests.

2. What will make it a mini armageddon exactly?

Will it have mobs that kill you? Stores where you can buy shit? A place where your best friend sells your ass off for a half full waterskin and five little black coins? I don't see how, at all, that we could create a fully functioning "mini-Armageddon." Am I missing something?

3. What goals can they set for their Pc and have them accomplish those goals?

10 rooms of nothing to do may sound fun to some. I hear 10 rooms and want to know which is the exit. Rooms by themselves, or rooms filled with NPCs, VNPCS, MOBS, don't make Armageddon Armageddon. It is the 2 PCs that have known each other since conception and then suddenly realize one of them is going to die to this magickally reappearing mantis.
It is the Bynner that just wants to make it. Not be famous or be powerful. He wants to live. How will that be portrayed by 10 rooms?
For instance, I had a PC, I wanted him to be a spice addict, but he got caught 2 hours into the game with a pack full of spice and a templar told his ass to join the Byn, or of course, die. He joined, never really wanting to be dead, he lived and lived, never really doing anything a mercenary would until one day he was told that he would be a trooper. Then he got payed 300 coins and since then he has been a perfect mercenary and rolling in the coins like it was raining and he was filling up bottles of water.

How can -that- be possibly conveyed in a 10 room square? 100 rooms? 300 rooms? It can't. It can however, if another pc, or maybe 10 other pcs are involved with him through his life.

4. They're guests in a guest sanctioned setting. How does that help the RP and how does that help the guests?
They aren't surrounded in RP. They are surrounded by other newbies that are talking 733t and |-|/-\ X0|9. And that isn't the Armageddon I know. Does anyone know that game? I do. It is those BS muds that have 400 people playing during the "Dead" times.

[jstorrie]

We already have a handful of 'newbie zones', anyway: most new players are advised to hook up with a clan like the Byn or Atrium whose players will show them what's up. These IC-reasonable learning areas are infinitely preferable to some metagame construct.

[Nao]

We already have a handful of 'newbie zones', anyway: most new players are advised to hook up with a clan like the Byn or Atrium whose players will show them what's up. These IC-reasonable learning areas are infinitely preferable to some metagame construct.

It can take forever to get into the Byn... I would know..

I think we aren't talking about a way to help newbies learn here, it's more something that happens before they even start playing... something to give a quick impression and get them to make their first character, just so they can have a look around beforehand... If it looks good it might encourage ppl to write up an application and submit a character...

[amoeba]

I coined the damned word so I guess I better explain myself.

First, it's only an idea for discussion, I'm not even sure I like it.  However there are a couple of issues we, as in this mud, are weak at handling.

The problem:  How do we attract the new player?  One of the issues is that there is no way to capture the casual "explorer type".  Namely someone who is looking around the mud sites and logging into each one to see what it is like,  I'm sure all of us have done it at one time or the other. Just logged in to see what the other place is like.  

Yes I know someone could spend the time to read all the documentation, writeup a character, submit an application, wait for an approval, resend back in the application to correct any of the mistakes they have made, then resubmit the application, then finally login to see if this place is interesting.  Hmm, you have to wonder why everyone doesn't jump to do this? Of course this is providing that the application comes through in a timely manner.

Now, how do we address something like that, how do we give people a chance to take a peek at the world, without compromising it?  Perhaps one option is to give them a small very isolated slice of it.

Option:

Create a village, farming, mining, slaving, whatever.  Make it geographicly isolated, cliff surrounding it, Ultra guards hell bent on keeping the population in, what have you. This place would be like any other area in Zalanthas, but very issolated.  A simple tavern, a few alleys, maybe a few squares of dessert.   I can think of a few places that are like that now.  It could even be possibly be accessable by Zalanthions at large, but the guest accounts are restricted from leaving.

Provides: A safe place for guests to pop in, see what the place is like and leave. Now I would expect that 99% of the people entering would never create characters. Face it, ours is a unique environment.  However some may find what is beyond those gates they can never seem to get past without getting killed to be interesting.  Enough to take the time to read the docs and submit a application.

Problems:

The problem with letting "guest" newbies into the game, is that it doesn't give them any opportunity to delve into any plotlines.

Well someone just checking out the site won't get into any plots, guest or not. I know I didn't for about two months.

If they -know- he's a guest, just knowing that would be disruptive, even if the guest isn't doing anything, because the concept of "guest" is an OOC mechanic that has no place in the game world.

Very vaild point, certianly the most problematic one. However the place is isolated, and guests would not be able to enter the world at large.

Then there's the whole other mess of people who come in as a guest, learn something really interesting ICly..

Once again isolated, nothing really cool to learn.

And then you get rid of the thing we have now where there is no distinction and you make newbies feel singled out. Something I actually loved about this game.

This isn't for the newbie, but rather the casual, "I wonder what this place is like".  Newbies are ones who actually have a character, and can play in the whole world.

I do see problems with it, I just thought it was an interesting concept, and was curious as to constructive ideas   As I said, I'm not nescessarily even for it.

Btw, sorry if this all sounds disjointed.  I have had about four interruptions when writing this and lost my train of thought a few times.