Newbie Friendly- for the Player's Consideration

[Seeker]

Shamelessly stealing Larrath's topic, but for more general player opinions.


Should ArmageddonMud be deliberately newbie-friendly?
IS it?

[moab]

I think it depends on how you define that "newbie friendly."
It is and it is not.

[spawnloser]

Like I said in another post, the community should be newbie friendly...and sometimes, we're not.

The documentation could be a bit more diverse, but that's a growing thing.

The in-game mechanics?  Not really, and they don't need to be.

[Larrath]

It is and it is not.

Best answer ever.

My opinion is, perhaps obviously, that Armageddon is a newbie-friendly MUD with the Difficulty setting turned up to Nightmare, and that it should be newbie-friendly because we need a large playerbase.

[moab]

I think we all agree that we need to be immensely newbie friendly on the OOC side of things.

Sometimes even going IG and taking a character aside to explain things to them if it comes to that.

However, if this means dumbing down descriptions, mechanics or anything else, we should not be or ever have been newbie friendly.

I think we're on par with MUSH or worse when it comes to game mechanic unfriendliness.

Not that this is bad.  The complexity is required for the depth that we have.

Our world is huge. The documentation is immense and intimidating.  It will take time to learn it all. That is the way of things.

You wouldn't ask Tolken to dumb-down the Silmarillion would you?

[Sanvean]

While I don't want to see the writing dumbed down at all, I wouldn't mind seeing the commands become more intuitive.  To my mind, while the code is more flexible now, it is harder to remember for those of us who don't have the time to play that much, heh.  I can't keep all the -arguments straight.

I keep looking for ways to make the mud's learning curve less steep for new players.  Re-organizing the website in order to make more info easier to find is part of that, as is the request tool, which helps people get responded to much quicker.  Here's the current stats off that:

Average Turnaround Time in Past 7 Days
8.5111 hours

Average Turnaround Time
6.9180 hours


Most Prolific Resolvers in Past 7 Days
Raesanos 22
Sanvean 13
Morgenes 5
Ashyom 1
Tlaloc 1
Xygax 1
Naiona 1
Halaster 1


Most Prolific Resolvers
Raesanos 31
Sanvean 13
Morgenes 10
Ashyom 2
Naiona 1
Halaster 1
Tlaloc 1
Dyrinis 1
Xygax 1


Request Type Distribution
Character Related  Description Change  13  
Account Related  Account Notes  12  
Character Related  Reimbursement  7  
Character Related  Skill Change  7  
Game Related  Player Kudos  5  
Character Related  Storage  4  
Character Related  Resurrection  3  
General Discussion Board  Complaint or Appeal  2  
Web Site  Bug / Typo / Idea  2  
General Discussion Board  Join a Clan Forum  1  
Character Related  Stat Change  1  
Clan Related  Character Update  1  
Game Related  Staff Kudos  1  
Clan Related  Request  1  
Web Site  Clan Page Access  1  
Game Related  Staff Complaint  1

[Cale_Knight]

This game is not newbie friendly, and often its players are shamefully unfriendly and elitist.

Its imms are great, though.

[Morrolan]

I have taken clear newbs aside before and explained some of the basics of, for example, mining 'sid to make money in great detail, taking maybe half-an-hour real time to explain this to someone, knowing that their current character probably won't be able to do it, but that the next one will likely start out a 'sid-miner.

Why?  Because that time is time well-invested in Armageddon.

I am sure that there many are other players who take their time to do this sort of thing for OOC newbs.

So I say take a chance on a newb, take some time to help.  You might not be on the helper list, but that doesn't mean you can't help.

Hey, you can always jack their stuff later...or they might be playing the templar you have to bribe in six months.  You never know.

Morrolan

[Medena]

I think at the core of this debate, or at least what spawned it, is a semantics issue and not a philosophical one.  Saying we are not "newbie-friendly" is not at all the same thing as saying we are not friendly to newbies. To me, newbie-friendly is a term which one could use interchangeably with user-friendly, ie. easy to use or learn.

I don't think we will ever make Arm easy to learn. We can make it easier, yes.  And, most importantly perhaps, we can make it a supportive community who, while not making it easy to play, makes the pain of learning much easier and enjoyable.

[Yokunama]

Most Prolific Resolvers in Past 7 Days:
:arrow: Raesanos 22
Sanvean 13
Morgenes 5
Ashyom 1
Tlaloc 1
Xygax 1
Naiona 1
Halaster 1


Most Prolific Resolvers:
:arrow: Raesanos 31
Sanvean 13
Morgenes 10
Ashyom 2
Naiona 1
Halaster 1
Tlaloc 1
Dyrinis 1
Xygax 1

Ooo. Raesanos lurves us!

[Bestatte]

In the business world, you market to your lowest common demonator. In the MUDding community this translates roughly to the following:

If you market your game so that fairly unintelligent, mildly illiterate people can figure it out and enjoy playing with ease, you will attract primarily fairly unintelligent, mildly illiterate people.

If you market your game so that extremely intelligent, highly literate people can figure it out and enjoy playing with ease, you will attract extremely intelligent, highly literate people.

If your goal is to have a playerbase comprised of moderately intelligent (or higher), firmly literate (or better) people, then you have to market it to the moderately intelligent, firmly literate.

If that means newbie-unfriendly, then that's what it means. Consider that the "average" MUD player is still in high school, spends most of their free time in a chat room using chat-speak, and prefers the PvP Hack-n-Slash type game. Then market the game accordingly.

Personally I think the "newbie-friendliness" is just about right for Armageddon. The game itself is difficult to understand, difficult to immerse yourself in if you're not accustomed to the RPI genre. But the players, by far, are immensely helpful and eager to embrace new players.

[moab]

I think that was well written, Bestatte.

[Folker]

I disagree in some aspects with Bestette. While I understand where that player's coming from, the truth is that there are many aspects inside the mud that have very little to do with intelligence, and even less with how literate one is. Though mostly those issues revolve around syntax guessing and other mechanical issues, then the actual gameplay.


If you would like an example of something I do not think should happen, I would like to point out that Immortal's famous 'jumping' experience. When his pc got stuck in the middle of the shield wall and typed in "jump", and ... jumped right down. You could say, "ofcourse! If you decide to jump while hanging on a vertical wall, obviously you'll fall off, only an idiot would think otherwise and this is an intelligence demanding mud" But truth is, it's not obvious, not in a world operated with keywords that often result in different things you imagine them to be doing. There's a difference between leaping off the shield wall, bringing your arms aside and enjoying the whistle of air, and leaping from one small cliff on the wall to the other.

[Roach]

my experience on newbie friendly muds is that as soon as you log in someone comes and hugs you and welcomes you and gives you a tour and offers to be your new best friend and chirps at you saying lol lol. Armageddon is not newbie friendly. That's ok.

[Armaddict]

I think everyone makes this into way too big of a deal.

When I browsed muds...I never paid attention to 'newbie friendly' or not.

This mud, compared to others, is -not- newbie friendly, though, even if the community jumped around with daisies and free glasses of orange juice for everyone.  It's a hard mud.  It's a steep learning curve.

Most newbies won't even take the time to say 'This mud looks cool, but it doesn't have newbie friendly listed!  I don't know if I should try!'

Sorry, but my opinion is that even if we do change it (which would be deceiving), it really would not improve much of anything.  *shrug*

[Anonymous]

This is purely my opinion, but I think that it is easily possible to be newbie friendly and cope with "twinks" or "newbie" characters in an acceptable in-game fashion.

Because someone else does not agree with you on what words are acceptable or not acceptable in a description does not make them "ignorant".    Because someone has not mudded before does not make them a pointless waste of time as a potential character resource.  Because someone doesn't immediately "get" your standard of role play does not make them a twink and a moron.

Attitudes like this are problematic for several reasons.

Most people are capable of learning.  And, for those who are not, life played in character and without bias can quickly make them so miserable they go somewhere else.  It's the staff's duty to deal with game abuse, and the players's duties to play their roles IC.

People who create clans, as characters, that recruit new players, feed them, water them, equip them, train them, and teach them role play by good example are saints.  There are perfectly valid IC reasons to do this, even in a harsh desert world.

People who abuse newbies because they are obviously naiive people, steal from them, use them, and kill them have an equal role in this, as such behavior keeps the world from becoming a happy-go-lucky and fluffy place, because that's Just Not What Zalanthas Is Or Should be.

But good documentation, friendly help on the boards, and good responses both in character and out are things that I think Armageddon strives for, and has largely achieved throughout the many years I've played it.  I think the degree of staff/player interactivity has greatly increased the playerbase, as have the code improvements, documentation efforts, and plot fostering.  Even outside of that, I think the imms who strike fear into the hearts of mortals are absolutely necessary and damned good at what they do.  But in all the years I've played, I've never met an evil staffer who didn't give a new player exactly what they needed (even if it was a swift kick in the pants).

So yes.  I think Arm does strive to be newbie friendly while toe-ing the fine line of not selling the theme out to fluffy bunnydom.

At least in some cities.

[Maybe42or54]

We could always do what I see in other games.

Example:

help hortea
There is no helpfile for 'hortea' but there are:
Help Horta
Help sdesc


help scar
There is no helpfile for 'scar' but there are:
help change locdescs
help tattoo
help change


And so on.

[Morgenes]

We were talking about that at dinner, providing a bit of a search functionality.  Although I don't know how quick it would respond, it's a possibility.

[Bestatte]

I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I would assume that many (most?) people who take OOC advantage of obviously new players, are relatively new themselves. Once you get involved in the game, learn to appreciate its nuances, you wouldn't -want- to do that, and so you wouldn't do that.

When I first started playing, if anyone was trying to take advantage of my newness, I wasn't aware of it. And my first character lived almost 6 months (much to my surprise, I had created her specifically to learn the syntax and commands, and didn't expect her to live longer than a couple of days).

I really think this whole notion of newbie-abuse is blown out of proportion. There probably are a handful of troublemakers like that, but the -vast- majority wouldn't even consider doing such a thing.

On the other hand - I think a lot of the "arrogant" attitude comes from players who are continuously barraged here and in the game by new players who 1) *obviously* haven't read any of the docs and 2) *obviously* aren't interested in reading any of the docs.

Armageddon is a game where you really have to put some thought into what you're doing. You don't need to be a rocket-scientist. You don't even need to speak English as a first language (though it helps, I'm sure). But if you're going to roll up an elf, it is -your- responsibility to read about what elves are like in the world of Armageddon. It is -not- the responsibility of everyone else to have to endure your elf's "Oh please Mr. Oash Noble hire me because I'm such a sweet guy" stuff, or teach you through roleplay why your choice to play a sweet giggly bouncy smoochy girlie little 12-year-old who wants to get hired by the Byn is a bad idea.

It goes both ways. I've posted about this before, awhile back. Players who've played awhile - even the helpers - are here to play. The helpers enjoy giving folks a hand, but their job isn't to babysit newbies and tell them everything that the newbie would find for themselves if they just took a few hours to read the website docs. You have to wait for your application to be approved, so why not spend some of that waiting time learning how the game works?

Most players seem to catch on pretty quick. But some make it crystal clear that they want everything handed to them and don't plan on looking for anything on their own first. It's that kind of "newbie" that I think this game is unfriendly to. And rightly so.

[amoeba]

In the business world, you market to your lowest common demonator.

In all due respect, in the business world, you define your market and market to that.  Nordstroms goes after a different client than does Walmart.  We are in a niche market, we seek like minded types who would enjoy playing a game such as ours.  We will never be the Walmart of muds.  

There are two aspects in dealing with new players, attracting then in the first place, and second, having them stick around long enough to 'get it'.  The first is a different discussion. In regards to the second, much of the discussion has been focusing on the issue of syntax and game knowledge.  This is the easiest item to focus on, we can create helpers, improve documentation and the like. All very useful and importaint tasks.  However the needs of a newbie, one that is still in the "do I want to spend my valuable time here" is more basic.

What a new player is evaluating is do they enjoy the place, does it offer them something.  In this it is up to the players for want of a better word to 'nurture' the player.  This does not mean the experience needs to be watered down, nor 'bunnified', but all too often I have seen obviously new players ignored and sacrificed on the altar of "RP", or worse yet, belittled in an ooc fashion to show them the 'error of their ways'.  

Davien states it well:

Most people are capable of learning. And, for those who are not, life played in character and without bias can quickly make them so miserable they go somewhere else. It's the staff's duty to deal with game abuse, and the players's duties to play their roles IC.

People who create clans, as characters, that recruit new players, feed them, water them, equip them, train them, and teach them role play by good example are saints. There are perfectly valid IC reasons to do this, even in a harsh desert world.

Words well spoken, but I would add that ignoring the new player and not actively involving them is doing the community a disservice.  I have also seen players who have this irritating desire to correct what they see as inapropriate behaviour. This game can be slow going and diffucult to see the appeal initially. In that we are not newbie friendly, yet if each person makes some stab at helping a new player to see the possiblites, and respecting the player behind the character, then we can enrich everyone on the process by bringing in new blood and new perspectives.

Friendly is a misnomer.  Do we provide an enjoyable environment for the new and old player alike? The ones deep in the throws of a plot and the new ones who haven't a clue?   In this I think we have a little more to go.  Yet this is one area unlike documentation and online help systems that we can each affect as individuals.

[Treestone Capricorn]

Bestatte makes some excellent points.

I'd like to share my opinion as semi-newbie, even though most of you 'prolly think that I'm a full fledged newbie. Take the fact that my arm accent transfers over to my instant messages, that I'm Semi-newbie.

For fear of confusing people, I will not use the term, newbie-friendly, it implies to much, and is more of a blanket term, where I think most any problems we have with attracting, helping, or intergrating newbies is fairly specific.

It seems that in-game, most people are fairly nice to newbies. I doubt I will ever see a veteran jack a newbie for his newb coin. That's left up to those who are only like, 6 months into the game, and think no one's watching/have no desire to see other players join the game. Many people, I've noticed, will make up an IC reason, to interact with obvious newbies, just to help them out.

OOC-wise (that's not grammatically correct, btw, ) I don't see much interaction with newbies. Whenever I first posted on the GDB, I was extremely frustrated, and it seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn't get any one to interact with me. Until of course, a few minor replies were posted, and one VERY helpful, supportive helper, started talking to me.

I can totally understand why some newbies would emulate the silliness they sometimes see from other players, in attempt to fit in, since they can't exactly enter into in-depth debate about politics/realism. This is exactly what I did, as many of you can search my posts, and find them absolutely ludicrous. Often though, this is met with harsh attitudes, which most newbies would not understand, and lash out in turn. I'm partially referring to a newbie, whom I know personally, and a veteran player. One of you, ( I would expect it from the veteran) should offer an olive branch, and perhaps some GDB ettiquette, and the reason why their posts are.....frivalant, instead of replying with ambigous responses, and completely embarrasing this newbie. That said, it seems that the offense which turns most newbies away is not rudeness, or anything else of the like. It's being ignored. No one likes that, and players come here to interact, hence *Multi-user dimension* Not single player h/s. Okay, I started rambling, I'm sorry.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I would assume that many (most?) people who take OOC advantage of obviously new players, are relatively new themselves.

On the contrary... A rube is a rube is a rube.  Act like a rube, and I will do everything in my power to exploit you, because it's too hard to make a meal without taking the gimmies.

[moab]

Well, when someone is obviously and ooc newb (meaning asking ooc questions, having problems with basic commands, breaking rp all the time) then it is better to let them live.

Other than that, everything is fair game.

[Anonymous]

Right, but I don't consider someone who is having problems with commands or using ooc to get help to be a rube.

I consider someone who is overtly friendly, naiive, or otherwise easy pickin's in-character to be money.

[Bestatte]

Amoeba, you misunderstood (or didn't read the rest of the post).

You market to the lowest common denominator of the market you are attempting to attract.

So - if you want to attract X, Y, and Z in that order, with X being the "least" and Z being the "most" you have to market to X.

If you want to attract -only- Z, then you market only to Z. If you want X to be the highest quality that you attract, then you have to market for the quality below that.

It's standard business practice. Nordstroms uses it, Walmart uses it.

[amoeba]

Amoeba, you misunderstood (or didn't read the rest of the post).

You market to the lowest common denominator of the market you are attempting to attract.

Yes I read the post, I read all the posts before replying.  I still disagree with you, but this is not a business discussion.

[bloodfromstone]

I find it to be in poor taste to exploit someone's newbieness and justify it as being IC to do so. Of course a newbie is easy pickings to lead out into the sands, tell them how to mine, and then kill them when their stamina runs out. It's also tasteless and poor show, in my opinion. For one thing, most of the time that people do this, they wouldn't even attempt the same scam on someone who is obviously a more adept player, even if they're ICly gullible.

That said, I don't have problems with people doing nasty things IC to newbies. Mug them, brawl them, cuss them out, whatever. Just make it interesting. You're completely in control of the scene and situation when a newb is involved, after all. Make it something that gives a feel of the game world, rather than just pickpocketing their newb 'sids and sneaking off.

[Anonymous]

I'll say this.  What attracted me and kept me at this RPI versus all others is that everyone isn't all buddy-buddy in-game.  So while players shouldn't completely take advantage of newbie mistakes part of what makes this game fun is realizing quickly what the risks are through pain and suffering.

The first character I had that learned how to make enough money on his own to keep himself fed was a very rewarding experience.  Obviously it's different strokes for different folks but having everyone in-game pouncing to help the obviously new PC can be a negative.

[Anonymous]

Nah.  If I sense someone is ICly gullible, I'll peck them, too.

I see no reason to ICly -not- pick on someone just because OOC I sense they are new.  That's just as bad RP as the people you accuse of singling them out specifically.

[spawnloser]

Davien, I know where you're coming from...I've used the arguement that DOING something and NOT DOING something for OOC reasons are no different when you are rating it as good RP vs bad RP.  _However_, the game needs new players, and if you just give the newbie a chance to get into the game a bit before raping them?  Good for you.  I mean, don't do the, "I'll show you where to buy food and water!" and lead them into an alley and kill them bit.  Actually lead them to get the food and water, suggest what they should do for armor and clothing, saving some money for the bank, give them advice on how to find a job...and then, after you got the person situated and they think you're his/her best friend, that's when you take him/her for everything, now that they've doubled their worth, also giving them that ultimate lesson for Arm: Life sucks here, deal with it.

[LoD]

There have been a lot of good points made in this discussion.

It is important to note that while newbie-friendly and user-friendly are similar, they are not synonymous.  They both apply to the ease of integration into the gameworld syntax, vocabulary and concept.  However, newbie-friendly can also describe the reception a new player can expect by the game's player characters and/or the players themselves in discussion forums like the General Discussion Board.

The problem is that you really have three kinds of new players; those who have never played a MUD, those who have never played an RPI MUD, and those who have never played Armageddon.  The learning curve, expectations, speed of assimilation and progress are different for each type of person because they must overcome different challenges.

:arrow: Players who have never played a MUD before might learn the syntax more slowly, but more swiftly adhere to the concepts and spirit of the game because they have no other point of comparison.  

:arrow: Players who haven't played an RPI MUD will find many similarities and quickly grasp the different game mechanics, but will struggle with the concepts of focusing on the character, maintaining a role consistent with the gameworld, and developing unselfish play that focuses less on testing limits and more on developing opportunities.

:arrow: Players who haven't played Armageddon before will probably adapt quickly to both the gameworld and syntax equally.

Throw age and levels of maturity into the mix and you have a wide spectrum of challenges for how to handle new players.  The very same response that is helpful to a player new to MUD's may seem patronizing to a long time player of an RPI MUD who is trying Armageddon for the first time.  Responses such as "Find out IC." are given as if the audience is the same, but they aren't.

So what's the point of all this?  The point is that there's no easy solution.  That being careful in the length, tone and wording of your responses to new players is extremely important.  No one can persuade you to change, only you can do that, but being aware of the different situations people may be coming from is an important step to providing a more newbie-friendly atmosphere for the game's new players.

-LoD

[Aldiel]

Like I said in another post, the community should be newbie friendly...and sometimes, we're not.

The documentation could be a bit more diverse, but that's a growing thing.

The in-game mechanics?  Not really, and they don't need to be.

Amen to these three poinst, sawny.

[Anonymous]

I usually just rob them, or send them on a suicidal mission... "go tell that guy with the signet ring that you think he's a putz" or whatever.

Normally I aim for comedy rather than tragedy.  I can't give actual examples, of course, but I lost... three characters before I got one that worked, and each tragedy just compelled me further.