Newbie Perks: Coded things we can do to keep new players.

[Sephiroto]

I'd like everyone to think of some coded ways we can help new players and characters transition into the tough world of Zalanthas.

One idea I had was giving newbie players (0 karma) a discount at all shops in the bazaar areas, specific shops, and at mount sellers so that they can better outfit themselves when they start the game.  When the player passes the number of hours that removes newbie rez then the discount also goes away.

I actually wouldn't be against this idea for all players under 3 hours played, but it is by no means necessary for a veteran.

I invite you all to share your ideas.

[Qzzrbl]

I'd like everyone to think of some coded ways we can help new players and characters transition into the tough world of Zalanthas.

One idea I had was giving newbie players (0 karma) a discount at all shops in the bazaar areas, specific shops, and at mount sellers so that they can better outfit themselves when they start the game.  When the player passes the number of hours that removes newbie rez then the discount also goes away.

I actually wouldn't be against this idea for all players under 3 hours played, but it is by no means necessary for a veteran.

I invite you all to share your ideas.

Mmmm.... I'm not so sure I'd like to see a discount at shops, but....

If it'd prove to help keep newbies, I wouldn't be entirely against it.

[Qzzrbl]

Ready access to helpers IG would help with newbie retention, methinks.

From Newbs Perspective:

> Newbie How do I buy water?

You send your message to the Helpers

From Helper's perspective:


A newbie asks: How do I buy water?

> Reply: Fill <water container> <merchant> <type of water>. Remember, if the type of water listed is something like "muddy water of doom", you have to type out "muddy water of doom" in its entirety.

Your message has been sent to the newbie.


Of course, it would be entirely invisible to non-helpers, and even they'd be able to toggle the option to receive new messages so they can keep their immurzions when shit goes down.

No s-descs will be shown.

And of course all of this will be logged and read by staff to prevent abuse.

[jhunter]

I don't think discounts at the shops would help new players. I think it would hurt them in the long run and make the curve suddenly become a bit steeper than they were used to to begin with, possibly turning them away from the game at that point.

[Qzzrbl]

I don't think discounts at the shops would help new players. I think it would hurt them in the long run and make the curve suddenly become a bit steeper than they were used to to begin with, possibly turning them away from the game at that point.

Yeaaah, I could see some people ragequitting because of that. x-X

[jriley]

Ready access to helpers IG would help with newbie retention, methinks.

From Newbs Perspective:

> Newbie How do I buy water?

You send your message to the Helpers

From Helper's perspective:


A newbie asks: How do I buy water?

> Reply: Fill <water container> <merchant> <type of water>. Remember, if the type of water listed is something like "muddy water of doom", you have to type out "muddy water of doom" in its entirety.

Your message has been sent to the newbie.


Of course, it would be entirely invisible to non-helpers, and even they'd be able to toggle the option to receive new messages so they can keep their immurzions when shit goes down.

No s-descs will be shown.

And of course all of this will be logged and read by staff to prevent abuse.

This is what we need.  We need something like this.  We need a mentoring system.

I toughened up a lot during my first couple of years learning Arm, learning many skills that transferred over well into real life.  But it needn't have been as difficult as it was at times.

[Dakota]

I started Arm in mid May of this year.

Came from one other MUD that was very easy to learn.

IMO you need an CODED walkthrough BEFORE someone enters the game. IMO this should be manditory for any new account with an option to repeat it at any given time.

Walkthrough covering things like: How to sell things. How to run away from monsters (as I found typing RUN does not help..). How to do a basic emote (w/ examples of what you see and someone else sees). Basic combat. How buy water / fill up a bucket, etc.

Also it would be VERY helpful for the first say 10-24 IG hours of a players life to have something like this if you're in the town you started in.

>WHERE WATER

>You are in Allanak. The Waterseller is east, west, east, east, east, north, west.

>WHERE BLAH

>You are in Allanak. If you want to go to the Gaj Tavern, where you started, go north, east, east, south.

Also have a SEPERATE CHANNEL (meaning a new channel from talk / whisper / wish / ooc) directly to HELPERS. When you type WHO, list Helpers as well and allow them to chat with players IG / Meet with them IG. Like have one on duty in both Nak and Tuluk so they can start chatting in that channel but then the Helper can FIND the player IG and continue the convo in talk and IC..

Remind new players / new accounts of these helper features by pinging a message every 15 minutes or so like a Hungry message (w/ option to turn it off / on).

Make no mistake.. Arm is -very- hard to learn and the stuff that is: "We wont tell you. Read and Fish through hoards of documents and find out IG." is astounding. That said I do adore the game. But it's -very- frustrating and if their was a codedly thing avail to hold my hand along as a n00b it would have helped a LOT.

AS FOR DISCOUNTS IN SHOPS...

No way.

Better is to have a n00b quest IG. If they start in Nak or Tuluk. At each entry point into the game for new players (after tutorial) you do this:

1: have NPC that greets player (REMIND THE PLAYER THAT IT IS AN NPC THEY ARE TALKING TOO)
2: NPC gives player a little quest (if in Nak, take this XXX item and bring it to my cousin at YYY and come back for some more work).
3: After the quest the NPC can give the player a RANDOMLY generated item from a pool. Could be 50 sid. Could be 100 sid. Could be a weapon. Whatever.
4: NPC maybe can offer one other GO FETCH quest (salt if in Nak? wood if in Tuluk.. TELLING THEM OF THE DANGEROUS OUTSIDE). NPC will walk the player, through dialogue on how to do that on their own (i.e. sell salt, to who, the fact you need a bag, etc).
5. Make it where to communicate w/ NPC they need to use talk with some basic emotes too.

Anyway, basically, rather than give new players a bonus in shops or learning..

Do something that helps them LEARN to play and get in the swing of things.

[najdorf]

It could be nice to have a hunger/thirst toggle for newbies. Then they turn it on, they never get hungry/thirsty. I have seen a couple newbies getting quite nervous about the whereabouts and cost of water in the past.

[Wolfsong]

Why would you ever toggle it back on?

[Qzzrbl]

I started Arm in mid May of this year.

Came from one other MUD that was very easy to learn.

IMO you need an CODED walkthrough BEFORE someone enters the game. IMO this should be manditory for any new account with an option to repeat it at any given time.

Walkthrough covering things like: How to sell things. How to run away from monsters (as I found typing RUN does not help..). How to do a basic emote (w/ examples of what you see and someone else sees). Basic combat. How buy water / fill up a bucket, etc.

Also it would be VERY helpful for the first say 10-24 IG hours of a players life to have something like this if you're in the town you started in.

>WHERE WATER

>You are in Allanak. The Waterseller is east, west, east, east, east, north, west.

>WHERE BLAH

>You are in Allanak. If you want to go to the Gaj Tavern, where you started, go north, east, east, south.

Also have a SEPERATE CHANNEL (meaning a new channel from talk / whisper / wish / ooc) directly to HELPERS. When you type WHO, list Helpers as well and allow them to chat with players IG / Meet with them IG. Like have one on duty in both Nak and Tuluk so they can start chatting in that channel but then the Helper can FIND the player IG and continue the convo in talk and IC..

Remind new players / new accounts of these helper features by pinging a message every 15 minutes or so like a Hungry message (w/ option to turn it off / on).

Make no mistake.. Arm is -very- hard to learn and the stuff that is: "We wont tell you. Read and Fish through hoards of documents and find out IG." is astounding. That said I do adore the game. But it's -very- frustrating and if their was a codedly thing avail to hold my hand along as a n00b it would have helped a LOT.

AS FOR DISCOUNTS IN SHOPS...

No way.

Better is to have a n00b quest IG. If they start in Nak or Tuluk. At each entry point into the game for new players (after tutorial) you do this:

1: have NPC that greets player (REMIND THE PLAYER THAT IT IS AN NPC THEY ARE TALKING TOO)
2: NPC gives player a little quest (if in Nak, take this XXX item and bring it to my cousin at YYY and come back for some more work).
3: After the quest the NPC can give the player a RANDOMLY generated item from a pool. Could be 50 sid. Could be 100 sid. Could be a weapon. Whatever.
4: NPC maybe can offer one other GO FETCH quest (salt if in Nak? wood if in Tuluk.. TELLING THEM OF THE DANGEROUS OUTSIDE). NPC will walk the player, through dialogue on how to do that on their own (i.e. sell salt, to who, the fact you need a bag, etc).
5. Make it where to communicate w/ NPC they need to use talk with some basic emotes too.

Anyway, basically, rather than give new players a bonus in shops or learning..

Do something that helps them LEARN to play and get in the swing of things.

Coded walkthrough = Mudschool

I've never met a single mudder that likes being forced to go through a mudschool before starting play.

Any mudder that says otherwise, is lying.

[Sephiroto]

At one point the IMMS were talking with the Helpers about writing up some rooms, NPC's, and scripts that would run like a mudschool, but I'm not sure what ever happened to that.

[Qzzrbl]

I think some of the newb documentation could be re-worked a bit too....

Like recommending that new players not start in Red Storm -- just like they're recommended not to start in the Labyrinth.

Because let's face it, Red Storm is harder to play in than 'Rinth.

Add more common knowledge stuff -- Because the one single complaint I hear from more new players, above anything else, is having to slog through the game with their first few characters not knowing dick about shit that in reality, their character should have known all along.

There should be directions to the Jal salt yard, to the cotton pickin' place, to the clay-digging place, to the dung sellers, stuff like that.

Warnings that beetles are common in the south, and they -can- and -will- chomp your ass to bits unless you're well-trained. Same with spiders, tembo, etc.

I remember when I first started playing, and the first time I saw "a large black beetle" at a distance, I wasn't thinking "large" as in "This fucker is bigger than you". I was thinking large as in as "big as my fist".

Same with a few other critters.

I found out the hard and fast way I was -wrong-. And it's very disheartening to a new player to have so many PCs die to things their characters IG should know.

I don't think we need to go making a "mudschool" that new players will probably just skip through anyway, or NPC quests, or any other coded "perks" to new 0-karma players that make no sense IG.

We just need a brief, easy-to-read newbie handguide that would tell them about -anything- an average commoner would know. Like that certain rat-bites will make you sick, that drinking water from certain places will send you to the Great Mantis Head in the Sky double-time, and that stars aren't visible in much of the Known.

I mean, sure, we could spend hours poring over the documents and searching through the GDB to find all the answers to these things.... But who wants to do that? Many new players won't even look at the GDB until after they decide they like the game.

We need to condense this shit for ease of access.

And more access to helpers.

On that note, I'm goin' to bed.

Goodnight folks.



::EDIT::

Oh, and by the way, don't forget to vote.

http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-sanvean.html
http://www.mudconnect.com/cgi-bin/member/votelogin.cgi?mud=Armageddon

[Dakota]

re: mudschool..

obv the best way is weave it seamlessly in the game during the character / account generation process + when you first start playing. Be toggable and only active over all for the first say 24 hours of the IG life. Could be optional even but I'm just saying, it would help.

sure it's not the best turn on.. but then again it certainly isn't a frustrating turn off as being clueless and not knowing basic things that hardcore players take for granted.

also if you look at most muds which have say 200+ users on, they have something like that.

And I'm just saying as a n00b it would have helped. Curious to hear another new player pipe up on this.

[Lizzie]

Different players are attracted to different game styles. If I had come to Arm, when I was new, and genned into a mudschool, I would've genned right back out and looked for another game to play. One of the main things that attracted me to Arm, once I logged in for the first day, was that there was no mudschool. There was no help channel, there was no ooc channel, there were no global channels, no auto-help scrolling down my screen that I had to toggle off but couldn't figure out how because the screen was scrolling too fast. No color, no nothin. Just me and the game, and nothing to distract me from it. That's what I LIKED about Arm.

I still think something can be done in the Hall of Kings to provide a more helpful environment for new players. Maybe when they look at the map, they'll see a tutorial room they can point to. And it'd take them to a duplicate of the Gaj, complete with NPCs. And helpers who want to help, can be available to pop in, and their descriptions (mdesc and sdesc) would be obscured somehow while they're in that room. And the whole place would be an OOC tutorial place. Learn what their score/stat/skills are, learn what happens when you type who time weather... check the in-game help files without worrying about bowing to the templar who just walked in... that had to be the most frustrating thing, for me when I was new. Trying to read a help file, and someone showed up and tried to interact with me. I had to just log off and read the screen capture, because I hadn't learned about the ooc command yet and didn't want to get yelled at for telling someone ic to leave me alone so I could check the help files.

[Qzzrbl]

Different players are attracted to different game styles. If I had come to Arm, when I was new, and genned into a mudschool, I would've genned right back out and looked for another game to play. One of the main things that attracted me to Arm, once I logged in for the first day, was that there was no mudschool. There was no help channel, there was no ooc channel, there were no global channels, no auto-help scrolling down my screen that I had to toggle off but couldn't figure out how because the screen was scrolling too fast. No color, no nothin. Just me and the game, and nothing to distract me from it. That's what I LIKED about Arm.

I still think something can be done in the Hall of Kings to provide a more helpful environment for new players. Maybe when they look at the map, they'll see a tutorial room they can point to. And it'd take them to a duplicate of the Gaj, complete with NPCs. And helpers who want to help, can be available to pop in, and their descriptions (mdesc and sdesc) would be obscured somehow while they're in that room. And the whole place would be an OOC tutorial place. Learn what their score/stat/skills are, learn what happens when you type who time weather... check the in-game help files without worrying about bowing to the templar who just walked in... that had to be the most frustrating thing, for me when I was new. Trying to read a help file, and someone showed up and tried to interact with me. I had to just log off and read the screen capture, because I hadn't learned about the ooc command yet and didn't want to get yelled at for telling someone ic to leave me alone so I could check the help files.

I don't much see what would be wrong with a helper channel for new players.

It would be available only to those who sign up to be a helper.

*Grumble*

Back to sleep.

Again.

[Cutthroat]

I think discounts at shops might help keep newbies in the short run, but start turning them away eventually (like jhunter said). Look at it this way: the prices help keep leader PCs as a good source of equipment for newer players, who are encouraged by helpers to join clans (NOT just the Byn) anyway. Higher prices, imo, are helping more than lower prices would by keeping people together.

AFAIK, the live chat is great for helpers and those that use it, but my personal opinion is that a helper channel for players in the game would be a great thing. It's been argued to death a bunch of times already, but a very simple interface like 'helper' to talk to helpers and 'reply' for helpers to talk back would be nice. It won't be visible to anyone but helpers, and the players that use it (not everyone that uses it is a newbie ).

There could be helpfiles about it, and the only reminder about the helper channel could be stuck into approval e-mails for characters, in the message after "Congratulations, Amos has been approved for play" line perhaps. There wouldn't be a need for pop-up reminders, color, etc. It would ideally mesh perfectly with the rest of the game. Getting players to interact with helpers when they need help depends entirely on the players' knowledge of the ways they can reach us, so it needs to be made clear that these things exist.

[jriley]

Different players are attracted to different game styles. If I had come to Arm, when I was new, and genned into a mudschool, I would've genned right back out and looked for another game to play. One of the main things that attracted me to Arm, once I logged in for the first day, was that there was no mudschool. There was no help channel, there was no ooc channel, there were no global channels, no auto-help scrolling down my screen that I had to toggle off but couldn't figure out how because the screen was scrolling too fast. No color, no nothin. Just me and the game, and nothing to distract me from it. That's what I LIKED about Arm.

Yeah, I agree that mudschools are annoying.  You know, one thing that would help this discussion is if we had hard data about why people leave.  We don't have any quality control process in place to figure out what turns people off.  In some cases, we get a rage-quit message that lets us know precisely why people are dissatisfied.  Actually, these players are doing us a favor, but ironically we end up making fun of them.  For other players, they just kind of quietly slink off to go play World of Warcraft or something.

We would be much better off formulating a process here if we had some hard data to look at.  For years I've been trying to request that the staff put some kind of quality control process in place, basically like an autogenerated email sent to players if they don't log in for two weeks. 

I'd be curious as to what players would have to say about their own reasons for quitting.

[brytta.leofa]

I think the right way to do a MUD school is make it optional and easy to return to.

- Let 0-karma players enter the MUD school from any quit-safe room, with a combat-timer check.
- The school is open to 0-karma players and to helpers.  (When I say helpers, I really mean helpers and staff.)
- Newbies enter the school as a 0-day human PC of the same guild as their character.  Description and equipment are autogenerated.
- Keep the school SMALL: tavern, market with enterable stall, waterseller, stable, crafting room, 3x3 desert area with a wandering scrab.
- Helpers get a notification in-game when a newbie enters the school and one or fewer helpers are in the school.

When a player achieves 1 karma, he gets a nice "graduation" email, but can no longer access the school.

[Marauder Moe]

Re: newbie discount
This is a silly idea.  As has been mentioned, it's just going to upset them once they see all the prices jump up to normal levels.  If you really think that poverty is an issue for new players, we could more easily adjust char gen so that new players get 50-100% more starting money/food/water.  I personally think that starting coin is pretty good already, though.

Re: mud school
I absolutely agree that making it mandatory would be a terrible idea.  I can see, if staff are willing to put the time into it, that an optional mini-mud tutorial area could be a helpful for some players.  I would suggest that it be neither guild-specific (just give them low-levels of all the skills we wish to explain) nor multi-player.

One thing to be concerned about, though, is we don't necessarily want an area where players can experiment too much without consequences and potentially learn things about the code that aren't meant to be (widely) known.

I don't think 1 karma is a good graduation point either.  I'd set it at more in the range of 10-20 hours played.

[jhunter]

Different players are attracted to different game styles. If I had come to Arm, when I was new, and genned into a mudschool, I would've genned right back out and looked for another game to play. One of the main things that attracted me to Arm, once I logged in for the first day, was that there was no mudschool. There was no help channel, there was no ooc channel, there were no global channels, no auto-help scrolling down my screen that I had to toggle off but couldn't figure out how because the screen was scrolling too fast. No color, no nothin. Just me and the game, and nothing to distract me from it. That's what I LIKED about Arm.

This is the same for me too. I do think there should be an optional way for new players to practice and learn the mechanics of the game without it interfering with the workings of the gameworld. I think that a small area separated off from the rest of the game where tutorials and things could be played through (if one so chooses to do so instead of diving into the actual gameworld with their character). Have it be an option from the main menu. When you're done with the "training area" you can quit back to the main menu and then enter the game. Make it so that once you have entered the game with a character, the option is disabled from the main menu for your account.

[Qeynos]

It's not as if a "mud school" couldn't be completely optional. SoI has that OOC guest lounge, and off to the side of it is a few rooms with information about the races and the universe. You're not even in-game with your character while doing it, and you can simply choose not to. If people are so terrified of having something in the game that isn't IC, make it an option from the menu that puts you through a tutorial of the basic commands and information, and asks you to try emoting for yourself a few times and such. If that would have caused you to immediately abandon Armageddon when you started, I don't want to know what kind of game you were looking for in the first place.

I'm sure a portion of us came over from SoI, Harshlands, WhateverMUD. Plenty others didn't, and the fact remains that the vast majority of new players enter the game with so little knowledge that their behaviour barely qualifies as roleplay. It's no wonder, because the information isn't where they look when they try out a new game, it's over on some website in an unfathomable mess of links that obviously few take the trouble to go through. Having reviewed applications and helped out newbies on another RPI, it was obvious that practically none of them had any idea what the game was about, and that was a setting everyone knew from books or movies. Here, I get the impression that most newbies don't actually read the documentation until they've been mutilated or humiliated through several characters due to their lack of basic knowledge.

Seems like a brief tutorial situated in the login menu or the Hall of Kings would help some and hurt noone.

[Old Kank]

Create "classrooms" where players can go (from the log-in menu, perhaps?) with a generic character to practice coded aspects of the game without repercussions in the game world.  These classrooms may look something like this:

-Emotes: Let players emote and see what their emotes look like from different perspectives of the game.
-Communication: Step players through the different variations of say/tell, walk through the table system and the talk command, and explain how psionics work.
-Combat: Give players generic, disposable characters in an environment with harmless (practice dummy), mostly harmless, and aggressive/dangerous creatures.
-Crimcode: Like the combat room, except with soldiers and different legal environments and crime scenarios.

Create a "newbie mode" that can be toggled on or off within game.  Turning it on would do things like:

-Add [PLAYER] flags to PC short descriptions.
-Give brief, OOC explanations of important things.  (For example: a lanky, brown-skinned gith has arrived from the west.  [You should run!  Gith are a race of hostile humanoids.])
-Give warnings at opportune times.  (For example: [You have passed through the west gate of Allanak.  The deserts beyond this point are very dangerous!])
-Flag NPCs and items with pertinent helpfiles or command text. (For example: [A large building is here. [It looks like you could enter it! Type 'HELP ENTER' for more advice.]

Give players the option to enter the game immediately with generic, pre-fabricated characters.

We can do this with tattoos and clothing, why not with characters?  Let them select gender, hair color, skin tone, etc. from menu options, add in some randomized adjectives like 'wavy' or 'dark' or 'scarred' and presto!  Instant character, no waiting.  Put an account cap on it of 5 pre-fab characters, or so.

From the Hall of Kings, give new players the option to start in the Byn, or other newbie-friendly clans, provided there are currently clan-members logged on, and in that city.

-Modify the starting location/gear for these characters to place them in high-traffic areas of their clans.
-Put basic class/race restrictions on this, so merchants don't end up in the Byn, or elves end up in Kadius.

Write up a guide for players that have NEVER mudded before.  Make tailored versions for players coming from MMO's or Farmville.

Modify the 'who' command to show geographic-specific information:

Code Select Expand


There are 20 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
 -You are in Allanak.  There are 7 visible characters currently in Allanak.
 -There are 2 visible players in the Gaj.  There is 1 visible player in the Trader's.


Create a command that will give specific turn-by-turn directions to a specified tavern.

Code Select Expand


>find Gaj
To get to the Gaj, go: w, w, w, w, w, w, s
>find Tooth
You can only find taverns in the city you're currently in!


[Lizzie]

Oh god no. No, and a thousand times no. As I said - I came to Armageddon because it did NOT have any of that stuff. Armageddon is a niche game, catering to a niche demographic. People who are attracted to those types of newbie-friendly type things, are people who are not attracted to Armageddon. If you turn Armageddon into that kind of game, I'd wager most players who came here because those things did -not- exist, would leave. And you'd be left with a game that is no longer what you came here to play.

Create "classrooms" where players can go (from the log-in menu, perhaps?) with a generic character to practice coded aspects of the game without repercussions in the game world.  These classrooms may look something like this:

-Emotes: Let players emote and see what their emotes look like from different perspectives of the game.
-Communication: Step players through the different variations of say/tell, walk through the table system and the talk command, and explain how psionics work.
-Combat: Give players generic, disposable characters in an environment with harmless (practice dummy), mostly harmless, and aggressive/dangerous creatures.
-Crimcode: Like the combat room, except with soldiers and different legal environments and crime scenarios.

Create a "newbie mode" that can be toggled on or off within game.  Turning it on would do things like:

-Add [PLAYER] flags to PC short descriptions.
-Give brief, OOC explanations of important things.  (For example: a lanky, brown-skinned gith has arrived from the west.  [You should run!  Gith are a race of hostile humanoids.])
-Give warnings at opportune times.  (For example: [You have passed through the west gate of Allanak.  The deserts beyond this point are very dangerous!])
-Flag NPCs and items with pertinent helpfiles or command text. (For example: [A large building is here. [It looks like you could enter it! Type 'HELP ENTER' for more advice.]

Give players the option to enter the game immediately with generic, pre-fabricated characters.

We can do this with tattoos and clothing, why not with characters?  Let them select gender, hair color, skin tone, etc. from menu options, add in some randomized adjectives like 'wavy' or 'dark' or 'scarred' and presto!  Instant character, no waiting.  Put an account cap on it of 5 pre-fab characters, or so.

From the Hall of Kings, give new players the option to start in the Byn, or other newbie-friendly clanscertain clans, provided there are currently clan-members logged on, and in that city.

-Modify the starting location/gear for these characters to place them in high-traffic areas of their clans.
-Put basic class/race restrictions on this, so merchants don't end up in the Byn, or elves end up in Kadius.

Write up a guide for players that have NEVER mudded before.  Make tailored versions for players coming from MMO's or Farmville.

Modify the 'who' command to show geographic-specific information:

Code Select Expand


There are 20 players currently in the world, other than yourself.
  -You are in Allanak.  There are 7 visible characters currently in Allanak.
  -There are 2 visible players in the Gaj.  There is 1 visible player in the Trader's.


Create a command that will give specific turn-by-turn directions to a specified tavern.

Code Select Expand


>find Gaj
To get to the Gaj, go: w, w, w, w, w, w, s
>find Tooth
You can only find taverns in the city you're currently in!


[Marauder Moe]

Newbie help messages seem OK to me, though I'm not sure how I feel about a "[PLAYER]" tag.  I like how we encourage people from early on to treat NPCs just like PCs (even though most of us sort of grow out of the habit).  It's a good lesson.

I have mixed feelings on pre-fab characters.  Sure, it's good to lower barriers to game entry, but on the other hand, making a character is very important learning experience.  New players must learn about the world through reading docs.  More importantly, they must also get into the mindset that their character isn't a walking pile of stats and skills, but rather a living breathing human/elf/dwarf/halfbreed with a personality and history.  Part of me says that we're better off not having players in-game who haven't put at least some rudimentary thought towards those things.

That said, how about this for a newbie perk: new accounts' first characters get top priority in the app queue?

I don't like letting newbies start in a clan.  I don't see anything wrong with forcing them to interact with people (read: play Armageddon) enough to get hired.

I'm against expansion of the 'who' command.  I think giving tavern population info like that could actually reduce average tavern populations, as people log in, see no people in the Gaj/Tooth/wherever, and then not bother go to go there and/or just log out.

I do like the idea of an in-game command to get directions to certain city landmarks (newbie taverns, maybe water-sellers too).

[Old Kank]

Oh god no. No, and a thousand times no. As I said - I came to Armageddon because it did NOT have any of that stuff. Armageddon is a niche game, catering to a niche demographic. People who are attracted to those types of newbie-friendly type things, are people who are not attracted to Armageddon. If you turn Armageddon into that kind of game, I'd wager most players who came here because those things did -not- exist, would leave. And you'd be left with a game that is no longer what you came here to play.

Obviously we disagree.  Can you explain why making the game more accessible is a bad idea?  I'm not advocating dumping players into mudschool, and I don't think that having areas of the game where players can practice playing is all that different from what you suggested.  In-game tutorials and scripts can be annoying, I agree, which is I wouldn't want to see it made mandatory, but I don't see how having the option hurts anything.

Arm has always had an elitist mentality.  The same refrain has been going around for 17 years:  "Arm has a steep learning curve, and I like that because it weeds out the kind of player we don't want here."  But in the end, I think that's only hurt the game.  Arm's playerbase has remained relatively stable over the years, but in that time video games have become absolutely pervasive, and we've seen almost none of that growth.  Mudders are a dying breed, and we've been fortunate enough to have such a passionate fan-base that I don't think RPI's will go away anytime soon, but there's a big slice of the pie out there that we're missing.

I simply refuse to believe that making the game more accessible is going to lead to bad things like throngs of people sexing it up in the Hall of Kings, or friendly elves going around asking, "How dost the day treatest thou?"  Give new players a chance to see the game, and let us get our hooks in them, and then they'll learn.  Newbies can be taught to meet our standards, and if not, there's a reason we have permadeath.