Where Players Heard About Armageddon -- 2012 Edition

[Nyr]

I figured some of these numbers might be of interest.

Out of 1631 new accounts:

268 (16.4%) heard about us through TMC
223 (13.7%) heard about us through a friend or family or a current player or word of mouth or even a flyer
135 (8.3%) heard about us through TMS

Some other numbers:

152 heard about us by searching for stuff on Google (regardless of what they were looking for there)
78 people found us (in general) on some forum or other
29 people found us because of you dwarf fortress crazies on the Bay12 forums
At least 25 found it using an iPhone or other mobile mud client
21 found us in reddit
8 found us from a comment on a slashdot article back in February of last year
6 found it because they are specifically interested in roleplay
5 found it because they are specifically interested in permadeath
1 found it because they are specifically interested in "depth" muds
6 specifically came because they heard about us on TV Tropes
3 found us through an article in Gamesradar?
3 were reading about Dune and found us
2 heard about us through Facebook
2 heard about us through an IRC channel discussion
3 thought we should copulate with ourselves (whether in general or because we asked this question--I'm unsure)
At least one player found us while smoking weed with their buddy
One heard about us from the voices in their head
One heard about us in a comment on a rockpapershotgun article about rainy day games
One used (stole?) their girlfriend's phone and used pocketmud to find it.  (it's technically part of the entry listing use of the iPhone apps)
One had their college roommate tell them about this in 2006 and then they ran into the guy again back in April.  (I assume whomever it was immediately said "so, have you tried Arm yet?")
One was taking a class on electronic literature and was given a link by their professor to MUDConnector; they then found our game.  (AWESOME PROFESSOR.)
One created an account as research for a social media class.

Overall, about 40% of new players (at the bare minimum) come here solely because of you and your actions, whether it be telling a friend or just by voting.

[Nyr]

Year over year, this is a 23.1% increase in new player traffic compared to 2011.  However, 2011 was low overall (the lowest in the last 4 years that we have this data), with 2010 as our highest year.

New account stats, year over year (no data is readily available to grep from 2008 and prior):

2009 -- 1481
2010 -- 1865
2011 -- 1325
2012 -- 1631

I'm still digging through the 2010 data to account for the crazy high values for new players.

[Barzalene]

Did I not read carefully, or did "your Mom" stop recommending us? Last time "Your Mom" had a presence if I recall correctly.

[Nyr]

Did I not read carefully, or did "your Mom" stop recommending us? Last time "Your Mom" had a presence if I recall correctly.

Heh.  Forgot to include that.  Yes, "your mom" was apparently a good referral to at least 3 players.

[Malken]

I figured some of these numbers might be of interest.
268 (16.4%) heard about us through TMC

This surprises me, I always thought that TMS was the main source of newbies, and that's probably why I never bothered making an account for TMC or vote there, but seeing these numbers, I will go and make an account right away.

[bcw81]

DOH... Wrong thread.

[Nyr]

That trend follows year over year; we seem to always get more people from TMC.

Something to take away from that:  we should aim to get more voting in TMC (this means we need people to make accounts there though).  We should also push for votes on TMS.

Let's look at TMS first since it's easier to vote there.

We currently have 288 "in" votes for the month of February.  February has had 7 days so far.  Fewer than 40 people voting once per day could have gotten us to where we are now.  Let's assume that's about the case, then.  If those 40 people voted twice per day, we'd be at 560 by now.  That's #2 on TMS, at least by this month's current numbers.  40 people might sound like a lot, but we have 36 people online right now and it's off-peak.

Next, TMC:  We currently have 302 votes on TMC for this month.  TMC requires an account.  This puts us at about 43 players per day on average voting for us, and by the end of today, I expect we'll be at about (maybe?) 315 or so, which would be 45 players voting once per day.  We can easily up that 10 more players to that just by getting the players that don't have an account on TMC yet to create one and start voting.  55 x 7 = 385.  With 55 players voting since the beginning of February (once per day, at that), it would put us at rank 6 on TMC assuming all other variables remain the same.

[Ender]

I figured some of these numbers might be of interest.

Out of 1631 new accounts:


152 heard about us by searching for stuff on Google (regardless of what they were looking for there)

I see that we have Google Analytics set up on the main page. 

So do we know what our conversion rate looks like from natural search currently?  And if so, what keywords seem to convert the most?


I know we are getting a new website soon, so this may be fairly moot, but our SEO practices on the main site are kinda lacking in some regards.  Google still can't index the gdb at all which makes us lose out on a lot of potential traffic.

[Derain]

I found arm through an article on MMORPG.com one of the writers there tried ARM out.

[Nyr]

I'm glad Saikun actually explained to me the robots.txt issue.  I sent him a fancy new optimized file in a request.  ::crosses his fingers::

Send it to producers@arm please.

[Kismetic]

At least one player found us while smoking weed with their buddy

I wonder if one of my friends started playing, and didn't tell me.  A few of them always ask what the game is, because when I'm playing it, I'm unable to divide my attention to them.  Hrmm.

[Feco]

Seems like we have awful player retention.

[Ender]

I'm glad Saikun actually explained to me the robots.txt issue.  I sent him a fancy new optimized file in a request.  ::crosses his fingers::

Send it to producers@arm please.

Sent.  I only really had to update one thing from the original file I wrote to deal with the issues Saikun was worried about, but I really think those worries are long since outdated.

[Kismetic]

Seems like we have awful player retention.

Yeah, I wonder how many actually went through with making a character.

[greasygemo]

I want to find the one dude who found ARM whilst sparking up.. Should check Luirs..

Code Select Expand

The dreadlocked, long bearded hippie says, while lighting his solidly packed tube of spice, "Dude, where's my inix?"

[Nyr]

A clarification:  these numbers come from this survey.  The survey data is collected from the account generation process prior to their creation of a character.  While we have tweaked things to allow character generation prior to account activation, these numbers don't necessarily mean we had 1600+ newbies traipsing through Armageddon this past year.

It's more difficult to drill down into more data on where the players go after they do the where survey, but of the folks in the Where Survey (83) for January, 22 of them have actually gotten into the game to play it with said character that they created.

5 made characters that got accepted, but they haven't logged in.  <--- (we might be able to do something about this with a single automated e-mail)
3 needed some major editing work and we'd essentially be writing the whole application for the player if we fixed it.
2 had enough issues with the desc and background that approving it with fixes was deemed to be more detrimental than rejecting with suggestions.  <---- (could err on the other side)
2 were either too silly to accept or did not amount to any more than a spurt of letters hitting the keyboard to get through the app process.  I'm looking at you, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness.

So yes, creating a character is a bottleneck.

This has improved year over year as well, for what it is worth.  While we can look for ways to improve the app process, those ways may depend heavily on coded solutions.  This comes back to volunteer staffing, of course.  The biggest benefit to new player numbers is to actually get the word out there about Armageddon, and for us to find other ways (and improve on existing ways) to draw in new players.  If you're interested in brainstorming and leading in discussion about this, we have a publicity forum for this purpose (you can request addition to it).

[Calavera]

Seems like we have awful player retention.

I figured I'd do a quick sample survey to give you some data on this, although be aware it's a small sampling out of the many new accounts created recently so it may not be entirely representative:

Out of the last 100 people to make an account on ArmageddonMUD, only 78 successfully finished the account creation process. That's not even talking about character creation--I'm just talking about finishing creating an account.

Of those 78 who created an account...

Only 42 created a character.

Now here's where we start to see who's actually playing the game. Out of those 100 accounts, only 42 even submitted a character for approval. Fewer still of those actually make it into the game.

Of those 42 characters submitted, only 31 were approved.

We try our hardest to not reject newbie apps, but sometimes there's little we can do, such as when someone applies for a character whose name is 'ZeldaN64' or 'Lucifer.' Staff can't edit the names players select for their characters, though we can edit everything else. A lot of newbie apps come through as garbled gibberish thanks to the text editor, but we usually just write them up a desc and bio and send them on their way, hoping they don't take offense to our mangling of their creative handiwork of "iii.....q.... the figure with the bright red eyes."

So for those following along at home, out of 100 new accounts, we only received 31 approved characters. I'm going to do a bit more analysis on these 31 accounts, but I've got to jet to work at the moment, so I'll be posting it later.

There are some obvious conclusions to be drawn from this data, for sure--like the fact that many would-be players seem to have difficulties with account/character creation or lose interest midway through.

[Nyr]

Staff research: multi threaded for your pleasure.

[Feco]

Ya'll are thorough; I love it!  Thanks for all that extra info!

I guess *actual* player retention (referring to people who get in game, and continue to play for some time after) would be hard to figure.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I wonder how possible/complicated it would be to add something in there that took whatever puts the new accts created weekly from the weekly update up with a comparison of accts created vs new accts that logged in with a pc?

[greasygemo]

Seems to be an issue of quality over quantity which may be hard to adjust for, if only 31% of people get through the whole process with an approved character.. Only solution would be to increase the amount of people actually going through the aforementioned process, because, well, new players are great, but... Yeah.. Zelda64's and such just.. No. Please god no. I forget what making the original account even entailed.. Isn't it just providing an email address?

[Morgenes]

You also have to provide an account name.  That is challenging.

[greasygemo]

Email -and- account name? Why don't you also get a pint of blood and a family tree while you're at it. Monsters. 

[Morgenes]

Email -and- account name? Why don't you also get a pint of blood and a family tree while you're at it. Monsters. 

Sorry, I forgot to mention we require you to 'confirm that you want to create the account', which is arguably not necessary if you said you wanted to create a new account.

We also ask for how you heard about us.

Done.

[Calavera]

Hi. Remember me? Yes. 31 approved characters. Let's break that shit down.

Of those 31 accepted PCs, 6 have yet to log on, which leaves us with 25 who have actually played.

Of those 25, 4 played for 0 days and 0 hours. Anecdotally, players who quit out at 0 days and 0 hours rather than 0 days and 1 hour typically have not left the Hall of Kings or the starter shops/newbie area, in my newbie-watching experience. This isn't a coded certainty, but you'd be surprised how many people give up at that juncture.

So if we assume for the sake of simplicity that those 4 never left the starter areas, out of our original 100 new accounts, we now have 21 who actually made it into the game and got to experience the ingame world.

[Calavera]

Of our grand total of 21 new players who actually played the game, we can say the following: 5 played their PC for less than 5 hours of playtime and have yet to log in again. 3 more played for between 5 and 10 hours of playtime but have yet to log in again.

The remaining 13 are where things start to get interesting.

People whose first character died almost always made a new character. This happened in 4 instances. Only once did someone not roll a new character after dying. (Interestingly enough, the one person that did not reroll was PKed at 22 hours played. The others all died to NPCs.)

Removing the guy who was killed and has yet to reroll for a month, we now have 12 accounts that I could honestly call "new players" in the sense of actively playing the game for a sustained period.

[Norcal]

Email -and- account name? Why don't you also get a pint of blood and a family tree while you're at it. Monsters. 

The pint of blood comes later. A liter actually, unless Calavera takes it, as she seems partial to U.K. weights and measures..and maybe pints as well.

[greasygemo]

This explains why I woke up in that bathtub full of ice after registering...

[Barzalene]

So, we have about 10% retention.

[Desertman]

So, we have about 10% retention.

Honestly for Armageddon, I call this a win.

This is a game that can put you through some serious emotional stress. This is also the ONLY game I have ever seen where we have players who still play and enjoy the game after 15+ years.

We might only retain 10% of our players, but of those 10%, I wonder how many go on to play for years?

We might not get all of you, but once we do, you belong to us for life. We are like a strange little cult. In fact, you all creep me out a bit.  

[Barzalene]

I wasn't knocking it.

I think 10% is fine.

[ShaLeah]

This is a game that can put you through some serious emotional stress. This is also the ONLY game I have ever seen where we have players who still play and enjoy the game after 15+ years.

Yep. I'd rather have 10% that are die hard fans, that "get it", that make the world come alive than 30% that just doesn't get it.

We might not get all of you, but once we do, you belong to us for life. We are like a strange little cult. In fact, you all creep me out a bit.  

That is creepy... but sex-ay in a bondage kinda way. I might just have to use that as my new signature.

[Bushranger]

So, we have about 10% retention.

Honestly for Armageddon, I call this a win.

This is a game that can put you through some serious emotional stress. This is also the ONLY game I have ever seen where we have players who still play and enjoy the game after 15+ years.

We might only retain 10% of our players, but of those 10%, I wonder how many go on to play for years?

We might not get all of you, but once we do, you belong to us for life. We are like a strange little cult. In fact, you all creep me out a bit.  

I agree completely. More new players is always welcomed but Armageddon MUD has high standards and a high learning curve that not everyone is going to measure up to. The good news is that those players who do, the 10% of new players we retain, are awesome! IF YOU JOINED WITHIN THE LAST YEAR THAT MEANS YOU! YOU ARE AWESOME!

Armageddon MUD: Blood In, Blood Out!

[flurry]

People whose first character died almost always made a new character.

Conclusion: Make sure that first character dies before they have the chance to log out. 

[Feco]

People whose first character died almost always made a new character.

Conclusion: Make sure that first character dies before they have the chance to log out. 

On it.

[greasygemo]

People whose first character died almost always made a new character.

Conclusion: Make sure that first character dies before they have the chance to log out. 

On it.

Roll Call: The Rententionists.



You belong to Drov.

[Maker]

While many of the variables can likely be tweaked to improve retention rates, someone made the very simple observation earlier that I think should be the primary focus:  10% of 200 is hella better than 10% of 100.  Getting the word out, I believe, has always been the focus of everyone, but probably need to look at more ways we can do it (as Nyr, I think, was suggesting).

[HavokBlue]

I've been plugging Arm in the MUD threads that have started popping up sometimes on /vg/. I know I got at least one or two people to apply so... get the word out!

[Blur]

Take this with a grain of salt, but as a player who floats around from game to game from time to time when I'm looking into a new game, the best place to learn about a game and its community is the forums. Most people who've been around long enough probably don't notice but again compared to other games these forums are pretty hostile and sometimes even just the tone of the posts seem outright toxic from both players and staff. Most people probably don't think its a big deal since we still have helpers available to chat with but chatting with some stranger isn't everyone thing. I know that when i first began I didn't want to bother with it myself.


I am not sure what can be done about this, perhaps nothing. Though sometimes i think there should be a newbie friendly board for new player to ask questions, with the rest of the boards hidden until the newbie gets addicted to the actual game. 


Anyways just food for thought. Good luck to you guys!

[HavokBlue]

Really? As someone who migrated from IRE games, I found THEIR boards to be extremely toxic, full of players openly attacking each other because of things that happened in-game. I mean, our off-topic section gets nasty sometimes, but that's not really anything to do with the game.

[Patuk]

Really? As someone who migrated from IRE games, I found THEIR boards to be extremely toxic, full of players openly attacking each other because of things that happened in-game. I mean, our off-topic section gets nasty sometimes, but that's not really anything to do with the game.

Same, and agreed. They do tend to have good mechanics for newbies though.

[TheBadSeed]

Really? As someone who migrated from IRE games, I found THEIR boards to be extremely toxic, full of players openly attacking each other because of things that happened in-game. I mean, our off-topic section gets nasty sometimes, but that's not really anything to do with the game.

Same, and agreed. They do tend to have good mechanics for newbies though.

Couldn't agree more. I've been part of several online gaming communities, and this is by far the most respectful communications board I've ever seen. It's one of the things that really hooked me when I came back to Arm was seeing this board and how mature the player base is with each other, and with the game.

Kudos to the staff that facilitate that.

[Calavera]

Take this with a grain of salt, but as a player who floats around from game to game from time to time when I'm looking into a new game, the best place to learn about a game and its community is the forums. Most people who've been around long enough probably don't notice but again compared to other games these forums are pretty hostile and sometimes even just the tone of the posts seem outright toxic from both players and staff. Most people probably don't think its a big deal since we still have helpers available to chat with but chatting with some stranger isn't everyone thing. I know that when i first began I didn't want to bother with it myself.


I am not sure what can be done about this, perhaps nothing. Though sometimes i think there should be a newbie friendly board for new player to ask questions, with the rest of the boards hidden until the newbie gets addicted to the actual game. 


Anyways just food for thought. Good luck to you guys!

We'd be interested in hearing some of the specifics about what you found less-than-welcoming about the boards. We try our best to moderate posts that are offensive or rude, but if it's driving new players away then it could certainly be looked at to see if we're doing enough.

I also like the idea of a new players' board and will bring this up with the game's Producers.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Maso]

Take this with a grain of salt, but as a player who floats around from game to game from time to time when I'm looking into a new game, the best place to learn about a game and its community is the forums. Most people who've been around long enough probably don't notice but again compared to other games these forums are pretty hostile and sometimes even just the tone of the posts seem outright toxic from both players and staff. Most people probably don't think its a big deal since we still have helpers available to chat with but chatting with some stranger isn't everyone thing. I know that when i first began I didn't want to bother with it myself.

This made me sad....We're...we're...MEAN, GUYS. 

Seriously, I thought we were a pretty welcoming bunch, but it's saddening to hear that from an outside perspective. If I had to make a GUESS....and like...put myself in newb shoes (which I feel like anyway a lot of the time when I ask questions that are dumb for a 6-year player to be asking...)....It's the culture of "Duh. That question was asked 10 years ago, HERE:". It's well irritating.

Newbie board ftw. Chatting with a helper doesn't replace being part of the community.

[Nyr]

Newbie board ftw. Chatting with a helper doesn't replace being part of the community.

That's true.  We do have a newbie board, though.

Ask the Players
Are you a new player with questions? Post them here, and they'll be answered as soon as possible. Please avoid discussions of the magick code unless it's something everyone should know.

And from the stickied post at the top:
     

Welcome to the Newbie Help Forum
« on: September 19, 2002, 08:26:47 PM »
     
Ask your questions here, and don't worry whether or not they sound stupid -- we've all been newbies ourselves at one point or another.

No flames!

It's possible we could rename it to "Newbie Help Forum", move it up the list, and clean it up a bit to make it clear that this is for newbies to ask questions.  I don't think anyone lights into newbies like you're suggesting, though.

[Nyr]

A quick poll of other staffers reveals that pretty much none of us realized that.  Since Ask the Players has become (mostly?) its own thing lately, perhaps it would be better to have a separate newbie help forum.

[Orin]

I think that would be a worthy addition or modification to the GDB.  Ask the Players has its own feel to it, which isn't exclusive to newbie questions.

[Maso]

I'm not suggesting that anyone 'lights' (I've never heard that before) into newbies, just that they could possibly fall victim to the 'you should know better' attitude that can be directed toward more veteran players.

[benegesseritwitch]

Newbie perspective/opinion:

I understood "Ask the Players" as the "ask your noob questions here" board, so no confusion there. I think another board would be redundant and add clutter. A clarification--or maybe subboard,  I guess--in "Ask the Players" is all that's needed, if that.

This made me sad....We're...we're...MEAN, GUYS.  

Seriously, I thought we were a pretty welcoming bunch, but it's saddening to hear that from an outside perspective. If I had to make a GUESS....and like...put myself in newb shoes (which I feel like anyway a lot of the time when I ask questions that are dumb for a 6-year player to be asking...)....It's the culture of "Duh. That question was asked 10 years ago, HERE:". It's well irritating.

Newbie board ftw. Chatting with a helper doesn't replace being part of the community.

I was afraid of this attitude, to be completely honest, but anytime I asked a question, I never encountered it.

As for the boards in general, they do take some getting used to, like any board. It's just a matter of lurking for a while to get a feel for what's allowed and what's not, and not taking it personally if you're corrected. I found I needed to tone down my normal snark (in case it was construed as trolling) as well as reduce any speculative posts (in case they were construed as revealing game secrets I inadvertently stumbled upon).

I've just found that this board has a higher standard for all that sort of thing. It ruffled my feathers a bit at first--and it's a big reason why  my post count is so low--but I'm getting used to it, and it's a good thing. It's the reason why the boards have lasted so long.

[Norcal]

Having a new players board seems like a really good idea.  It would be good to include a seperate link to it on the home screen, and an encouragement for new players to join it.  

When I started playing, I read through a lot of the docs before I created my first PC, but I never got into the boards until my second PC, when I wanted access to the clan boards.  In part, this delay was due to my own insecurity and being overwhelmed with the initial learning curve of Arm. I missed out on a lot and an encouragement to check out the boards would have been super helpful.

Until recently, I have avoided posting much outside of clan boards, frankly because some of you guys are pretty awesome players, and I felt I did not have much to say.  However I have never felt attacked or looked down upon, even though some of my posts might be a little strange.  I think that in general, the community is respectful and the staff vigilant. Some folks just need a nudge to jump in and test the water, and a new players board would be a great place to start.

Oh..and don't call it a noob board. That term makes some people feel like breeds, or even worse, someone from Allanak.

[Marauder Moe]

We could call it the "Boot Emporium".

[Nyr]

Shield Wall Suicide Prevention Hotline?

[Feco]

I can't cite any examples, but interacting with the MUD community at large, I've gotten the impression that folk seem to think that we Arm players are rabid dogs.

I seriously don't see it, though.

I hypothesize it's because of the strict IC/OOC barrier, and how we'll often correct new players when they accidentally or purposefully cross it.  People may be taking this the wrong way.  This shouldn't change, though.

[Maker]

I can't cite any examples, but interacting with the MUD community at large, I've gotten the impression that folk seem to think that we Arm players are rabid dogs.

There is a healthy bit of elitism among this playerbase that tends to show on the boards.  It never bothered me because I'm schizoid, but it is there and I think non-armag players pick up on it.

[Norcal]

I can't cite any examples, but interacting with the MUD community at large, I've gotten the impression that folk seem to think that we Arm players are rabid dogs.

Toks Feco. Rabid Toks.

But seriously, as of today, Arm is number 6 on TMS. So we must be doing something right. I first heard about Arm while jumping through a bunch of MUD forums.  People had good things to say about it so I came. Then Calavera put something in my soup and I have never been able to leave.

[Fredd]

My 2 sid:

The bottle neck is clear. but if to much is done then we risk moving arm away from what we love about it. So how do we get more people to actually play?

As I noticed, a fair amount of people stop playing in the hall of kings, and shortly after. (Do we have metrics on the time they log in, by chance?) I have personally ran into a brand new player or two that was kind of lost in the HOK and instead of pushing through to play, I sat there and spoke to them oocly, to help them out. Even got one there tuluki tattoos in the right places.

Now I would like to THINK that these two players I helped might actually still be playing. But regardless. Would it be possible to let "helpers" sit in the Hall of kings oocly to help these new people, if they so choose? Perhapse make a HOK Help command to get someones attention? I think that would not be any determent to the game, and help ease this bottle neck of people that honestly seem to want to play the game, but quit due to confusion, or not seeing anyone in 30 mins because they happen to be off peak.


Edit: I found Arm through my Mud client Pueblo. You can do a search of known games based on criterea. I wanted something harsh, so I looked for "Slavery" and "permadeath"

[TheBadSeed]

When I first heard of Arm, I was busy building on another MUD. Between my building, I was playing, and trying to promote RP on that MUD with very poor success, since the players/staff weren't on board with the idea. Finally, a fellow player clued me into Arm..

Haven't had the urge to make something different since.

[Barzalene]

Now I would like to THINK that these two players I helped might actually still be playing. But regardless. Would it be possible to let "helpers" sit in the Hall of kings oocly to help these new people, if they so choose? Perhapse make a HOK Help command to get someones attention? I think that would not be any determent to the game, and help ease this bottle neck of people that honestly seem to want to play the game, but quit due to confusion, or not seeing anyone in 30 mins because they happen to be off peak.

This seems like an idea at least worth testing. Perhaps it could be tried for a set period, data reviewed and then the idea evaluated and a decision about permanence made.

[Barsook]

Now I would like to THINK that these two players I helped might actually still be playing. But regardless. Would it be possible to let "helpers" sit in the Hall of kings oocly to help these new people, if they so choose? Perhapse make a HOK Help command to get someones attention? I think that would not be any determent to the game, and help ease this bottle neck of people that honestly seem to want to play the game, but quit due to confusion, or not seeing anyone in 30 mins because they happen to be off peak.

This seems like an idea at least worth testing. Perhaps it could be tried for a set period, data reviewed and then the idea evaluated and a decision about permanence made.

Sorry for the bump and late chime in, but has this been tested yet?   I have seen this used once in (yes, I do mean it it) Furcadia.

[Nyr]

With the implementation of a global OOC help channel for newbies, this would be a redundant thing to have.

[Barsook]

Ah, I see, and duh...OR ARE YOU JOKING?!

[Morrolan]

With the implementation of a global OOC help channel for newbies, this would will be a redundant thing to have.

[LauraMars]

The newbie ooc channel thing is most likely a joke, but I honestly love that idea...one of my favorite things about playing armageddon has always been helping new players play the game.

[Barsook]

Aye, that's what I'm suggesting that the channel thing is a joke.  But the problem with either, is what if a Helper isn't on when the new player logs in for the first time and has a question.

[bcw81]

Aye, that's what I'm suggesting that the channel thing is a joke.  But the problem with either, is what if a Helper isn't on when the new player logs in for the first time and has a question.

A helper is always on.

[Barsook]

Not true, I have seen that sign saying "offine" a few times off peak hours.

[Vwest]

A friend turned me on to Arm almost two years ago and I've since dropped the other games I played in favor of Arm.

Interestingly, to me at least, the first character I made here was completely out of theme for the game and in-game events have turned her into something that would get the character "imm slain" on some of the other games I played previous. Easily. No staff intervention or out of character coaching, just the game turning a good person wrong and I think that speaks volumes for what the game has going for it.

I like that there is no out of character safety net preventing in-game consequences to someones character just because they don't want to go from pretty to ugly or popular to pariah. There is no fluffy Imm waiting in the wings to swoop down and scold me for my character being 'mean' to someone.

It doesn't matter who it is, everyone is eventually someone elses victim.

The Byn is the reason I stuck it out with the game long enough to get into the game and I expect most of my future characters will spend time in the clan, just so I can do for other new players what was done for me.

[Fredd]

With the implementation of a global OOC help channel for newbies, this would be a redundant thing to have.

It was more the letting helpers hang out in the HOK so first timers can get help, and immediate help with things like tattoos, starting equipment.

[Maso]

It was more the letting helpers hang out in the HOK so first timers can get help, and immediate help with things like tattoos, starting equipment.

Is a really good idea. Beats when those muds just have NPC's with help scripts and stuff...

[hyzhenhok]

No, the most difficult stage is after HoK when they get in the game, there's nobody in the tavern, and they're like "now what?" and there's a billion different commands they have to begin grappling with. That's when they need helpers the most. So I do prefer a toggle-able OOC newbie help channel that is only accessible by 0-karma players and designated Helpers.

[LauraMars]

bums me out that it was a joke 

[MeTekillot]

I'd like a help channel that was closer to the wish system. Only designated in-game helpers can see messages sent to the channel and only they can reply to them. That way there's no degeneration into an OOC chat channel.

[AmandaGreathouse]

No, the most difficult stage is after HoK when they get in the game, there's nobody in the tavern, and they're like "now what?" and there's a billion different commands they have to begin grappling with. That's when they need helpers the most. So I do prefer a toggle-able OOC newbie help channel that is only accessible by 0-karma players and designated Helpers.

Yeah, that was the main thing I disliked about the newbie channel idea was that you had to play a month before you could toggle it off. I think the idea of a channel to help new players out is a fantastic idea.

[Barsook]

I'd like a help channel that was closer to the wish system. Only designated in-game helpers can see messages sent to the channel and only they can reply to them. That way there's no degeneration into an OOC chat channel.

+1

[Harmless]

I'd like a help channel that was closer to the wish system. Only designated in-game helpers can see messages sent to the channel and only they can reply to them. That way there's no degeneration into an OOC chat channel.

+1

+1

[Bushranger]

http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Muds-Internet-Rawn-Shah/dp/0471116335

In 1995 the computer section of David Jones department store would put games on their display computers and let people play. I had to change buses outside the store so I would go in an play a few games while I waited. The book department was right next to the computer department and while waiting for another turn at the computer I came across this gem. I got the internet after reading this book specifically so I could play MUDs (but not for another year).

Armageddon MUD is listed in the book.