making the game more noob-friendly

[Anonymous]

And as it stands now, learning to play armageddon if you have no prior MUD experience is about next to impossible.

Excepting about 4 hours of playing Achaea, Armageddon was my first mud.

Honestly, I think the biggest thing that will keep newbies coming back is the same thing that made me come back.  Seeing a bunch of other PCs who were playing at an amazing level of RP.  The rich in-character roleplay that I think is still the case (if not more) is what had me hooked from the start.

People coming from most any other mud or an mmorpg are used to a minimal amount of IC interaction peppered mostly with OOC jokes, comments or discussions.  Walking into the Gaj and seeing all of these people interacting and filling the room and bringing it alive is what brought me here and kept me here.

In other words, helping newbies is best done by showing them how awesome the gameworld can be.  Its that sort of thing that makes enduring the learning curve worthwhile, much more than having any sort of newbie school, channel or ooc breaks.

IMHO.

[Stroker]

It's bloody great.

HA, you said it!

[ShaLeah]

I barely read the docs when I first started, despite being urged to do so by both the mud and the friend who brought me here.
All I read was this.

http://www.armageddon.org/
http://www.armageddon.org/intro/ (I actually clicked on these links)
and
http://www.armageddon.org/rp/

I spent a LOT of time in game watching people, staring in awe really.  I broke character and said "How do you do (whatever) a few times. I was helped and offered help by a few people and eventually I ended up seeking information through the web pages and reading the then GDB.

I don't think the learning curve is that harsh at all, I think new player patience is low.  Unfortunately, it's not until people "get it" that these things stop bothering them so much.

I kinda like this idea:

I recently have been on a MUD where folks get an automated 'tips' personal echo for as long as they need it. It can be turned on and off.

This perhaps would be a helpful feature. They would show up like this every two minutes or so. I'll give an examle of what the first one should perhaps look like.

=======================================
Welcome to Armageddon. If you are new to the game, feel
free to message on the helpers shown on the following page
on the Armageddon website:

WWW.ARMAGEDDON.ORG/BLAH/HELPERS.HTML

These people will be able to help you through various
nuances of the game. These are special staff-approved
players who have knowledge of the game at large and can
assist you in your first foray into the world of Zalanthas.

To turn these tips off, type 'notips' and press enter.
======================================

This would direct many folks to the correct place for help, I think. I think that you would find a great many folks who would consider this newbie friendly and yet non-intrusive on the game world at large.

If the game itself was going to have a distraction in order to help newbies, I'd rather see something like that than a global ooc channel.

Another option would be to have an NPC in the hall of kings come to life and bother the newb with help.    (Yes, yes, I -know- the imms are busy, I was joking!) Actually... it'd be nice to have some Arm-addicts go Imm from every time frame of the world so that they can be nothing but newbie helpers, chase newbies around and pester them!

Okay, so I need to lay off the caff.  Anywhosoever, I like Arm's level of difficulty when learning it at first.


She who remembers quite vividly being a newbie...

[Bestatte]

The game I came from wasn't diku-based, nor did it have the "emote" system. It relied on a verblist and "act" which prefaced every sentence you typed with your character's name (yes, we saw people's names, but we still took the responsibility of introducing ourselves and pretending we were meeting unnamed strangers).

Coming to Arm was like coming to a whole new world, as if I had never played any game before. The only similarity, was that it was text-based, and moving "north" worked the same as in the other game.

The learning curve wasn't that difficult for me, I caught on pretty quick, and was lucky to have bumped into someone who happened to have time to give me a running start my first day playing.

But an idea that I'd like to suggest, that I will take from what the other game did, is the following:

When a character shows up on a brand new account for the first time, it flags the staff with a system message. At that point, either an IMM, or a Helper who's been paged with a "send" would get to an unoccupied room in their current city, and use a toggle to poof themselves into the Hall of Kings.

The IMM or helper would then talk to the new player prior to his picking the town he shows up in. They'd ask if the player had any questions before entering the world - if they understand that their half-elf is going to be treated like scum, or their elf is going to be mistrusted, if they understand about the perception of magicks by the general populace, and if they know what a templar is.

The player would be encouraged to ask anything, from combat mechanics to syntax to RPing a house servant, and anything inbetween. Most questions would be answered with links to the website, though "simple" stuff would be answered in as much detail as the player seems to need at the time. Things like - I read about emotes, and see the examples, but it's different trying stuff "live" so could we practice a bit? Stuff like that would be gone over in full - with encouraging words to let the player know his efforts are appreciated -even if he still needs work.

Once player and helper/imm are satisfied that the new player is ready to dig in to Zalanthas, the helper/imm would poof back to the private room and the newbie would be left to join the world.

If the player says "Nah, I don't need to read anything. I know Diku like the back of my hand!" they'd be reminded that this isn't a normal Diku, and that the Dark Sun genre is not a Tolkeinesque hobbit-land. He would be asked again - if he has questions, and given links to the main newbie pages on the website. If he insists that he knows everything and doesn't want any help, then he'd be left to his own devices, for good or for ill.

This, I think, would really help new players who WANT to play Arm, and not just some mud-hopper who picks it because it's near the top of some alphabetical list on a mudsite somewhere in cyberland. It would also warn mudhoppers that there ain't no free rides, or free lunch, and if they don't read and pay attention to things, they'll just end up frustrated or pissed and leave, having wasted their own time and anyone who tries to help them.

It will also encourage new players who are on the fence - those who have potential to be awesome members of the Arm community, but don't really grasp the depth and aren't sure how they feel about it, or were intimidated by the vast size of the documentation and couldn't deal with wading through it all. Not the ones who had no intention of reading - or don't care if they muck it up for others or not. I mean the ones who THINK they might like Arm, but just can't handle so much documentation up front.

I think something like this, a system to help new players live, in the Hall of Kings so that they're outside the RP area and still inside enough to see actual demonastrations of syntax and commands - and try some themselves - would be a huge help.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

/\
^
^
^
^
#
#
#

I like this idea.

[Tlaloc]

Actually, I beleive some of us do try to intercept new players in the Hall of Kings, or at least, as soon as we find them in genneral. I know this has been something I've been dealing with lately, with a couple of other immortals, as self-appointed Newbie Wranglers.

Usually what we do, is occasionally search the 'who' list for new players, and if we see them looking lost (ie, wandering around aimlessly, looking for the bazaar, asking NPC's random questions, etc), then we intercept them, toss in some RP, and try to point them on thier way to a more 'Newbie Friendly' area - usually the local bar scene. Usually during this time theres alot of asking the new character about thier background, and figuring out which clan might suit them the best, and an attempt to get them into said clan. Sometimes this is the Byn (heh), but I've successfully gotten newbies hired into Houses like Kadius, Tenneshi, Winrothol...

As a player, I've watched out for newbies, and tried to take them under my wing, and I encourage everyone to do so, as well. I think alittle OOC hastle is worth it to get one more addict hooked on Crackageddon.

Unfortunately, we can't be everywhere, and when we're not bogged down becaues of time issues (due to spending time doing things like planning HRPTs, or whatever), we sometimes get caught up in other restrictions of staff-dom. However, we do our best.

Have any new players reading this been (or think they've been) the recipients of the Newbie Wrangling? How did it affect your descision to keep playing?

[creeper386]

Personally I think if your going to go to that level. It's be easier to set up a seperate port with a small little area accessible to helpers and staff and allows them to okay people to be in there so they can help them with things.

Overall though. It's just going to be alittle more help to the people that are sticking around, and a waste for the people that won't stick around. The learning curve isn't that difficult if someone acctually uses the resources provided. Even plenty of things that points out that it's alittle more then neccessary to read at least some of the documents. Although I could see more emphasis on helpers being more helpful. There are a few links but from reading the site it seems more of a last help you look into. Get people to email/PM helpers first. This may get helpers spammed some, but can always get more helpers for the basic, "New Player" sort of thing. I know even myself can bring someone into Arm with no MUD background and not too much mental strain on either one.

It's all there that a new player needs. May be hard to find, or seem like too much to read through at first but it's all there.

Creeper

[Rindan]

I actually have seen what Thaloc is talking about.  I e-mailed the MUD after words and told them what they did was awesome.  I believe it was Myrdryn who did it.  Some poor newbie picked Red Storm as a starting point and had either been killed once or simply mugged because he was stark naked.  An imm animated the bar keeper, gave him some clothing, and paired the newbie up with me and another patron in a little mini quest that sent him to Allanak, gave him some more starting coin, and in general put him in a MUCH better place then where he was.  I personally think that that sort of stuff does more to help then anything else.

You really can only spoon feed a newbie so much.  All of the information is there.  While we can continue trying to find ways to shove the information that is already there in a newbie's face, I think that the best solution really is just to get said newbie with other skilled players.  Once hooked up with other players I think that newbies stand a much better chance of staying.  Between the GDB, the sick help files, and a mind blowing website, I don't think you can make finding information any easier.  I don't think another newbie guide is going to help.  I think the burden is on the players to teach the newbies and get them involved.  Where the imms can I think they should throw in a lending hand and hook players up with newbies.  The example of a newbie in Red Storm is a great example.  An imm hooked a newbie up with a few players and get the newbie to a better place along with some clothing and starting cash.  The newbie didn't exactly get his hand held, but he wasn't left to the wastes.  I think that is the direction that things should go.

[Gorobei]

Have any new players reading this been (or think they've been) the recipients of the Newbie Wrangling? How did it affect your descision to keep playing?

I'm not a new player but, yes, this is a great service you're doing, Tlaloc.
On my first day of playing an imm followed me around the bazaar, animating various NPCs, helping me out when I got captured by the Ministry of Trade, etc.  That was enough to get me to log on a second time (I probably wouldn't have if not for the imm), and I found a nice, encouraging piece of mudmail.  So, I stuck around, and here I am.

[__Torax__]

GREAT BALLS OF TREGIL SHIT, MUK UTEP! :twisted:

[Sanvean]

My 2 sids wrote:

I hope players think about sharing this mud with e-mail and pen and paper based role players. Actually, its not that hard to learn as one's first MUD.

I've thought about this and it's one of the reasons Darklyn put together the flyer that's on the community page, which sorely needs updating. If anyone is interested in updating that, go for it. I don't have the Adobe authoring software, so I haven't. That's the sort of thing that could go up in game or bookstores.

I like the automated tips idea and will ask our coders how possible it is.


Tmp wrote:

This goes for some of the other actions/commands in the Mud, which I knew confused me to no end because of their lack of feedback whether entirely or incomplete. (I can't remember which ones in particular anymore ... being a newbie seems so long ago ... some skills/commands gives you minimal feedback messages that you're left hangin and wonderin if that's all to it and get confused as to whether it's normal or maybe just lack of your skill)

Please feel free to bug or idea something that you think should provide more feedback, and include what you think the feedback should be. We've worked on making these friendlier over time, but haven't caught them all.


number13 wrote:

Little things like semi-detailed maps of the towns (er better than the ones in the help file) and perhaps a primer on how to survive in a given region might go a long way...for example, it took me while to finally stumble on to the Office of Mining and the templar's water "store". Seems like my character should have already known how to find these places and why they are important.

I think the whatyouknow documents need to be updated - I'll add them to my list but if anyone wants to step up and suggest how various ones should be worded, go for it. By the same token, if anyone is interested in joining the Publicity group, which coordinates trying to publicize the mud and discussing how to broaden the playerbase, please PM me and I'll add you to that group.