Find out IC

[Bestatte]

I haven't seen many problems with intuitiveness or help files, Tlaloc. Just a few isolated situations.

One is using a rope to climb. I assumed that "use rope down" would be the correct syntax, but I was wrong.  Unfortunately there is no help file for ropes, and it isn't included in the help-file for climbing. Intuitively yes, it makes perfect sense that a rope will help you climb, so that isn't the issue at all. It also makes sense that one would need to hold the rope.

But if you fail while holding it, how is it that you intuitively know that your failure isn't caused because you should -do- something actively with that rope, as opposed to simply lacking enough skill to make the climb?

It isn't a bug, and it isn't an earth-shattering "issue" that "needs" to be dealt with. It's just one of a few little things that could be resolved with either an added help file, or an added sentence to the existing climb help file.

Another is certain objects that one would assume could be held, but can't. In ordered to do what one thinks one should be able to do with them (according to the existing help files), one needs to hold them. But one can't. It's not a coded possibility. So one sends a note to mud asking if it's a bug. One is told to find out IC. That doesn't help. At all. Even remotely. So one experiments anyway, for weeks, and comes up with no solutions. Eventually one is told that a certain part of a specific skill is disabled due to bugs and the need to rewrite the system. And so weeks are wasted trying to find out IC something that doesn't work.

That's another thing, and IMO a bit more significant an issue than the matter of a rope. Because you can climb without a rope, but you can't use that certain object - without that certain object. And yet the help file implies that you should be able to use it.

I honestly don't see too many other problems with the help file worth mentioning. Granted, knowing whether or not you've successfully hidden would be great. I've idead it and posted here a suggested echo to the person trying to hide, so the hider still has a shot at being incorrect and not knowing it. It wasn't implemented, and that's fine by me. But yes, it would be nice.

[Carnage]

It isn't a bug, and it isn't an earth-shattering "issue" that "needs" to be dealt with. It's just one of a few little things that could be resolved with either an added help file, or an added sentence to the existing climb help file.

So pass on the knowledge.

[Bestatte]

To Carnage: Done, and thanks. I didn't realize there was a handy-dandy template for those help files.

[SykotikGith]

Wow! That's a cool template, I'll be sure to make use of it. Thanks, Carnage!

[crymerci]

I think that sometimes "find out IC" is an appropriate response.  However, I personally would like to see "ask a Helper privately" or "email the MUD account" used more frequently in its place.  Some things don't need to be advertised, but are not, on the other hand, sooper-sekrit.  Just because you were told to "find out IC" doesn't mean that's the only appropriate response.  If you say that to a newbie and their character dies because of the experiment, that may teach them that Zalanthas is harsh...or it may teach them that Armageddon players are assholes and encourage them to stop playing.

There is a sort of snotty elitism sometimes in telling someone to "find out IC" or even "check the helpfiles".  Most of us forget what it was like (or maybe never knew if we were already familiar with Diku etc.) what it's like to be so overwhelmed with the newness of the code and docs that you don't know how to do half the things you need to do just to get by. What it's like to know that you are not doing a very good job at playing your character because you don't know half the things they ought to know instinctively.

Once you've been playing the game awhile and you understand the quirks of code and documentation that aren't intuitive, you already have the solution to your problem because you know the un-intuitive way and it becomes intuitive.  Eventually you scoff at someone else's claim that something isn't intuitive, can't be found out ICly, and lacks logic, because you've understood it for so long that it seems simple.

I think the problem is that we're too often prone to making faces at the newbies, or people who are new to these "features" of the code/docs.  We don't want to hear that there's anything wrong with the way things are, because that's the way we know them and no one's ever fixed them before so they must not be broken.  It's understandable.  Nothing will ever be entirely intuitive for everyone, because we all come from different points of view.  It would take a legion of imms a decade to fix everything that one or five people thought was "wrong" about the game, and then someone else would bitch about the fix.

One example: I remember thinking as a newbie that there were things about the docs and/or how they were arranged that made it hard for me to find what I wanted, or understand basic things about the culture.  I also boggled at the amount of helpfiles and wondered how I would ever find the thing I was looking for. I've seen the same thing expressed by other newbies here.  But now I know how to lay my eyes on any doc I want & have access to, so it is intuitive now.  But that doesn't help the newbies, who arguably have more need of the docs than I do.

[Bestatte]

Crymerci, wow. Just - wow. I couldn't have said it better. You explained perfectly why it's SO important to pause and think hard before going the "find out IC" route.

Sometimes people come from games where everything is laid out for them, and they come here having absolutely no idea HOW to find something out IC. So telling them to do so just makes them frustrated.

So - thanks for your post. It was perfect, and dead-on.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes people come from games where everything is laid out for them, and they come here having absolutely no idea HOW to find something out IC. So telling them to do so just makes them frustrated.

So, doing something like Eternal did for me would be an answer then, no?

When I first showed up I was frustrated beyond belief because I couldn't find out where to get a merchant's token.  He told me to find out ICly but gave me some tips on how to go about asking for it.

Because of that I made IC friends and got a better understanding of Templars in the game.  I was much better for it.

Reading some of the posts in this thread, I wonder now if someone like Eternal would be afraid to say 'Find out IC, and here's how' for fear of sounding like an elitist.  When in truth, as a new player, I benefited from doing just that.

[Seeker]

There is a TREMENDOUS difference between the response:

"Find out IC."
      and
"Find out IC and here's how."

I just don't see the "and here's how" part nearly often enough on the GDB.


Seeker