Do we (awaits the beatings) need a n00b school?

[jmordetsky]

:ducks the barrage of stones.

Okay, okay...before I'm slaughtered by the wolves. I don't mean your normal sort of n00b school.

But what about an optional place in the hall of kings where a n00b could learn the ins and outs of the emote engine, be force fed the "what you would know" docs and generally get an idea of whats expected of them. I would also personally include an OOC lecture about what the crim code is.

Might help up the player base?

On a side note, what kind of stats do we have for the ammount of new accounts that are generated and go idle verses created and remain active?

[captjak]

The idea of a Noob school would be alright, as a possible 4-? rooms where you would get examples of how to emote, and other simple commands like that.  But it would also be one that if you are on your 10th character you shouldn't really need so you wouldn't have to point at it.

Two sid.

[Crazy Hakhim]

IMHO, it can be a good idea, there's nothing bad about a little intro that lets people into the world a little more smoothly.
Personally, however, I'm not certain it's necessary - Even though I'm hardly the most active player, I've yet to see a newbie mistake that seriously impaired my enjoyment, and, being newly weaned out of novicehood myself (Probably not entirely yet, either), I don't feel I ever had a major problem with the game syntax/mechanics/what-have-you.
Then again, I often have a feeling I went over the helpfiles before starting to play a bit more than is natural.

That said, if people feel a newbie school/intro/experimentation zone will help them, I don't have anything against it.

[Laeris]

This is a project that a group of us are discussing and brainstorming at the moment.  In my opinion, it's a worthwhile addition for new players if only because of the often complex syntax of Armageddon's various features.  I know that when I first started playing about ten years ago, and there were fewer features then, I was often overwhelmed.  Something to eliminate this confusion before it has a chance to occur could only enhance the gameplay once someone makes it into the game.

[Trenidor]

One thing I don't like about N00b schools is that you tend to get the feeling your doing things in vain. On other muds (ones I have long since abandoned because of this) they have noob schools that you do things and learn commands, but it makes you think that the whole world is about practicing commands, emoting silly stuff, whatever.

Although I put down kill him and burn him, I can see it being an extreemly good thing if it was run by PCs specifically.
If you were new, would you rather have NPCs show you how things worked, or have PCs show you the ropes? I personally would pick PC anyday over a NPC, but there's a problem with this...

No one is going to hang around all day waiting for n00bs to come along just to show them the ropes. If although, we did get this, I could see a conversion effenciency of 98%

[EvilRoeSlade]

If you were new, would you rather have NPCs show you how things worked, or have PCs show you the ropes? I personally would pick PC anyday over a NPC, but there's a problem with this...

And that is why we have helpers.

[Trenidor]

Why not just have experienced players volunteer to spend say...and hour a day in an area composed of 4 rooms, just to help n00bs learn the game?

I for one, would volunteer an hour or more helping out n00bs if it were made avalible in this way.


A seperate character would have to be used for this so when the noobs get in the game they don't RP out that they know your character  (but you could always teach the that before hand)

[jmordetsky]

Why not just have experienced players volunteer to spend say...and hour a day in an area composed of 4 rooms, just to help n00bs learn the game?

Logistics. Much tougher to have a player available. Though, that said at the end of the school a feature could allowing a n00b to ask a help questions. Through something like wish...

[Trenidor]

If you were new, would you rather have NPCs show you how things worked, or have PCs show you the ropes? I personally would pick PC anyday over a NPC, but there's a problem with this...

And that is why we have helpers.

I don't think helpers are sought after as much as we all would hope they would. When I was new I don't even remember us having them, In fact I didn't even know about this untill like last year and they poofed out of thin air (Did we have them longer than that???)

[Trenidor]

Logistics. Much tougher to have a player available. Though, that said at the end of the school a feature could allowing a n00b to ask a help questions. Through something like wish...

A channel?? MAn I hate those things...


If you want something like that put down a board with a list of all the helpers.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I'm all about easy access, so I think that the link to the helper list should be put up on the main page as well as mentioned in the game itself when you log on (maybe it is already?).

But doing nothing for an hour a day, waiting for a newbie that probably won't even show up, and if they do are more likely to skip the n00b rooms than do anything else?  No thanks.  I want the newbies to come to me, and I suspect that you'd get tired of that really quickly, despite what you say otherwise.

It is far too inefficient, and I can't imagine very many people volunteering for it and sticking with it for long.

We have helpers and quite frankly, I can't think of an improvement on this system.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Once upon a time, we had second characters, designed specifically for the Arena system. This option is still available, but there is no longer an arena system.

If staff would allow us to log onto our characters and our arena characters at the same time, our arena characters could become our helper characters. Those helper characters could then be online in the noob rooms even while we played our normal characters. When we were heavily involved with our normal characters, we could simply change our helper characters' long descriptions to say we were afk.

If we go the route of having a newbie school, I think that this would work fine.

[amoeba]

I marked good but I'm going to qualify it heavily.  

1. I don't want to see a mandatory, you have to pass through this school to continue, type of place.  One of the greatest features of Arm is the heavy RP.  A n00b "school" is the antithesis of what the spirit of this place is about IMHO.

2. I do however think that an optional "training room" that a player could choose to enter at anytime could be useful.  I see it something like typing "newbie" will put you in a quiet area to practice and learn your skills.  I would not like to see multiple PC's in the "room" , just the person honing up thier skills.  This way if a person was seen to be lacking in RP ability they could either choose on thier own to go there, or be .. ahem.. encouraged.  Even some mildly experienced players might want to pop in and refresh on the ~,@,#,% skills as an addition to the very good web emote emulator.

3. Newbie channels, or channels of any kind: not just no, but hell no.

[Meatwad]

A room you can enter anytime by typing newbie?  Sweet!  I'm gonna attack a templar, then quick type newbie!  Oh and we can practice skills there too?  Awesome, I'll be the best backstabber ever in no time once I've "learned" how to do that.

Something in the hall of kings, that's obvious, and optional, seems best.  Perhaps a tavern type room so they can practice emotes with objects and npcs targeted in the emote.

[Trenidor]

Mojo's Tavern [north west east south]

This tavern is chock full of people, drinking, smoking, and relaxing at
various places of the room. Several tables and chairs are found
throughout the room along with a bartop at the northeast corner between
two doorways to differnt rooms. Noise of brawls and bettings take place in
the room east of here. To the north is a large gambling hall, lined on the
walls with differnt colored torches. The western section of the tavern is
open completly into a broad flat area without any furniture. At the end of this area is a stage platform. South of here is an addition to the tavern where several shops stand selling things. There are no windows or openings in this building except for the doorway where a bulky man stands.
There is a Information Board here. [Look board to see what's on it]
There is a fake board here.

When you come into the hall of kings, it has a line added on the bottom that says:

[TO GO THROUGH NEWBIE TRAINING TYPE: ENTER TAVERN]

When you do that the bulky bouncer takes your money and replaces it with sand piece coins.

On the board there's a general note on top, along with several topics that lead to the help files.

The general note would look like this:
Here you can read up on the documentation of armageddon. Thanks for
creating a character and please read through some of this stuff if no one
is here to assist you through the newbie school. The following are the
topics you can choose from, to see what they say, type: Read (#) for
example, read 1 will tell you about how boards work.

1] How boards work
2] bla bla whatever normal boards have only with topics about arm

Then on topic one put down that reading is illegal, and that the boards you find on arm are not actually around in the game. and put down that how to use a real board (commands, as well as how you should format a post)


Then the fake board would be a practice board for when they want to actually write stuff.

There'd be a bartender that you could buy junk off of with sand coins, and then you go south and can buy stuff from the other shops.

To the north you can learn how to use fighting skills, there'd be no brawl code in there. When you come back to the main room you can practice the brawl code.

And there could be a jail in the southern room that they lock you in if you attack someone in the other places.

then to the west you could practice all your singing and music playing. several general instruments could be there in a chest or something.

and to the east is a gambling den where dice and cards are handed out freely. There you could practice betting and crap.

On the info board you can put down a list of helpers as the second toppic, and what to do if no one is around in mojo's tavern. (go practice any skills they figure out)

Make sure you keep the board short cuz a lot of people hate reading more than a small paragraph of text.

When they try and leave, it takes all their belongings they got from the room, and the sid is given back to them. Then the bouncer says something and your back in the hall of kings.

[Stroker]

A newbie school? Why, we have the Byn! No, I'm kidding .... or am I?

[Sanvean]

If you have played other RPI muds, and liked their newbie system, could you post what it was that you liked? I'm also interested in things that you -didn't- like.

[Trenidor]

oh oh oh, I hated having to go through certain tasks in a row. The funner ones would let you go around freely.

[Linedel]

This isn't directly "mudschool" related...  but while re-learning command syntax etc., while most of the basics are coming back to me, a few subtleties aren't obvious.  It might be nice to have a "verbose emotes" option for echoing the "TO_ROOM" version of social act commands to the player in addition to the normal self version.

And then there's the ones that give no echo to the user at all - such as "north (slapping himself on the forehead with an arcane tome)".  All you get is an "Ok."  Does this go to both rooms?  entering room only? what exactly does it show?  etc.

I'd turn this on for a while at least...

[Bestatte]

What I didn't like about MOST newbie schools I've seen:

1) Big complex newbie schools. Meaning - mini quests that take you through a dozen room to get the key that take you to the secret room where you kill the dragon who drops a set of greaves you can wear as your starting gear.

2) A kajillion combat rooms, each of which have shimmering phantoms and ugly thieves and law-abiding citizens and hungry dogs you can kill, loot, and "sacrifice" to get points and coins.

3) NPCs who auto-talk to you the second you walk into the room about things your character may or may not have any interest in or need to know - or campy "Hi, I'm Scholar Susie, and I'm here to teach you how to TALK in the game!" crappola. I'm not a 5th grader - please don't treat me like one.

What I do like about SOME newbie schools I've seen:

1) Just a few rooms - one that gives you the opportunity to experiment with command syntax used most often

2) Easy-to-read and readily visible signs/boards that give you specific instructions - example:

Several signs are here. To see what the brown one says, type READ BROWN. Follow the same syntax for all other colored boards.
A BROWN sign is here, explaining the emoting system.
A GREEN sign is here, explaining movement commands.
A PURPLE sign is here, explaining basic combat syntax.
A RED sign is here, explaining your first ten minutes in the game with your character.

The brown sign might direct them to move WEST to a room that has some NPCs and objects they can practice their emotes with (plus include the emote help-file).

The green sign would direct them to try all the exits in the newbie area, and encourage them to play with movement emotes and things like run/walk/etc (plus include the movement helpfile).

The purple sign would have the main combat stuff - wield, ep/es, draw, load, pull, flee, flee self, nosave, mercy - and direct them UP where they can practice these moves on a sparring dummy.

The red sign would just go over what things they should do immediately upon entering the game from the Hall of Kings - put their coins in their pack (and syntax to do this), close their pack, take stock of their inventory, stats, skills, score, looking at themselves, LOOK TABLES, LOOK EAST (for example), LEAVE, reminding them of WISH/BUG/TYPO/IDEA and the helper webpage, suggesting they look for a water source in their first day of playing, and wishing them luck.

[amoeba]

OK to belabor the point, Meatwad's subtle sarcasm notwithstanding.  Yes abuses in a command are possible.  I did not address them as I figured the IMM's are a smart bunch and would put in appropriate safeguards.  Here is why I propose it as a reenterable room as opposed to a one time hall of kings thing.

In my experience newbie schools in most places serve a limited purpose. They tend to only serve the lowest common demominator, that is the person who has had limited, if any, experience with muds.  Every one I have seen exists to teach basic syntax (i.e. walk, kill, flee, etc.).  A number of them also use the newbie school to setup stats and such.  I have been on a number of them that "required" you to complete the school before graduating to the real world.  To be honest I speed through them as fast as possible as they were boring as hell.  (oh on a side note, you'd be suprised at the number of people who never made it through newbie schools, they quit the mud within a few moments).

The problem as I see it is that the concepts we are trying to instil in the new people is two fold.  One, a sense of the world and how it works. Two, how to effectivly RP, primarily emote.  I don't know how the others feel about this, but with the rigid application process, I doubt that we get too many people unable to do basic commands (i.e., walk, kill, flee).  It might however, be nice to have a safe place to practice the concepts and syntax.  As this is an ongoing process of learning, there were times for me when it would have been a nice thing to have.  I like Trenidor's description of the workings, but if it only exists at the start of a character's existance, then I believe it has limited value, as the problem people will just speed through it, thinking "just another newbie school" only to end up on the other side wishing they hadn't.

my 2 sids, now I need to get back to work.

[Barzalene]

What I didn't like about other newbie schools:
Places that force you to learn commands you already know or are intuitive.
Places you cannot leave until they're done lecturing you.
Cheesey fake rp with cheesy npcs.

[Agent_137]

i've said for awhile we need a well done newb school. I'm not going to define "well done" here except by two requirements:

1. Optional.
2. It explains not just how to play the mud, but gives a basic understanding of Zalanthas.

[Teleri]

No, no newbie school needed.  Those who want to learn how to play the game will contact the helpers listed on the website, and try to figure stuff out by themselves and watching what other chracters are doing.  That's how I learned, that's how we all learned.  That's one of the more beautiful aspects of this game, is that there is no IC help for these issues.  

Those who don't learn this way, even though there are plenty of help files organized in a very simple manner and a superabundance of helpers, will either leave or repeatedly fail until they DO learn.  This is how it has always been, and the MUD has flourished as a result of it.  The game is harsh, and the lack of a newbie school reflects that.  Those who don't like that will choose not to play the game or they will just grin and bear it.  

If people are serious about playing the game, they will learn how all of us have to this day.  Trial and error, slaps by immortals, and questioning.  When we give all of this to the incoming newbies, they get lazy and the game suffers as a result of their laxity in maintaining character and keeping up with everything.  Those people who need a newbie school probably aren't serious about playing this game as it should be, and are more about HnS and far too impatient.  I don't think this sort of player should be encouraged to play Arm.  Instead, we need the people who are coming off of worse, wannabe-RPI MUDs like The Eternal City, Aetolia (sp?), ect.  These people will learn as we all have, and need no newbie school.  

This MUD will not run out of players just because it may be tough to get a handle on and they will leave.  Those who are patient and serious about getting past the mechanics to RP will stay onboard.  Adding a newbie school will degrade the high level of quality players (though I see it rapidly degenerating in some cases), and cut down on this game's originality.  I say, keep things the way they are.

[amoeba]

Teleri makes a good arguement.  Can I change my vote to no?

[Agent_137]

I like to think a newbie school would start n00bs on the track to great role players who love to roleplay, instead of the current system which turns away people who don't want to roleplay and just trains people who already love to roleplay.

ZALANTHAS is harsh, the game should be fun. -period-

How can you expect people to be serious about a game they've played for two minutes? Let them taste the world, go "Ah this tastes good, I must eat more." Not, "Roll your dice here folks! You have to decide if you like it before you play or waste a buncha time on nothing!"

I don't think this sort of player should be encouraged to play Arm.

Sorry, i normally hate to strike directly at other peoples opinions...but NO. "This sort of player" should be shown the doorway to the fun that is RP. Trust me, this game isn't built for powergaming. If that's all they want, they'll leave soon enough. Better to gain some converts that must grow into good citizens than turn away ALL THE HEATHENS.

BURN THE HEATHENS.


CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED.

whoops! sorry for the sarcam at the end. I couldn't go a whole post without it!

[Gilvar]

Another neat idea might be a 'test-port' where everyone logs onto their own private rooms, or even own private temporary port, or just an offline replication of the game, that lets people try out commands (not skills), basically learning how to say, walk-around, moeve-emote, emote, shop, tailor things, etc.

[The Whip]

I think n00b school be ok.I probably could learn some stuff from it. :cry:

[flurry]

I would prefer that it be completely independent of the application process, and be unrelated to the Hall of Kings.

For instance, an option on the main menu when you log in that says:

(z) New Players Tuturial (Optional)

And if you enter that option, you get some kind of generic character to use in a few rooms and read some information and get used to some basic emotes.   Have some NPCs there to look at (at least a good example for each of the basic races), or even "talk" to, maybe a place they could try out interacting with a merchant (buy/sell/view/barter) or testing out combat.   Again, this would have nothing to do with the character they actually play, and not require them to have sent in a character application.  

I personally think it's better if players using this are not guided through a linear process.   Then can enter the area, test out whatever they feel like testing out, read what they want to read, and log out from the tutorial area whenever they're ready.   No need to do A before you can do B, or wait for X before you can move along to Y.

Any player could enter this area if they want to.   (Again, not with their character.)    A helper could even go meet a newbie there, to help them with some particular bugaboo.

[Carnage]

No, no newbie school needed. Those who want to learn how to play the game will contact the helpers listed on the website, and try to figure stuff out by themselves and watching what other chracters are doing. That's how I learned, that's how we all learned.

And why would they want to learn how to play the game if they can't get into it and find out whether or not it's worth their time?

As for the original post and force-feeding the files, you can't do that unless you either hold a gun to their head or try to make them take some sort of quiz. The former is illegal (I'll do it for fifty bucks and transportation) and the latter is cheesy.

[Seeker]

I would prefer that it be completely independent of the application process, and be unrelated to the Hall of Kings.
 

There are a lot of reasons to like this suggestion.  Also the "verbose echo" suggestion for some commands (like the imbeded "look" and movement emotes is a good one as well.)

Is the idea of the mentor system suggested about eight months ago dead?

Seeker

[Bestatte]

flurry what I had suggested (here and in a few other threads over the past two years) is pretty much what you're saying.

You show up as an anonymous person - not as your character. Your character doesn't exist until he shows up in the game anyway, so why should he be himself in the Hall of Kings? The code can "transform" the anonymous person into the character anyway, and does so with the stats, which are completely different from what you start out with in the HoK.

It wouldn't need to be a seperate server though. It can still be attached to the game, -prior- to showing up in the Hall of Kings. You show up as yourself - or your account name, or a pseudonym (like on the GDB). You go through the room or rooms, looking at stuff, making sure you have a good general idea of "how things work," and when you're ready you go to the central room (if there are several rooms) and do something like "enter building" - and that's when you're in the Hall of Kings. You can always "leave building" to get back to the newbie area before touching a city on the map, if you have second thoughts or want to check out something you forgot about when you were in there before.

This exact kinda system is implemented on a pay-to-play game I played prior to coming to Arm, and with the exception of people being overly loose with IC info (because they all hung out up in the OOC area, as it was called) it was an awesome system.

To tweak it to Arm standards, people could show up in virtual rooms that are unique to the player. The room would only exist during the time the player is in there - once the player leaves, the room "file" would close and return to the database, thus saving room in the game. Perhaps flag helpers so that they can enter rooms that are already occupied by newcomers, but otherwise those rooms would only allow the one person inside.

[flurry]

Yeah..looking back at your first message, that is essentially what was in my mind.   I like the idea of having a few rooms and the process being non-linear.

Although one of the reasons I prefer that it's independent of applying and getting a character approved, is so new players could test out some of the syntax while they're waiting for approval.   Also, even after they start a character, if they want to just test out some unfamiliar commands outside of the gameworld, they could do it there.

To tweak it to Arm standards, people could show up in virtual rooms that are unique to the player. The room would only exist during the time the player is in there - once the player leaves, the room "file" would close and return to the database, thus saving room in the game. Perhaps flag helpers so that they can enter rooms that are already occupied by newcomers, but otherwise those rooms would only allow the one person inside.

I like this idea too, Bestatte.

[Bestatte]

The pre-app waiting period can be easily resolved with a logon menu option, available for all players who have 1st or 2nd character pending, players who haven't yet submitted a character app yet, and helpers.

All of the above would be identified upon logging into mud (not the game itself) by their flag. Only those people would see an addition option on their menu, allowing them to enter the pre-Hall of Kings area.

If it's a mentor, and the mentor is already in the game, he wouldn't have to log off mud - he'd only need to log out his character and return to the menu that asks him if he wants to disconnect from the game, enter it with his character, check his mudmail, and whatever else that menu offers.

It would be a diku version of the system I had in mind, which is more of a modified Lambda MOO codebase.

[Meatwad]

So it seems we all pretty much agree that we DO want a training area/newbie school, it's simply how that is implemented that is the real debate.  I like the extra menu option Bestatte mentioned, and it would have to be an anonymous character, not hte desc the person wrote up.  I would probably go through it even though I'm not really a newbie, just to see how emotes, walking emotes et cetera look to others for sure.  I rarely use walking emotes because of a few things I'm not sure about them.

So what's the next step?

[jhunter]

Uhhmmm..."we all pretty much agree" ? Over 50% of the votes are against it.

[Bestatte]

Considering that if you have 5 GDB accounts you can vote 5 times, thus rendering all polls virtually invalid -

I'd say that the proof is in the posting. And out of all the different people who have posted here, I notice only two who are against any manner of introductory "area" for new players within the game.

I'd say that makes a "most of us agree".

[jhunter]

Considering that not everyone who voted posted, I'd say that it doesn't really say much either. I don't know what I've done to have you following me around on the board arguing with me today Bestatte, but I hope whatever has set you off goes away and you begin to feel better.

Thanks again.

Have a nice day.  

[bioproject]

Yeah, Armageddon is its own n00b school, I'm saying, I really think the only way you can learn how to do things properly, in the game, is by practice and example.  A noob school, I think, would cause people to ignore the learning curve of the game.  I'm saying, whenever I joined a MUD, I would always blast through the school, see what was different than your average DIKU, and then go on with it.  The fact that we don't have a noob school or a Midgaard is a good indication to the player of how different this mud is from other muds and forces them to build the necessary connections to survive...

[Callisto]

We don't need a newbie school.

We have been teaching our newbies through experience and example since long before I started playing the game. I think we have a better player base and a better game because of it, too.

A newbie school would be a step back from where we are now, as far as I'm concerned.

[Meatwad]

Perhaps a web link called newb school, with all the neccesary information and tools we've been discussing there.  Then, after the accounts first character is applied for, that link is shown as a resource.  It'd be optional that way too.  Just another idea.

[Carnage]

Considering that if you have 5 GDB accounts you can vote 5 times, thus rendering all polls virtually invalid -

I'd say that the proof is in the posting. And out of all the different people who have posted here, I notice only two who are against any manner of introductory "area" for new players within the game.

I'd say that makes a "most of us agree".

That's just as unreliable. Maybe the people who don't agree don't feel like posting their reasons that have been rehashed in many a thread beforehand and simply voted. Or they just did neither: vote nor post. The GDB certainly does not represent the entire playerbase of the MUD.

[LazyDiealot]

Wow..you guys sure rip apart a fairly harmless observation of the general trend of the posts Meatwad had been seeing..

[Delirium]

We don't need a newbie school.

We have been teaching our newbies through experience and example since long before I started playing the game. I think we have a better player base and a better game because of it, too.

A newbie school would be a step back from where we are now, as far as I'm concerned.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly.

[Linedel]

The question to ask upon deciding whether a "MUD school" would be valuable is.. who is the target audience.

Is it,

a) Roleplayers that have no experience with online gaming,

or

b) MUDders that think they might want to find out what this roleplaying thing is.


If it is a), it's pretty obvious that something might be useful.

If it is b), they won't look at it anyways.


Considering that in the long run, group a) is more likely to generate productive members of the community, and, all babble about "we've always taught our newbies this other way" aside,  you don't know how many of this group have left simple because of the non-intuitive interface that text-based games have.  (Any way you swing it, though the basic "say" and "emote" might be easy to pick up, using punctuation to target characters, and say, "2.kalan", are not immediately intuitive to a non online-gamer.)

I'm thinking the audience would be roleplayers with no online experience...

A "MUD school" wouldn't really hurt anyone established character's experience (excluding the "OMG why did that builder spend a week doing that, when they could have learned to code and make a brand new whatever system, so much hate" posts), so I don't see why the severe negatives are around...

[Meatwad]

I honestly don't see how a crash course "Welcome to Zalanthas" or what have you would be so bad, especially if it is completely optional.  We have been teaching our newbies by experience, sure, and many have also been hunting them for their newbie cash as well.  Oh, they just weren't familiar yet with how this mud works, by killing their character they will learn.  That's nonsensical.  Just a few rooms that can be accessed from the menu while waiting for approval would be nice.  They could have race relations in them, an emote tool to get a good grasp of that, and a few other things people would need to know about Zalanthas.  It would just be another tool to help people come to Armageddon and stay, much like the many documents, the helpers, and the help files.  I'm not really sure how this would be a detriment to a player's role playing.

[Bestatte]

I'm more interested in options that allow people to play around with syntax prior to entering the game.

Using the emoting system, learning about "LEAVE" to get out of a building and "ENTER BUILDING" to get in - these things might be common knowledge to people who are used to the Diku code, but not all games people come from originated with Diku and it won't be common knowledge to people coming from those games.

The help files are great - if you know what you're looking for. But if you show up in the game and look for "help OUT" because "out" was the syntax you are used to, you won't find a help file. If you come from a game where the syntax was "ACT" and not "EMOTE" you won't find a help file on the emoting system, no matter how hard you try. In some other games, they are VERBS - not SOCIALS - and you won't find a helpfile on verbs in the Arm docs.

The informational pages on the website are great also - if you know what you're looking for. The "Newbie guide" isn't listed on the home page. You have to go to the Intro page to find it listed.

Furthermore! Reading and doing are two different things. I can know, through reading, that the game is harsh - but until I actually play it I won't really have a good understanding of what that means. I can know, through reading, all about the combat system. I can have memorized every word on every page about combat. But until my character gets involved in a fight, I will have no "real" understanding of the combat system.

PLAYERS should have the opportunity to get a feel for the syntax through use prior to creating a character in the game. Yes, the character can RP being new at this or that skill, or too nervous about being in the Barrel for the first time to be very emotive and shy. But it would be SO much more pleasant an experience for the player, if it was the player's -decision- to RP that way, rather than the player being stuck and HAVING to RP that way simply because they are unaccustomed to the syntax.

What's worse is when you show up and stuff is happening at the same time - and you have to stop watching the game screen to look stuff up because in your first moments in the game you blank out and can't remember the syntax to SAY something. Remember not all new Arm players came from a Diku game, and in fact not all Arm players have played ANY text-based game. Some are new to the whole online RPG experience and this is the first game they've ever played.

While we shouldn't 'cater' to them - we should certainly do what we can, OOCly, to make their IC experience as enjoyable as possible. And I really think some way to get them into a "mock-version" of a game room where they can check out syntax first hand by using it themselves would be a great help.

[Meatwad]

Absolutely excellent post Bestatte.  Well like Laeris said at the beginning of all this, it is being looked into and thought about.  We'll probably hear about it from staff later.  Hopefully they've taken into consideration the points brought up here, as well as the features mentioned.

[sacac]

I voted no, because I always hated those sort of things, But that is just me.
Some hard work sometimes with little or no payoff or as Comrade Canadia put it once (I'm relating here)

Solo rp is like masturbation.  It's fun.  Everyone should do it.  It gets a little tiresome after a few hours.

Or something like that.

[ShaLeah]

A while ago, maybe even years, I idead that we should have some kind of in game help for newbies but I don't like the idea of a newbie school per say.

I'd appreciate more a mentorship program where perhaps very trusted individuals were allowed to hire newbies and show them the ropes. These newbies would be pointed out to the select few (helpers maybe?) and they would go out of their way to interact with them in a patient, heck, even safe manner. Offering them starting roles that already have an experienced person protecting and guiding them would probably work out okay, don't you think?
Another alternative would be an interactive NPC that would guide the newbies through the Hall of Kings teaching them the basic commands as well as hinting at a few needed website addresses, this option would only be available the first time an account logged on:

Smiling at you, the raven-haired, swarthy man says, in sirihish:
    "Welcome to Armageddon! My name is Boopsie and I'll be your guide, type talk boopsie topics for a helpful list of Armageddon newbie transitional help."
>talk boopsie topics
emotes
hunger/thirst
cities
jobs
death
helpers
think
etc etc etc
Only allow newbie through once he or she has talked every topic.


I think (I know I was as a newbie) impatience is a big factor in why newbies end up frustrated. If I didn't have someone guiding me oocly I would have snapped within the first couple of hours.  I dunno, I'm just throwing stuff out there.

[Meatwad]

You don't want a newbie school, yet you want to force a newbie to talk to this NPC about every topic?  I would hate that.  Make it optional, and since it would be teaching newbies, it isn't much of a stretch to call it a newbie school of sorts, ShaLeah.

[Trenidor]

I absolutely hate talking NPCs. I don't ever use them on arm, nor will I ever. I rather use my own wordings to RP with npcs, never by what they say.

I think they'd give off the wrong impression to a noob if they were talking to a NPC, they might get the idea that all NPCs talk (or that they are PCs)