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

[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.