a year

[Nameless Face]

I just had my one year anniversary for ArmageddonMUD.

I decided to take the time and give the GDB and the Armageddon community some of the perceptions and perspective of a slightly older n00b.  This is entirely a matter of one player's opinions, and can safely be ignored.

I had never tried any MU* or text-based multi-user online game of any type before.  I had never used Instant Messenging or any real-time interactive text medium for communication, and am a poor typer.  I had never used any type of Mud-client software, and I did not have any friends who were players, or who I could ask for advice or hints.  In short, it is difficult to imagine anyone possibly being any more clueless than I was.

I did try and prepare a bit.  I spend two weeks reading the docs. before submitted my first character, who was approved.  Then, I spent three real-life days in the Hall of Kings trying to learn how to make my PC do things with the emote system like touch his own toes. On June 1st, last year, my first PC stepped out from the Hall of Kings.

The first thing I think it is important to say is that this game is HARD.  It is -damn- hard.  Just learning to simply move a character around is daunting.  There is almost nothing intuitive about any of it.  Having to hold a visualization of the environment and your character's precise position in it is moderately challenging, remembering that he still has his glass raised from an emote ten minutes ago, but learning to manipulate the code is downright daunting.  "Sit table", "sit 2.table", "sit rounded", "sit with chubby", "tell chubby (with a sneer)", "say (to ~chubby, with a sneer)", "talk", and "ask" and when and how to use them correctly... the wonderfully complex emote system:  it is damn hard work.  Having to do everything three times... once to emote and paint the picture, once to call the coded action, and finally to change the ldesc to match the scene you have created is not easy for a novice, and if you screw up with any of those parts, it is quite possible that it is going to give an echo to the entire room that is embarassing nonsense with your character's sdecs attached to it, and invite ridicule.

Playing Arm well is a skill.  A -complex- skill.  A skill that is entirely separate from your ability to visiualize and have a solid grasp of your character.  A skill that is different from staying in character, or role-playing.  And it is a skill that takes a lot of effort and persistence to develop.

A lot of Armageddon is not helpful to the novice as well.  The documents themselves state that.  I imagine that I spend a good twenty hours of my life emoting out these complex examinations of the food I was eating, breaking it down between my fingertips, delicating separating out the nuts from the cake upon my wooden plate trying to use the "analyze" skill to understand the world around me, and how this damn meal was made.  It took me two months before I found buried on the GDB the fact that "analyze" produces a blank response if the item simply cannot be crafted.  For a total novice, there are more of these types of non-responsive code echoes then you might realize or remember.  My first character had a crafting skill, but could not for the life of him get the code to work.  He could emote his heart out, but it turns out that he was adding a "." at the end of his "craft <item> <item> <item> into <simplest possible crafted item>" code call.  Two players IG, after I struggled with the problem for weeks IC and finally broke down and asked (for the first time) for OOC help with the syntax, responded by stating that they were forbidden from helping (especial thanks for the player who sent "OOC  :p").  I should mention, but the way, that my opinion at that time was that Helpers were for pussies... although I would strongly encourage -other- newbies to use them now.

You can read all the documents, but nothing makes sense at first.  It truly is overwhelming.  What IS an IMM?  What qualifies as enough of an emergency to try to Wish up?  Why is my stamina dropping everytime I walk now?  Alright, I've punched the guy for being a wiseass, now why am I -still- attacking? How come this guard who has entirely ignored my questions and conversation for the last month as if I didn't exist  now suddenly run from half-way across the city in four seconds because I touched this shubbery?  Common sense helps, but can seem absolutely useless in some situations.  Repeated trial and error, which can lead to the death of few PCs in a row to any particular situation, can be the only way to get enough information to understand and behave in a rational sense in the game world's context without using OOC means like reading the GDB.

I love the game.  I stuck it out.  I still stick it out and struggle and make a ton of mistakes. The best teachers I had didn't teach at all.  They just played and let me try to bring as much as I could into the scene.  The best ones took the time to try to decypher what the player behind the bumbling newbie character was -trying- to do, and RPed off that.  They weren't necessarily nice PCs, a few screwed me over big time, but they were gracious in their interpretation and shafted me royally not with superior code knowledge, but because it was what the world and their roles required.

I have been really fortunate in my early clan experiences, and have been remarkably impressed with the commitment and patience of the staff in almost all of my interactions.  This game is obviously a real labor of love and devotion for most of the players and staff that seem to have been around awhile. The best scenes, and the best RP I have witnessed (the kind that leaves me with that "whoah.... awesome" feeling) still motivates me to improve so that I could play that way for others.  Obviously I enjoy it enough to keep working on entertaining myself and contributing as I can.  

Take what you want from this cross-section.  It is not intended as a big group hug, or a list of belly-aching complaints.  Just one surviving n00b's take.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I would actually suggest to the poster that he/she put this post in as a review on TMS. It is brutal, honest, and sounds real. It is not all happy, but it is ultimately positive. It is, ultimately, Armageddon.

By the way, congratulations on sticking around.

[ShaLeah]

I know exactly who this person is just by reading the post and God do I wish half the people, myself included, had put that much time and effort into making their first character.

This person has come a long way and continues to improve. They continue to survive in spite of how hard it is.

There is obviously hope in murder, corruption and betrayal.

[Sanvean]

It'd make a great TopMudSites review *nudgenudge*.

I'm glad you stuck with the game.

[Cenghiz]

We're not allowed to help OOC? Bah!... Nameless face; AFAIK we ARE allowed to whisper a newbie some OOC chatter about syntax or commands in a remote area.
When I was a noob, I tried making my first recruitment, who's now playing even more than I do. We were walking together IG for the first time. I was OOC'in nearby the 'rinth like :"Here's the labyrynth, there's a helpfile about it. Sneak is a command here people use, help skill_sneak..", then an oldbie came in and after some time he suddenly said "Shut up the OOC." I wasn't for sure giving out IC secrets and we were alone till that PC came. I'm upset now that I was scared that I was disobeying an important rule then, so I gave up helping him.
So s**rew you, RP polices, ARM is harsh because the environment is harsh. Not because a noob just didn't understand the "room" logic of a MUD or coudln't cook that damned meat. Most of the newbies forgot to remove "a/an" or added a period, I did both, and I OOC'ed it a lot of times to help.
Of course, I'll still hiss at n00bs who ask before even trying, but if a char IG OOC's for some syntax which's already a little hard to guess, I'll be his man, I'll sheathe my poisoned dagger and OOC him a zillion times, till he learns. Period.

Cenghiz the Hissing Jackass

[spawnloser]

Cenghiz, I'm with the 'oldbie' as you called him.  Too much OOC breaks the mood.  Keep it to a bare minimum and give as much learning as you can IC.

[Another Sandy Begger]

I would like to add another aspect to this conversation. Just because you are new to the game, (your stereotypical newbie) dosent mean you are much worse off than the rest of us. No matter how much karma you get or how much of the world you have seen, or how much you have experienced. The game world is so vast and so complex/tedious, that there is always something you havent experienced yet. And we still all make stupid mistakes from time to time, so dont get discouraged new players.

For example, when I got my first magiker, I was thrilled to death and immediately went to work with trial and error putting the code words together to decipher what my spells were. I spent the better part of 15 hours with pen and paper, trial and error, trying to put the words in the right order so that I could use my spells. Then after all of that, happy with myself, I decided to check my email before going to bed after an exhausting day of Arm. Thats where I found my entire list of spells emailed to me with thier proper casting words that I just spent 15 hours trying to figure out.....so its not all grapes and cherrys even after you have been around for real life years, there is always something new to learn, and no matter how experienced you are, part of you is still in the same boat with all of those newbies.

Just me giving one to all those struggling newbies we adore.  

[Vettrock]

The list of spells in the initial email is a new thing.  I figured out every spell through trail and error spam, with the exception of one which was told to me by another character in the game.

I'm glad they email you the list of spells now, because it can get pretty tedious.  and the other problem was when you found the right word combination, if you cast it with nil, you don't know which spell you just tried to cast unless you cast it at un...which can be dangerous....