May 2000
- Interesting online game Brian Green
- Bayesian statistics Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client Technology Jon Morrow
- Client Technology Todd McKimmey
- Client Technology Andrew Wilson
- Client Technology Ben Greear
- Client Technology Greg Munt
- Client Technology Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Client Technology Joel Dillon
- Advogato J C Lawrence
- tdbm etc. J C Lawrence
- text user interface Eli Stevens
- text user interface Chris Gray
- Legends of Kesmai, RIP Raph Koster
- Legends of Kesmai, RIP Clevmut@aol.com
- Medievia ads in PCGamer? Schubert, Damion
- Medievia ads in PCGamer? Rasdan
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) adam@treyarch.com
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) David Bennett
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) adam@treyarch.com
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) David Bennett
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) Chris Gray
- FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players) Chris Gray
- Addressing newbies Johan J Ingles-le Nobel
- Addressing newbies stoddart@slip.net
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
- Addressing newbies J C Lawrence
- Addressing newbies Chris Gray
- Addressing newbies Powell, Warren
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
- Addressing newbies Chris Lloyd
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
- Addressing newbies Chris Lloyd
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
On Mon, 22 May 2000, Chris Lloyd wrote:
> Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > [Warren Powell's idea of having aggressive monsters leave newbies alone]
> >
> > Potential for abuse is high. Large group of high-level characters die on
> > really tough NPC in the midst of a dangerous area. Rather than retrieving
> > their equipment "the hard way", they create a few newbies and run
> > through the area unmolested.
>
> If that happened in any game I was running, I would come down on that player
> like a ton of heavy things.
If you've got a playerbase of 30 and you've got the time to hang around
watching them all day every day, then sure. Once your playerbase gets up
into three digits, I would say policing this will become next to impossible.
It makes more sense to simply code the system so that it is not so obviously
abusable.
> I am not a big fan of players with more than one
> character, anyway. But that's a separate issue.
Playing different characters (and seeing the game world from different
perspectives) is a lot of fun, and adds a huge amount of replayability
to the game. I'm not sure why you'd want to limit this, unless there
was something very specific about your server that made
one-character-per-player benefit the players.
> > What is "obvious"? I have a slaver ship off one of the docks which has
> > numerous foreboding room descriptions, making it very clear that you
> > should not proceed unless you know what you're doing. [snip]
> > Even so, (relative) newbies get captured by the slavers ALL the time.
>
> Which is why every newbie needs a guild/city/clan/player-helper to ask about
> it:
>
> (Sunnydale City) Newbie: "Hi, I'm new. Can I go inside this scary ship?"
> (Sunnydale City) Bubba: "Best not. The slavers will capture you."
> (Sunnydale City) Newbie: "Oh. Thanks, anyway."
> (Sunnydale City) Bubba: "But just around the corner from where you are is a
> special newbie area."
> (Sunnydale City) Bubbba: "Go there, there are plenty of easy things to
> kill."
Again, I urge you to watch some "true" newbies play your mud for the first
time. (Just plop one of your friends down in front of your computer
sometime.)
Newbies, generally speaking, do not talk to anyone, pay attention to anything
in the room description, anything in their inventory, or anything in their
equipment. They do not bother to "consider" an NPC before attacking it,
or even look at him/her/it. And they *certainly* do not read any help files.
There are exceptions, but I have found this to be the case about 75% of
the time.
The ONLY way to keep newbies from frequently entering a dangerous area is
to physically restrict them from doing so.
> This especially happens when a mud uses a different system to stock muds.
> With newer and more complex worlds that use improved skill/character
> systems, even experienced mudders can get thrown. Hence the need for a
> _really_ good academy/introduction course and people to give advise to the
> newbies to.
Yes. And again, you want to present an absolute minimum of text, and allow
them to take at at their own pace. As soon as they start to reach
information overload, they get confused and frustrated, and log off.
> Sadly, yes. A map should be available, even it just so it shows off the
> scale of your world. (This can be large or small, depending on the size of
> you world. Looking at a map of a huge continent can be daunting if the two
> main cities are on opposite sides of it. At the same time, a small map makes
> the newbie think the world is not very developed).
I might mention that I have *many* newbies OOC "I'm lost!" or "Where can
I get a map!". This is despite the fact that you start with a map in
your inventory (item name is "a map of lower Ravenfall") and the game
prints a message like "Make sure to 'read' the tourguide and map in your
inventory!" when you enter the game.
As I said, you can *never* make important data blatant enough.
> > There's no reason that newbies should get stuck with the "boring" areas.
>
> Balance the regeneration time, too. There are few things worse than arriving
> in a new game, and finding the newbie area has been cleared out (and is
> being continuously clearing out) the easy areas.
As I don't have repops, persay, this isn't a problem for me. But certainly
you need to have enough "stuff" to do such that you can keep up with the
number of newbies your mud is bringing in.
Arctic handles this by adding new towns every so often. There are, I believe,
six newbie-accessable towns, each with their own newbie areas. You choose
one at random (or the one you prefer if you're an old-timer). If it's
too populated, you can go somewhere else.
Adam
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
- Addressing newbies Christopher Allen
- Addressing newbies J C Lawrence
- Addressing newbies J C Lawrence
- Addressing newbies Raph Koster
- Addressing newbies Christopher Allen
- Addressing newbies adam@treyarch.com
- Addressing newbies J C Lawrence
- Introduction Ian C. Smith
- constructive quests Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- new email address Travis Casey
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) J C Lawrence
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) J C Lawrence
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Matthew Mihaly
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Par Winzell
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Matthew Mihaly
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- [Meta] chest puffing (fwd) Matthew Mihaly
- Critique: Realms of Despair adam@treyarch.com
- Critique: Realms of Despair David Bennett
- Critique: Realms of Despair Kevin Scott London
- Critique: Realms of Despair adam@treyarch.com
- Critique: Realms of Despair Andrew Ritchie
- Critique: Realms of Despair adam@treyarch.com
- Critique: Realms of Despair adam@treyarch.com
- Critique: Realms of Despair Marc Bowden
- Software combinations Ian C. Smith
- Software combinations David Bennett
- Software combinations Erik Jarvi
- Software combinations Ian C. Smith
- Software combinations Scatter
- Software combinations J C Lawrence
- Hobby Muds and Money Maarten van Leunen
- Hobby Muds and Money Mordengaard
- Mud Clients Mud Imp
- update on selling Godhoods Matthew Mihaly
- update on selling Godhoods Brian Green
- update on selling Godhoods Richard Woolcock
- update on selling Godhoods Matthew Mihaly
- update on selling Godhoods Jeremy Hovance
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG Raph Koster
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG Dan Shiovitz
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG Brian Green
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG Matthew Mihaly
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG AR Schleicher
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG Mud Imp
- Ten Commandments for the next MMORPG The Inquisition Administrator
- Ten commandments for the next MMORPG David Wruck
- MudDev FAQ 2 Marian Griffith
- MudDev FAQ 2 Wes Connell
- The great myth of broadband Brian Green
- The great myth of broadband Madrona Tree
- The great myth of broadband Par Winzell
- The great myth of broadband John Bertoglio
- Effective use of the third dimension Richard Ross
- Effective use of the third dimension adam@treyarch.com
- Effective use of the third dimension Richard Tew
- Ten commandments for players of the next MMORPG Ananda Dawnsinger
- Free Speech Jeff Freeman
- Free Speech Ananda Dawnsinger
- Free Speech Par Winzell
- Free Speech Jeff Freeman
- Free Speech Jon A. Lambert
- Free Speech Schubert, Damion
- Free Speech Matthew Mihaly
- Free Speech Jessica Mulligan
- Free Speech Darren Henderson
- Free Speech kitkat@marcus.pants.nu
- Free Speech Gary Whitten
- Free Speech J C Lawrence
- Free Speech Geoffrey A. MacDougall
- Free Speech Jeremy Hovance
- RPGPlanet article: The Evils of Character Progression Raph Koster
- More storytelling - And also game secrets Chris Lloyd
- Marketing text-based games (was: Ten Commandments for the next MMORPG) Andrew Ritchie
- java performance questions (fwd) J C Lawrence
- MUDs as art (was A footnote to Procedural Storytelling) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- MUDs as art (was A footnote to Procedural Storytelling) Lee Sheldon
- MUDs as art (was A footnote to Procedural Storytelling) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Any hungry Java GUI programmers out there? Par Winzell
- Any hungry Java GUI programmers out there? Par Winzell
- Supporting multiple output formats Nolan Darilek
- The 10 basic rules of a good PvP system Raph Koster
- Player storytellers? Travis Nixon
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Thoughts about smarter Sims J C Lawrence
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Raph Koster
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Mordengaard
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Justin Rogers
- Thoughts about smarter Sims Jon A. Lambert
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Brian Green
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Zak Jarvis
- Advancement considered harmful (long) J C Lawrence
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Zak Jarvis
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Raph Koster
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Zak Jarvis
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Charles Hughes
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Zak Jarvis
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Dave Rickey
- Advancement considered harmful (long) J C Lawrence
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Travis Nixon
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Miroslav Silovic
- Advancement considered harmful (long) Batir
- What I want, what players want Andrew Ritchie
- What I want, what players want Chris Jacobson
- What I want, what players want Jeff Freeman
- What I want, what players want Nicolai Hansen
- What I want, what players want Darren Henderson
- What I want, what players want adam@treyarch.com
- Domain Names and Trademarks Jon Morrow
- Domain Names and Trademarks J C Lawrence
- Domain Names and Trademarks Sellers, Michael
- Narratology WAS: Self-Sufficient Worlds Zak Jarvis
- Narratology WAS: Self-Sufficient Worlds J C Lawrence
- Narratology WAS: Self-Sufficient Worlds Zak Jarvis
- Narratology WAS: Self-Sufficient Worlds Christopher Allen
- narratology WAS Self-Sufficient Worlds Angela Ferraiolo
- FW: Advancement considered harmful (long) John Buehler
- Narratology and its application to VR, multi-player games, and the like J C Lawrence
- FW: Advancement considered harmful (long) John Buehler
- coordinate systems Richard Tew
- coordinate systems Jon Leonard
- coordinate systems Kerem 'Waster_' HADIMLI