Dark Legacy MUD Forum


Multi User Fantasy Text Game
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 Post subject: Newbie Tutorial and other comments...
PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 8:41 am 
This is basically three suggestions, two directed at the developers, and the other at the players themselves (perhaps should be cross-posted to the general discussion forum, but I won't do that... the admins can if they wish).

The first suggestion, one for the devs, is regarding the in-game tutorial... In my opinion, in-game tutorials need to offer three things, all of which should be individually skipable, at your choice. The first of these should introduce you to mudding in general (basic commands like moving from room to room, score, eq, inv, etc.) and would be geared pretty exclusively toward those few people who have never played a MUD before in their life. The second should introduce issues and features specific to the mud which might be important, such as basic rules, features that are not common to all muds (like Death Traps), and general "newbie faq" sort of stuff. The last part should be your introduction to your specific character... the opportunity to get race/class appropriate starting equipment, your first combat or two, your first practice sessions with a trainer, and so forth.

Now, I feel that the in-game tutorial for Dark Legacy seems to be too much of the first type, a fair amount of the second type, probably sufficient amount of the third type, but none of it is so easily skipable. You seem to have to either skip the whole thing, or start it, and then skip only the parts that are not important to you (by saying "skip area" I think it was). The problem is, unless you've already been through it, you can't really know which parts are important to you and which are not.

The second suggestion, also for the devs, is that you should add some sort of food and drink to the in-game tutorial, so that players who choose to go through the tutorial, and likewise who choose to "READ ALL DESCRIPTIONS" as they are admonished to do, will not have their characters dying of starvation and thirst before they even finish the tutorial (believe it or not, very few people are speed-readers, and some people read very slowly... their characters should not be in mortal danger because of this). You could accomplish this by adding some minimal food and drink to all character's starting items at character creation, or by giving the "Guardian Angels" a means to feed and water the character if they say "I am hungry" or "I am thirsty" or similar.

My third suggestion is to the players... Don't be so rude to each other! Maybe my experience is atypical, but the first newbiechat conversation I witnessed did not give me any great confidence in the maturity, decency, and friendliness of the player base for this mud. I asked a question, got little other than sarcastic or totally useless comments about it, but no real answer or acceptable advice, then, almost right from the start, everyone went off topic and started flaming each other :shock:. Now maybe you all like being that rude, and think that the tension and animosity is fun and exciting, but it's a really piss-poor way to welcome new players, that's for bloody sure.

Now, as I said, maybe this experience of mine is atypical, but I quit right then and there. I will give this game one more shot, some other time, but if my opinion of the players does not improve, I won't even bother getting to level 5, I'll just find a different game. I feel like this MUD has potential to be one of the best I've played (and I've played well over 20 different MUDs to date), but if the players are all as rude as they seemed, then it doesn't matter how good the design or mechanics of it are, the game will suck, and I won't play it. I don't imagine many other people will either.


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