Remember to feed the newbies!
A Hungry Newbie
One of the challenges for a MUD is to convert those who show a passing interest into a true player. Let’s face it, there are no fancy graphics and little wow factor involved in staring at a screen of text. Even after jumping the (pretty darn high) hurdle that this is a text game, these games are complex. New players have to learn commands to navigate, chat on different channels, kick a rat, buy items, check the weather, etc. Putting aside the mountains of basic commands one needs to know, there can also be an overwhelming number of things to do since there are no linear paths in playing a MUD.
In Lusternia, there are hundreds of quests, village revolts, aetherspace, crafting, karma, divine orders, raiding, politics, and so forth. What’s a newbie to do! Here are a few things we have implemented to ease new players into the freewheeling environment of a virtual text world:
Introductory Tour and Guides. I have mixed feelings about introductory tours. On the one hand, players need to learn simple, basic commands to talk and move about. It will also weeds out any who can’t stomach a text-only environment. On the other hand, the tour need to be as short as possible to get the player into the game itself before they completely lose interest or get frustrated. After the tour, the volunteer player guides take over and this is where newbies get personal treatment and have their hands held.
Newbie Area. When I first designed Lusternia, I was adamant that the newbie area should not be simple or play down to new players. Thus, I wanted our newbie area to be rich in quests (both simple and complex) and have an interesting storyline. I recalled some stock MUDs which had a newbie area literally called “the Mob Factory” where one is sent to bash and level up. Talk about lazy! I’m quite proud of the Newton Caverns area which has three levels and two honour quests. The feedback has generally been very positive and I’ve heard of some players who are sad when they can no longer enter.
Collegiums. After the newbie area, players are often still unsure what to do next. I think it’s important for them to build a rapport within their cities (this includes nature communes in Lusternia). The Collegium System is a series of quests designed to introduce players to their city as well as teach basic gameplay. These quests have lots of hint to help acquaint newbies with quest mechanics. Each city has their own unique collegium and set of quests. Graduating from the Collegium also advances the player in their guild (cities are made up of various guilds). The emphasis was purposefully placed on cities rather than guilds, because some guilds are more populous than others and we felt it was important that players identify with their cities rather than guilds (reasons for that could be a whole other article).
First Aid. At some point, many players will want to try their hand at PvP. Anyone who has played an Iron Realms MUD knows that there is an enormous barrier of entry to combat. Not only do players need potions, herbs, enchantments, etc. to deal with hundreds of ailments, combat can be so fast and furious that they need some systems (i.e., scripts that include triggers, aliases, macros, etc.) to handle the various cures. What we recently introduced was a skill called FirstAid which diagnoses all ailments, lists their cures, and then attempts to cure as many afflictions as possible utilizing all curing balances as if the players were to type the curing commands themselves. In other words, it is a mini-system that was coded in-game. This idea was developed and coded by our Senior Programmer Michael Braun. While it is too early to tell how well this system works in introducing players to the hectic world of PvP, the intent is to make it as easy as possible to participate without feeling as though you need a degree in Computer Science.
It is easy to forget about newbies, and easier still to forget what it was like to be a newbie. However, they must be fed a steady diet of exciting gameplay, social interaction and positive reinforcement. And without new players, the future would look grim indeed. However, the good news is that we are still attracting new players who are drawn to the wonderful niche gaming experience know as MUDs!
Estarra, the Eternal
Lusternia, Age of Ascension
January 28th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
[...] Re: Easing the process for new players. I just posted an article on the Anvil Blog regarding some things we did that I thought helped ease players into text MUDs: Remember to feed the newbies! [...]
January 31st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
It’d be great if you could port the FirstAid skill to other IRE games. I haven’t played Lusternia yet, but I can imagine that it lowers the bar to enter combat.
January 31st, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I agree that it may be something that all the games could benefit from. We are certainly going to be watching the player response to it and we may incorporate it into the other games.
February 1st, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Speaking as a huge MUDder myself (my introduction was actually through MUSHes, so let that color my response appropriately), another thing I look for in a new MUD (as sort of a veteran noob) is not just a friendly player base, but a believable, cohesive, and unique environment.
I mentioned on here before that I love the BattleTech MUX’s combat system. On the other hand, the game as a whole did not engage me because there was no sense that I was part of a fictional community. It was just a fun text-based fighting game.
I think Lusternia has done an excellent job of distinguishing itself both from other IRE games and from other MUDs in general thanks to its unique setting, something that was, IMO, seriously needed in the IRE repertoire.
I almost feel like IRE games are getting too mechanically complex without the atmosphere evolving with them. Imperian has been my home game for my entire time with IRE, but I have not noticed a significant improvement in the depth of the lore. The game as a game has changed substantially, but the world? Not so much.
I’d offer a solution, but I’ve been thinking about this for a few months now and I’m still not quite sure what to do about it.
So to tie that back to this post, fantasy MUDs aren’t even a dime a dozen. The difference is in how invested I become in the world as a “real” place as opposed to merely a game.
February 1st, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I absolutely agree on the importance of having a unique and indepth atmosphere. Thanks for your kind words on Lusternia! As anyone who knows me can testify, I place a lot of importance on the arching story background in games, as well as storylines in quests, events, etc. that is cohesive to Lusternia’s background and (evolving) history.
There’s no doubt that IRE games are complex! It’s a true challenge to find ways to ease players into gameplay without overwhelming them and scaring them away.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:18 pm
[...] with features like the new first aid skill in Lusternia, IRE is slowly progressing even further toward our goal of becoming more newbie [...]
February 4th, 2010 at 2:25 am
My feeling is that the First Aid skill is a great idea, and I hope to see it in Achaea. And as long as it’s limited in scope, I don’t see any need to have it cost you something in combat. There’s not one serious fighter (anymore, ten years ago there were) who cures manually, so at a certain point if you’re a newbie and you want to keep progressing you either have to learn to script and do all the scut-work to gather the necessary trigger lines and whatnot, or else pay 20 bucks to someone like Vadimuses. Now I love Vadi and I’d definitely be hopeless without his system, but you should at least be able to get to the point of not instantly getting afflicted to death before the scripting hurdle comes along.
February 23rd, 2010 at 1:41 am
As someone who just recently graduated from being a MUD newbie, I am amazed people didn’t kill me for my constant need for help and dying, and I mean getting completely in over my head what the hell were you doing there of all places, dying almost every other hour. Somehow people had the patience to teach me and now I can pass that knowledge on to new novices. So to all the help that was done to help me graduate from novicehood and to actually know what the heck I was doing…to everyone who has taught me, Thank you!
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:58 pm
[...] Lusternia Lore Wiki also has been gathering trigger lines for public use. Lusternia also now has FirstAid, which is a curing system built-in to the game but requires no coding knowledge to use, just [...]