Posted by Omicidio on 03/19
@A major problem with MUD's in my opinion is there general@
unfriendliness to newbies. MUD's are difficult to learn even if you@
have experienc in other MUD's. If you are a complete newbie forget it.@
@This MUD has no quests that can be done. Without Oasis the place would@
be unintellibable to me. But Oasis is "outside" the game and so is@
cheating in a sense. Why not give out quest information SOMEWHERE in@
and it is impossible in almost all cases to do so.@
@Often a new player will have a low mind character. This means@
that the new player will have no way other than Oasis or a website or begg
@ing to learn about weapons because armslore is unavailable.@
Armslore should be available to everyone so new players, even "stupid"
ones can learn about weapons. Immortals should flag real newbies and cut
@them some slack. Losing equipment or other problems is not a big deal fo
experienced players. It is for newbies. My experience has been the oppos
@ite. The immortals are friendlier to experieinced players because@
the experienced players know the "rules" and how to talk to immortals.@
To recap: 1) Quests are impossible to do without outside information. Th
@This is wrong.@
2) Information about weapons is unavailable to many newbies. Armslore@
should be available to all.
@ 3) Immortals should be friendlier to the clueless and even bend a rule
for them so that they can enjoy Legend and may even stay.@
Before you flame me -- I would not be writing this if I didn't like@
Legend. But it is not Newbie friendly. And that is the Immortals@
fault, not the players.@
From: Rosette
Friday, March 17, 12:23PM
Some quests are very tricky, often seeming impossible. But remember, someb
had to figure it out first, before helping other people or telling Andara.
If you do work hard at the quests, talking to all the mobs, trying unusual
things, etc, you'll get the hang of it eventually. Many quests follow the
same pattern, so if you know one, others are easier to figure out. I don't
agree that armslore should be available to all, but perhaps it's reqs coul
be lowered a bit. In any case, it is easy to change weapons and eq around
see if you improve with different weapons. And by checking 'attributes' yo
can see below level 10 if any stats are in flux. I disagree entirely that
the imms are unfriendly to newbies, but you know if you have basic questio
you can ask friendly mortals.
Whether using the Andara's is 'cheating' or not, if you do take the time t
figure out quests yourself, learn about eq and other things by playing, an
explore yourself, the game will be infinitely more fun and rewarding.
Rosette Milano
From: LadyAce
Friday, March 17, 01:03PM
I'm willing to agree that not all quests have a good set of
available clues out there. If you encounter a quest like this,
particularly the quests which are easy/newbie type quests, please
point them out.
As far as helping yourself do better when it comes to quests, here
are some tips:
Read the room and mob descriptions. Ask a mob about things in
its description.
Keep your ears open. If you hear a mob yelling that he can't find
his shoes, or whining that he is sleepy, ask him about it.
Ask for clues. Once you figure out your first few quests, they
will generally get a bit easier. It's all a matter of knowing how
to think about things, and that is only developed via experience.
Hm, maybe I should write up a web page of tips on getting
started with quests....
-LA
From: Kunnar
Friday, March 17, 05:00PM
I completely disagree about quests being impossible to do w/o
Andara's. I have never used Andara's for anything, and i've
managed to figure out a fair number of quests. The key thing
that I've found useful is just familiarity with the area you're
dealing with. By that I mean two things. First, I mean general
knowledge of the MUD in that area. It's usually fairly easy to
find out that there is a quest of a certain nature in an area,
then just hang out there for a few MUD weeks. The second part
is familiarity with the actual time and place that the MUD is trying
to emulate. I find I have a much easier time getting around in areas
that I've studied in a history class, or just read a lot of books
about.
As to your other points, this MUD is newbie friendly, but only sometimes.
There are some times of the day when no one is on that will help out
newbies, and sometimes people actually race to help newbies. To
illustrate my point, here are two examples: One night a newbie
got himself stuck in the bog and asked for help over chat. I didn't
respond cause I was all the way in Savannah. After a while, he asked
for help again, and then again. At that point, I trekked over to help
him, cause I knew that no one in Tara would. Another night, someone
got taken hostage by Rufinius. I was nearby in Agrabah, so I raced
over to help, and 3 other morts were already there killing brigands.
If you happened to start playing on LegendMUD during a non friendly time,
I'm sorry, but I urge you to come back a few more times. Sometimes Imms
are really busy at whatever they're doing and can't help, but sometimes
they're so bored that they just start say random things, hoping to confuse
newbies so that they get asked questions :P
Please don't give up hope!!
Kunnar
From: Sniper
Saturday, March 18, 04:30AM
A long time ago .. while i was playing a bat and ball game (exciting)
on an Atari ...I heard of the first generation of computers that you.
could actually program on ... going throw a ZX-81 .. Vic-20..i
finally got a BBC micro .. and remember the day i bought my first
TEXT adventure ...
I still remember to this day the excitement of reading the room
description ..i could feel i was there...but what to do next ..
armed with 'dare i say' some paper and a pen i started to map the
area ... hiot my first maze .. took me an age to work out how to
map it .. but dropping eq was the clue....I came up against creatures
and puzzles that even i could not understand .. but there MUST be a
way past ..and in time yes the puzzles made sense.
All this on an old machine with noone to help.....i think many of us have
been there.
Now enter the world of Legend .. as i did many moons ago ...
To have mobs that interact ...to have players that can actually can talk
to you ..To have clues that make sense .....My pen and paper at the ready
to write down every clue or discussion down .. to be silent and listen
to others..and auction .. a great way of finding stat info...
Now perhaps we had more time then .. and now with UT and quake
its jump in and kill or be killed.
but this is a Multi User Dungeon ... and deserves patience.
My thanks for you time
Sniper (i really got to think of better names)
From: Lemming
Saturday, March 18, 04:58AM
Rodent like Sniper comment.
Rodent remember scratching chin while playing INFOCOM games.
Rodent remember when he find out about Legend.
Rodent still scratching chin, but Rodent still have fun.
Rodent think if you want everything handed to you, you no
belong here anyway.
Rodent done thinking for week. -drool-
From: Mars
Saturday, March 18, 07:53AM
Summation: I agree with you on some quests they are ridiculously
impossible to figure out. To counterpoint someone's reasoning that
someone had to figure them out....this is not true. The easier quests
or more obvious ones, yes they are figured out by mortals.....the
ridiculous quests are done by the immortal who made the area's mortal
or another immortal who has sifted through the code of the area and
either tells a friend or does it himself with people watching. And this
is not a bad thing because there is just no way to figure out the
damn quest or even get it started.
This is a VERY newbie friendly mud. I think you should be close
to level 5 or so before you get real help anyway and the beginning
levles can be gained using just the faq or help files. Sometimes I
think people get too much help as in when I run into level 50 female
characters (for the most part, though there are some dudes) who don't
chant vid dyn ex ANYTHING about the mud. It isn't there fault it is becau
se they made friends and got leveled and spent more time talking than
exploring.
From: Farraday
Sunday, March 19, 02:10AM
My thoughts to add:
Mostly, that I think that, at times, this place can be VERY newbie
friendly. Recalling back in the first time I was here (which was 2
years ago to the day this past friday, i remember cause i got a
casino bag and only found out 2 months later what it was for), any
how, that day, other than the casino game, i received much help in
learning the mud, mostly from morts, people getting me un-lost from
the agrabah desert, people helping out all over the place.
then let me recall all the newbies i've created. obviously immorts don't
know a new character is a oldbie unless they're checkign everyone's ip and
comparing, which i don't think they are.
anyhow, i'd guess i've made like 30 characters or more here, and i
think at least half the time, i was greeted upon my entry into this
world by, 'LadyAce tells you, 'Welcome to LegendMUD!' which, though it
isn't help in learning the mud, were i a true newbie, i'd certainly
feel by her saying that that if i had no clue, i could tell her, hey what
do i do?
and that's just one immort. i've been greeted and helped by plenty
of others too. as for morts, people had told me that legend was no
longer the friendly place it once was, so i tested it by making some
characters and pretendingto be totally new to the mud, and i found
plenty of people offering to help me out. in fact, more so than when
i was truly new to the mud. so i think we are friendly.
in response to lemming...
heh... infocom... wow.
-remembers spending hours on Zork and HHGTTG-
but i finally got me a babel fish
| 