| a thought for newbies |
|
|
| a thought for newbies |
|
A lot of quests are next to impossible to finish without other people givi giving hints. I would also recommend making the mud easier for true newbie For example, if somebody starts in agrabah, he shouldn't have to be lost. The innkeeper, Asabi, should tell the newbie to go south, down, etc to fin Then the captain should tell the newbie to ask him teach, and offers the n I've seen this done on another mud, where they have a training ground for newbies. I hope i'm typing all this correctly because i'm frozen here. Som because some lines may have been cut because it's too long. I woish the bo so that i canboard can be changed so that i can keep on typing without worrying that the line will be too long.
sorry for the incoherent message,
Whiz :)
Also, the more complicated the mud gets the longer time it will take for a new player to get a good char..of course skill trees will correct this a bit with the hp and so....
But there is still very,very big difference in how fast you can level and so on..I just made this char and I have soloed all the way to level 8 in 13 hours with the 2 most important +stat quests..... My first char used like 100 hours to get to level 10 :) Well my point is that it might take long time to level your first char but its also very fun.
With your next char it gets rutine and a bit boring even tho you can do it alot faster. In other words, its fun when its new, and boring when you get used to it. If we didnt get any new developments I too would leave soo
So I think the skill trees are great...they will even give something new to the oldbies...well im talking without thinking, so I dont know if this makes any sence...I actually only ment to write the first few lines..
then again, there are a few, that are so well thought out, like kheldar's, that anybody can do they if they have alittle time to devote to it.
But quests like some of the ones in a carnival have faults. I'm neither a Str fighter nor a Dex fighter, and therefor cant complete them...and why should i run the risk of going over-rent to hold that kind of eq? would you reimburs me if i faild a save and the game crashed?
HELL NO!
whats the fun in that??!!
-Isamu
I really don't understand why people seem to think the immorts sit around saying to themselves, 'gee how can we make this game less fun,' cuz we surely don't. Adding new skills and new spells for you to play with, fixing it so corpses save over reboots (a long time major player complaint) and ages-old game imbalances such that only certain kinds of characters are fun/worthwhile to play are not by any means intended to make the game less fun.
Yes, adding/fixing things causes some problems of their own. One thing that I find interesting is that most often changes are to the advantage of the old players. If a weapon is brought into spec, a an old player suddenly has a weapon that is more valuable (will sell for more - whatever) and does more damage etc than one that a new player can get. In this instance, the old player is disadvantaged as he/she has not had the opportunity to use skills/spells throughout his career as a player or quest hints or whatever. That is not, by any means, what -I'd- prefer... I'd like a game where everyone is on and equal footing. Unfortunately, sometimes getting there is difficult. I know that many people are concerned the fixes to balance dex will unbalance in the other direction. We're concerned about that as well. We've tried to consider that as well, and it's one of the reasons for the "free" testing period. We'll put it in and you can test it for us and if it's unbalanced, I'm sure we'll hear about it - quickly even ;).
Old eq: I have personally (let me reiterate, this is my -personal- opinion, not particularly that of any other member of the immort staff) favored one or another method of removing old eq for a long time now because it imbalances the mud in the terrible fashion. If builders make mobs/areas/quests to a level of difficulty that corresponds to those with old eq - it's too hard for the other players. If we build such that it's hard for a "normal" (all in-spec) player, those with old eq can blow through. This can be true even when the difference between in-spec and out-of-spec is just a few hundred rent (the player can rent more at a lower level and can (not always but can) end up a much tougher player for it... in a way that another player without that rent advantage can't hope to manage.) It's obviously true for out-of-spec weapons and the problem would become extreme with the removal of the damage cap. There is no longer a way to gage how difficult a mob is, as the same mob can be enormously easy to a player who does 3x the damage. And the difficulties in balancing dex/con/str mages to fighters etc are all exaggerated. Yes, I do feel bad for those who have planned their characters around having out-of-spec weapons and now may have to go to some trouble to rearrange them, but as an immort I have to consider the mud as a whole. That kind of imbalance is bad for the mud as a whole.
To Isamu: Yeah Gail does think of things in terms of coding, as 1) she's a coder, and 2) that's how the mud works... it's all code. Nonetheless, feel free to take my word for it, she has an extremely good idea of how to have fun and recognizes it quite well ;)
Constructive criticism is one thing, but "this mud stinks, you all stink, none of you want to have fun, you just want to make things miserable for us etc is not constructive criticism. Specific comments (we need more quest hints) said in some reasonably polite fashion are a lot easier to take and probably get fixed faster (not sure what Densiva's complaint is - so I doubt it will be fixed). In writing class, they insisted we say 3 good things before making any negative (constructive or not) comments, and while I'm not so overly good at doing it (I try, but I'm human too), it sure does make criticism easier to take.
Sabella
A lot of times what I hear is something like, "I don't like anything here, it all sucks, and you're never going to change it, the immorts don't listen at all to the morts and don't care, I give up, the only reason I'm here is cuz my friends are." (Very like Densiva's post above). The obvious answer to that, if it were true, is why are you playing a game you don't like now and don't believe you will ever like? Why bother with putting in input you don't believe will be listened to? And there are other ways of getting together with your friends, or if you prefer to use Legend just for not, there is no longer need to be concerned with what we do to the game itself. I don't actually believe it IS true. I believe you post because you do realize we will read the post and care that you don't like the game :). And that saying, I'm not leaving is as good an indication of that as any. I personally can't stand chess... so I don't play chess. I don't tell other people they're ridiculous for liking/player<-Hing this boring game, or very often bother mention what I don't like about it. I just don't play :). You're here because you continue to want some input into the game, and this is the way to get it ('cept I still think you'll hafta be way more specific about what you think is wrong to have anything change. Not to mention that the more negative you are about how you say it, the less likely we are to take you seriously. Partly that's because there IS a limit to what we can do.)
Sabella
I'm new here but I know a few other muds, let me tell you what it's like to start playing here...
On most muds that I know they have some sort of a newbie school where a player is taught the basic things s/he needs to know about the mud.
Unlike this mud, on all other muds that I know newbies have no access to p public channels.
When I saw that this mud had no school, I assumed it would be easy to get help through those public channels.
Look, I really like this mud, I like the idea of hometowns, I like the ski skill system... I like the areas I've seen so far. This is a different mud BUT, this is not a friendly mud.
So why am I writing all this big story? I think that because newbies here get very little help.
And because I even saw yesterday on chat a newbie being laughed at after a asking for help...
If you want the newbies that come here to stay, I think you should build a newbie school, or at least give mobs some text of info to newbies. It's a lonely and hard out there for newbies.
Sorry I wrote so much -yawn- :)
Well, I can only talk for myself, of course, but any newbie needing questions answered are very welcome to talk to me.
Newbies needing equipment/levels may save themselves the time and effort, though.
Tancred