[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wi

[Dr. Cat]

Raph Koster wrote:
> I'd agree with this approach, but there's the issue of time and
> manpower. How long does it take to talk the person out of quitting over
> this incident, how much effort should you expend on it, how much time
> will it take, how much bad PR will be generated when the person turns
> around and reports that "Bubba was a jerk to me and ruined the game for
> me and the admins did NOTHING!" to every new player... how much manpower
> and therefore how large are your costs using this solution?

I wouldn't call it a "solution", it's just something I do right now.  
We're in the "society seeding stage", where the founders put more 
personal time and effort into the community than they will (or can) when 
it's 100 times as big.  Recall I did say immediately following:

> >  Of course this could be put in the introductory or help text
> > somewhere, where all the players will avoid reading it in order to
> > plunge right into the game and have as many problems as possible.  :X)

An additional alternative is training the players to deliver this 
particular speech.  Free manpower isn't bad when you can get it.
Talking people out of quitting I have no interest in, by the way, it's a 
matter of replying in some way when someone pages you with a question or 
complaint or issue.  Bad PR you'll get out of dissatisfied people whether 
you talk to them or not, though admittedly purrhaps a little more than if 
you don't talk to them.  (Though that gets you the "admins are 
unresponsive" bad PR.)  But you also get the PR going about which types 
of problems admins will do things about, and which types you're on your 
own about from all this, and I think it's vital for the society to learn 
that.

> Of course. :) On Legend, in a totally futile endeavor, we actually make
> a new character page through the ten screens or whatever of the code of
> conduct. It does no good whatsoever, makes the process more tedious, and
> nobody reads it. But at least we can say that they must have read it to
> get in, and thus got their first warning and can now be summarily
> disposed of when they break the rules. :)

What people really need to do is figure out VERY small number of things 
need to be said to someone to prevent the biggest and most common problems
caused by "not knowing any better", and tell them only that, in very few 
sentences, presented on-screen in a very appealing fashion if possible 
with art, layout, text-size and color all screaming "read me, I'm short, 
interesting, and fun to read!"

Most people either don't know what it is that's that critical, or have 
made something where there's far too much you need to know before you 
start, and there's no hope.  SPI wargames were like that.  Fine for a 
wargaming enthusiast, no hope of ever appealing to the typical mass 
market consumer.  Of course, most muds are aimed at a niche audience, 
like the SPI games were, rather than being aimed at a mass audience.

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