[MUD-Dev] Re: stuff that makes me leave

[Richard Woolcock]

Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> 
> Have we already had a "stuff that makes me leave" thread? Now that
> it's summer and I have more free time, I've been poking around for a
> mud to play. Perhaps my standards are too high or something. I messed
> around at Shattered Kingdoms (mud.vividnet.net 1996) and left because,
> although the world and skill system were cool, the simulation was
> lousy (eg, standard merc/diku combat where you can cut off your
> opponent's arms and legs and it's still not dead). The simulation was

Merc/diku doesn't have limb-chopping at all, except for occasionally
when you kill someone, and it says "Bubba's head plops on the floor"
or something similar.  I don't see what is wrong with surviving missing
limbs either - on my mud there is only about a 50% chance of dying from 
loosing a limb (although the bleeding will kill you fairly quickly if you 
just carrying on wandering around).

> much better at Forest's Edge (forestsedge.com 23) but there were so
> few areas it was crowded and I kept getting pkilled by passing
> strangers in the middle of town. So now I'm stuck again. Anyway, I
> tried a few more places but didn't stay long for various reasons,
> like:
> - having too many races as initial choices (never seen a good mud that
>   offered more than a dozen initial races. at least, not one where the
>   races had any meaning besides points.)
> 
> - offering stupid races (kender. say no more.)

If its a DragonLance themed mud, I see no problem with Kender.

> - not having a way to get help on the races or classes or stats before
>   having to assign them (as Matt says, no help --> I leave.)
> 
> - requiring too much detail to get started (Harshlands, eg, requires
>   ridiculous amounts of detail to even get into the game considering I
>   don't know if I want to play there or not yet)

I've tried Harshlands and liked it.  Yes, you have to enter a lot of
detail before you can play - but is that a bad thing?  Is it unreasonable
to expect players to spend a few minutes generating their character
before allowing them to play?

> - wandering around a bit and finding out there's no clear pointer as
>   to where to get started (this, I admit, is a little tricky. I don't
>   want to end up in a "go north for mud school and the newbie zone!"
>   sort of handholding situation, but I also don't want to get plopped
>   down in the middle of the world with no guidance whatsoever.
>   Forest's Edge hits the correct mid-point between these really well,
>   with a guide that'll say "hi, if you're new, here are a few places
>   to check out", but you can do whatever you want if those don't
>   strike your fancy.)

I'll check it out.

KaVir.