[MUD-Dev] Re: Mudschool

[Ling]

On Wed, 13 May 1998, John Bertoglio wrote:
>
> The idea of pre-built intro scenarios is great. Since our character
> creation process is quite long and detailed (the stuff on the
> www.paper.net/mud/ site is just a small portion), we will use fully
> developed NPCs and chunks cut out of the world to train newbies in.

Yep, that was just what I was thinking of.  There are several muds I've
been to where I lost interest because character creation took more than 5
seconds.  (hey, I admit it, I have no attention span, gimme that Ristlin
:)

[played with strange formatting below]

> There are several advantages in using a pre-made (NPC) character for these
> scenarios.

[snipped a few good reasons]

>   --- Identify and understand major NPCs. The Ultima CRPGs had a consistant
>	cast of characters. When you met Iolo in a new Ultima, you had a
>       good idea of his skills and what he would bring to your party.
>       This creates a sense of understanding of the world which makes it
>       seem more familier.
>   --- Gain respect for the power of NPCs. Since the NPC surrogates are
>       better developed than a starting PC, players will understand their
>       limitations.
>       Example: "If Bubba the Master Hunter had that much trouble with the
>       bear maybe I ought to stick to bunnies for a while."

&, if you have a bunch of staff with too much free time, replace tutorials
with scenarios based on events which have happened.  Eg: Bubba is reknown
for cooking a 24 course meal in 2 hours, it's a kinda famous thing.  If
Bubba allows (& admin wanna), a scenario could be set up using Bubba's
normal equipment for this feat with the objective of making said meal.
Oldies & newbies alike might appreciate how great Bubba is.

> Final thought: Tutorials are not just for newbies. A player contemplating
> an expedition the orc caves might want to do the "Orc Lord Assault"
> scenario (I prefer scenario over tutorial) to test the power, weapons and
> fighting styles of such a creature. Learning how to basic alchemey might
> help a player to decide whether to take up the wandering mage's offer to
> teach the basics of the skill for a high price (gold and development
> points)

Minor disagreement.  This would let players test and try out variations
they wouldn't wanna do in the normal course of events but I do feel that
you shouldn't enable everything in scenarios.  Leave most of your mud
unknown otherwise I'd just spend a few days in scenario land and quit once
I'm bored.  In the above two examples, the player should be able to glean
the ability of the Orc Lord from talking to npcs or other players and
ditto for alchemy.

  |    Ling Lo of Remora (Top Banana)
_O_O_  Elec Eng Dept, Loughborough University, UK.     kllo at iee.org



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MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.