[MUD-Dev] Re: CGDC, a summary

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 11 May 1998 10:59:14 -0500 (CDT) 
Holly Sommer<hsommer at micro.ti.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 11 May 1998, Koster, Raph wrote:

> What, exactly, is the problem with mud schools? They serve the
> singular purpose of letting those who are brand new to your (type
> of) world gain some familiarity with it, before venturing forth. I
> should think that any admin would be glad to have a "mud schoo"
> which answers newbie questions, rather than having to answer those
> questions him/herself time and again.

Do any MUD schools actually exist which *DO* this?  I haven't found
one yet.  Certainly the standard DIKU mud school derivitive seems
nothing but a trial to get thru as quickly as possible.

> The mud school which ships with Merc derivitives is great for what
> it does - namely, that listed above. 

Hrum.  Care to point me at one?  All the ones I've seen merely hand
out a few practices, and set up target monsters to slaughter.

> Why would newbies hate a mud school? It lets them collect their
> wits, and prepare for the rest of the game. I can't see anything
> wrong with that, as a concept, nor with the functionality of the
> "original" mud school itself.

My initial view of mud schools (coming from an Aber/Shades background
at that time, never having seen a DIKU or LP before):

  Ohh, so I'm supposed to go over here. and practice things.  Why?  Oh 
well, the sooner I do it the sooner I can get on to something else.
Not over yet?  What's this?  Silly word games to get me to read the
room descriptions?  Bah!  Next!  Okay, I go down to the dungeon.
Yeah, I see what "Consider" does.  Gawds this is boring!  QUIT!

It took a couple months for me to forget this trial and have another
go:

  Oh yeah, same old dumb shit.  Lets skip it.  Oops!  No sword and no
food.  Looks like I need them in this world.  Where do I get them?
MUD school?  Oh no, not again!  QUIT!

A few weeks later I tried another one.  

  (read room description after logging in).  Oh yeah, well let's get
thru MUD school this time and see what I can really do with this junk.
Yada yada yada.  Okay, did the consider thing, killed the monster, got
thrown out into the arena, killed some lizards and things, how do I
get out of here?  Oh yeah.  The city -- least I have a sword now.
What a bloody waste of time that all was!  Oooo!  There's a FIDO!  The
only thing I seem to be able to do is kill things, let's kill it.
Ooo!  There's a beggar, lets kill him to.  What the bleep bleep is
that guard doing?  Why did he kill me?  QUIT!

It took a _long_ time before I found one that didn't require going
thru MUD school.

No thanks.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.