[MUD-Dev] Re: Character creation, was: Mudschool

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 14 May 98, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> Ling wrote:
> > 
> > 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
> > :)
> 
> That is something my players complained about when I implemented a complex
> character creation system...to get around it, I modified the system so that
> after a player has entered their name and password they can select from a 
> number of preset concepts* OR choose to customise their character completely.
> The quick route only requires typing a name (confirm), password (confirm), 
> concept and gender, while the long route reqires the above details as well as 
> exact attributes, abilities, appearance, and so on (it takes about 5 minutes 
> to create a character the long way).
>

I won't have a short method, yet I do plan on having guest accounts 
where one can roam freely and invisibly within a restricted public 
space to get a feel for what's going on.  Also I like the one user 
account multiple character system.  One could at their leisure create 
and customize a dozen or so characters.  Character creation is a 
client-side process and can be done offline.  A user does not enter 
directly into game play either.  All users are dropped into a small 
OOC area and when they do enter the game they exist simultaneously in 
both the game world and the user area.  They may totally suppress any 
messages from the OOC area or may choose to become pageable from the 
user area.  While this user area has some of the trappings of the 
mud, it more resembles a set of IRC channels.  

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