[MUD-Dev] Re: Mudschool

[Koster]

On Tuesday, May 19, 1998 12:06 PM Matt Chatterley
[SMTP:matt at mpc.dyn.ml.org] said:

> And/or present all relevant information to choose from with each
choice,
> while making prompts as informative as is sensible. I currently
require
> the old 'Character name: ' type thing at the start - I will probably
do
> away with this, so that you either enter an existing character name,
or
> 'new', which takes you to a creation submenu.

A side note: at one point I redid Legend's into sequence (which indeed
used to be the old 'Character name' thing) to be friendlier to newbies.
I ended up with this under the banner:

    [1] Connect to a character         [4] Request introductory docs
    [2] Establish a new character      [5] List immortals online who can
help
    [3] Connect as a guest             [6] Read about LegendMUD
    [0] Exit

    Enter your choice:

And the oldbies screamed. ;) You see, they were used to just typing the
name of their character and getting in immediately. They didn't want to
revise client login scripts to add an extra menu option. Etc etc, blah
blah blah. So I made it so that typing an existing character name at
that menu works just as it did before, and now the prompt reads:

    Enter your choice or the name of your character:

Just goes back again to the fact that you should provide quick entry for
those who prefer it.

> > In such a case, the mud builders might choose to offer other ways of
> > getting information about the mud and the various
> > professions/castes/whatever:  for example, generic "guest"
characters,
> > web pages with the information, etc.
> Yup. This is sometimes achieved by wandering around rooms set out to
> contain information on various classes - check out Discworld, or a
> faction based RP intensive game for examples.

We don't have that at Legend though I have long wanted it. The "request
docs to be emailed" feature is however very popular, even though it is
on the web page, printable and with better layout. Guest characters are
quite popular as well, though interestingly, they are often used for
players to anonymously post complaints about the mud, rather than their
true purpose. :)

-Raph

--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.