[MUD-Dev] FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players)

[David Bennett]

On Wed, 10 May 2000 adam at treyarch.com wrote:

> Yeah, I should ditch this question.  Assuming 80 collumns is fine (as far
> as I know, I'm the only mud in existence that autoformats all its text to
> fit the player's screen anyways) and they can change it later if they
> want to take advantage of a wider window.

Discworld (and all discworld based libs) have done this since 1991 :)  So
I doubt your the only one in existance.  Before I supported telnet sub
option negotiation I just assumed 80 colums unless you want to set it
yourself.  Same with colour, I assumed you had no colour unless you
specifically set it.  Now I use telnet suboption negoatiation to figure
all this out...

> Nods.  How about if I just ask, "Want color?"  Later on if they are
> perusing the help files about configuration they will see that there are
> actually 3 different levels of color.

Or just set a default and let them change it later.  Personally I always
hate filling in the 20 question surveys when logging onto a mud.

> Alright, this raises a good question - what SHOULD go into help newbie?
> Currently I have two primary new player help pages - "help newbie" for
> those totally new to muds, and "help blooddusk" for those wanting an
> overview of this specific mud's features.

I think you can safely assume that anyone reading newbie is someone who
has not played at all before.  If they read the other two help files
'blooddusk' and whatever the other one is, then they are looking for the
sort of infomation you mention: ie special features and world information.

The whole set a default that is changable later system for handling logins
is much more freindly than answering bunches of not so useful questions.
I have always tried to make discworld's login sequence as small and short
as possible.  They then get dropped into the game, although a special
login part of the game, where more information is described.

Good luck!
David.




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev