[MUD-Dev] Addressing newbies

[Powell]

Hey all,

I've been forced by the mail server police to reduce my inboxes, so a few of
the mails on this thread have gone west. In an attempt to bring it back on
track, however, I offer the following for discussion:

NB: The system discussed below has only been implemented on a test server so
far and not with "real" newbies.

Newbie hint system:

When a new PC is created, I flag them as a newbie. They can then turn the
features on/off by using the "newbie" command but only until level 5 where
it becomes turned off automatically and cannot be turned back on. In the
next incarnation of the codebase that I am working on which iwll be skill
based and have no levels, I will set it to a timer, say 5 hours.

The newbie flag affects a few things. The first (and best I think) is the
hint system. When a newbie enters a room, I scan through the keywords in the
extra descriptions and objects in the room and then use a parser to insert
colour/bold codes to highlight those words in the room description. They can
then get a hint as to what to look at or pick up. It cannot (yet) determine
between plurals though, as it is just a str_cmp (have to work on that -
maybe scan for whitespace at end of string and take bold/colour up to
there). The code is a bit (hah!) klunky though (which is why I havent put it
into a real build, but it seems to work quite well. I am toying with dynamic
room descs for next MUD, so may make it a bit more friendly then.

When they are in newbie mode, PCs also get some other benefits. Agressive
mobs wont attack them when they are in a "newbie safe" zone (another flag -
god, the code is full of them - memory scrooges need not apply), they get
favourable discounts at some shops for low level items, NPCs with the right
triggers will attempt to help them in the school and shops (pain in the ass
this as they dont flag if they have already helped the newbie (more flags -
arrrgh).

Does anyobody else have little "giveaway newbie ideas" that they are willing
to post? I for one would be greatly interested in any other ideas that I can
chuck in to make their life a little easier.

Cheers...

Tavolir
Dragons Domain 3
dopey.satlan.com:8888




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