[MUD-Dev] [MUD-Dev][DGN] encouraging quick-start community for newbies

[Adam Martin]

Although I ought to be revising, an idea just occurred to
me. Apologies if this has been round before.

I've noticed that on some of the popular MMORPGs I've played, starting
for the first time can be very daunting, because you often know
practically very little about the game and how it plays before you
start - you don't know any of the infamous in-game players etc, nor
the geography, nor the relative value of things in the game (e.g. how
much is a pastry dish worth in game X? - sometimes nothing, sometimes
quite a lot (if particularly hard to find/make)).

I've noticed too that this results in a lot of people who start doing
some of the following (NB by no means all people take these actions,
but a fairly large number)

  1 - go around begging for advice in such a despairing way as to be
  ignored (as opposed to those who ask nicely/intelligent questions)

  2 - give up trying to find/solve quests because they don't know
  enough about the game world even to know which direction to set off
  in to find Bubba-Village.

  3 - stand around looking helpless, begging for free equipment

  4 - generally get ignored by established players who are happy to
  help, but know that for the first few hours they are best off at
  least trying to learn the very basics of the game by themselves.

  5 - explore, inadvertently do something foolish (like walk into
  Dragon's Cave which everyone else knows to avoid unless suitably
  equipped) and suffer a quick and violent death

Phew....after all that backgroud :)... the idea is that when a new
player starts the game, the last part of the generation process is for
the server to select say 5 random other people who have recently
started similar characters (if you have professions/initial skill
sets/player races), and to give all 6 of them very easy means of
intercommunication (even as far as to be totally OOC - say, a
mini-portrait of the person, plus an arrow pointing to where they are,
and allow global communication) until they reach a certain stage of
advancement (perhaps until they have completed 3 beginner quests or
something?).

Sort of newbie-ing by team, until they at least know enough of the
game world to be able to start asking experienced players sensible
questions.

Also provides them with an immediate peer group who will find each
discovery roughly as exciting/suprising as they do themselves; rather
than the normal geographic peer group (i.e. the people who happen to
be standing nearby wherever you start) who probably aren't excited by
you being the billionth person to learn the rumour that there's a
thieves' guild.

Adam M

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