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

[Adam Martin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "rayzam" <rayzam at home.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] [MUD-Dev][DGN] encouraging quick-start community for
newbies

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Adam Martin" <amsm2 at cam.ac.uk>
> To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 5:00 AM
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] [MUD-Dev][DGN] encouraging quick-start community for
> newbies

>> 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.

> This has inherent social problems. A random group of 6 people does
> not mean they'll get along. A random group of 6 people [even with
> the same backgrounds/character types], does not mean they'll be
> helpful. It allows for global spamming. Grief players can keep other
> new players out of the game [of course, being able to 'turn it off'
> or exclude certain people would solve that]. Players would want to
> have this capability for other players of their own choice, i.e.,
> starting in the game with friends. By forcing randomness instead of
> social choice, they'll resent the system more.

They don't need to get along. The point of having more than one is to
increase the chance that they will find *someone* who they might enjoy
meeting. Again, they don't need in all cases to be helpful - although
it would be easy to give benefits for doing so (e.g. if one player
completes a quest/task, and then any of the others complete the same
thing a short time later, the first player gets some (small) token
reward from the game).

I don't expect it would guarantee improvement - but I do think it
would have a generally improving effect. It would also be interesting
to see if the overall social dynamic of the game-world were any
different from being "seeded" with tiny groups of people who knew each
other from the start of the game (well, the start from their personal
perspectives).

> And finally, I'm not sure this solves any problems. If the players
> are all truly new, then they're a group of 6 lost players, who may
> all enter into the Dragon's Cave together and die. Or none of whom
> know what's going on. If its a matter of learning how the game
> works, then maybe it's similar to one of those assembly-required
> items. One person does it and muddles through. One person asks for
> advice from someone with more knowledge about assembly or having
> assembled a bike or a cabinet or whatnot once before. Or 6 people
> trying to do it together, which in my experience, inevitably
> degenerates with frustration building until it's down to one of the
> first 2 cases :)

Ah, but after one has died the hope is that he/she will at least
inform the others of the danger. Perhaps I should add that I see this
as giving people new to the game a mini-network of other people to
start off with: I didn't imagine that a task is easier to figure out
with more people thinking about it - but if you need to ask for help,
having 6 people all asking around tends to work out better.

Adam M

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