[MUD-Dev2] DESIGN: MUD tutorials

[Mike Rozak]

Is there a writeup on, or is anyone willing to describe, the non-obvious basics that should be in a MUD tutorial? Specifically, I'm thinking about the well-made tutorials you find in professional MUDs like MUD II, Iron Realms, and Simutronics. These usually involve a NPC leading a new player around by the hand describing movement, inventory, combat, etc.

What I'm interested in is specific feedback in the form of "usability" that has been done, such as "We specifically led players to the inn, because we found that if we didn't, most new players couldn't find it." Basically, non-obvious results; I know that movmement, picking stuff up, equiping weapons, etc. has to be in there. Other non-obvious information might include, "If you tutorial is 30 minutes long then 60% of players leave the game and never come back, but if it's only 10 minutes only 20% of the players leave." Or, for example, I notice that some of the games send a greeter (real person) over to say hello.

PS - I'm even more interested in tutorial tips targeted at completely-new never-played-a-MUD-before players, the sort you attract from casual web sites. The tutorial is for my game, preliminary web site at http://www.mxac.com.au/mif


Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au