17 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 1st comment:
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Nick Gammon wrote an excellent design article a couple of days ago: Suggestions for improving MUD game reten...

In my reply to him, I mentioned:
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I do still get occasional complaints from new players about the complexity and learning curve, but these complaints mostly seem to be made by experienced mudders, so I suspect its mainly down to a lack of familiarity. In particular, I've identified a certain breed of experienced mudder that tends to switch off the hints and ignore the help files, then gets frustrated when they can't work out how to play. But I don't really know if there's anything I can do about them - to cite an old proverb: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Very occasionally I'll get players who clearly want to dislike the mud - these tend to be people I've pissed off on a mud forum, sometimes even rival mud owners, and they'll play just long enough to make a list of "things that suck". I don't think there's anything you can do about players like that.

But more often, I encounter a small subset of players who want to play, but don't want to learn. These hard-bitten mud veterans claim to know everything there is to know about muds, and bristle at the thought of using newbie tools like hints, help files and tutorials. The problem is that they fail horribly, and then look around for someone else to blame (which ends up being the mud).

Perhaps a better proverb would be "You can't teach an old dog new tricks".

But can you?

Should you?

Is there some way you can present newbie information without hurting the pride of those who think they already know everything? Might they be more willing to read the newbie guide if it was entitled something like "advanced tricks for veterans"? Or is it an exercise in futility to even try?
17 Mar, 2010, Runter wrote in the 2nd comment:
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I wouldn't let my game design be driven by how other (common) games in the genre have done it in the past. These players may not want something different than their glory-days mud of old.

I also wouldn't let nay-sayers drive the design. These people you mentioned who come around to look for something to complain about will find them. Unfairly if they have to.

I would, however, let my design be driven by general consensus from new players genuinely trying to help identify areas of improvement.
17 Mar, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 3rd comment:
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One approach might be to make a kind of "cheat sheet" with a series of brief bullet points that detail some of the major differences between your game and other popular MUDs or codebases, as well as some of the common gotchas new players on your game face. Something like, "If you're an experienced mudder and want to dive straight in please read HELP VETERANS to get up to speed fast". Keep it brief and just cover the essentials without any extra explanation.
17 Mar, 2010, Ben wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
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Is there some way you can present newbie information without hurting the pride of those who think they already know everything? Might they be more willing to read the newbie guide if it was entitled something like "advanced tricks for veterans"? Or is it an exercise in futility to even try?


I stopped receiving general complaints about this when I moved in-game help files to off-game forums. A forum setup for help and command information is easier to compartmentalize and visualize as opposed to players having to parse help file information in-game from everything else that is happening. Forums can be bookmarked for future reading when access to the MUD is not available, such as when a player is out of town visiting or at work and only has lite internet access. Same information, just a more user-friendly display environment. You can't always teach an old dog new tricks but you can usually trick an old dog into eating their worm medication by wrapping it in bacon.
17 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
I think that renaming the guide could be helpful, yes. But I also think there's some amount of inertia at play that you will simply never be able to change. I was looking at a Youtube demo of a Roguelike that had the feature of being real-time. There was a commenter who said things along the lines of "this isn't a Roguelike, it's real-time!!" That alone wasn't terribly shocking, but the commenter went on to say: "this game is terrible because it's real-time and nobody will ever play it". In other words, the commenter was willing to completely dismiss the game because it purported to be a RL while being real-time, without considering if the game might otherwise be fun even if it's not actually a RL.

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people see your MUD the same way. It's different enough from the average MUD in terms of interface etc. that it might set off some kind of "zomgwtf" reaction in veteran players, some of whom might not actually be looking for something different but rather more of what is known perhaps with slightly different chrome.

What's interesting about Nick's article is that, really, what he's advocating isn't so much improving the genre, but rather changing rather fundamental aspects. The very notion of adding all these graphical gizmos to help players is heresy to many. I can imagine many MUD players reacting just as the RL commenter did above. (Note: personally I think his suggestions are good in terms of improving "games"; I have little attachment to some abstract genre definition.)
17 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, you might be turning players away with this:


——————————————————————————-
To create a new character, type: create
To load an existing character, type: load
To see who is currently playing online, type: who
——————————————————————————-

> create
Syntax: create
Name and password must be 3-12 characters in length.


The actual syntax is "create <name> <password>", as I learned about 15 attempts later. Some people might not stick around that long, though. Others might never figure it out (since you never actually tell them this - you just tell them syntax is "create").
17 Mar, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 7th comment:
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That's a client issue. You probably have MXP enabled and it's swallowing the < in create <name> <password>.
17 Mar, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 8th comment:
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What I've seen muds do is provide players with 3 options: 1) New to MUDs 2) New to YourMUD 3) Experienced Player. Then adjust hints and information accordingly.
17 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 9th comment:
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Yes, I checked and you're right. However, I won't be the only one with MXP enabled, so it should probably still be addressed.
17 Mar, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 10th comment:
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Sounds more like something that should be fixed client side. MXP is to be enabled by negotiating it using telopts.
17 Mar, 2010, shasarak wrote in the 11th comment:
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You definitely need to have some kind of help file which is specifically aimed at MUD veterans, and which explains the MUD's features in a way which anticipates their inaccurate expectations and explicitly corrects them. It's not enough to say "movement works like this" you have to say "movement doesn't work the same way it works in other MUDs; for example, you cannot move around by typing 'n', 's', 'e' and 'w'".

I think it would also help to have a little message in the start-up screen saying something like "Please note that Shasarak'sUltimateMUD is *VERY DIFFERENT* from other MUDs that you may have played before: you cannot move around by using the commands 'n', 's', 'e' and 'w', you generally should not start fights with the command 'kill'; there are lots of other differences too. If you are an experienced MUD player then please type 'help mud_veterans' at the prompt for an explanation of some of the more important ones!" Obviously the two examples you include in the message should be areas where there is a radical and important difference between this MUD and the norm.

It would also be a good idea to have the game engine anticipate some of the more common confusions and offer advice as and when they are encountered. So, for the above example, if the player actually types the command 'n' despite being told not to, then the response should not simply be "I don't understand you" it should be "You cannot use the commands 'n', 's', 'e' and 'w' to move around on Shasarak'sUltimateMUD - please type 'help movement' for more information."

Similarly, if you have a manual combat system, then the first time the player heads into battle with a new character, prevent his opponent from counter-attacking until he launches his first assault, and bring up a message on the screen saying "Combat in Shasarak'sUltimateMUD is manual - that is, even if being attacked, your character will not fight back unless you enter a command for each attack! If you need more info, leave this battle by typing 'flee' (you won't be penalised!), and then type 'help combat' for more info." (If the MUD uses accounts, then this is helpful, as you can make it happen only the first time a player goes into battle, not the first time every one of his characters does).

And so on.
17 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Sounds more like something that should be fixed client side. MXP is to be enabled by negotiating it using telopts.

Shrug. Some clients have "always on" MXP options, because there are MUDs out there that don't correctly negotiate it. I don't know that there's an easy way for him to mitigate this game-wide (I imagine not), but at the very least, I wouldn't be using angled brackets in the character creation process just in case. Just a suggestion.


As for the learning curve, I think he's done a good job with transitioning people from room-based to coord-based movement. The typical "north", "south", etc. commands all work as they would in other MUDs. Rather than moving you from room to room, though, they move you X feet to the north, south, etc., which ends up being 1 character up/down/left/right on the overhead map. So, you can kind of ease yourself into coord-based movement in this manner. I don't think there's really much more he could do in this respect. People are either going to like it or they aren't.
17 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Sounds more like something that should be fixed client side. MXP is to be enabled by negotiating it using telopts.

I could negotiate it on connection, but the problem is some of my players use basic telnet clients, and the negotiation kills their local echo. So it's basically a choice between supporting one of two clients, or removing the angled brackets from the mud…

Perhaps it would be enough just to check for people typing 'create' on its own, and suggesting they switch off MXP? In fact, I could actually do the negotiation if they type 'create' on its own, or perhaps ask them if they're using it…

shasarak said:
I think it would also help to have a little message in the start-up screen saying something like "Please note that Shasarak'sUltimateMUD is *VERY DIFFERENT* from other MUDs that you may have played before

If they're experienced mudders, they'll probably have heard that line a hundred times before :P

shasarak said:
It would also be a good idea to have the game engine anticipate some of the more common confusions and offer advice as and when they are encountered.

I do actually do that sort of thing by way of hints, but the players in question usually switch the hints off as soon as they've logged on.
17 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
The MXP thing is a well-known muck-up due to zMUD & friends introducing a hack for the reason Deimos gave: some MUD servers don't do it correctly. So now zMUD guesses for you, and occasionally guesses incorrectly. (And then people think MUSHclient is broken because it doesn't use MXP, even though it actually handles the negotiation or lets you set it manually, and refuses to guess, for exactly the reason we see here…)
17 Mar, 2010, shasarak wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
shasarak said:
I think it would also help to have a little message in the start-up screen saying something like "Please note that Shasarak'sUltimateMUD is *VERY DIFFERENT* from other MUDs that you may have played before

If they're experienced mudders, they'll probably have heard that line a hundred times before :P

Yeah; that's precisely I went on to say the part that you chose not to include when responding. :tongue: The messsage has to include examples, and they have to be interesting enough to make the player sit up and say "oh, right!". If you just say "we're different", they'll ignore it. If you say "you can't use 'n', 's', 'e' and 'w' to move" then they'll realise that you actually aren't kidding about being different.

KaVir said:
shasarak said:
It would also be a good idea to have the game engine anticipate some of the more common confusions and offer advice as and when they are encountered.

I do actually do that sort of thing by way of hints, but the players in question usually switch the hints off as soon as they've logged on.

That's why this particular class of hint needs to be something you cannot switch off the first time you play. :smile: And things like responses to commands which don't actually work on this MUD but do on most others don't need to be switched off, anyway, as players will only hit them when they type the wrong thing (which they won't, once they know what they're doing).
17 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
The MXP thing is a well-known muck-up due to zMUD & friends introducing a hack for the reason Deimos gave: some MUD servers don't do it correctly. So now zMUD guesses for you, and occasionally guesses incorrectly.

Ah, zMUD breaking its own protocols again? Not many of my players use it, and I'm not willing to buy a copy just to test compatibility. I don't suppose you've any idea what it bases its guesses on, have you?

shasarak said:
Yeah; that's precisely I went on to say the part that you chose not to include when responding.

Yup sorry, it's just that when I hear a mud start out by saying things like "We're MASSIVELY modified and COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to other muds…" the rest of the line just turns into "blah blah blah" for me. I've heard it so many times, I just skip the rest.

But the reasoning behind your suggestion is sound, and I'm sure the sentence could be rearranged in a more eye-catching manner. Definitely worth thinking over.
17 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Ah, zMUD breaking its own protocols again? Not many of my players use it, and I'm not willing to buy a copy just to test compatibility. I don't suppose you've any idea what it bases its guesses on, have you?

My understanding is that it does exactly what happened here: it seems something that looks like an MXP tag, and turns on MXP and thereby hides the tag lookalike. I saw similar things happen with <n>, <s>, etc.

Here is a thread on the Gammon forums.

It could be though that this isn't a case of zMUD guessing, because perhaps it only guesses if the things look like actual MXP tags. (<name> and <password> might count, though!) Reading over it again, it looks like MUSHclient is strict with <…> tags, whereas zMUD is lax.

(It would appear that I may have misrepresented the initial problem. Going over those links some more, there is a lot of brokenness for many different reasons, but it's unclear to me if this is such a case: I'd have to know what the server is sending (e.g. < or &lt;), what the client is, whether the client thinks MXP is on, etc.)
17 Mar, 2010, Scandum wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
David Haley said:
The MXP thing is a well-known muck-up due to zMUD & friends introducing a hack for the reason Deimos gave: some MUD servers don't do it correctly. So now zMUD guesses for you, and occasionally guesses incorrectly.

Ah, zMUD breaking its own protocols again? Not many of my players use it, and I'm not willing to buy a copy just to test compatibility. I don't suppose you've any idea what it bases its guesses on, have you?

That problem sounds more like a MUSHclient issue.
17 Mar, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
KaVir said:
David Haley said:
The MXP thing is a well-known muck-up due to zMUD & friends introducing a hack for the reason Deimos gave: some MUD servers don't do it correctly. So now zMUD guesses for you, and occasionally guesses incorrectly.

Ah, zMUD breaking its own protocols again? Not many of my players use it, and I'm not willing to buy a copy just to test compatibility. I don't suppose you've any idea what it bases its guesses on, have you?

That problem sounds more like a MUSHclient issue.


Uhm.. How? How exactly is something that zMUD does a MUSHClient issue?
17 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
It's a MUSHclient "issue" in that MUSHclient does what the protocol says to do. Funny that!!
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