22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 1st comment:
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All right. Here's a question that I've been thinking about for a long time. I figured I'd take it to a community of MUD developers rather than let it bounce around my head indefinitely.

I am currently working on designing a new MUD based off RoM 2.4b6. Here's the issue: there are several things I want to change that are mostly cosmetic. For instance: I'd like to combine the Intelligence and Wisdom stats and add a new "Perception" stat. I've changed Hitroll so much that it really can't be called Hitroll any more. I'm thinking about removing Practices and replacing skills with a 1-25 rating that starts automatically at 1 (basically, the same as having every skill generated at 75% automatically). Et cetera et cetera.

My worry is this: if I change all these things, will new players be driven off by the lack of familiar landmarks on their score sheet? Will they be too confused by an altered skill system that isn't based off percents and practices?

Most importantly, is steepening up the learning curve worth having (what I believe to be) a more fluid, rounded game?

I'm just looking for people with experiences either way. What have you all found?
22 Jun, 2010, Idealiad wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Oliver said:
My worry is this: if I change all these things, will new players be driven off by the lack of familiar landmarks on their score sheet? Will they be too confused by an altered skill system that isn't based off percents and practices?

Most importantly, is steepening up the learning curve worth having (what I believe to be) a more fluid, rounded game?


To be brutally honest, 80% of MUDs average less than 10 players per month, so I think familiar landmarks and learning curves should be the least of your worries.
22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Idealiad said:
To be brutally honest, 80% of MUDs average less than 10 players per month, so I think familiar landmarks and learning curves should be the least of your worries.


Yes, well, that's exactly what I'm worried about. :) I don't myself have enough experience to say whether or not people tend to shy away from altered aesthetics/mechanic systems.
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 4th comment:
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Oliver, I think that you can change many things without making the game more difficult to learn. The most important thing is to make sure that the use of your new system is clearly documented. If anything it's an open invitation to create a detailed walkthrough/tutorial to introduce players to your game and your changes. Consider the beginning of some of the I.R.E games, they introduce concepts that are new to many players. I think they do it in a fun and educational way that doesn't detract from the experience. Playing through the intro for the first time can be a lot of fun. =)
22 Jun, 2010, kiasyn wrote in the 5th comment:
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Dropping players into a new system without any indication of what to do is what I find bad.

Games where there is a mediocre introduction, and then you're just placed in a city to wander around without any idea of where you should go / do etc.
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 6th comment:
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For sure, Kiasyn. You can develop any kind of system for your game as long as you properly introduce it, AND give players a good starting point. I've played way too many games where I had no idea what to do, but knew exactly how to do it. If you develop a game like that, you are failing your players and yourself.
22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 7th comment:
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Sure. And in intend to. The thing is, I guess, lots of players really just skip things like newbie introductions. But I guess those players know how to find what they need in helpfiles, so it's not as big of an issue.
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 8th comment:
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Does skipping the introduction have to be an option? If you make the introduction an actual part of the gameplay, at least for the first character created in an account, you can get around that. It doesn't have to be a tutorial so much as it is the beginning of the game.
22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 9th comment:
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Well. That seems a little hard, because the things I need to educate newbies about are OOC. My game is going to be, well. Not RPI (that acronym has such terrible stigma attached to it), but rp-enforced.
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 10th comment:
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It seems to me that the mechanics of the system need not be displayed in a roleplaying enforced game. Explaining how to use skills, spells, powers, etc. can be done rather simply while remaining in character. Is it complex enough that you need to educate the players on what is happening behind the scenes? I'm not trying to argue with you by the way, just trying to understand. =)
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 11th comment:
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Personally, I'm not overly familiar with Rom so I probably wouldn't even notice that it had changed. If your players crave original Rom functionality, perhaps they should play the original game? (Rivers of Mud?) (Is that still around?)
22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 12th comment:
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I'd say that the proposed deviation from Stock warrants OOC explanation. I'm probably going to change it so that each skill has a 1-25 skill rating rather than 1-100%, and practices won't be used.

Edit: it's not that people crave original RoM functionality. It's just that certain things have become staples of Dikurivatives and I know that I'm a little thrown when they're not present.
22 Jun, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 13th comment:
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Well, I found out in another thread recently that I am some kind of mud playing anomaly due to the fact that I want every game I play to be distinctly different (sequels and the like aside). Otherwise I just feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over. Perhaps I'm the wrong person to be chiming in on this topic. =)
22 Jun, 2010, Runter wrote in the 14th comment:
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There's few successful games in the world where the designers were wise to follow an arbitrary standard rather than do whatever lends itself to make the game more fun (or in this case, more playable for newbies.)
22 Jun, 2010, Oliver wrote in the 15th comment:
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I guess I am just worried about driving off newbies in a world where they are so scarce, yeah.
22 Jun, 2010, Idealiad wrote in the 16th comment:
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But the point is that even games that are close to stock have hardly any players. So why not just go for what you think will be better/fun?
22 Jun, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 17th comment:
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Oliver said:
Most importantly, is steepening up the learning curve worth having (what I believe to be) a more fluid, rounded game?

I'm just looking for people with experiences either way. What have you all found?

Increasing the learning curve will discourage some players, but providing a more fluid and well-rounded game will attract others.

The most popular muds tend to be those that have reached a balance between innovation and familiarity. They take the tried-and-true and give it a good polish.

Chris Bailey said:
Consider the beginning of some of the I.R.E games, they introduce concepts that are new to many players. I think they do it in a fun and educational way that doesn't detract from the experience. Playing through the intro for the first time can be a lot of fun. =)

Donky wrote an insightful summary of his experience with the Midkemia Online tutorial a few months ago. Of particular interest (to me at least) was what happened when it finished: http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=topi...

"Now I am put in the game. There are some people standing around. Some use orbs to jump in and out of the room. What is this fantastical orb jumping that seems out of sorts? It makes me picture Aladdin wandering in, dressed in his open chest vest and pantaloons. I have no idea what to do from here. Interest lost, it was great up until this point, but there is no obvious direction to continue. And since my primary interest is learning from the experience, and I have, I have no inclination to fight my way through cluelessness to some understanding.

It does make me wonder if you can make the whole game a tutorial. Perhaps have a tutorial mode. I wouldn't want to dump players out of an experience that is guided, to one that is completely freeform."


His post inspired me to create a 'what' command - an on-request psuedo tutorial mode that's available if ever (and whenever) you want it, without being forced down your throat: http://www.mudbytes.net/topic-2550

The feedback has been very positive, and in combination with MXP you can actually play through a lot of the newbie phase using mostly your mouse. It continues giving information throughout the game, too, so you don't just "eject" players into the Big Bad World - instead, they tend to rely on it less and less as their experience grows.

Idealiad said:
But the point is that even games that are close to stock have hardly any players.

Well 'stock' is a relative term, but IMO all of the big (playerbase-wise) muds - while certainly including many custom features - still have that "familiar" feel the OP talks about. Enough that you can recognise them as Diku, LP, Tiny or Avalon-style (I think the Simutronics games would be the only exception).
22 Jun, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 18th comment:
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One thing you should be wary of if you're starting from a stock codebase is a kind of "uncanny valley" effect where the game feels like a particular codebase, but lacks certain features players of those codebases have come to expect. We've had this problem because we use a mob/object description style and colour scheme that is used in RPI engine games and this has lead to several players complaining that the game is not an RPI when they discover more of the features.
22 Jun, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
One thing you should be wary of if you're starting from a stock codebase is a kind of "uncanny valley" effect where the game feels like a particular codebase, but lacks certain features players of those codebases have come to expect. We've had this problem because we use a mob/object description style and colour scheme that is used in RPI engine games and this has lead to several players complaining that the game is not an RPI when they discover more of the features.

To be fair, I've seen adverts that imply Maiden Desmodus is similar to the RPIs, so it could also be a labelling issue - people see the label and make an assumption about the gameplay. I've had the same problem in that regard as well, due to the name of my mud - complaints that God Wars II is "going in the wrong direction", that "The difference is significant, sad, and a bad thing", that I "screwed a lot of things up with it", that "There's a lot they pulled out of it that I liked about the original", etc.

On another thread, Lyanic also mentioned (in regard to The 7th Plane) that "the majority of players who login quit immediately because they were looking for a God Wars MUD", and I recall hearing similiar stories from other mud owners as well.

However I don't think there's really much you can do about that - if a player is specifically looking for a different style of gameplay, then no amount of tutorials is going to help, and you're probably better off if they don't hang around anyway (in my experience such players can often be aggressively disruptive for a while before they leave). I've actually considered putting together a list of other recommended muds, so that players looking for a different style of game can be shunted out the door with a carrot instead of a stick.
22 Jun, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
One thing I'd suggest is to build an account system into the game, so you log in with a username/password and then select a character to play (or create a new one). This doesn't really do anything to stop multiplayers or other such things, but what it DOES do is give you a place to store meta-data that really pertains to the player, not the character.

A good example is the introduction/tutorial system. If you are making your first character (or your first of a given starting area, however you do things), you get the tutorial. If you make another character, you don't need it.

Likewise, you may find other meta-data that would be useful for people across their characters. Aliases, friend lists, possibly some achievements or exploration data.
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