Splitting so that we can keep things a little organized. It's hard to have many conversations going on in the same thread.



One thing to keep in mind is that the name of the field and its presentation on the crawler site are separate issues. We could call the field "newbie friendly", and crawlers could display it using another name.

Also, newbie friendliness is a bigger concept than just having a training area. For instance, I can imagine a MUD that's very newbie friendly, but without any explicit training area.

I think it's important to identify exactly what we're trying to say here. I imagine that many MUDs will not advertise themselves as being "unfriendly" to newbies. The presence of newbie training (be it through a tutorial, training area, tip system, etc.) is at least an objective measure.

Maybe the field could be about what kind of help is available. Something like:

Help Available: any combination of:
tutorial, training area, in-game help files, tip system, help chat channels, "newbie-dedicated staff" (don't like the wording), …

TMC classified Newbie Friendly as "encouraged and assisted by other players and/or immortals designated as newbie helpers" which I find silly. What would that matter if the MUD never has anyone on, or the people on are too busy to help assist a newbie?

I would prefer "Newbie Friendly" to be something like having an introduction area to teach how to play MUDs for the first time, hints, etc.

I agree, a definition based on other players' willingness to help is kind of irrelevant if those players aren't around. Also, it's unlikely that a MUD would declare itself as being openly hostile to new players. The main salvageable thing I think is the explicit designation of certain people as newbie helpers, which is an objective measure (but of course it suffers from the people-not-present problem).

Heh, maybe thats a way to advertise it.

"Come play TGA where everyone is a maxed out bounty hunting force user, but you!". "Come and test your chops against the best of the best and see if you can win in the end".

Like an issued challenge or something.

lol, I didn't even know there was a defined definition for Newbie Friendly. That is kind of silly to limit it like that (and let's face it, not everyone is friendly :wink: )

What I was aiming at in particular was how to identify that your mud is providing for, and how they accommodate new players. So in terms of relevant information that a mud would like known, I like all of your suggestions David. NPC helpers? I don't know how to put it in some kind of fielded form but I want people to know they can basically learn the game even if no one else is online.

Are these all meaningful to the Mushes/Mux's and Moo's out there or maybe they have different terms they use?




My original thought on this was from the perspective of display on the mud listing site, hence the slightly long field name. They can decide how to word it.

How about:

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "Newbie Areas", "Newbie Channels", "Newbie Helpers",
                     "Newbie Helpfiles", "Newbie Hints", "Newbie Tutorials".
                     Can be used multiple times if you have various forms of
                     newbie support, leave empty if there's no newbie support.

Looks good. I would distinguish between newbie areas and newbie school (aka MUD school). I'm not sure what the difference is between newbie helpfiles and tutorials. I would phrase it as "hint system" rather than "newbie hints" as the latter could mean one of many different things.

I think the tutorial thing would be a 'lead you along' type approach, either via mobs with programs, or simply messages.

My own has: newbie areas (mudschool, low level areas etc), newbie channel, helpers (personal choice to toggle it on, if you have it on or are an imm/staff, you see missed 'help' requests. They also see newbie channel), newbie helpfiles, hints (at each level, mainly leveling with some other hints thrown in). No tutorials… well, built in ones like 'Ok, now you'll want to open the box and get the key'… ok yeah so some really simple tutorials, mainly designed at completely new to MUD type people.

From the above criteria, I'd say mine is newbie friendly. It's not _easy_, it's just friendly when we kill you ;p.

The way I view it a tutorial would be a structured document that goes from a to z, where helpfiles would be a much more loosely organized reference system.

From what I've seen "hints" is a pretty universal concept in muds to refer to the "HINT: You can attack monsters with the KILL command." spams. What other meanings are there to the word / concept?

Must say I'm partial to the Newbie prefix. Adding schools:

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "Newbie Areas", "Newbie Channels", "Newbie Helpers", "Newbie Helpfiles",
                     "Newbie Hints", "Newbie Schools", "Newbie Tutorials". Can be used multiple
                     times if you have various forms of newbie support, leave empty if there's
                     no newbie support.

Well, hints could come in the form of an in-game hint system, an external document giving general hints, help files giving hints, a forum with collections of hints, …

I think that "MUD school" might be a more accepted term than "newbie school" but I could be mistaken there.

I'm not sure how much I like having "newbie" in front of every value, because it's already understood that we're talking about newbie stuff due to the field name. In some cases it makes sense (e.g. "newbie channel"), in some cases it seems redundant ("newbie hint system").

I tried removing the "Newbie" prefix but didn't like the look of it, but either way is fine with me.

I guess more opinions are needed.

To keep things moving:

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "Newbie Areas", "Newbie Channel", "Newbie Helpers", "Newbie Helpfiles",
                     "Newbie Hints", "Newbie School", "Newbie Tutorial". Can be used multiple
                     times if you have various forms of newbie support, leave empty if there's
                     no newbie support.

or:

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "Newbie Areas", "Newbie Channel", "Helpers", "Helpfiles",
                     "Hint System", "MUD School", "Tutorial". Can be used multiple
                     times if you have various forms of newbie support, leave empty if there's
                     no newbie support.

or post your preferred format.

I'm leaning towards the latter.
Maybe even vaping Newbie from the Areas, Channel etc.

"Newbie Support" "Areas, Channels, Helpers, Helpfiles, Hint System, School, Tutorials"
Can be used… etc.

Also maybe with a 'Description' so people can expound upon what their game offers.

Newbie Areas: Surely these are a requirement, at least for any HnS mud? A newbie area is generally just a very low-level area, and you're going to need areas to cater to players of all levels. There can also be areas specifically designed to teach new players how to play - but that's already covered by the "Newbie School" option.

Newbie Channel: A separate channel for newbies is nice, but as long as they've got access to any sort of public channel they can ask for help. It might be more valuable to note which muds actively block newbies from public channels.

Newbie Helpers: Does this refer to human helpers, or does it include NPC ones as well (such as the newbie guides you encounter on some muds)? For human helpers, can it simply mean you consider your staff/players helpful, or does it require a specific "newbie helper" position?

Newbie Helpfiles: I do have a 'newbie' help file, but other than that it's rather difficult to classify them. The purpose of help files is to explain how the game works, and newbies are people who don't understand how the game works…so couldn't you argue that pretty much all help files are newbie help files?

Newbie Tutorial: My 'tutorial' is a combination of areas, hints and help files. I can't think of any tutorial that wouldn't cross over with at least one of the other options.

Agreed. I would be tempted to just go with MUD school as it's less ambiguous.


Well, on many MUDs newbies have another channel with the note that they're not supposed to ask for help on public channels, although they can use them otherwise. Also, a newbie channel is an easy way to find other newbies (on games that have enough players in the first place, obviously).


I imagine it means real people (otherwise it'd fall under the category of MUD schools, presumably). And I would probably take it to mean a dedicated position; at least that's an objective measure. I imagine few people would seriously advertise themselves as having unhelpful staff members.


Yes, I think the meaning of "tutorial" needs to be cleared up (or perhaps simply dropped).

Newbie Areas and Helpfiles are probably not needed. A tutorial can either be a very specific helpfile or an introduction of sorts, not sure if it should be dropped or specifically defined. To a degree mud schools are tutorials, but not all muds have something that clearly classifies as a 'mud school'. Newbie channels are OOC, so RPI muds won't have a newbie channel or anything that would function as such.

New round of suggestions:

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "Newbie Channel", "Newbie Helpers", "Newbie Hints", "Newbie Tutorial".
                     Can be used multiple times if you have various forms of newbie support,
                     leave empty if there's no newbie support.

"NEWBIE SUPPORT"     "OOC Channel", "Newbie Helpers", "Hint System", "MUD School". Can be used
                     multiple times if you have various forms of newbie support, leave empty
                     if there's no newbie support.

I'd always considered "newbie friendly" to be a nonsense advertising term. I'm actually surprised this of all items has been so thoroughly explored. ;-)

Well, that's why I'm trying to focus on the objective facts: presence of a MUD school, presence of a hint system, etc., rather than on the very fuzzy "we like newbies" aspect of things.