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Trial of Rebirth modifications
To partly solve Achaea's learning curve and improve the Trial issue (which Sarapis mentioned in one of the Rant forum's posts), I'd consider an academy or something that allows newcomers to do a bit of extra reading or intro work, with the aid of either Romeo/Juliet, or some additional Guides.
Part of what this could entail is extra help scroll reading, so that their exit from Ceylon is locked until they've at least opened each required scroll once. HELP INSANITY, HELP NAMECHANGE, HELP NEWBIES would be key points to keep easy mistakes from happening.
In the modified Trial, the player is still in a 1-player environment with only the same denizens on a guided tour. The Crone's functions are still good to review, but the flavour on that might be different.
Denizen tasks to highlight in the "Trial":
* MAP usage, SAY/TELL, and emotes, GET/GIVE, and the things Gruul walks through. Essentially everything already in the Trial is good for that phase. But might adjust the default speed to be slightly higher.
* Learn about hunger & sleep
* PROBE/CONSIDER might be good here before attacking the Fire Guardian
* Skip the city/class/house choices though.
* Choose RACE. To avoid using up free reincarns and so on, a player might want to learn a little about the races in-game and how they'll function.
* Tells from Pasiphae or somebody to read insanity/namechange/newbies and likewise.
* A chance to review CONFIG options, possibly with auto-advice on them.
From here, instead of immediately reaching the ring of portals and having still attained Lvl 5, the newbie is instead placed in the Delosian Academy, a classroom-like environment that is essentially part of the real world, but still with Minia-like restrictions. Players will be advised in a tell upon entry that they are now in full roleplay and should behave as such.
This is where the youngest newbies, from about levels 5-10 could remain. At the head of the classroom would be a Pasiphae type, either as a guide or guide-controllable denizen, that serves as a more personal intro and answers questions in person (Romeo/Juliet can step in too). At the same time, other new players can wander the school-like environment doing menial quests. In scope, something between Hogwarts and a one-room schoolhouse would be about right.
Denizen tasks to highlight in the "Academy":
* Health/mana sipping and the fact that endurance/will regen on their own
* Rooms that have IN/OUT exits. I can't say how long it took me to figure out that the entrance to Ember Tower was not EAST, but IN, because I relied on the map, never having played a MUD before
* Quests that improve exploration skills
* CONSIDER/PROBE and etiquette involving city/personal loyals
* A Sorting Hat-style denizen that helps new players decide which class would best suit them by asking "Do you prefer close up fighting or magic?" "Would you prefer runic magic, elemental magic, dark magic....", etc. The reason I suggest this is because I was introduced before character creation by a couple people on another game. They asked those questions to fit me with the right race, city, class, and house, and I think it helped.
* Class choice after the above item.
* In this environment, newbies can interact with each other before they are split up into opposing factions. Upon "graduation" from the Academy, city/house would be granted.
* Discussion of the best racial specialisation to suit the chosen class.
* Discussion of TRAITS and how they'll be available at Lvl 20+.
* At the request of a newbie, the denizen teacher could begin a lecture on a particular topic listed on the board. "Teach me about Gods," says the newbie. The denizen would launch into a timed lesson explaining how to interact with the Divine and how They like Their pronouns. A few "live" help files could be worked in this way. Weapons, Ships, Dragons, Killing/Fighting/Combat, Marks, Divine Orders, Crafting, Lessons/Credits, Artefacts, Theft...
* Quests should include means of acquiring small amounts of herbs, especially some free myrrh.
* HELP files themselves, as well as explaining that CAPITAL LETTERS will be used in a sentence when people tell you how to do something. Try PULLing the ROPE for example.
A series of quests would ultimately lead the newcomer to a room with an invisible lever to pull or something. For returning players creating alts, they could obviously go straight to that room and choose their class/etc. to leave the tutorial. Might run an IP-check and then have the game recommend heading straight for that room if not a new player.
I think the most helpful part of this area for a new player would be a more standardized, controlled version of House interaction, where players can grasp game mechanics without having to sort through confusing HHELP scrolls at the same time.
So, thoughts, add-ons, ideas?
I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
Comments
I think the trial needs to have more of an engaging story line behind it, with a touch of dramatic tension thrown in to grip new players. e.g. Like in the old one when you got attacked (I think) by a goblin in Azdun.
With the old intro, I'd introduce people to the game and at least a few would stick around. With the new one, people I've tried to introduce just stare at the screen for five minuets, then get board.
You cant expect everyone to want to sit down and read for long periods of time before actually starting to game. You need to hook them right away or allot of people won't hang around for long.
There can be a storyline, as long as it's vague enough to fit into any time period instead of built up as something important that you then forget about after leaving because it has no impact on the world. The important thing is to appeal to people that have never played a MUD or text-based game before. Most mudders have (hopefully) already heard of or tried Achaea.
The things I struggled with were the slow pace and lack of direction. I didn't see a clear objective or goal in the game aside from reaching Dragon or Ascension, which obviously entailed a lot of work. The irony is that there is no particular objective or goal other than what you choose to do in the world. You can do what you want, and that has to be taught at the intro level. This is where newbies interacting with other newbies and alts could spark additional learning and discussion. My first character was about 23 when he was finally comfortable leaving Minia. Because there is enough of a learning curve in that. He'd kill pixies and catch butterflies until he had fewer portals and realized he had no idea how to navigate, and so died voluntarily to ensure his xp wouldn't kick him from Minia.
So many of the basics should be covered before letting novices wander and get bored questing in Minia, because the extent of the game isn't 'kill/catch this' 'give to other denizen who wants this'.
I would include in the Academy a sparring feature to let true newbies test their below-fledgling skills on one another. Or perhaps even a denizen sensei who paralyses them and then offers the bloodroot to cure, instead of the newbie tasks that currently 'ask tyrandiel web' or however that works. Someone who wants to get into the fighting after hearing about the complex combat system should be able to walk through a tutorial in the Academy that describes just that.
Then there are the creative types who want to shape the world, and a 'home economics' walkthrough of the possibilities in tailoring, jewelling, and cooking should be highlighted, voluntarily. And that's the difference in this phase. Ceylon is narrow and must-have knowledge, while the Academy lets people explore, and every tapestry and statue has some kind of lesson.
People who like exploring would enjoy a room of maps, an overview of the WALK TO function, and discussion of seafaring.
The copycat pixie girl thing is good for emote practice, so something like that in the academy environment would be good too (the difference being that everything in Minia can be killed, while killing things in a school that are trying to teach you is a common sense no-no).
House scrolls won't cover all of this, and aren't as interactive besides. This way you don't have to rely on a house member or friend being present to have any direction.
- Interesting and engaging
- Takes place in real Achaea
- Grabs you from the outset
Loom Island weakesses:- Doesn't fit easily into a player's history
- Doesn't make much narrative sense
- No good reason for why it's repeated so much (That same paladin always dies?)
- It's something people try to avoid talking about
-------------------Trial of Rebirth strengths:
- Fits easily into a character's history
- Ties into the world by way of lore
- Easy benchmark; can be talked about in-character with ease
Trial of Rebirth weaknesses:I don't do troll threads. And if I did, they wouldn't be as detailed as the first post.
"Yeah, once the current event is over with, we're going to spend a lot of energy looking at the newbie experience, possibly redoing much of it from scratch and integrating better support for new players who haven't played text MUDs before in the HTML5 client."
I don't think they've had much time to really sort the Trial issue out, and new players are something we could stand to have more of, instead of the same people recycling alts forever. So this is intended to be a discussion thread. Support my idea, change it, scrap and rewrite it. I have no preference other than putting my idea out there.
I think at the core of your proposal there are some wonderful ideas, the academy setting just makes me cringe a bit.
One of the problems I have with the current 'Trial' is that, well, it’s not really much of a trial. You go somewhere, speak with ancient dudes, kill something, then your kicked out into Achaea and told to do a load of research homework, er, I mean read help files. There's no sense of accomplishment to it.
A 'Trial' should be framed AS a Trial. I'm thinking here, for example, the way humans who want to be Space Marines in the 40K universe have to go through a number of dangerous ordeals to earn the honour of that title. Or the way many RW tribal societies have rights of passage they put their young people through.That’s a real Trial. Going shopping with a tall guy in armour, isn't...
What would be great is if there was a sense that you could fail, even if you obviously couldn't. Meeting up with NPC's who are also taking the flame (perhaps their names are randomly generated to overcome repetition), who then fail along the way and end up perma-dead in some horrible way, now that would be way cool. Making it so that taking the flame is IC perceived to be really dangerous, would also explain why so many denizens don't undertake the trial.
Come to think of it, although this is a very radical suggestion I'm throwing into the pot, why not make it so that your character could actually perma-die during the intro? If you fail at a challenge, then your character perishes and you are whisked back to the start of the process again, with a neat IC explanation as to what’s just happened. I often find that being killed in a game makes me want to work harder at completing it. This would also increase the sense of accomplishment for a new player when they do actually make it out of the intro.
Those who take the flame are made different to ordinary mortals, yet this also isn't really covered that much. I really liked the story behind Tears of Polaris (I can't express how gutted I am its not happening) that explained what made players more special than denizens. This should be emphasized more here. Why is it, for example, that only those who have taken the flame are eligible for positions of authority within each city?
Obviously the basics need to be covered, but that could be done in a more exciting way. Perhaps to get hold of a pack and a health vile, you have to walk across a bed of hot coals to get to a room that sells them. Hence, when you get there, you get the ability to heal up (the coals hurt you and may even kill you), but also gain the ability to heal during the next few challenges, plus a pack to store your gold in.
I love the idea of a 'post intro' stage being coded in. Yeah, we've got the task system, but that's blander than a lental-smoothey. It would be awesome to see the storyline behind the intro continue all the way up to level 21, when (instead of just suddenly finding you can’t go into newbie areas), a whole sequence unfolds before you. Again, this would give new players a greater sense of accomplishment which would result in them sticking around longer.
I'm not sure what the storyline would be (I may come up with something over the next few days if I have the time) but it has to be epic and exciting. Fundamentally, it has to be fun!
These are just ideas, feel free to discuss.
Or throw the newbies straight into a teamwork environment where they have to check out their basic skills in some little armoury, with some annoying soldier standing there going "Hurry! Your help is needed in the courtyard!" non-stop. Then they head out to fight some wimpy goblins with punches and kicks.
Obviously the idea isn't perfectly inclusive of Achaean gameplay either, but it does bring a little more excitement and urgency to the intro.
After the smoke settles, some captain-of-the-guard-like individual trots out and says "I noticed you got hurt and stuff. You may want to SIP HEALTH or SLEEP to recover." Then some praise of the newbie's ferocity: "You were really something back there. I think you've got what it takes to move beyond punches and kicks. Have you thought about choosing a class?" Then continuing on to cover the other necessary gameplay points listed above, consider/probe "how to pick your fights", and something introducing race specialisations.
Then there's myrrh, something that's usually listed in House scrolls, but also something every novice needs but can't easily find in novice quantities, except by asking for some free. I think part of the trial/other intro should reward novices with 10-15 myrrh to save everybody that guaranteed hassle.
What is the actual speed difference with myrrh, by the way. Do you know?
tutor: *facepalm*
→My Mudlet Scripts
Yeah, I thought about that. But obviously Xith's first draft of the new trial experience isn't intended to be flawless.
Yeah, that would be useful.
Just a little bit more guided instruction before brand-newbies get turned over to the real world. Better for them and a little less of the obvious stuff for us to cover.