Problems & things that might need attention vol. 2

[yoz]

Wow the start where you bash someones creativeness in there post really lends weight to your following words?

If you call that creative, then yes.

Above you state that removing bigger players from the newb line won't be an effective way of helping to keep newbs but those are the very players who raised there hands on the line to let us all know they where a bunch of A#$hats which is not what newbs need to feel welcome to a game and as far as reconnect triggers make them illegal problem solved.

I still do state that removing bigger players from the newbie channel would not help. Bigger players use the newbie channel too. A newbie helper player status could work, but unfortunately newbie channel is still needed for all size players.
This is a complicated mud.

We tend to have quite a lot newbies who come in, play some supercool guild for amazing 1hour and start yelling on channels that the guild/race sucks and it needs to be changed because it was like this in LOTR or some other mud. Those guys usually are perfect examples for newbies who get shit flinged at them by the previously mentioned A#$hats (including me). I don't know why, but we get loads of these. Most of these newbies usually tend to take the slightest sarcasm or joke dead seriously which usually leads to even bigger bashing. (we've got dozens of good examples of this in past years)

Too many of the newcomers are seriously lacking the brain capacity to get out of the rat infested warehouse and find something to kill (that is where many get stuck, when the game itself no longer feeds you with easy expmonsters), that usually means that the game sucks for them and they have to prove it to everyone listening.

This is a hard game to start, and maybe the newbies should be made aware of it. You will NOT be born in the world of aegis with gold spoon in your ass. Neither you will not be guided through all the quests and such just by asking all the big players in game to do it.

In my opinion newcomers should be made aware that this might happen, this is not the easiest mud to start and the whole system is much more complicated than in many other games. If you do not like it, you can choose another game.

I am not against making newbies life easier, i am just against newbies who lack the intelligence to read or comprehend what they are told. If retarded incapable newbies could fly, icesus would be an airport. I can quarantee, those newbies who come out right, respect the actual hard work the wizards and players have gone through in creating/playing this game will get the answers & guidance needed.

Also I think the point is to help people have a better understanding of the language not shun them because they are trying to learn.

This is a text based game, if you can't read, don't try.

[pidzer]

First of all, could you by chance make those superb paintbrush arts of yours any bigger? My nose only bled for 5minutes after seeing that terrific piece of multimedia art.

Second, i vote a stiff no for kicking out idle players. What would this fix anyways? 90% of people use zmud which has very very well working reconnect triggers. That would fool the newbies even more, seeing that a helper is unidle, but in fact, he just reconnected by automated function.

Cutting off newbie channel from bigger players would not help much, but having that newbie helper "title" available for players who choose to be such could possibly help.

Direct guidelines could be made for those players who decide to become one. And failing those could have dire consequences.

This again, has already been done in batmud, and seems to work quite well.

Wow the start where you bash someones creativeness in there post really lends weight to your following words?

Above you state that removing bigger players from the newb line won't be an effective way of helping to keep newbs but those are the very players who raised there hands on the line to let us all know they where a bunch of A#$hats which is not what newbs need to feel welcome to a game and as far as reconnect triggers make them illegal problem solved.

I'd rather keep this forum free of (huge) pictures as well.

As for keeping all highbies out of newbie. A definite no, since some of the helpful midbies/lowbies/highbies are clueless and provide inaccurate or false help, even though they themselves may be 100% certain that they are right and everyone else is wrong. The unhelpful highbies just toggle newbie off and live their unlifes in peace, so no harassment there.

Newbie helper system would be nice, but then again, re-read the clueless part above.

As for idle players, a clever newbie knows how to 'finger' or use 'who idle' or even 'who unidle' to see who to ask, if no help is forthcoming. Well articulated and polite inquiries with no spelling errors (We Finns take punctuation seriously) asking a reasonable question is often answered. Just don't start asking for help from the top to bottom, but start from the middlegrounds.

You finns? Are obviously a bunch of queerbait then.

Punctuation and articulation have nothing to do with anything.

It's all about being able to convey and express the point which you are communicate.

It's appreant that you _are_ one of those players who have developed an over-inflated sense of know-it-allism. When really you know... jack.

A clever noob you say? Does that exist? A player new to MUDding is not clever at all. Also, 'who' is not always the command to list a MUDs players. On others, it could be 'players' Or 'online' or 'connected'

You'd know that, if you yourself weren't a noob. Perhaps a clever noob. but your lack of experiance at MUDding overall, is as apperant as your sense of "I know it all. The end"

Well. fail noob.

[yoz]

You finns? Are obviously a bunch of queerbait then.

Punctuation and articulation have nothing to do with anything.

It's all about being able to convey and express the point which you are communicate.

It's appreant that you _are_ one of those players who have developed an over-inflated sense of know-it-allism. When really you know... jack.

A clever noob you say? Does that exist? A player new to MUDding is not clever at all. Also, 'who' is not always the command to list a MUDs players. On others, it could be 'players' Or 'online' or 'connected'

You'd know that, if you yourself weren't a noob. Perhaps a clever noob. but your lack of experiance at MUDding overall, is as apperant as your sense of "I know it all. The end"

Well. fail noob.

Did i mention something about newbies who take stuff dead seriously?

I think i did.

[uzriel]

It's not often i agree with Yoz, but he has some good points here. We do get alot of people that play the game for a few hours or days and then start whining about how badly tuned things are and so on.

If newbies wants to be taken seriously when coming with sugestions they should atleast try playing for a while before trying to pointing out what the flaws are.

I guess we've had alot of newcomers that has made alot of noise before they reach level 30 and then just go away. It's hard to think that most newbies won't be like that nowdays..

Just prove everyone wrong. Stick around, learn the game and THEN come with sugestions. Not the other way around.

[darthalomus]

did you just take that to seriously and call yourself a noob?

[pidzer]

You finns? Are obviously a bunch of queerbait then.

Punctuation and articulation have nothing to do with anything.

It's all about being able to convey and express the point which you are communicate.

It's appreant that you _are_ one of those players who have developed an over-inflated sense of know-it-allism. When really you know... jack.

A clever noob you say? Does that exist? A player new to MUDding is not clever at all. Also, 'who' is not always the command to list a MUDs players. On others, it could be 'players' Or 'online' or 'connected'

You'd know that, if you yourself weren't a noob. Perhaps a clever noob. but your lack of experiance at MUDding overall, is as apperant as your sense of "I know it all. The end"

Well. fail noob.

Did i mention something about newbies who take stuff dead seriously?

I think i did.

i'm just calling it like i see it

[uzriel]

How would it work to have some kind of voting system for players that help, with proper rewards?

Let's say that new players get 50 voting points when they start the game (this should be made very clear in the introduction). When they have a question and it gets answered by another player they can use a vote command to give this player a vote. When a player gets 10 votes it turns into 1 pdf (or whaterver).

If we could also get some new nice special blessings this would be a very nice carrot for players to help newbies.

This would ofcourse require some coding, and fraud prevention etc.

[yoz]

How would it work to have some kind of voting system for players that help, with proper rewards?

Let's say that new players get 50 voting points when they start the game (this should be made very clear in the introduction). When they have a question and it gets answered by another player they can use a vote command to give this player a vote. When a player gets 10 votes it turns into 1 pdf (or whaterver).

If we could also get some new nice special blessings this would be a very nice carrot for players to help newbies.

This would ofcourse require some coding, and fraud prevention etc.

This would just result in endless amounts of fraud trys and lots of extra monitoring,otherwise its a decent idea.

All extra monitoring should go to moraq, hes never busy anyways.

[darthalomus]

Just prove everyone wrong. Stick around, learn the game and THEN come with sugestions. Not the other way around.

Like a suggestion I make will be more accurate 20 levels from now or 50 when will my suggestions become more accurate.

Excellent! here are my thoughts:


Constantly decreasing player base:

Our numbers are decreasing, and not too many people actually stay after testing the mud. Maybe opening donates for a while to create some kind of an campaign to attract more players would do the trick? It costs money but it can also do wonders. See batmud for a good example.

I didn't just state that I think there is a problem with newbs because it seemed like it would be cool. I took the lead for the older players and gave my suggestions of what I thought might help.

I don't by any means think that it is the only way but it would be an easy way to keep people around and give them an avenue to turn to. It doesn't take a genius to tell a newb how to use the help files.

What it does take is someone who isn't going to get all butt-hurt over punctuation/grammar or because someone has a lack of understanding of how these games work. What it takes is for someone who has a natural disposition to help people without getting offended over small and often trivial things.

When I say restrict access to the newbie line to newbie helpers that doesn't mean "No Highbees on the line blah." it means let them apply if their true interest is to help other people and do so in a positive and constructive manner.

[pidzer]

How would it work to have some kind of voting system for players that help, with proper rewards?

Let's say that new players get 50 voting points when they start the game (this should be made very clear in the introduction). When they have a question and it gets answered by another player they can use a vote command to give this player a vote. When a player gets 10 votes it turns into 1 pdf (or whaterver).

If we could also get some new nice special blessings this would be a very nice carrot for players to help newbies.

This would ofcourse require some coding, and fraud prevention etc.

This is another sound idea.

The same old generic epr, spr, hpr and stat blessings could use with some additions.

As for fraud prevention, seconds, or alternates are linked the the original character. It could easily be coded to only get so many sent 'voting pts.' per player, not per character.

Going back to Yoz's statement of "This is a hard mud at first" I have to disagree. This was fairly simple for me to catch onto. It would be that way for most any long time MUDder.

For a new player though, Yoz is accurate in saying that it's challenging. Mostly due to the newer players lack of experiance at MUDding.

I forgot about vaerlon's warehouse. Only killed there for what? a couple levels, lol.

Newer players lack the understanding of exploration though. They're not awar that they can 'consider' their opponents. The wimpy command. That there's a 'creator' command, or rating command whatever.

Which is why newbie counselors would be highly advisable.

[belannaer]

Races:
Many races have been tuned around, but some races still could use some love. These races being:
avan, beholder, brownie, halfling, orc, reed, saerka, spell weaver.

Yeah some of the could use some twiddling but it probably has to be with the stats and regens since special abilities really don't make players choose the race if it otherwise is not that good even if their ability is quite powerful. Problem with some of the races is also that they fill a certain niche in stats/regens/size etc. which doesn't have a place or suitable guild in the game yet.

Guilds:

Shapeshifters
Psionicists
Earth_priests
Wilders

Previously mentioned guilds are seriously out of shape at the moment.

Well I wouldn't say seriously out of shape but some of them are definitely less interesting and usable than some other guilds, especially newer ones. Most are ok in balance but really lacking in the Oomph factor that makes you drool and want to play one. While making them more interesting is something that should be done it isn't really that high priority unless it can be done easily without major recoding, like maybe changing pack tactics some from shifters and make them work with non-shifters also and so on. None of them are at least as bad as monks are which really needed some hammering. There's some few nasty bugs with them though that could use fixing. Some of these problems could be maybe mended by adding some of the party funkiness Solar mentioned.

Resist system <blablabla>

Been talking about this with some players for quite some time already and it's definitely not a good one and needs to be changed. What that new one is going to be I've no idea yet, maybe something between the current one and the old one. Resists were too good in the old one, especially phys res, but they are now quite meaningless which lead to players being paper while exping (which created new ways of staying alive like natural armor) and getting totally torn apart by some of the eq mobs.

In monk secondary guild info it says that scions aren't supposed to be able to join water neophytes but the water neophytes' guild info shows no such restriction. So is it just not visible or does it not exist?

I'm fairly sure I added the restriction but it might not just show anywhere except when you try to join.

I'd suggest that, on character creation (first time around), a 'quickstart' option be introduced, giving a choice of pre-made character types with basic eq, staring in Vaerlon. A default army, default mage and default healer perhaps.

There used to be one but they weren't that good choices. It might be a nice idea to add something like that with a bit better choices and so that it throws you to the guild you pick in the beginning and makes you join in. Problem with this is that some players might get wrong idea that these are the only guilds in the game though.

Constantly decreasing player base <and the big blabla discussion about it and asshats>

We will probably try some newbie helper system on the newbie channel and few new commands to help that soonish and also probably try to poke Idles and other Jää ry board that we could maybe start some advertising again.

Newbie helpers don't really need any incentive to do so in my opinion really. Having some reward system just twists it from its real purpose. But people helping the administration has always been rewarded in less visible ways like geting to test new guilds and stuff. If wizards know you and that you are a great guy that can actually use your brains they are likely to have you help them with other stuff.

A person can idle for hours and hours. Which may lead to some newbies not getting their inquiries answered in any kind of timely manner.

We like to idle and that's how it is going to stay

But keep the stuff coming!

[uzriel]

If we are to have a working system for helping new players there just has to be proper rewards for it. It just takes to much time and investments in helping someone getting started.

About a year ago i invested alot of time, exp-loss and eq in a pair of new players, and yes - it takes a long time to learn someone how Icesus works, and once they reached level 35 or so they decided to stop playing. Guess if i feel like doing that again?

The reason i rather invest time in partying and talking to players that are not entirely new to the game is that i know they won't just go away tomorrow.

If, however, there was some kind of reward for me to help new players and partying with them i wouldnt hesitate for a second.

Possible rewards could be extra expgain for the leader if the other members have alot less totals. It could be pdfs etc.

It doesnt have to be much, but it has to be something.

[pidzer]

I have to state at this time... I highly respect and admire that the admin take the time to consider and respond to the concerns of the players. Much appreciated.

As for the idles. It is a harmless thing. Your mud is your labor of glory and I'm honored to be able to take part in it. thanks for the hard work.

Well done sir.

[darthalomus]

The greatest reward I can think of is the one who doesn't just go away and becomes a life long friend.

For some players helping people is it's own reward. I agree with belannaer there should be no reward it defeats the purpose.

I don't think being a newbie helper means throwing eq and money at people. Although that can be very helpful and was very generous of you. I think it is the long lasting friendships that are created from treating someone with respect and helping them because it is the right thing to do that will inspire other players to stay and see icesus for what it is.

[belannaer]

If we are to have a working system for helping new players there just has to be proper rewards for it. It just takes to much time and investments in helping someone getting started.

I don't think guiding them through the whole game while holding their hand is required. More like having an easy way to find out if any newbie helpers are currently online and unidle so they have someone to turn if something troubles them and they need advice. So being a newbie helper would be much more about just answering their questions and giving advice.