1 | kivrin

September 10th, 2008 at 2:03 am

I’ve bounced around on various muds over the last 16 years, but always end up coming back to AA. No place else feels like home!

2 | Fire

September 11th, 2008 at 12:50 am

I’m interested in hearing from the Administrators concerning the “bump” they got from mudgamers.com. I am very excited to see a MUD get 13 new additions in one day (according to their website’s counter a few moments before this post) and I wonder if they attribute it to being the first (and so far only) MUD listed here?

3 | bytre

September 11th, 2008 at 1:49 am

No such mudgamers.com bump, at least not yet. 6 folks have followed the link from mudgamers.com, none of them have created characters.

AA has been averaging ~16 new characters per day thus far this month.

4 | Fire

September 11th, 2008 at 3:09 am

I confess, I was one of the 6. Not being used to LP Muds, I was confused and quickly lost my way.

I logged in as Guest, but no one spoke to me or offered assistance in any manner.

As a OG from DIKU, I quickly grew frustrated and had trouble orienting myself. The help system was more convoluted than I am used to, but once I figured it out, it turned out to be full of information.

Were I asked, I would offer a suggestion of a possible newbie land with easier tutorials, or perhaps a helper-mob that load with new players. Once I started moving around, I found them right enough. Perhaps the admins are not so worried about complete LP newbies joining the game. With 16 new characters a day, who could blame them for wanting to keep things just the way they are?

I certainly didn’t play long enough to give the game a rating, sorry!

5 | bytre

September 11th, 2008 at 4:02 am

Interesting use case. There is a tutorial, that has a fair number of aliases to help people familiar with other code bases, but guest users don’t get a chance to go into that – maybe they should!

You might try it again and log in with a non-guest user and check out the training. I’m interested in your feedback. We get a decent number of new accounts created, but the number that become dedicated players is somewhat less than 16. Capturing a higher number of those new accounts is a goal of mine.

6 | Fire

September 12th, 2008 at 12:59 am

bytre:
I logged into your game today and created a new character (Snarksneeze). As you noted, I was then sent on a long and in-depth tutorial. Here are my thoughts:
I love the idea of the NPC-assisted tutorial. While they did not respond promptly to my actions, they did eventually do so. Their instructions to me changed based on what I did, which is great.
The NPCs walked me through the entire tutorial and I was constantly hit with helpful tips and tricks. I am fairly sure that had I needed assistance, your in-depth help system would have been able to provide it.
My biggest issue is this: Too much info.
The very first room description is very heavy, full of info designed to draw me in, to paint a beautiful picture with words. Had I been inclined to, I am sure I would have found it very prosaic. Unfortunately, it was waaay too much to read as far a descriptions go.
It got a bit worse as time went on. It seemed that each time I completed a portion of the tutorial, I was inundated with more information. I nearly stopped to take notes, but decided to forge ahead.
——————
I can see that your game is very complicated and full of exciting ways to play and enjoy myself. From a newbie standpoint, however, I felt no need to move forward and continue playing once I finished the training. I am not sure why, but perhaps because I felt that I had accomplished something and that I still wasn’t ready to begin the actual gameplay.
I have always abhored the Merc-style tutorials that take you from target to target, boring you with long combat episodes which read “You miss the monster, the monster misses you.”, but you may consider doing something else to keep the player engaged beyond the tutorial.
——————
I’ve said it before, but there was seriously too much information coming at me. It appears that you slowed the NPC chatter way down, so that even slower readers had a chance to catch up before they began talking again. This unfortunately lead to me sitting for long periods of time, waiting for the next paragraph to come down. I don’t remember most of what I was supposed to have learned, but I am more confident in being able to navigate the world at least.
——————
The goal of this comment is not to berate your game, or to attempt to force you to change your tactics. Hopefully you will see it as it is, a fresh view from a complete noob.
I have no interest in giving you advice, I’ve listed my problems and if you are interested, you can find the solutions.
Please, add me as a buddy and PM me if you are interested in hearing more or if you want some advice (though I may not be totally qualified to give it). Otherwise, have fun and I’ll catch you guys on the flip side!

7 | bytre

September 15th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Thank you for your feedback, Fire.

I have been working on giving Guest users the opportunity to do training. I will also discuss some of the other usability things you identified with the tutorial.

8 | homicidal

September 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 am

I started playing AA a couple of years ago and every now and then I go and look at another MUD. Nothing I’ve played is anywhere near as good.

When I started playing, there was only the help file which I got lost with and ended up teaching myself to play by asking questions on the newbie line.
(The tutorial level is fantastic compared to what it was before!)

—————-
Go Rangers!

9 | ekin

October 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 am

I have played 3 MUDs on and off over the last 15 years and I can safely say that AA literally trounces most MUDs out there. Most MUDs popular in the 1990s are ghosts of themselves but AA still goes on strong.

The Senate, the wizards, the arches – their committment to the MUD is second to none; God bless them. The depth, balance and fun factor that is found on this MUD is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and improving every single day. You want just two examples of how this MUD stays on top of everything? The new drowgar mages and the artificer class.

Keep up the good work folks – my donation is coming in as soon as I get this year’s bonus.