New Player Onboarding
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@Thenomain I disagree with some of the things you, or others, say. Same goes for upvotes. Typing on the phone (how I normally view MSB) is too much of a pain in the ass, so I stick to voting. I don't think it's possible for me to actually hate you unless you are somehow also known as Strazo.
Y'all finished or y'all done? I ain't go no more talkin'.
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No worries. I can, as has been noted, be kind of a twerp, and I have no idea what you find objectionable or disagree with, so the offhanded comments.
So, bringing players into games easier. Time To Mush. Zero-to-One. Let's do this?
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I'm currently working on a series of rooms with like hyper-basic instructions for newcomers who want to opt to go through a tutorial, starting with instructions on how to get to the tutorial and everything, from the most basic of common terminology to basic commands of moving around, posing, and talking . Of course, as Tez pointed out, there's already an issue where people jump up to welcome the newbie and the room description slides right off the screen. But the idea is to do a from the ground up kind of intro. It may be better-served on the wiki, or it should possibly live both places. We'll see.
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On the game I am working on, I have a series of rooms that are instructions to help ease people in. There are two ways out of the intro room when you make a character, the first is to use the proper code to bypass the new player room listed in the help files. The second is to go through the new player experience so to speak which will teach how to MU*.
It's not perfect, but I think it's the only reasonable way to go about it.
There used to be games that had whole tests at the end of their new player experience so you couldn't even make a character unless you studied the games theme.
I'm pretty anal when it comes to details, but not that anal.
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I've been playing with the idea of having players either identify themselves as experienced, ready to go, or as new players wanting help, the first time they connect.
The idea being if they identify themselves as wanting help, a message would emit to connected staff and players who are interested in helping newbies so that they know to reach out to the player and make sure that they get help.
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@Lisse24 said in New Player Onboarding:
I've been playing with the idea of having players either identify themselves as experienced, ready to go, or as new players wanting help, the first time they connect.
The idea being if they identify themselves as wanting help, a message would emit to connected staff and players who are interested in helping newbies so that they know to reach out to the player and make sure that they get help.
This is a pretty good idea. It might even be cool if there was a HELP channel that you got automatically added to if you chose the non-experienced option, so any helpers on the players side that were on the channel know, when you get logged onto it, that you're actively looking for assistance.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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Maybe link CGen to a web form? You go there, fill out your character sheet and it spits out the +commands needed to get what you wanted, so you just copy and paste it into the client.
Then have a very clear, concise, basic index to the most common game functions right in the opening screen. page, newbie channel, meetme, emit.
I think experienced players such as the ones mentioned in the thread already are very important, it's true, but it goes maybe beyond that. Once we get a newbie it's much easier to keep them since what we do - the persistent IC world stuff - is sort of niche, but getting newbies is a problem. Hell, newbies knowing MU* still exist as anything but an ancient relic of the pre-MMORPG past is a problem.
So... being ambassadors for our hobby in venues other than MU* might help, too. Not going aggressively after it, we don't need to be gaming's equivalent to vegans and announce our existence/superiority uninvited, but making sure to mention the idea in peripheral, related discussions on forums, chat channels etc as it might organically be on topic could be a good idea.
Or a terrible one, what do I know?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in New Player Onboarding:
Maybe link CGen to a web form? You go there, fill out your character sheet and it spits out the +commands needed to get what you wanted, so you just copy and paste it into the client.
Then have a very clear, concise, basic index to the most common game functions right in the opening screen. page, newbie channel, meetme, emit.
This could be cool.
I think experienced players such as the ones mentioned in the thread already are very important, it's true, but it goes maybe beyond that. Once we get a newbie it's much easier to keep them since what we do - the persistent IC world stuff - is sort of niche, but getting newbies is a problem. Hell, newbies knowing MU* still exist as anything but an ancient relic of the pre-MMORPG past is a problem.
So... being ambassadors for our hobby in venues other than MU* might help, too. Not going aggressively after it, we don't need to be gaming's equivalent to vegans and announce our existence/superiority uninvited, but making sure to mention the idea in peripheral, related discussions on forums, chat channels etc as it might organically be on topic could be a good idea.
This, too.
Or a terrible one, what do I know?
Well, is your name a variation of John? If so, you know nothing.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin My name is John.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in New Player Onboarding:
@Coin My name is John.
Yes, I know.
I just used ambiguity so as not to tell everyone on the forum your real life name in case you didn't want it known. God, you really don't know anything.
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Oh man, his name is John. Let the stalking commence! Hang on while I google "John" to see where he lives.
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@Thenomain said in New Player Onboarding:
Now I know that @Saulot doesn't always think I am the most awesome thing since sliced bread. I don't know how I'm going to live.
From what I know, I don't know how you go on living either.
Here's some aloe.
Anyhow, if it wasn't clear before: the new player helpers are simply designees from the player base. They may or may not have staff ties, but I have to wonder why a staffer would want their player alt to be a new player helper, when they can do that as staff to begin with.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in New Player Onboarding:
Oh man, his name is John. Let the stalking commence! Hang on while I google "John" to see where he lives.
I know you're just trolling, but lulz, fuck you. XD Even if your name is something ugly and weird like Catriona that no one in their right mind would name a child, there's probably still too many for its public knowledge to matter. Giving equal consideration to everyone, regarding how boring their name is, is just good manners.
[pays the troll toll]
Your bridge needs mending.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin So jokes are trolling, now? In the most abstract way, I guess, but I just googled trolling to make sure my understanding of it is the general one:
make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
I'm going with nah.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in New Player Onboarding:
@Coin So jokes are trolling, now? In the most abstract way, I guess, but I just googled trolling to make sure my understanding of it is the general one:
make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
I'm going with nah.
I dunno, I also view making light-hearted sarcastic jokes as trolling... just bening trolling.
Sort of like how you can have a benign tumor.
It's still a tumor.
It's just, you know, not malignant.
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@Arkandel said in New Player Onboarding:
Maybe link CGen to a web form? You go there, fill out your character sheet and it spits out the +commands needed to get what you wanted, so you just copy and paste it into the client.
Am working on this.
Not this second, but have been.@Coin said in New Player Onboarding:
@Arkandel said in New Player Onboarding:
@Coin My name is John.
Yes, I know.
I just used ambiguity so as not to tell everyone on the forum your real life name in case you didn't want it known. God, you really don't know anything.
...well clearly his last name must be Snow.
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@Ganymede said in New Player Onboarding:
@Thenomain said in New Player Onboarding:
Now I know that @Saulot doesn't always think I am the most awesome thing since sliced bread. I don't know how I'm going to live.
From what I know, I don't know how you go on living either.
Here's some aloe.
I want some bread with my whine.
Player volunteers are the best staff a game can ever have. Unfortunately, they're also the worst. Support the good ones with praise.
