[MUD-Dev] FIrst LOgin REview (was attracting players)

[adam at treyarch.com]

Thanks for the critique, Ola, even if you didn't actually get to the mud
itself.  It definitely gave me quite a few chuckles - obviously I am guilty
of many of the very same things that I scolded World's End for.  It goes
to show just how hard it is to sit back and actually see your own work
from someone else's perspective.

Personal and professional matters have kept me busy to the point that I
haven't actually touched (or even logged into) Blood Dusk in several months=
=2E
(Needless to say, this has had quite a negative effect on the playerbase...=
)

The account creation sequence is definitely something that I was planning
to rework, and I'll keep your comments in mind when I do so.  Mainly
I'm thinking that I'm just going to go for a VT100 auto-detect and hope
that everything works out rather than bothering the user with too many
complicated questions.

On Wed, 10 May 2000, Ola Fosheim [iso-8859-1] Gr=F8stad wrote:
> I guess this is a form of think-aloud-method. The technique is better
> used if you sit down with a friend and make him play your mud, without
> assistance. Then try to make him "think aloud" continuously. "Why did
> you do that?" "What are you thinking?" "What made you stop and think?"
> etc.  Used with success in user interface design.

Yep.  I had an old mud buddy and my girlfriend play the mud for a while whe=
n
I first brought it online; together they gave me the perspective of a
longtime mudder and a complete newbie.  It was quite educational.

> Enter your account name, or 'start' for a new account: Wimp
> Invalid account name.
>=20
> [[[  HUh? Oh, I see... ]]]
>=20
> Enter your account name, or 'start' for a new account: start

Yep.  This is the sort of double-take that I'm willing to live with in
order to retrain my players to do things in what I consider the "right"
way.

> [[[ Boo, lots of text I don't want to see this until I have seen what
> your MUD looks like. Most MUDs sucks, so this is waste of time, but I
> will skim this hoping that this is it... ]]]

Yep.  Exactly the thing I was criticizing World's End for.  On the other
hand, I also hate muds that ask you a bunch of questions without giving
you ANY information about what you're even getting yourself into.  Gonna
have to ponder this a bit.

> [[[ Hmmm, is that 79 or 80? If 79 is ugly, then I'll quit! ]]]

The screen width is used only for wordwrapping.  If you choose an number
that's too small, it doesn't look bad, there's just blank space on the righ=
t
side of your client window.  If you choose a number that's too large,
then it looks ugly.

Yeah, I should ditch this question.  Assuming 80 collumns is fine (as far
as I know, I'm the only mud in existence that autoformats all its text to
fit the player's screen anyways) and they can change it later if they
want to take advantage of a wider window.

> What is the highest number visible on your screen? 24
>=20
> [[[ That one was easy. Short easy question. Fun!!! ]]]

*nods* This should stay in, especially since it's quite relevant (the
fancy-schmancy vt100 infobar/prompt system don't work right otherwise).

> [[[ Man, this is worse than installing windows. What the hell is ANSI,
> and is it going to be ugly or eyestraining like his website?? (please
> steal ideas from BBS if possible, they just ask you whether you can see
> this or that...) ]]]
>=20
> What color level would you like? (o/s/n/c) s

Nods.  How about if I just ask, "Want color?"  Later on if they are
perusing the help files about configuration they will see that there are
actually 3 different levels of color.

> Command: h newbie
> Invalid option or character name.
>=20
> [[[ ?? Why is the H capitalized? ]]]

Heh.  Obviously wasn't intended that way, but definitely I should allow
abbreviations at this menu...

> [[[ It hasn't beem addicting yet. Is he playing games with me? He put me
> through this torture just to tell me to go somewhere else?????  To HELL
> with him! I'm staying, and I'm going to kick ass! And make his life
> miserable. MWhahaha....]]]

Alright, this raises a good question - what SHOULD go into help newbie?
Currently I have two primary new player help pages - "help newbie" for
those totally new to muds, and "help blooddusk" for those wanting an
overview of this specific mud's features.

In this case, Ola seems to be interested in finding out "How do I get into
the game and start kicking butt ASAP?"  In my case, I'm usually looking
for a list of features that the admin feels makes their mud unique.  In the
case of someone unfamiliar to muds, they're probably just trying to get the
faintest idea of what's going on.

Hmmmm...although this sounds silly, it may actually be more of what I
need.  How about a question immediately following account creation:

Would you like to (K)ick ass NOW, (L)earn about what makes this mud worthwh=
ile,
 or (F)ind out what the hell is going on? [K/L/F]

Well, maybe I could phrase it better.

> [[[  QRB ??? Very helpful, indeed. ]]]

Massive bug in the paging code.  It was designed to work in-game, where
you've got your fancy vt-100 infobar.  I patched it into the account menu
one day on a whim, and never got around to making it function properly.

>=20
> Command: l
> liost
> list
> List
> Start
> Quit
> ^]
> telnet> quit
> Connection closed.
> ola 19>ping mud.dusk.org
> PING dusk.org (216.98.250.25): 56 data bytes
>=20
> [.......zzzZZZZ]CTRL-C
>=20
>=20
> [[[ What the hell??? ]]]

Your link jammed.  From the mud logs:

Wed May 10 13:08:07 :: New connection from [ppp048.uio.no]
Wed May 10 13:08:17 :: wimp [ppp048.uio.no] usurped <no character> from [pp=
p117.
Wed May 10 13:08:17 :: wimp's connection from ppp117.uio.no has been cut.
Wed May 10 13:10:31 :: New connection from [polo.k12.mo.us]
Wed May 10 13:10:46 :: New account hovck, created from [polo.k12.mo.us]
Wed May 10 13:11:12 :: wimp:Wimp has entered the game for the 1st time.
Wed May 10 13:12:15 :: wimp:Wimp has quit the game.
Wed May 10 13:12:19 :: wimp's connection from ppp048.uio.no has been cut.

Of course, I note that someone else was creating an account from the same
time.  I wonder if there's some nasty bug in there that doesn't cause
a crash (thereby keeping me from noticing it), but causes newbies to
get linkjams after creating accounts.  Instead I'll hope that the 4,000
or so miles seperating your computer from mine was the culprit.

Thanks again, Ola.

Adam





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