Newbies and the client

[Dentin]

I just got some really, really good feedback from new players on the client.  Here are some of the more obvious things that jump out:

1) Newbies tend to click all the buttons to see what they do, right off the bat.  One thing I've seen several times is that once they discover the movement buttons and notice that the movement buttons change the map, they start walking all over the place.  Often, they end up out in the fields, unarmed and unequipped.

1a) Players arbitrarily clicking the 'flee' button isn't necessarily bad, but it does tend to confuse them and put them somewhere else.  This should probably be changed to 'flee -i' or something similar, so that it returns an error message if you're not fighting.

1b) Players that click on 'recall' generally recall out of the starting area and miss the training/eq rooms.  I've set the first few rooms of the quest area to no-recall, which should limit the impact of this (you can still recall through no-recall flags).

1c) The map button tends to confuse them, as they hit map and the ascii map pops up with the phrase: "To see a map without roads and trails, use 'map -r'." They then type things like 'r' or 'map_r' into the typing window.

My guess is that the map button should be removed outright, as the automap shows everything they really need to see anyway.

Regarding this entire class of problem, it seems to me that perhaps the way to deal with it is set up a special 'get used to using the buttons and client' area before the real intro.  Let them get used to the buttons, how they work and what they all do.  Then somehow get them to realize that typing commands, such as 'get all', is also necessary to do anything interesting.

2) When newbies get irritated and try to close the client, the automatic logoff process gets stuck at "You must type 'quit -f' to quit without saving."  They then invariably drop link. While I'd really like to keep them around and prevent them from closing that window, it seems evil to me to fail to do what you say you're going to do.  I think one solution to this might be to send a 'quit -test' command when the closing dialog box pops up, where 'quit -test' checks to see if you're level 0 and returns whether or not it's safe to log off.  At least then we will have tried to help them out, instead of just failing ungracefully.

[Myst]

It's good that they're tooling around- lots of people tend not to, for fear they will break something.

My only concern with a client specific area is making sure they train their focus on the mud, and keep client-based (ie from the client vs the server) feedback to a minimum. I'd almost be of the mindset that they learn to mud using normal mud commands first - then when they pass a basic test, start turning the buttons, etc on.

ie teach them the mud works as a program first. Or is that learning curve steep enough to put people off still?

[Dentin]

I was thinking about this, and I don't believe a dedicated newbie area is required.  I think the reason they click around on the buttons and go all over the place is because nothing new or interesting happens.  So, we make something interesting happen when they move.

On the first room in the quest area, there's nothing to do but move.  When they go east, there's stuff on the ground, so we set the room to have 'get all' and 'wear all' buttons.  When they enter the room, the buttons appear, when they leave, the buttons disappear.  The next room has a candle, so it has only 'get all'.

When they get to Whelan,  there's a 'talk' button, which talks to him.  In the shops, there's 'list' buttons (I haven't figured out how to do more complex stuff yet), and at the trainers there's 'level', 'train', 'practice' etc buttons.  I can also set things up so that if they're fighting, the buttons transition to a combat set.

The only problem with this is button space.  At some point, I'm going to have to do the submenu thing like the Sims do.  I may also just set up some dedicated informational buttons, for things like eq, inv, stat, score, spells, etc.

I have a rough idea of what it will look like right now.  I think it will be more obvious what to do once the first pass of this is done and the dynamic buttons are at least halfway working.  It should even require only minimal changes to the areas; just a handful of extra room strings.  Things like shopkeepers and trainers should be workable in the code.

[Dentin]

In other news, the latest client release has a bunch of fixes based:

The flee button has been changed to use 'flee -check' to prevent bogus flee if not fighting.  This should fix item 1a.

The first few rooms of the newbie quest area have been set no-recall, to limit the impact of item 1b.

The map button has been removed to fix item 1c.

The client now uses 'quit -f' as well as 'quit -check' to make the logoff process less stupid, fixing item 2.

[germs]

Let's make the client like malware so they can't get it off their computer until they get at least level 1.

[Dentin]

Yeah, we're not going to be going that route.