Previous Ideas - Speeding up tasks for casual play

[Tarax the Terrible]

Casual play, what is usually forced apon us GenesisAholics by annoying things like real life!
So if you only have 30mins to a hour to have fun every minute counts.

Have been discussions before about brute free play time so you can still grow, helps with equipping etc
Here are some of the topics from the other forum which covered it.
Perhaps we can take a look back at those and discuss any ideas which show potential here...

Idea for equipment recovery and fast quitting, but Onton makes a fantastic point about equipping in the first place.
http://www.genesismud.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=272

Ideas for auction house, a busy auction house could get good gear in the hand sof casual players without hrs spent equip hunting.
http://www.genesismud.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=271

Idea for being able to access boards easily...
http://www.genesismud.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=323

Big G's carrot and stick thread where the idea of brute free play cropped up..
http://www.genesismud.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=232

[Makfly]

I don't know where to post this and there seem to be enough threads that it could fit into, sooo I'm just going to post it here.

Anyways, just wanted to relay the problems of a casual players by last nights example.

I log in, see none of the few friends I have online, so I walk around a bit, check the racks (Mercs), which are empty. Hmph, I guess I could go to Bubba and buy some gear and start gathering some, but at Hero level it takes a long time, plus it's really limited what I can get.
So I decide to go check the Tower of Sparkle for those new quests hints. Lots of quests I haven't done obviously, and I do check the hints on some, but then I am reminded that I kinda knew of some of the quests already and with the hint, I still have no idea what to do, or really how to get further.
So I abandon that idea and log off.

Throughout a period of 4 hours or so, I log in quite a few time to see if I know anyone online that I could play team for instance, but no luck. And starting out with no equipment isn't really that appealing to me, in terms of solo play.

Now maybe the Ogres would be a better guild for me, as they can atleast do decently without much/any equipment, but I don't really fancy playing the role of a dumb Ogre.
And I could go to a post office and just start mailing random people to try and find someone to team with, but that seems a little strange to me too.

So one of the main problems for me, is lack of friends and lack of a way to achieve "meaningful progress/fun" with no equipment and just being by myself.

Therefore ideas to bring people together more easily would be good, I know someone mentioned a Temple (Good/Evil/Don'tCare) where one could pray and the game would mark you as someone that was looking for a team.
That's a fair idea, but I am sure there must be others?
An NPC inn keeper that could tell you rumours about adventurers roaming the lands, that is "the likes of you" for instance, so that you had an idea who to mail and ask to team up?

I dunno, but some brainstorming on how to give the casual crowd some more ways to have fun, and more ways to retain them would probably be good, since it seems most of us gets older and older often means more casual.

[Bromen]

You can always hire a merc to be your friend.

An active layman guild is pretty key too.

But I do agree there should be more to bring people together. More events=more interaction=more friends=more teaming.

-B

[Tarax the Terrible]

Good feedback..

Being able to meet people and get a team going is important for casual play.
Most teams I am in these days we take a long time to get started because player X is still checking for a piece of equipment. Player Y is just nipping over here for something and will meet us in 5 mins at location z etc etc
Not much can be done about that I suppose.
So probably easier to join onto a team that is already up and running than forming one from scratch.

I suggested the temples for teaming and warfare after someone else (think it was Amavara?) suggested using the newbie line for the same purpose. This sort of goes against most players pride to have anything to do with the newbie system. But the main fact was that people who are always wearing the newbie helper pin are pretty likely to be willing to team.

The Temple idea was just an extension of that, creating groups as a goodie may not want to team with an evul etc.

Think I will have Tarax try it and see how he gets on.
("How much he gets made fun of!")