New player growth

[Rhynox]

It they "graduate" from greenholm ie do all the quests and a bit of grinding they are likely beginner/apprentice.
I think it would be a mistake to remove levels.
After all seeing yourself progress is going to make you happy.
If they have a limited brute effect the growth could go quite fast under their own steam.
Need to think about having enough areas to cater for the grind at each area of growth.
Need to have that sort of info to hand as a guide on where to go what to do next.

The thing is that they cannot grind, there aren't enemies of their greenhorne/beginner size to grind. Maybe kobolds in Terel only, but remember that true newbies don't have maps and need grinding points near their guild of choice, not two boats and a long walk away. And when you start a game you want to kill. The first command I typed in Genesis (after some movement stuff) was "kill dragonflies", get an error about targetting a single one only, then "kill dragonfly" and getting killed because I ran out of health (back when you started the game with wimpy at brave). Also, remember that they arrive to Sparkle after a tough battle killing a huge vampire, and they boot in Sparkle where they can only kill ants in Dwarfheim or mice in Sparkle (and be careful with the grey rats that have killed more than one newbie). That is where disappointment triggers.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Its a problem.

The can kill is original sparkle orc camp.
Can kill kobolds in Terel.
Cadu actually has a lot for newbs to kill, orc babies and most of the citizens.
Watching orcs in Shire.

But I doubt a newb could find much of that as you say...
At least we have newbie line.

[Megarius]

Its a good idea to not have "types" of experience. Thing is that current game mechanics actually was promoting botting in its own odd way because of the shimmering in fog somewhere on Olimpus shapes of godly myths. Level cap increase is as much it is an encouragement is also a draw back. I don't see a newbie player being happy in todays Genesis. I do understand and appreciate all the time that people put in their myths but I can bet that a lot of them did their botting. I am not pointing fingers though. So complaining that new players would reach myths eventually is not justifiable enough. It has to happen eventually. There should be a way for new players, existing smaller players to get on the same level where the myths begin. Otherwise whats the point?

Is point in playing Genesis really about to level as high as possible, become as unrichable as possible so nobody can touch you and to be some sort of a demon with godly skills? Thats what genesis promotes today. It promotes high level players to be as high as possible so nobody could stand up to them. I think Genesis is actually one of a very few MUDs with this skill system. And maybe thats why it is not very popular? People simply feel discouraged by the existance of GODS, that are almost as powerful as Wizards. They know that they will never reach that point, they know that there will always be someone who will exploit their weakness and kill them. Being unable to stand up for yourself no matter how hard you try makes no sense. It was much more fun back in the days where everyone was champ. Now... I don't even know where to start, or find the beginning of.. fun.

I am just here becouse I don't want to give up on my character that I've been with for 15 years. But as further it goes as less point there is to stay, really. Gen is changing well too slow. of course I understand the lack of people to work on it. So why don't some of the myths become wizards? They know the domain very well. And instead of exploiting weaknesses of smaller players maybe its time to do something to support them? I dare you...

[Sharn]

Make all Xp, be just that. Xp. No more General, Quest and Combat Xp. Just plain old Xp.
That should remove the forced questing that's been going on forever in this game.
Since the Wizards that coded all these quests probably don't like to see their creations go unused, the Admin can multiply the Xp reward from quests by x10, so it's actually worth it (for some).


And while you're at it, make it so that stats matter ALOT less when you are fighting other players, that way the scripters, grinders, bots and power players won't be able to terrorize the game, and the "Have-nots" won't feel bummed out because they will never be able to stand up to the above mentioned group of players.

The "Haves" will ofcourse not like to see this happen, as they like their spot on the top of a steep pyramid, but since there really isn't that many players they can lord over, maybe they could accept it if they see an increased influx of new players.

I fully support the "normalize xp" idea.
One kind of xp for everything. One kind of xp to rule them all

At legend / myth you should gain experience at the rate you would do now with all currently available quest experience.
Prior to that it should be faster then it is now. I am sure it can be worked out.
We do not want quests to become pointless!
Quest would give some crazy xp
Quests that give a lot of experience now (lets say minimal progress for a small champion like me) would give you fantastic progress!
Tiny and small quests (tours, etc.) would give you one level of progress.

I have an idea how to improve quests.
There should be something along "Quest log" like in MMOs.
It would hold informations what quests have you done, what quest can you do, what quest are you on and hints what to do next.
How would it work?

Code: Select all

Lets take the famous Sparkle quest as an example :)
You open the questlog and see that among others you are on a "Dark ritual" quest.
You heard about an ancient altar where some foul rituals are performed. 
The altar is marked on your map.
Next objective: Find the altar
When you find the altar you would get next hint and so on.

Hints should also give you exact syntax in most cases.
I see that new quests are made this way - they have bits of syntax in <>. YAY!

Ideally all the progress you do should be saved, so that you can work on many quests at the same time and continue questing where you last stopped it.

I am aware that it would require recoding all the quests.
The amount of wizard work required to do it seems immense.

That would be ideal in my opinion.
Some of you might say that it is "dumbing down" the quests.

I would say that it would change the nature of the quests.
Quest would be concentrated on the story instead of syntax and finding hidden things.
Of course riddles are welcome, too.

I would also reveal all the quest info via in game help. But I know that wizards will strongly object.

[Makfly]

I would also reveal all the quest info via in game help. But I know that wizards will strongly object.

I know it sounds like a fairly radical idea to Genesis, but it isn't really unheard of. The fairly successful Discworld MUD have quest solutions freely available to players. Actually I think they have the solutions available in different kinds, depending on how many hints you want.
Now it's been years since I checked the MUD, but that's how it was, if I remember correctly.
So it's not necessarily a bad idea to make all quest solutions available to players, though I fear it may be a bit too radical for Genesis in it's current stage.

Still learning or out-right stealing ideas from more successful games would be nice, instead of we try to reinvent the wheel here, if someone have already improved in the MUD recipe.
Kind of like the new flash FMUD client for instance.

[Tarax the Terrible]

I think the quest log is a great idea but a huge project to realise it.

If we look at Elder Scrolls Oblivion a game I am sure many of the community have played the quests require an almost trivial amount of thinking.
Your next step is spelt out for you and a marker on the map.

This is likely a dumbing down for the mainstream. I think we can cope with things being a bit harder than that.
One of the last significant quests I did was the crystal torque.
A truly fantastic piece of wizards work.

I got hints at every stage from friends but once on the right track was able to work the majority of it out myself.
A log spoon feeding hints and getting you started on the next step would be sweet.
You make a certain quest your active quest and on you go.
The quest log might also vibrate when you are in a significant place to prompt you to look into things further.
I really think a lot of players would LOVE this.

One of the problems that often leads to frustration is the game is so huge and the quest querying syntax and tasks involved so diverse.
So if you are genuinely trying to solve a quest without hints its likely 95% of the things you try will be wrong and all you get back from the mud is "What?"
Bound to frustrate even the most patient or hardcore quester.

[Rhynox]

Ok, I just had this mad idea: what if newbies only gained quest experience for all their activities in the newbie land. So, killing a rabbit, herbing or doing a quest only gave them quest experience. Then, deaths in the real world would hurt much less. As they go on doing quests in the real game, the quests will give less experience to make up for the extra experience he had when starting the game until the quests they had done add up to the total of quest experience.

This way they will start the game really peaceful and will be able to grow past the first titles fast (suffering much less if they die in the meantime).

[Creed]

That sounds like a perfect idea to me.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Just so long as you open the gates to newbie land and let everyone have a go

But really, isn't that just an attempt at a workaround?
Another thing that those with the indepth knowledge would understand how to use/abuse and the true newb would find out later "Damm I should have stayed in Greenholm longer!"

Cap the brute effect would have the same benefit, but wouldn't require the player to be smart to get it.
Or normalising quest exp would make the stat average the only factor in calculating brute.

I think better to do it right and for _all_ levels of player not just newly created ones.