Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Discuss ideas for how to make the game better. Wizards, take note!
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Bim
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Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Bim » 12 Jul 2018 21:44

Hello,
I'm brand new to Genesis (having come from the PC Gamer article) but I was a Mudder in the late 90s/early 00's and since then have played a lot of Dwarf Fortress, Aurora and Roguelikes. I say that all to put my suggestions into perspective - I completely understand that MUDs are not 'WoW but with text instead' or anything like that, but I also feel that after coming back to MUDs there's a lot that could be done to make things more straight forward to the newer player. I've made a little list below for those interested:

- A 'Loot all' command: whilst 'looting' was not as difficult as the PC Gamer article made it sound, it's not particularly straight forward either - especially when it's so important to early game play. For bonus points, a 'loot toggle' which would automatically pick up everything would be great.

-A 'Kill All' command: likewise, it'd reduce the grind a lot if you could just attack everything. Sure, you may not want to do this in other areas, but for wiping out rabbits etc. it'd be very useful. I tried to search for this command for quite some time.

- Equipment persistence: I know there's been a lot of debate and posts detailing why this is the case, but I honestly feel that it's needlessly complex and has the potential to turn a lot of newer players away. Whilst there may be lots of meta reasons, from a newbie perspective its just: 'worked hard, got cool stuff->logged out->come back the next day excited to play with my dragonsword of exaliblow +3->stuff gone->never return'. As you can already jump through a few hoops to protect your stuff, I feel it should be the default behaviour. If this breaks the flow for guilds a bit, I feel that it could be handled with a 'if you join a guild (other than the starting guild), you won't default keep your stuff' - this would make it a choice, and a sort of 'payment' for joining a guild.

- Signs: They work pretty well for not breaking immersion or annoying players, but I do feel like some of the super important information would be better handled in a 'forced' manner like a conversation - perhaps with a command to skip if you're a returning player. It's easy to miss a sign and miss out on a whole system.

- Capitalisation standardisation: to level up skills, you have to type it in lower case; this led me to being confused why I couldn't learn 'Sword' when I could clearly see it in the list.

- More straight forward first quest: I just feel it could do with a bit of tightening up. For instance, make Farmer Browns wife chat to you about the quest regardless of what you say. Make the mother rabbit be in the hen house etc. it's not that I'm against having a more complex starting quest than 'kill 10 rats', it's just that for someone new (or returning after a long hiatus) you don't want to be trying to figure out if it's the quest or the syntax you're getting wrong.

I understand all of these things will have fans, and there may well be very good reasons why the above don't work. I certainly don't mean to say what is right or wrong as I certainly haven't been playing long enough to make any sort of judgements, I just wanted to share what it feels like to a new player.

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Cherek
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Cherek » 13 Jul 2018 11:23

Welcome and thanks a lot for your feedback. Feel free to share other things you feel and think about Genesis. It's very valuable to us to hear the opinions of new players who experience our world for the first time.

You are correct, we do aim to become more accessible to new generations of players and the last bunch of years we have made great progress in that regard with the tutorial, website, magic map, chrome app, quest hints, etc. These efforts has helped increase our players numbers, which we are really proud of, but there are still lots of things that can be done of course.

In the first Genesis decade during the 90s it relied heavily on word of mouth and people playing together in computer labs, so people were often taught to play by another player. While Genesis was much harder and less user friendly back then, it was in a way also easier too since many of us played in big groups, helping each other iRL. Also, since there was nothing else like it, we probably accepted the steep learning curve as there was nothing to compare MUDs too in the commercial world. While we made a lot of changes, a lot of the user unfriendliness that relied on someone teaching still remains though. The competition and the gaming world has changed greatly since then though, and to attract more players we must continue to improve Genesis for the modern gamers and their expectations, while of course trying to retain the old-school feeling. We will always be a niche thing, and Genesis will never become an easy game, but especially early on it's really important to make things as smooth as possible for new players and get them hooked.

As for your feedback:

1. A loot command. Yes, this has been suggested a few times. Now, Genesis do rely heavily on aliases and triggers and we've felt that it's good to try to introduce players to that, since it gives them a lot more freedom when it comes to creating their own commands. A "loot" command is definitely a possibility though, but a loot alias is much more flexible as you can decide what to loot. Most often out in the "real" game you do not want to loot everything from a corpse, but only specific things. I however think we can explain aliases much better in the tutorial. Overall, we've needed an overhaul for quite some time when it comes to how we present things in the tutorial, as it's very text-heavy now and not overly interactive. But like Zugzug said, since Genesis is 100% created by us players on a volunteer basis, everything relies on someone having the programming skill and wanting to do it. Hopefully someone will volunteer at some point.:)

2. Kill all. Sure, something like that would make sense. What we do is to create a trigger for "bunny died -> kill bunny". Which is the best way really as then you only fight things one at a time (unless you fight things that assist each other of course). Kill all could also be dangerous if someone else enters the room, or a in a team, and it's a mess if you have a steed, etc. So perhaps again explaining how triggers works and how to use them is better?

3. Equipment saving. Yes, perhaps the thing that frustrates newbies the most, and a topic that's been heavily discussed. Opinions and solutions vary of course, both among players and us in the administration (who eventually has final say when it comes to Genesis development). Many things have been suggested, but the currently implemented compromise was to add a guild with racks to the tutorial. So newbies can at least store and get items from those racks, and also be introduced to how equipment saving works in the rest of the game, which is a rather unusual approach where equipment does not really save on you personally, but is instead shared with your guild mates using guild racks.

Personally my opinion is that allowing things to save on a character would increase our player numbers as we would get the chance to keep more players, because I am pretty certain we lose a lot of newbies to the "lost equipment bug" as many think it is. That some things save and some don't, and suddenly something that saved before does not save is also a very confusing system to explain, and I think letting players save their items would be very good for Genesis, and especially for new players.

Now, as Draugor mentioned there are also pitfalls and drawbacks here. Just making it so all EQ saves on all characters would completely change Genesis, and probably not in a good way. The entire guild and equipment system kind of relies on that equipment circulate, and changing this would mean we need a major redesign of the whole system. Doable, yes, but without a paid staff and someone really wanting to change this, it's perhaps not realistic. Since Genesis does not have a lead game designer or a professional staff, it's very hard to make this kind of huge changes.

One suggestion has been to allow stuff to save on players in the tutorial. That's very doable, but on the other hand newbies will then be shocked and confused when they leave the tutorial and notice stuff no longer saves. So, that might just postpone the problem and annoy people more, as they by then have invested time in the game.

Another suggestion is to let stuff save on a character until they reach a certain age or size. Again, it postpones the problem, and it also opens up the chance of abuse, like Draugor mentioned, with elite players creating new characters to use as EQ storage for their main character.

The best suggestion I have heard, and the one I still believe is the by far best one, is to make all non-magical items save for everyone, always. Since new players rarely are exposed to magical items they would get a good first impression of Genesis as the stuff they find in the tutorial saves on them when they quit. And when they enter the real world they will learn that everything saves when they quit, except magical items, which must be racked. They will most likely not use many magical items anyway, so this is something that they will gradually learn as they grow and start to find and use them, and it's also a pretty simple concept as all they need to do is type "save", and then they will see if the items in their inventory glows or not. If it glows it saves forever until it breaks, and if it does not glow it's a magical item and must be racked to be saved. It's an understandable concept and easy to explain. Also, since most elite players mainly rely on magical items it will not change the core Genesis concept of storing things in racks and sharing them with guild members.

I am personally convinced that is what we should do. Of course, I am just one person, others have other ideas about what is the best thing to do, and who's to say I am right and they wrong. Genesis development is usually about finding compromises though, and right now that compromise is the tutorial guild racks.

4. Signs. Yeah, I agree. Like I mentioned above it's definitely something we should improve at some point. We do have something like it if you enter the portal at the hill, but it's not really integrated in the tutorial and a bit slow, without the ability to skip forward. (It's part of an old tutorial that's been attached to the "new" tutorial). A combination would be best I think.

5. Yeah that's a mess. Definitely something that should be fixed. Genesis is in 99,9% of all cases lowercase. Something that we oldies feel is totally natural, since back in the DOS, Unix and Telnet worlds you were used to writing all commands in lowercase, but for new players it really does not make sense at all. And most new players have no idea what a command line OS is.:)

6. Why does everyone think the mother rabbit is in the hen house? It's kinda funny, but I've heard a lot of people assume she is in there and not getting why she would be in a hole. Rabbits live in holes not in hen houses?! Anyway...:) Yes I do agree, the quest is not easy for a new player. However, from the perspective of an old player it's perhaps as user friendly and easy as a quest can get. I think this is about perspective, the coder of the quest, and old players who tried it, thought it was super newbie-friendly and really easy. But when actual new players arrive it turns out it's not that easy after all. We have made some adjustments to make things easier, and there is also the "hint" system that I hope is helpful? Or maybe people miss that you can type "hint"?

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Arman
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Arman » 13 Jul 2018 15:18

Cherek wrote: 3. Equipment saving...

...The best suggestion I have heard, and the one I still believe is the by far best one, is to make all non-magical items save for everyone, always. Since new players rarely are exposed to magical items they would get a good first impression of Genesis as the stuff they find in the tutorial saves on them when they quit. And when they enter the real world they will learn that everything saves when they quit, except magical items, which must be racked. They will most likely not use many magical items anyway, so this is something that they will gradually learn as they grow and start to find and use them, and it's also a pretty simple concept as all they need to do is type "save", and then they will see if the items in their inventory glows or not. If it glows it saves forever until it breaks, and if it does not glow it's a magical item and must be racked to be saved. It's an understandable concept and easy to explain. Also, since most elite players mainly rely on magical items it will not change the core Genesis concept of storing things in racks and sharing them with guild members.

I am personally convinced that is what we should do. Of course, I am just one person, others have other ideas about what is the best thing to do, and who's to say I am right and they wrong. Genesis development is usually about finding compromises though, and right now that compromise is the tutorial guild racks.
Hey, I think so too! How many other admin do we need to press gang, I mean convince, to have a quorum for change?

Greneth
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Greneth » 13 Jul 2018 16:06

Arman wrote:
Cherek wrote: 3. Equipment saving...

...The best suggestion I have heard, and the one I still believe is the by far best one, is to make all non-magical items save for everyone, always. Since new players rarely are exposed to magical items they would get a good first impression of Genesis as the stuff they find in the tutorial saves on them when they quit. And when they enter the real world they will learn that everything saves when they quit, except magical items, which must be racked. They will most likely not use many magical items anyway, so this is something that they will gradually learn as they grow and start to find and use them, and it's also a pretty simple concept as all they need to do is type "save", and then they will see if the items in their inventory glows or not. If it glows it saves forever until it breaks, and if it does not glow it's a magical item and must be racked to be saved. It's an understandable concept and easy to explain. Also, since most elite players mainly rely on magical items it will not change the core Genesis concept of storing things in racks and sharing them with guild members.

I am personally convinced that is what we should do. Of course, I am just one person, others have other ideas about what is the best thing to do, and who's to say I am right and they wrong. Genesis development is usually about finding compromises though, and right now that compromise is the tutorial guild racks.
Hey, I think so too! How many other admin do we need to press gang, I mean convince, to have a quorum for change?
Image

Drazson
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Drazson » 13 Jul 2018 16:49

As a supporter of that idea from the start, I can only say... "NOW THAT GORBOTH IS MISSING GO GO GO GO CHANGE IT AND LOCK THE CODE BEHIND YOU SO HE CAN'T REVERT". :) Quite calm huh! Maybe I'll return to my blacksmith monk with this, will be fun!

Amberlee
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Amberlee » 13 Jul 2018 17:28

People have been saying this for years..
And NOW people listen..
The views posted by me on this forum is not the views of the character Amberlee in-game.
If you ask for my opinion here, you will get MY opinion, not that of my character.

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Luma
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Luma » 13 Jul 2018 19:16

Arman wrote:
Cherek wrote: 3. Equipment saving...

...The best suggestion I have heard, and the one I still believe is the by far best one, is to make all non-magical items save for everyone, always. Since new players rarely are exposed to magical items they would get a good first impression of Genesis as the stuff they find in the tutorial saves on them when they quit. And when they enter the real world they will learn that everything saves when they quit, except magical items, which must be racked. They will most likely not use many magical items anyway, so this is something that they will gradually learn as they grow and start to find and use them, and it's also a pretty simple concept as all they need to do is type "save", and then they will see if the items in their inventory glows or not. If it glows it saves forever until it breaks, and if it does not glow it's a magical item and must be racked to be saved. It's an understandable concept and easy to explain. Also, since most elite players mainly rely on magical items it will not change the core Genesis concept of storing things in racks and sharing them with guild members.

I am personally convinced that is what we should do. Of course, I am just one person, others have other ideas about what is the best thing to do, and who's to say I am right and they wrong. Genesis development is usually about finding compromises though, and right now that compromise is the tutorial guild racks.
Hey, I think so too! How many other admin do we need to press gang, I mean convince, to have a quorum for change?
I know this has been proposed before, but I love this idea. :D

Draugor
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Draugor » 13 Jul 2018 19:22

Lotsa stuff has been proposed, wonder if I can get some newbies to work my Lockers and no quests line *ponders*

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Cherek
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Cherek » 13 Jul 2018 20:04

Amberlee wrote:People have been saying this for years..
And NOW people listen..
We've listened before too. I loved that idea when it was presented by Varian some year or years(?) ago. I have lobbied strongly for it upstairs, Varian as well, and it was real close to happening a while ago, but then the project stalled.

Arman: Before you became admin (I think) me and Varian did a big "convince admin campaign". Mercade even looked into implementing it, before he went missing. Then nothing more came out of it. Partly because the entire admin did not agree on the idea, and partly because without Mercade there was nobody to implement it. But there's nothing to say we can't try again. And now you're AoB, so this is something that at least partly falls under your jurisdiction I think? At least when the AoM is on leave. So we might have a better chance now.

Greneth
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Re: Ease of Use Suggestions (from a new player)

Post by Greneth » 13 Jul 2018 21:50

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is permission.

Just saying.

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