> look mePerhaps some NPC-driven hints, often enough that the player takes the hint, but not so often that it is just some annoying spam they do not get the gist of. There are probably hints to give than this.
You see an average looking human male.
HINT: You have not chosen your appearance. To do this use the APPEARANCE command.
It will allow you to choose how tall you are, what colour your hair, eyes and skin are.
And of course anything else relevant to your race.
The aloof lady says: Oh my, aren't you average. You ought to take a look at yourself.Profession is a little tougher. But I think I could live with giving them the basic ability to do the common ones. And either open up others through encountered opportunities, or through character history.
As you stand there, you are suddenly notice how soft your hands are.Hmm. Not so sure about that. Other possibilities are a series of questions, like some of the roguelikes ask (Amiga Omega comes to mind), or an abstract choose your own adventure. Hmm, it might even be a mini-game that you can choose to play and save the result of, but when you choose to adopt a result, it is permanent. Throw in some randomness to what questions are asked, but in general allow the same paths to be followed. Perhaps only offer a shorter path to begin with, so you get and keep the player's attention and interest.
HINT: Occasionally you will be reminded of things that are the result of your past. To
remember what happened in your past use the HISTORY HANDS command.
> history feet
You don't remember anything particular about them at this time.
> history hands
… some series of choices by the player to
The web site
It is not polished and looks rough, but you do what you can with what you have. I also learn something new. The MUD is one of those fruity furry ones. I watched that episode of CSI, I know what that's all about.. dudes dressing up in fluffy costumes and rubbing up against other costumees of indeterminate gender. They called this yiffing or something. But I'm not here to yiff. I am here to learn. Just not about yiffing.
How do I log in? There's no telnet address. I look at some other Skotos games. No telnet addresses for those either. In fact, I followed the links around the Skotos games and Grendel's Revenge stated that you needed to use their ActiveX client in Internet Explorer. No way Jose. Anyway, I create a Skotos account, which means entering personal information like my gender, location and how I found out about their site. Losing interest.
Now I go back to Ironclaw Online. I create a character. There are around 10 screens of choices. Each has numerous drop down boxes where you customise your animal character thing. It is a chore, and I just accepted the "Standard" option for all of them. I get into the game and get a prompt saying something about @help.
The game
So I absentmindedly type "help something or other". I get a bit of text that instructs me to use "@help" instead of "help", and then the help text about "something or other." I am not sure why I need to use "@help", and why when "help" actually works, it matters that I should do it properly. At this point, I have no idea what to do, and have lost interest. I do a who to see if anyone is playing, and am pleased to see they have more than a few players.
Tangentially: Skotos
Back in the day, Skotos were extremely active. They had lots of articles on their web site. They posted interesting ones to the MUD-Dev mailing list. Their games were doing new and interesting things. Now, nothing that I hear at least. As someone who just signed up as a non-paying user, I couldn't help but reflect on how less disruptive creating an account for an Iron Realms game was.
I tried to go back and find some of those Skotos articles, but their article section is partly broken. Their selection of "current articles" were ones that were current four years back or so. Too much work better put off for some other time.
Conclusion
This was very inspirational.
I want my own game to have a character creation where the player can really tune their character. Perhaps even with as many options as Ironclaw Online has. But between the Ironclaw Online character creation process and the Skotos sign up, the time from being interested enough to sign up, to getting in the game is way way too long. I think I would have new users take an approach as straightforward and polished as Midkemia Online has, and have another non-obvious way for existing players to create a more in-depth character.
A tutorial like Midkemia Online is a must.
I would like to think I could choose how commands should be used by players. But this weird @help thing confused me, and makes me more inclined to go with a system that makes sense to the player, not myself.
I wonder if it has been long enough since I last watched that CSI episode that I can watch it again and not remember what happened..