>First, there are a lot of ways to get stuck.

http://diku.qhcf.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DikuClan
I dont know if I would have ever come back a year after dieing of thirst and starvation on the market square at lvl 5 if there were not these massively helpful diku maps. They are not complete so there is still a lot of stuff to explore but they are an enormous help to get around if you dont know your way...

Addendum: The maps you can get ingame are often superior if you look for a certain service inside a city. (e.g. buying food)



>Second- It seems like other players have maps of the world
>that will let them move automatically to the most obscure of
>places. Im sure this is the same with most other MUDs but it
>sure is irritating when someone hunting you can find out where
>you are more quickly than you yourself can. I dont know what
>MUD clients people use but as a mac user (G3) theres nothing
>that can let me do that.

I fear most, if not all of these people dont use any maps at all...
They just know the areas very well and some could probably run blind from Darsylon to Arkham if they had to.



>Another thing I find frustrating is trying to team up with
>people and not knowing how to get to where they are.

As mentioned before: Log everything and try to get to the ranking area yourself the next time.


>Point being, I think Carrionfield could be made less hazardous
>and discouraging to newbies.

On the other hand its very satisfactory once you manage to survive this hazardous landscape, thats something not many games can claim...