Promo sites and all that may get new players to the mud, but what happens then?

**Note: I'm going to focus on one problem in this post, but feel free to expand the discussion to include other first-impression issues**

Levels 1 through 10, and the Academy in particular, introduce an awesome game focused on roleplaying and exploration. CF is also an awesome game, but it's not THAT game. CF, at its core, is focused on player killing. Therefore, the introduction to the game is currently deceptive, however awesome that introduction might be.

This may be part of the reason you have trouble retaining people once they hit the tough PK ranks. Not only is it tough, but it's also a completely different game than was sold to them. Those first few levels make a promise, and the game breaks that promise.

I am a newbie who was completely sold on the mud because of its Academy. Compared to the learning areas of other muds, the Academy rocks. But I came out of it with a warped idea of what the mud was about. I heard from topmudsites advertisements that the game was tough and that PK was unrestricted; but what I experienced in the first 10 levels of the game convinced me that despite all that, the game was focused on roleplaying and exploration, and that PK was some incidental option to keep the old-timers around. The truth hit me like a ton of rafts.

In fact, the problem can be even worse when your promotions say the mud is a PK mud, because even the Newbie Academy can seem like the breaking of a promise. "What?! I can't PK until I'm level infinity?" Then, "Oh, this is nice after all." Then, "What?! Why are people killing me instead of mobs?" Only a truly unreasonable player would say all of those things aloud -- but our emotions don't have to be reasonable, and they have a lot of decision-making power.

On the other hand, we can't ignore the fact that new players need to habituate to the mud environment before you throw PK straight at them. So how might we introduce new players to the PK focus of the game in small steps, starting at the earliest levels?

Thank you for this feedback. If I get around to some ad creation I'll be sure to talk our way through this. Thanks.

First of all, thank you for posting about your experience as a new player. Second, about the academy and player killing, I personally am not a fan of allowing player killing at a lower rank. You’re right in saying a new person needs time to become acquainted with the game and its commands before they’re tossed out into PK. That being said, I think the solution would be to further educate a new player about PK without them actually having to participate in it. This is something that is being thought out as further revisions of the academy go into play. Things like understanding lag or saves will be further explained, and I believe that will give a new person a better understanding of the mechanics that are involved in a lot of PKs rather than them simply having to look through various help files.

Z

While I do agree that providing some insight into game mechanics and how they play out in PK as you mentioned would be good to have in the academy.

What I gather from the OP is that the confusion isn’t so much about a lack of understanding of the mechanics of PK but more so how PK and RP are intertwined within CF. What I don’t think is explained well in the academy, and isn’t immediately obvious to many new players, is that the game has many built in mechanism for encouraging conflict amongst players. The most obvious examples are the cabals themselves, excluding Herald, each cabal has a subset of players that are deemed natural enemies and these people as part of many players RP will be killed on sight. So while it might not look like RP to the victim if a maran storm giant warrior walks in and immediately starts bashing your duergar, it is in fact the standard RP that should be expected between two such characters. I understand there are exceptions but I think this is pretty much the general rule and how the game tends to play out.

So in essence what I think the academy could use is a better introduction to how these conflicts play out in the game. That is making it more obvious that as part of many if not most players RP there will be a PK component. And this component tends to be of the nature of kill first ask questions latter. This is of course just my opinion on how many newer players miss the link between RP and PK within CF and instead come to the conclusion that there is limited RP and just massive PKing on the mud.

I know nothing about coding or anything so this may be impossible but what if there was a way to make a "Battle simulator"? What I mean is lets say a newbie steps into this room at the academy and get the echoes like..

As you step into the room you feel yourself whisked away to a foreign ring where multiple combatants fight each other to the death!"
(here you will learn the basics of play-killing in carrionfields!)
Then have 2/3 scenarios where players can watch a battle (or participate) and as moves happen maybe prompts come up.

Example:
Before you a massive fire giant launches himself at the elven mage bashing him into the ground! (Notice as the mage appears slowed and less able to cast a spell!).

Or A transmuter utters arcane magics make the movements of this felar warrior slow! Notice how easily he begins to parry is blows!

Basically have a semi-drawn out fight where abilities like bash, trip, evade ETc are displayed and eluded to. Just a thought for the imms.. probably not a good one.

I like this idea. It has alot of potential, especially if after viewing (or reviewing) these scenarios, the PC could then participate in similar scenarios, and try to get out of them.

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