>The key factor that kept me from quitting within the first
>hour, or even 15 minutes was how quickly you actually got into
>the game. Long academies, newbie quests and the like were far
>more likely to make me quit. Whereas the games where I could
>pretty much jump into killing mobs, and gaining levels were
>far more appealing, even if I was completely lost.

>Not being forced through the same stupid academy on every mud
>teaching me how to look, move and eat. There should be two
>academy paths; one for complete Mud noobs, which we have now,
>and one for vets from other muds. Maybe during creation you
>give three options; New to CF; New to Mudding in general; or
>neither.

>Also, CF is a PvP mud. I'm sure It's more bloody and vicious
>than any other PvP mud out there, so why not advertise it? Why
>not allow PvP in the academy arena, or at least parts of it.
>Give small amounts of exp for winning, and even some for
>losing. Make it so you don't die, you just get DEFEATED like
>the current arena, and stop any skill improvements so people
>can't abuse it. Like I said, starting a new mud is beyond
>boring, it's a chore and this is a good way to combat it.


I wanted to expound on this point because I, like I'm sure a good number of us, still remember getting bashed to death at level 4 by giants running around with perfected bash (by virtue of being giants and gaining the skill at level 1) and hero sets at level 6.

I would suggest extending the academy arena to include ranking up to level 10, and having it act like the arena that was recently put in (no pk range, anyone can fight anyone, defeated instead of death). This is a good way IMHO, to hook people... Nothing gets the adrenaline going like that first pk... AND to soft introduce them to one of the harder parts of CF... Getting pk'd and losing all your stuff. So you get pk'd in the newbie arena, carted off and get a prompt about how normally your corpse would be where you died and you'd be running back from your recall point and all that.

Griefing *might* be an issue, but perhaps a timer on how often you can engage in another pk attempt in the arena after a pk win (or loss) might help there if it is an issue.

I know hints seems to be the popular thing, but throwing people into the pk mix early (with virtually no downside for them) would I think help to hook new players... assuming of course there is another person in the newbie area that goes after them.

Anyway, just my two cents.