Area design or something...

[maximus]

Ok, I have som serious suggestions for improving Nanny. I like this MUD just to make it clear. So there’s no point of giving me sarcastic remarks like why I won’t leave it if I don’t like it or something like that. But I think almost all things can be improved, even the good things, and me putting suggestions of improvement on this board shows only how much i care about Nanny.

Since we all seem to want more people to find and get hooked on Nanny this note mostly has to do with making the world more newbie friendly. And I think this can be done without making guilds stronger, giving away more exp. or jeopardizing the status ”old” players have gained. In other words, it avoids all those subjects that usually makes people go all crazy and upset.

My first suggestion is as simple as more newbie areas. And then i meen REAL newbie areas! The term newbie is aquording to me used way to loosely. Picture a level 1 newbie playing only for 2-3 days or something entering an area with a sign telling the area is newbie friendly, only to find a monster that is for level 15 or above chars.

Whitch brings me to the second thing, please don’t mix newbie friendly monsters with though monsters in the same area. Why can’t you settle for one or another, you can’t have all at once, because it won’t be good then. I meen, why are people specializing in things, both in carriers and buissnises and things like litterature. Because the result becomes better then if you try to do everything at once. It’s really anoying as a newbie walking around in such an area, making one wrong turn, and suddenly face a monster that takes 100 hp in one blow (exagerating offcourse, but not to far from the truth…). Besides, many newbies are bound to start exploring the ”cooler” more dangerous areas like that because it’s so damn boring to to kill rabbits and chickens. Cause let’s face it, many of us go to nanny for one reason, and that is to get some adventure in our lifes that isn’t possible to get in the real world, and killing rabbits is in most cases not what people would call exciting and an adventure. If I for inctance thought so I would go and kill the rabbits outside my house IRL. I have plenty of them where i live.

So, why not put some weaker orc’s goblins and monsters like that in those newbie areas. But let them be as weak as the rabbits. Some of you might have problems with this, thinking that orc’s should be thougher then rabbits, and thats it, but on the other hand they don’t have to give more exp. or loot then the rabbits, and they could stay in the newbie areas, while the outside orc’s can stay strong as they are.

Last, but not least important are the quests. There should be more newbie quests and really easy ones. Acomplishing one quest, even an easy one makes you want to keep questing. Oh, and please be restrictive on spreading around parts of a newbie quest to several areas. Many newbies probably thought or think like me that the quests are area specific, and when you finnaly after turning an area upside down, realize that you have to search outside it, the task seems overwhelming, since you by that time probably know that Nanny is huge. If you later happen to find the last part of the quest outside the area. It doesn’t feel like you used your brains at all, you just feel lucky, that makes it less fun to have solved it.

Also, I’m quite positive that quests I like to refer to as ”find a carrot and eat it” quests aren’t appreciated by newbies. It can feel more like you make fun with the newbies, like you feel they don’t deserve anything more adventurious. There’s a simple sollution to that to. Just replace the carrot with a cool diamond or a voodo doll or something, and suddenly the quest is much cooler. I haven’t got any problem with silly and funny quests, it can be quite good to have some quests that make you smile a bit once and a while. But I really feel there’s a lack of ”serious” and scary quests for newbies out there. Also they don’t have to give much exp or loot or qp either if that’s a problem.

Reading this far some of you might think: stop bitching and do it yourself! To that I can only answer that I will, if I ever get the chance and get lucky enough to become a wizard that is. If not I can only hope that wizards, future wizards, or whoever is in charge of how areas should be designed, will implement some of theese suggestions of whitch some I’m 100% shure would improve the mudding expirience even more. Above all, they are mostly of the aesthetic kind and because of that shouldn’t have much bad sideffects if implemented.

P.S. The ”find a carrot and eat it” is just an example and not a real quest. I think some of you know what kind of quests I meen by that.

This note is old. I was supposed to put it on a board in Nanny some months ago, but didn't. So here it is instead . I think I have found a favorite area now, not a newbie area though, so I don't care much about the stuff written above. Well, I do, but it just doesn't bother me that much, since I'm now powerfull enough to kill other stuff then rabbits . But maybe some wizzes might get something out of it by reading it.

[ladychris]

Hmmm, I agree with some points, but maybe, since as you said, Nanny is huge, you cant talk of every area as if it was just one.

Yes, there are newbies area where you kill rabbits and rats, but most daring can find also wolverine and tigers... But there are other were you can kill kobolds, orcs, gargoyles and similar things... and also find cool treasures and free eq, not to mention puzzles to solve.

As for the quests, I agree there aren't many newbie oriented quests, and some of them are way too easy to be satisfactory... but did you try "The year of Banshee"? It is a very cool quest that teaches a newbie to move around in Nanny. Also other quests like all Bixby's ones can be solved by a newbie... maybe better say a low level char, since main problem with a newbie is in my opinion not the impossibility of killing big monsters, but the difficulty in handling commands and correct sintax. I agree that one could make it more clear in Book of Quests if a quest is suitable for newbies or not.

I dont think there are many quests that require to be solved outside the area of the wizard who created it. There are however some that require nanny knowledge. I can think of jeweler, painting, Lorn, trophy, message in a bottle... I understand they may be hard for a newbie, but -at different levels (i havent managed painting quest myself yet)- i would recommend them anyway, since they force you to explore nanny a lot.

But main point is, at least it was for me when i was a newbie, is a newbie really aware of the fact that the world of nanny is divided into lots of different areas and that some of them even exist one above the other? (try to map entire nanny to understand what i mean, you will find that Arbre's area, just to name one, extends east so much that it should end up in church, while Rand's should reach Camelot's planes). Thats maybe why you can end up facing a lvl 15 orc after you have just done killing rabbit, you have entered another area, or another, not newbie oriented part of area without noticing it. I dont think however such a peril exists in those areas that are clearly stated as newbie friendly. At least i never encountered it.

Well, i'll finish saying that when i started playing nanny i did found thrill and adventure, maybe more at that time than later when i could smash a minor orc with a single blow Look around with curious eyes, be daring, dont kill same rabbit again and again and you will have a lot of fun

[Carrion]

I think Maximus definitely has some good points, and I will almost certain implement some of those myself. Hmmm... Imps are pretty cool to kill, right? Can't remember at what level they are though... The highwaymen are too tough, but what about the dwarves? The spiders have this cool fang too!

Anyway, it would be EXCELLENT if players could use 'idea' in my newbie area, but I guess real newbies don't use that command

[Snafu]

I applaud Maximus' note as well. At least the wizards who frequent the forum can get some ideas out of it. The MUD, however, would have better coverage and it sounds like a perfect note for the game If only we could get more wizards AND mortals here so more people saw the notes and ideas being thrown around.

/Snafu

[maximus]

Wow! Got pretty good responces on that note. I was afraid it was going to be the opposite . So I'm pretty shure I'll post some more   . To balance it all up a bit, I thought of posting a note about my favorite areas, cause, like I said. Was some time since i wrote it, and have done much exploring since then. So, keep your eyes open if you are interested   . Hmm, not shure if this note belongs here. Kind of got away from the subject now.

[Morild]

I liked Mazimus note as well, and I think that he makes some very good points.
I still remember myself as a newbie, and how frustrating things could be, and my pride when I managed to solve my first puzzles.
Here is one idea and a feature I miss from the old Nanny homepage. A view of how many puzzles you have solved.
Perhaps there is a list of puzzles somewhere and I just haven’t found it?

I would also really appreciate more easy quests. Like; The fishing expedition. Give Totoolah to Peter. Give the orcslayer to Leo, Vamilio the merchant wants you. Help the apothecary, Year of Banshee etc.
I can understand that making a really hard quests has to me more fun for the wiz, but personally I would like to solve 3 small once more than one big. Of course hard quests are fun too, and I want to solve them, but I kinda loose interest when I have been trying to solve a quest for more than a year and just can’t finish it. I have a great list of half-finished quest.
The only (in my opinion) hard quest that has caught my attention even after several months is the Asylum Quest. Not that it didn’t make me so frustrated I wanted to pull my hair out, but it was just so darn exciting, and it had these small ‘carrots’ things you accomplished, that just made me want to try harder.
I would really like to see more quests like the Asylum one, just a little bit easier to solve..

[Dain]

@morild:asylum quest is easy. all you have to do is to walk through the WHOLE asylum and try to find a cure for the pacients. i can't remember how the hints are but if you ask other player for a few hints i'm sure you'll be able to solve.
hint = idea of what you might do and not a quest sheet or a guide through the whole quest.
@maximus: there are some newbie that just want to go directly into action if i can say so. imo this kind of attitude is quite bad. you're barely born and you want to slay Echtor, get real it doesn't work that way. i liked a lot a feature on DAOC: when you selected a monster the name would appear in a certain colour depending on your level so it was easy to know what to kill and what to avoid. unfortunatelly this isn't possible on nanny, but what i think it's possible would be somekind of evaluate command to give you an idea about how tough the monster is.

[Kherec]

Just an idea that might be helpful as far as 'exploring' goes with Newbies.

The newbie booklet could perhaps notify the newbie when leaving/entering areas, and also perhaps have a list of 'newbie friendly' areas and mention that as well, so they know that when entering an area there is or isn't a newbie area.

But I haven't thought much about it, perhaps there's a downside or problem with that, I'll give it a few days to simmer

[Kherec]

@maximus: there are some newbie that just want to go directly into action if i can say so. imo this kind of attitude is quite bad. you're barely born and you want to slay Echtor, get real it doesn't work that way.

*chuckles* I'd say it works exactly like that these days, due to the lack of questpoints requirement people zoom right up to Paragon without solving a single quest (except perhaps the 'keep the mud tidy' quest, they solve that one by accident).

I just checked the mud ... and excluding the old players (who played with the old qp requirement) and members of guilds who require questpoints, neither had more than 10 quests solved, most had but 3 or 4 (you included Dain *grins*).

[ladychris]

Hey i have about 4k qp if im not wrong, and i never ever ever needed qps for paragoning of for guilds, i quest for the fun of it And thats main reason i dont have more qps, some quests are just not fun, heavily luck dependent as they are :p

[Kherec]

Sure, there are some (me included) who quest for fun, or the challenge, but it generally happens once you've very high in your guild and bored, rather than as a means to grow large.

You're the exception of the rule My Lady, 9 out of 10 does not quest at all.

[Snafu]

At least everyone has the ability to list out the newbie areas with 'help newbie_areas'. I believe that is mentioned in the newbie booklet.

As for Sir Dain not having so many quests, it is probably due to the same reason a lot of players have that. There are a lot of people who have multiple characters...and...sometimes...it gets to be a bore solving the same quest with 20+ characters *whistle innocently*. Sure, there are some quests that are fun to solve over and over...but some...aren't.

/Snafu

[Kherec]

Well, the point is that new players do NOT quest, or the main point anyways.

It's a shame, there are some really good, educational quests, like Year of Banshee and The Asylum, although the later is penalized by being a little hard to find for a newbie (you can easily get lost on Casada and wander off to a sure death in the outskirts of the city, as the directions are rather vague and if you don't know the area you might as well go look there first, rather than later by mistake).

[Dain]

ok.
as far as i know the asylum quest is entirely located in the asylum building and i don't see a problem in providing dirs to that place. i mean ok it is quest help but it's rather small compared to the rest of the tasks.

i'm not ashamed to admit i'm in top 3 of the lousiest questers ever. that's it. i'm no good at this kind of stuff. also i didn't want to quest with Dain thou someday i'll try to hunt down a few dragons. Kherec you're officialy invited if you wish.

maybe it would be a good idea to reintroduce qp requirment for level. i'm thinking about 3.000 qp for level 19 which would make around 150 qp for a level. also might be a good idea to be able to 'buy' qp with gc or exp for a certain price per qp/per level

[ladychris]

Well, if you could "buy" qps then the all meaning of qps wold be lost, wouldnt it?   You already have xp, and np and skills and a lot of things to advance, noone forces you to max qps, but if you choose to do it, then do it the right way