Best Of

Esei said:

If you could pick a flower to represent your godrole, what would it be? This is excluding any that are already associated with Them in one form or another.

Ok, I had my friend who hasn't played MUDs before try out Lusternia.

Question: I still have no clue how hard her ideas would be to code. Is there a resource players can use to adjust their suggestions and expectations to the sorts of things that are easy and difficult to implement mechanically?

Ideally, players would contribute to a lot of these suggested resources. Admin and volunteers can't do everything. I've applied to join the wiki and submitted some helpbugs


Brief:

Newbie Guide

• The Newbie Guide is misleading and badly out of date.
  
• Let us players rally and make a good novice guide!! (unless there's a great one out there already that I don't know about)

Using the Interface

• Would be great to have a part of the website that explains the absolute basics of where you should type and how to use the dialogue box to the right, etc

Hints

• In the current hint mode, a hint pops up the first time you encounter something and then never again. She really wanted a second mode where hints come up on which syntax to use every time you encounter a number of basic things, esp. communication and interaction

Starting Location

• Right now when the intro ends newbies are left standing … nowhere. Maybe a sign with instructions on how to move could help?
• OUT of the Portal, there's no one there to greet newbs. Maybe an NPC could help?

Clutter in Important Locations

• There's gotta be a way to keep at least two rooms in the Realms, the Portal and the room just outside of it on Solitude, empty except for what's useful and actually lore-related. I appreciate that Lusternia has the Whimsicality, but I think it's confusing and unappealing for players who are serious about rp when that's the first and only thing they see. It comes off very OOC and WOW

Learning

• I think players should have absolute basic class skills available, with HINTS when they attack things that they should use their class-specific weapon, so it's easier for them to start exploring and fighting immediately

• If learning skills is something players should do from the start, it should be a much more interactive process. Rn learning is a very passive experience that doesn't show off the great features of Lusternia! That shouldn't be a newbie's introduction to our world

Verbose:


Using the Interface

• Would be great to have a part of the website/wiki that explains where you should type (to a true newbie the typing box may be unnecessarily subtle), how to use the dialogue box to the right, what the map on the upper left is all about, etc

Newbie Guide

• The Newbie Guide is misleading and badly out of date. Fewer typos and more snappy bullet points would be great

• Let us players rally and make a good novice guide!! (unless there's a great one out there already that I don't know about)

• Players need another screen outside of the game that they can have useful info on bc it takes a good while to adjust to keeping track of information live in-game, despite everything that's going on

Hints

• In the current hint mode, a hint pops up the first time you encounter something and then never again. She really wanted a second mode where hints come up on which syntax to use every time you encounter a number of basic things, esp. communication and interaction

• For example: She got a hint to TELL back the first time someone sent her a tell, but was busy figuring out movement commands. Then when she wanted to reply she didn't know about using the dialogue box to the right and she had no idea how to answer or ask for help

• Just typing HELP leads to something of an infodump. With helpbug I've suggested the first page of the help files should probably be basic commands for newbies: SAY, how to move, PORTALS, NEWBIE, etc, with the TOC on the second page

Starting Location

• Right now when the intro ends newbies are left standing … nowhere. She missed the "go out" hint bc she was still reading different guild files to choose a guild, then she freaked out, thought it was a bug, and wanted to quit. Would be excellent if this room could be mapped or could contain a sign (so when they LOOK they see "READ SIGN!") with a number of basic commands like going OUT and using PORTALS and CGT, etc.

• OUT of the Portal, there's no one there to greet newbs, which is a big issue. Having an NPC saying things like, "Naturally you must be disoriented after stepping through the Portal. Do you know how to get home?" with hints about responding to SAY always popping on for this particular NPC would probably be an ordeal to code but I really, really think it would be a big help

Clutter in Important Locations

• Right now I have problems with what newbs are greeted with when they go OUT of the Portal. There's like 50 parakeets and fennec foxes and whatever? Wut?? Then there's these long lists of animals whose owners have perma-AFK'd who just sit there, and my friend actually read about everyone in the room bc she thought it was Important and got weirded out when she couldn't interact with them in any way

• I appreciate that Lusternia has the Whimsicality, but I think it's a turnoff for players who are serious about rp when that's the first and only thing they see. It comes off very OOC and WOW. There's gotta be a way to keep at least two rooms in the Realms, the Portal and the room just outside of it on Solitude, empty except for what's useful and actually lore-related

• I have similar issues with randomly dropped waste and people's random pets cluttering the Aetherplex and nexuses. Why aren't there clean-up mechanisms? This can be a significant source of confusion and immersion breaking for newbies. But I understand if that is hard to fix

Learning

• Players are told they can go wherever they want to start out, but Newton Caverns is a lot tougher without basic skills. Instead of forcing new players to first figure out the process of going to their city/commune and LEARNing a big list of stuff from Miakoda or whoever, players should have absolute basic skills available with HINTS when they attack things that they should use their class-specific weapon

• If learning skills is something players should do from the start, it should be a much more interactive process instead of sitting around doing nothing for half an hour and entering repetitive commands before you can actually go do things. That doesn't show off the great features of Lusternia! Learning is one of the only things in Lusty that is rote and passive. That incredibly unusual lack of engagement shouldn't be the first thing newbies experience

Lantra said:

1. Is there any particular past event you wish you had been active for in Lusternia? Which one, if so?

2. Any daydreams of a future event you’d love to witness in Lusternia? What would be a cool “what if”?

3. What unreleased area in Lusternia’s history and lore would you most love to see go live?

1) Ghani stuff! Hearing tidbits (and hero worship from a certain someone) is not the same as being there, wish I'd been around for all of that.

2) Currently enraptured by Li-Varili and the threads there and can't wait to see what happens next. I'd also really love to see an event where Drocilla escapes the collar and Her true power is unleashed. Would we all die? Maybe! 

3) Jojobo, or something else jungle/tropics/rainforesty would be a cool addition that we don't really have. A hidden village of people who were tainted like Magnagora and evolved like viscanti but perhaps in a different way? A tainted village still devoted to the light? Or a sect of merian who wish they had been tainted? Some murky grey that would be awkward for both Celest and Magnagora could be fun!

1. Is there any particular past event you wish you had been active for in Lusternia? Which one, if so?

2. Any daydreams of a future event you’d love to witness in Lusternia? What would be a cool “what if”?

3. What unreleased area in Lusternia’s history and lore would you most love to see go live?

Is powersink being changed from a mana drain to an ego drain going to also affect Nihilists who get powersink as part of their Luciphage pact? Nihilists still rely on mana for wrack and an ego drain would be meaningless to them.