Let's put together a newbie guide.

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Thanik
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Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Thanik »

Let's put our heads together for a bit and figure out what would be the best advice to put in a guide for total newbies, in order to keep it concise. Alies page was a great help to me when I started, but having the information available on the official forum as well as the links page means there's less chance people will miss it. Alie also got me killed by starved grey wolves trying to run from fornost to grey havens :P

It occured to me that this could be more helpful than I first thought after I spoke to a new player recently who had been trying to xp his first ever character around Fornost. I think you need a basic level of competence with the game before xping a level 1 around Fornost would be anything but painful, and I also think that it would be slower than most other potential starting areas regardless of your experience. He hadn't read Alies guide, but he had checked the forums.
Eorberl
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Eorberl »

Good idea. Although as you pointed out, there's more than one place you can start as a newbie. So perhaps there could be a very basic newbie guide with essential commands and that sort of thing, and then it could branch of into "So, you want to begin in Lorien/Grey Havens/Fornost?" Or something similar to that. So that there is a very basic guide and then some references (and useful tips/hints) to the specific zones where people want to begin.

I think the guide should be helpful, but not give away too much about the areas, so that new people still have an adventure and a fun experience without being told everything. The basics is a good idea, but the best way to learn is from experience, rather than just being told.
Slippy
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Location: California

Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Slippy »

I'm not sure how recently you've looked at http://mume.org/newbie.php, but it seems to me that it is "a very basic newbie guide with essential commands and that sort of thing". Although I do like your idea of having a basic guide for each starting city. Just some basic information of course... And I don't see why that wouldn't be a great addition to the 'newbies' section.
Eorberl
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Location: Hobart, Australia

Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Eorberl »

I used that guide when I started playing :) the only problem is that some people don't find it (either because they don't look or don't feel they need it) -- I have told quite a few new players about it and they have almost always been surprised it existed. I think it would be helpful to make a sticky topic entitled "advice for new players" or something and have a few links to helpful sites for newbies, like mume.org/newbies.php

Am I crazy, or does this sound like something Jahara could and would organise?
Last edited by Eorberl on Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Slippy
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Location: California

Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Slippy »

psh, your crazy. Jahara is absolutely no help at all... ;)
Parrafin
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Parrafin »

I would like to see a guide that doesn't focus on the commands, but the things that are really hard to figure out and help a whole lot. putting the default color scheme on is one... aliasing commands... why you should use a good client, base stats, and classing (esp. class purity since it doesn't make so much sense) are all important. i've yet to see a newbie friendly map, but any map is a great help. the one on jahara's web site shows main roads quite clearly, so it isn't impossible to get around arda as a newbie w/ that map. plus you can avoid those red X's till you're ready for em.

I've got that same one in .Gif format that's a much smaller file size and I've shrunk it down to minimize scrolling...

the commands are really quite easy once learned, it's that other stuff that really gets in the way of newbies becoming good players.
Slippy
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Location: California

Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Slippy »

Although aliases arent, colours are covered in the newbie section. And I disagree that base stats/maps etc. prevent new players from becoming great players. I personally had the most fun when I first started and didn't know anything about stats, and I was exploring (not using a map). I think that its important to start off that way, and then make a transition to knowing about stats maps etc. All of it at once would IMO be too overwhelming.
Thanik
Posts: 79
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:36 pm

Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Thanik »

I wasn't even thinking of adding any area specific information, although it's not a bad idea. A little more detail about the pros and cons of each starting area for example. Some general practice recommendations for the first few levels? Links to stat advice threads, other newbie guides such as Alies, etc.

Guides like the link on the mume page don't actually provide any suggestions/advice about hmm, the way you should play I guess is the best way to put it. They tell you what you can do, and how to do it, not what you should do.

As an example, I remember abandoning the first character I made with my own stats at level 12. An elf warrior with max str/dex/per can slash and parry really well, but 11 con and 7 wil is hard to enjoy playing :( We don't need to provide a collection of 'perfect stats' for each class type, but if we can post a kind of general consensus of the importance of the effect of each stat that could help. You can post 'con is good for warriors', but that won't work without a little further explanation, because it can be construed as a general opinion that may not be true in the particular case you want to try. By that I mean people may think that they are being told 'con is good for warriors' because the writer assumes warriors want to be big burly guys who can take a hit. You need to post something like 'with low constitution, a characters mobility will be severely limited, and they will take significantly longer to recover after battle'. It's easy to find out what each stat does, it's a bit harder to get an idea of how heavily they affect each thing.

We would have to go over the 'new players look here' sign in mandos and other newbie help that is already available to avoid excessive redundancy. It may turn out to be simply a collection of links to other resources.

I don't have any problem with writing it, but if someone else wants to volunteer, that's even better.
Jahara
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Jahara »

I was planning on creating a newbie guide but since it is such a huge undertaking I decided to wait for the official Wiki to turn up so everyone else could help along ;)

I already started a links thread a while ago in anticipation for the various newbie guides that will have to be created. My assumptions was that we could use these pages as a guide to follow since most of them have fairly up to date information. With permission we might even be able to just copy and paste :-)
Freyja
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Freyja »

Sample session was very helpful. I remember my first login and it was first time to play a Mud game (even creating account was confusing), so when I landed at Mandos, I was stuck! I started to figure commands, like "take", "eat", "say" - everything worked but not "leave" command :shock: . So I found sample session on web page and found the "pray" command. I was too lazy at first to start reading help files, besides the figuring part was so adventurous! I think there should be sample session files for the newbies, short tutorials always work! Sample sessions on MUME main webpage like, "Create account and play" , "Basic commands", "Exploring the world", "Technical settings" etc. So one can choose what to take and what to figure out ...
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Ilie
Site Admin
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Ilie »

If you want to work on this, please contribute on the wiki pages on http://mume.org/wiki/index.php/Newbie !
-- Ilie Your friendly site Administrator
Caerroil
Bug Hunter
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Caerroil »

I have some stat ranges for the different classes and a short description for each class and stat to explain why and how important individual stats are for different classes. I'm posting it here first to get some comments on how clear/good/bad my choices and descriptions are. The ranges are based on the character being a human, so for other races modify the ranges with the race modifiers; or don't and get a less specialized but likely more all-round character.

Code: Select all

Mage:
----
STR: More the heavier armour you want to be able to use.                [10-13]
INT: MAX. You can never have more than enough INT as a mage.               [18]
WIS: Quite high, though max is good it is far from essential.           [16-18]
DEX: You want some, but much won't help you much at all.                [10-13]
CON: Can help a lot, but not allways as much as you might think.        [10-14]
WIL: Some. If you want charm/sleep to work well get it quite high.      [14-17]
PER: Some.                                                              [11-14]

Cleric:
------
STR: More the heavier armour you want to be able to use.                [10-13]
INT: Max, but if really needed you can drop it a little.                [17-18]
WIS: Max.                                                                  [18]
DEX: Some is good, but you can get away with very little with high WIL.  [8-12]
CON: Can help a lot, but not allways as much as you might think.        [10-14]
WIL: Very high, MAX isn't needed but helpful at least on lower levels.  [16-18]
PER: Enough to get as much track as you want.                            [8-11]

Warrior:
-------
STR: If you want to be able to use good damage weapons get 18.          [17-18]
INT: Enough to together with PER get as much track as you want.          [8-12]
WIS: Not much use, unless you want a lot of leadership.                     [8]
DEX: You really want some, and possibly very high.                      [13-18]
CON: The most important stat for most warriors.                         [17-18]
WIL: The more the better, but you can't get everything and some is ok.  [13-17]
PER: Enough to get as much track as you want.                            [8-14]

Scout:
-----
STR: Will help you carry more, so get some and more if you can.         [14-16]
INT: Not much use, but can put leftover points in it.                    [8-10]
WIS: Very little use, so don't waste points on it.                          [8]
DEX: Primary stat for scouts, so get MAX.                                  [18]
CON: Will decide how mobile you are, so get as much as you can.         [15-18]
WIL: Helps some, but can mostly be compensated for so most keep it low. [10-14]
PER: Important to get scout skills high. Pure scouts work with less.    [17-18]
Thanik
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Thanik »

Agree with all except I would extend the per range to 16-18 for scouts. That might be a horrible idea, but 1 extra point in per doesn't net you much, particularly not if you are of a dextrous race.

Oh, and some consideration has to be given to wil for orcs, being that applying a typical puke amount of points to it can result in you ending up with 10-12 wil, which is bad for the side that faces the most powerful casters in the game. Maybe just a little note though.
Jahara
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Jahara »

I strongly disagree with your mage ranges. You definitely need more Per and less Str.
Mandor
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Mandor »

Doesn't the automatic guides at character creation do this quite well?
Caerroil
Bug Hunter
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Caerroil »

Yes, the premade stats available to choose between for newbies when creating a new character are mostly quite decent (at least those I have seen). However there will always be newbies that doesn't want to choose premade stats (I didn't and I have never done it in any game where there is a choice that I've played) so this is mostly aimed at them so they don't choose stats that are totally "wrong". Someone that is used to a Dungeons & Dragons based system making a mage in MUME might very well choose 8 WIS, since WIS is of very limited use for mages in D&D, but such a mage wouldn't work very well.

I'll change the range for PER for scouts, but I will keep the PER range for mages as it is now. PER is not at all as important for mages as some people believe (none of my 3 level 40+ mages has had any problem with 11-13 PER, nor my cleric with 10 PER when it was pracced as a mage).
Ilie
Site Admin
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Ilie »

I suggest you put what you have on the wiki, others can edit it as they see fit, and if there is a disagreement you can battle it out in the talk page. Or talk about the pros and cons of different stats and strategies.
-- Ilie Your friendly site Administrator
Ortansia
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Ortansia »

I really liked Jahara's tutorial of mmapper . it is well explained and illustrated with screen shots . I think a newbie guide should be done like that :p .
Image
Alkar
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Alkar »

If anyone would like something added to that sample session on mume.org, feel free to let me know. I wrote it and will gladly edit it, as I'm sure it is out of date.
Syd
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Re: Let's put together a newbie guide.

Post by Syd »

I started to read this thread, and I like what I've read. I just wanted to point out the fact that 90% of the people who start games don't want to read these huge uberlong things that state everything you need to know. I think I'm going to write the worlds' fastest introduction to MUME, just enough so it doesn't intimidate someone, but it leaves them yearning for more. The fine line, as I see it, is writing TOO much that it seems like, oh god, I will never learn all of this, and "My god this is simple". If there's positive feedback, I'd be more than happy to do this.
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