We are going to be starting a special help section for a "newbie guide", to be used both in-game and on the website, and I'd really appreciate input. We really need two sections: 1) Quick Start and 2) Detailed.

The Quick Start are just the BASICS that you need to move around and survive (moving, eating, sleeping, meditating, communicating, kicking?). This should be a simple bullet point reference that takes no more than a minute to read.

The Detailed Newbie Guide should detail all the frequently asked questions (and answers of course!) that newbies ask, including "what do I do now" in Newton Caverns or in the cities.

Thanks in advance!

I thought Ialie published a pretty decent newbie guide in game, you may want to look at that...

Always say hello to your Guild if you have one first!

I like this idea; Lusternia was my first MUD, and I was a bit overwhelmed with all the help files, and trying to remember what does what.

I hope this in a way helps us keep players who might shy away cause they're a bit hopeless like I was

I just browsed all the books in Serenwilde's library by Ialie and unless its under a very non-intuitive title, I can't find it. What's it called?

There's a copy of it in the Geomancer guild library, it's called "The Basic Art" by Ialie, and it's very good.

Ah, it was non-intuitive. I thought it was a book about jewelry or something.

Do you need any help for the basic guide?

explain

GT
CT
GHELP INDEX
CHELP INDEX
AB (make sure you explain that new skills are put on the bottom of the list, not the top)

Mention that you have to wear and wield items individually. No Wear all, or take all or remove all etc.

When you guild is giving you an orientation.... may attention!

Also... something about nagging undersecs until they do their jobs...

Seriously though:

-Food, you do get hungry! You can find it at a store in your city or commune. Ask on GNT or CT, someone can point you in the right direction.

Well, if you're looking for some ideas, I've found that truly new players generally have problems/questions with...

Selecting skills (via skillchoice list/select), how/who to learn from (how many lessons you can learn at once, etc), and using the AB files to find out syntax to use skills.

Usually after they learn those things and go off to Newton, they start to figure things out on their own.

Seconding Veonira on the SKILLCHOICE stuff.

In general I think the introduction here is very good at getting you started. However a couple of things I think that could be more prominent for new players:

PORTALS
QQ

Something about the different skills, maybe even suggesting to not learn some of them until later. I know that I probably would have put it in something silly had it not been for being taught.

Hrm,

I might advise a few of the scrolls in the Paladin Library, we have a few good ones. I would like to push forth a vote for novices to read their guild Library through, or at least get a list of selected reading.

Teleport, very important skill.

The most common question about Newton that I get are:

"How do I get money in Newton?"
"What do I do with the corpses?"
"Who do I sell the corpses to?" (Ditto for rats/weevils)

What should I do first?
How do I save in this game?
How much can I carry?
Where did those rats/weevils/widgets go, I had them just a minute ago!
What is this Grace thing?
Why do I have to change my name? It's a cool name and I had it in all my other MUDs!!!1! (kidding )

As for the general way to do it, if I may, do make sure you add references to relevant helpfiles, because even if they don't read them right away, it's always good to know where to look up things.

(Oh and, yay for Ialie's newbie guide. )

I think that while we currently do a very good job of exposing game mechanics, game culture doesn't quite get passed on to newbies. It might be because I'm a roleplay goob, but it would be interesting to include blurbs about the Taint, Wyrd, Light and Green, short versions of important events that happened after the game opening, and so on and so forth.

Other questions I'd like to see answered are those regarding etiquette. Don't just explain how the Avenger system works; explain why it exists, and explain that it's important to keep roleplay and most importantly, the fact that there's another human being on the other side controlling the character you're attacking in mind when you get involved in PK.. Explain what is polite, what isn't, and what will get you shrubbed. Explain how Lusternia is different from other fantasy universes. Those are several things newbies seem to have issues getting, because nobody pauses to tell them all about it.

Was my book helpful at all?

If the quick-start guide will be posted on the website, then maybe telling them to PUNCH SHADOW each time they regain equilibrum would be nice. I know that some MUDs just let them type KILL BLAH and then it keeps hitting, and I was pretty scared myself when I first played IRE MUDs and found out that you had to enter the command each time.

Hrm, also, one important thing to point out to them is that they are not to use chatspeak (or whatever its called).

What I usually tell them to do is to slow down, people are willing to wait for them to type, check their spelling and make sure that they properly capitalise their 'I's and proper nouns, as there is no way to detect it in-game.

I think many of them got rather confused about in-character and out-of-character, as I get many of them telling me things that are out-of-character, but affecting them in-game.

Ialie: Your guide is really good, altough I want to say that influencing and enchantments usually confuse new players a lot, and mostly require someone to explain their specific question(s).

This might just be me, but I find that if you give new players too much information at once, they get overwhelmed. Especially if one long help files tells them to read some more help files, then they might get put off.

So my opinion is that you might want the newbie guides to be more to-the-point, and perhaps broken up into more paragraphs. And if possible, more linebreaks.

Tell them how to convert Bound Credits to lessons.

no and you suck

I actually read it when I was a Geo(they have a copy and other copies which I read them all... Telrath's Aetherbubble adventure rocks) and it was good