Other threads often talk about the question of what makes the newcomers to Lusternia stick around, or drives them away, but typically the understanding is only glancing in passing because it comes up in some other context. So I wanted to say some things in a new thread in hopes they would come out a little more clearly.

Any given difficulty which might be presented to a newcomer is not in itself likely to be what makes them leave, but that doesn't mean it's not part of what makes some of them not stay. Often, in these discussions, things that hurt Lusternia's newbie retention rate are dismissed as trivial through an argument that puts the cart entirely before the horse. They come at it from the attitude that anyone who's going to like Lusternia shouldn't be dissuaded as easily as, for instance, learning that it's very hard to find gold. That's the kind of thinking that might make sense to someone who already knows how grand Lusternia can be, but it doesn't really apply to the vast majority of newcomers.

It's important to remember that the average newbie or lowbie has not yet decided if Lusternia is any good at all yet. They have a thousand other things they could be doing with their time, and Lusternia is just a MUD they read a few paragraphs about and decided to give a try to. They might only give it a few hours to convince them it's worth their time before they move on to one of a hundred other MUDs, or any number of other activities. Most of the things that make Lusternia great, when it's at its best, are things that it's hard for them to completely grasp during those couple of hours they might give us. You and I know, for instance, that Lusternia has a deep mythic scope backed by a rich and self-consistent history; but in a couple of hours filled with a lot of things to learn, from how the client works to what to name their character, they can't see that well enough to be able to tell it apart from other MUDs that have only a superficial impression of that kind of scope, but enough to give the same impression at first glance.

There are four main things that I think are most important to determining if someone is likely to give Lusternia a few more hours, and then a few more days, and then maybe sticking around. If they seem trivial to you, think of what the reasons are why you chose one movie to see over some other movie you know nothing about, which might be the best movie out there, but you can't see them all so you have to pick based on something. We all do this stuff.

1. Being overwhelmed. Lusternia is infamous for throwing so much at people to absorb so fast that it's dizzying. Some of that is over the long term; even a year into playing there are things you need to learn and absorb, and even if you know every single thing that's in Lusternia today (which I doubt anyone really does), there'll be something new in the announcements tomorrow. But even in the short term, Lusternia has to struggle not to bury people in details. Not because the details aren't necessary but because, in that first hour, when you don't know that Lusternia isn't going to suck, the last thing you want is to have to study for a test. We need to give people just a tantalizing glimpse that there's a lot more they can learn without slamming them with the idea that there's a lot more they have to learn. Every bit of complexity you hit them with in the first hour is a strike against you, so it's important to only hit them with the ones that are also working for you by more.

2. Being engaged. The flip side of being overwhelmed. You need to get a sense that this is something different, something cool, something fresh, something exciting. Logging in in the middle of an event and the panicked whirlwind can be great for this: it says "hey, there's always stuff going on". But it is a delicate balance with the "being overwhelmed" factor above. Everything that can be engaging also can be overwhelming, but not vice versa. In the best case, logging in to chaos can get some people excited, but more often, it can also get people disoriented and wanting a gentler introduction. (That's why even Michael Bay doesn't put the climax of the movie in the first five minutes: there needs to be exposition and a gradual build, with just enough to tease, but not so much as to annoy, in the first five minutes.) Some people might decide to go away and come back tomorrow in hopes it's quieter; more will never come back. But if they come in to too quiet a time, will they go away because they worry that the game is boring? Maybe sometimes, but really I don't think this is a big factor. Logging in to find no one around to help, sure; but logging in to find people who are helpful and interesting, but no world-shaking chaos, is very unlikely to drive anyone away. Boredom will get people over a longer term, but if we can get them to stay that long, they'll probably find a lot of the great things about Lusternia that take a while to come to appreciate, like its depth and its breadth.

3. Being frustrated. This is the easiest to trivialize. So what if it's a little hard to get someone to teach you in the first ten minutes, or to get gold in the first two weeks, or to finish your quests in the first two days? Anyone who's going to let something like that stop them isn't going to make it anyway. No, it's not that simple. If you're not sold on Lusternia yet, any source of frustration has a much higher chance of making you decide to see what else is out there than it will after even a few more weeks when you've gotten more invested and a better grasp on things. On the forum people consistently downplay how much of a difference this makes, but in the game, those who spend the most time helping novices, and who pay attention, see it time and again how easy it can be to go just too far. Okay, so to finish this quest someone told me to do, I need this item, but I can't get it because I don't have the right skill, so I need to buy it, but no one is selling it, so I have to learn how to find the shops, and then it costs more gold than I have, so I have to get gold, but that means I have to go somewhere else and do some entirely other thing, but then I need supplies for that too... Many people will cheerfully push through all those steps and all their frustrations, but many more will decide that the next MUD on the list might be easier to get started in, and end up settling for a mediocre MUD that just happens to have been easier to start on. (Not to sound like a broken record, but this is why bards and scholars are a brilliant mechanic: here's a way you can get enough gold to get started on anything else, that anyone can do, without much risk, without a lot of frustration but just enough challenge to get you involved, and you even can feel like you're part of something bigger. It's so bloody ingenious that it's easy to take for granted. And that's why crushing it is so bloody stupid.)

4. Being challenged. You have to give a newcomer something to do, but not too much. You need to help them, but not spoon-feed them. Novice training and assistance programs are always either teetering on the balance here, or they tend to fall heavily too far -- everything I ever saw back in Aetolia years ago did that, for instance, with so much help that the novice could emerge from the hours-long novice intros without any clue what they had done, all because once someone had a problem and someone decided we needed to give them an answer before it came up, and the end result was an accumulation of far too many answers. You need to provide just enough assistance to avoid being frustrated, but just enough that the novice learns the joy of doing for themselves somewhat too. That's why my guild gives out incomplete starter kits. "What, I have to get 14 different cures to do this beginner healing quest?" is a great frustration and drives lots of kids away, but handing them all 14 means they do it by rote, learn nothing, and don't come away feeling good. So we give them enough that finding the others is a manageable challenge, so they feel helped, but they also feel like they're part of it, and they get a chance to learn something on the way, without feeling they had to learn everything on one day, or that they had to learn A before they could learn B but had to learn B before they could learn A.

Balance these together, and what you're going to do is not to lure newcomers like a fly to honey: that's not possible. It means you're going to make them stay around long enough to give us a chance. Long enough that we can sell them on the real selling points of Lusternia, the ones it takes a few days or a few weeks or a few months to really get. That is what all our novice retention programs should be focused on: keeping them in the showroom long enough for Lusternia to sell itself. We can't sell Lusternia. And we can't pretend that Lusternia has already sold itself by time they get there. All we can do is give it the opportunity it needs.

all very good points.

I would suggest a list of things which people think fall into each category.

What is overwhelming?
What is engaging?
What is frustrating?
What is challenging?

Overwhelming = 2061 triggers and counting.

Whenever new novices log on, half of celest seems to auto greet them, and then gives them a massive reading list. When I get a new xbox game, I start playing and ignore the manual. Also, there is a difference between transactional and relational service (as we all serve as a sort of customer service, or at least an example, to our new people).

I have two friends that tried to play. One was a paladin (I made a paladin and joined him) who felt that the knight showing us around was A: talking way too much and not getting into the game enough, and B: was being pompus and mean with all the "You will address me as sir" stuff. There is roleplaying, and there is scaring off novices. This guy is a big gamer, and never came back.

The second friend got on (I did not make a newbie this time) as a hartstone, and then didn't get much attention from the guild (I'm not saying the hartstone or any other guild do this with any frequency). She had never played a MUD, and now probably never will.

There's also the issue of accessability. We want IRE games to be accessable to new players of all types, and not just to the niche market it serves. Why can you not click items to probe them? Why do we not have a pop out map? Why do we not have better features than any other MUD? (not meant to really foster a discussion, or insult Estarra, I know some of this stuff is Jeremy's call). I've heard rumours of accessability upgrades in the mix; hopefully they'll come in less time than Achaea's ships.

I think we need a second novice area. I don't think it'd be overwhelming, and it would give it more variety. Aetolia had three novice areas, and I walked across the "real world" to get to them.

Two last things, that probay won't change: the sheer amount of coding involved to be a combatant, and the high entry fee to learn a lot of skills. The game is free, but you're unlikely to ever omni (or tri) trans without dropping a lot of money. I don't care if x person or demigod did it, the newbie hat played a week and ran off won't.

Sorry for the rambling, it's difficult to put together something meaningful when it's 95 degrees and Im typing this from my phone. The point is, lusternia is great, but can surely improve.

Telling new players to read help files is probably the worst way to introduce them to Lusternia. No one wants to sit around reading help files, no matter how important the information is! Point them to Newton and get them started with bashing!

Our newbie area is enormous. I don't see any reason to add more (i.e., more newbie-restricted areas). After Newton and collegiums, you should be at least level 20, and there's plenty of lowbie areas or quests (pilgrims/bards, Clarramore, Hifarae, Verasavir, Tidal Flats, Greymoors, Nature Reserve, etc.).

Sadly, it's the way I've seen pretty much every novice greeted. I didn't like reading lists in college, and I don't like them in games. I think pointing them towards Newton and giving them an abbreviated help file to read would be a good policy to enact. In fact, instead of reading HELP NEWBIE, HELP MYCITY, HELP SKILLSINEED, HELP HELP, why isn't there a (player-created guild or city) HELP GETTING STARTED (that includes the guild, city, and admin created {help whatnow, etc}) which says "Either read this list of help files, or go to Newton and start poking things!"? People have different learning styles, and we're (maybe admins, definitely players) not catering to those.



Fair enough. I'd put 'em in the list suggested above.

I've been playing on a few alts to alleviate boredom at differing times. I won't say where, but on all of them I have been greeted with instructions to read help files... if at all, I also don't remember any interaction with members of the guilds I joined beyond asking to do advancement tasks which I had to work out for myself.

As to the newbie zone... yeah, I was able to bash the battlefield area there pretty effectively. But one other person there at the same time prevented me from completing the quest. The resets on the black stones should be looked at, it's frustrating enough when you know what you're doing, but it may be moreso for a novice who is working out the quest only to have everything decay on them because the hogs spawned without the stones.

Post-20 levelling is also a bit bleh.
-I'll res one or two of them and try out the areas you have listed with just a basic sipper to see how we go. (They are on base skills right now so guild won't matter)

-Pilgrims/Bards/Scholars: This actually created frustration personally cause when I had trouble with some of the bashing suggested by the guild I switched to them but someone did the TBC Quest so that nice gain stopped. Sure I could have logged on as Saran and tried to raise a force to take it down, but true newbies won't have this option and would have to rely on more powerful people to allow them to perform a quest aimed at them.



I managed to get two characters to 20 in a few hours and both completed all collegium quests, but there was no interaction with my guild. I might suggest checking the cghelp for each org, copy that, find every help mentioned, copy those, find the helps referenced in those, and so on til you see how much novices are expected to read.

I remember some guilds requiring you read their laws, then advancement documentation, lesson plans, some of the game help files, and so on.

There are also guilds that will not teach you until you have read all of this information. (or perhaps have been if they got spanked)

And just punch and kick their way through, with 1 health vial and no defenses? The one file we tell novices to read gets them -basic- skill training so they get their guild bashing skill and know where to pick up armor/robes and more than the 1 health vial they start with. The bar has been set -so- high in Lusternia that you can't just create a character and go bashing without learning anything. That's not our fault.

Levelling up quickly with an alt is not all tat difficult, I think part of it is understanding that it takes a certain kind of player to get into Lusternia usually. Without committing to truly understanding your surroundings and being able to take it slow to learn, you can't really go far.

I have no problem getting an alt up to lvl 30 or above in 2 hours maybe, tons of ways to get exp early on.

Err, you realise that there were multiple guilds where people would devote their time and energy to personally teaching each novice.

I have spent hours teaching both Hartstone and Moonies, often having to stay there for extended periods because they kept coming one after the other. This sort of teaching is beneficial because you also get a chance to show them what the game can be like. This also gives the novice a link to the guild.

"Oh hey, look it's Lendren he took the time to show me how to play my instrument and gave me a glimpse of the power I songs I might get to play"

"Wow it's Nejii, he changed gender on me while I was learning but then she killed a weevil with one hit and had to save me when I didn't get my kata right, but then he helped me get it right"

They might not litterally think that, but personal teaching can work better in some situations and allows you to rp a bit with them to hopefully interest them or show of some of the more powerful skills the newbie will learn later on.

I think what loses us a lot of players is not just the newbie stuff but the mid-level stuff, too, and I've noticed this on a lot of the IRE games, too, I'll get to about level 50 and then it will just get boring, Lawliet is the only charachter that I've gotten past level 50 or past a few months of play, part of what I think causes this so far as hunting is concerned is a rather SUDDEN drop in experiance so far as percentage is concerned.

But that's just me, I may be wrong and I haven't alted on lusty in well over a year.

Edit: I've been working on not just ignoring novices (hot damn they annoy me) and teaching them again, Saran, come2aquamancers

Moonbeam is great for this, IMO.

In the Spiritsingers, I think we only have them look at the CHIMES scroll, and all that says (If I remember right) is "Learn this from Miakoda". We direct novices to Miakoda, not the collegium, (I think, ask Lendren for confirmation on this) because it increases their odds of interaction with other adventurers, and makes them feel connected. Heck, the only real reason we take chimes to Lekari is so we can teach them in peace/quiet, away from the bustle of the Nexus...

That's something that I think some of the other guilds should consider doing, too, as it decreases the likelihood of "This is boring, there's nobody here that's playing with me".

Man, I am so guilty of talking people's ear off. That's why I don't teach nubs anymore.

Or let's not forget the people who come when you ask them to teach you, and then they give you an entire... 20 minute tour because it takes them 5 minutes to figure out where they are since they got lost (...3 times), then when they're ready to teach you the sills THEY HAVEN'T ACTUALLY LEARNED HALF OF THEM, so they waste time saying 'no, no, you must be doing it wrong' until I smack them in the face in tells and I end up teaching THEM (by explaining AB and all that jazz, not physically teaching them the skills), hopefully making them want to commit suicide irl in the process.

I've been holding that in for weeks!

Novices should be taught skills so they can begin to hunt - when they begin to ask questions, then go more in-depth with them.

In another time and place, I used to teach newbies and had my patter down so well (using NO macros!) that a newbie once thought I was a mob with a clever AI...

Well nerf you.

I've tried to keep CGHELP CHIMES as short as possible. Periodically someone brings up something novices need to know and ask me to add to it, but I resist. I can add it to something else. CGHELP CHIMES is all you can ask them to learn on the first day.

I agree that we have a bigger problem in the 20-40 range than in true novicehood, at least in my experience -- admittedly limted to Serenwilde so I don't know if it's representative. But when I lose a promising one it's usually very late in novicehood or, more commonly, shortly after novicehood. That's when we start to see more of the "frustrated" factor coming in, and more of the "overwhelming" factor. The "challenging" factor is about where it should be. How well the "engaging" factor comes in depends a lot on what's going on in the game; while some events make it more engaging than the average day, most of them make it less so.

Improving the balance I think can be done best by focusing on diminishing the "frustrated" and "overwhelming" factors, since we're probably doing as much as we can to bring up the "engaging" factor while still keeping it fun for everyone else, and "challenging" is really right where it needs to be.

There were times when both guilds were attracting novices and I found myself leading classes of 2-3 novices, had to take them to the npc teachers so they could all learn at the same time. They might have taken a bit of time but they were fun

I don't know if it's there any more, but there was a specific group within the moondancers that took charge of all things novice related, not all were undersecs but it was a group whose advancement tasks revolved around teaching newbies. You weren't even supposed to teach without proper training.

Any of you guys have advice on what to tell novices? Like, no one's around, a Celestine nub comes by, and someone calls me out so I got to teach them. What should I do?

Pretend you're afk.