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  • BetelBetel Member Posts: 365

    Originally posted by osmunda

    I'm not saying it was an adequate tutorial, just that it included everything you mentioned (as well as how to block)

    It told you key commands, it gave no help or insight into those commands. That is a list of keys, not a tutorial. The difference is obvious.

    The article describes player behavior in MUDS. You cited it as if "killers" were some new discovery, when it was in fact a description of how people already were behaving. It was fairly well known long before Professor Bartle wrote about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace

    You agree that UO was in production before the article then. You also totally miss the point of the "Rape" incident. It was an unexpected, rare event on the MUDs, Koster has mentioned it a few times himself. The change from university access to home access was a massive change, eg would you expect huge discussions and designer angst over every teabagging in UO? Nope, because it happened all the time in every part of the game world due to the new playerbase. To claim otherwise is to misunderstand game and social history.

     

    A change in the UI is a change in the game 

    You are desperately clutching at straws. I won't even bother to rebut this argument, just leave it there for the deliberation of others.

     

    Ok, I should have said "mouse-over" them instead

    So the act and mechanics of attacking them was consistent throughout. Doesn't sound comparable to Henril saying they might need to scrap the two most basic systems in a game because they cannot fix them.

     

    That's odd, since there initially was no criminal flag-- http://update.uo.com/oldupdates/10-29-97.shtml

    A change one month after release to deal with the player issues already discussed. Are you comparing that to a non-functioning combat and movement system 8 months or more after release?

     

     That's kind of my point, a tutorial on that part of the UI would become misleading as the system developed, or require changing the tutorial (taking Dev time from something else.

    The UI developing as content is added is a natural progression. I am addressing having to change basic systems such as movement and combat months after release because they do not work. A tutorial for UO could have covered movement and combat at launch and still be valid years later.

    Back to the source of this thread...

    The original thread complained about lack of guidance, and barely mentions bugs or non-working system.

     

    That was not the source of this thread. The first post actually highlights this -

    "It IS like a sandbox...but the sandbox isn't the game, the sandbox is the forum, the fansites and talent and skill planners out there. The game itself is more like a blackbox to me."

    And the reason it's such a blackbox is because they are unable to add content while their basic systems are so bugged they spend all their time failing to fix them.

    You don't get to choose what a thread is about, the OP does.

    P.S. Totally off topic but you seem to be making a distinction between MUDs and MMOs (and their respective players) that was a transition rather than the sharp break you seem to be describing  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Graphical_MUDs

    I have said why I came to that conclusion, I was there at the time and watched it happen. The demographics changed completely.

  • osmundaosmunda Member Posts: 1,087

     "I don't want anyone to hold my hand.  I want a introduction in a game. I want to explore the skills, the handling, crafting and the combat system to be learned within the game. At the moment I'm collecting every information from outside of the game. It IS like a sandbox...but the sandbox isn't the game, the sandbox is the forum, the fansites and talent and skill planners out there. The game itself is more like a blackbox to me."

    The quotes I used were from Rabambulin, the OP of the thread cited by  shogunone. http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/59006-started-mo-my-first-impressions-discussion.html If you choose to ignore the part of the quote highlighted in blue and insist the source of the thread is something else, insisting that a tutorial / introduction is a side issue, then I really see no point in further disussion. Obviously you wish to focus solely on bugs.  I'm not denying their existence, nor saying that "sandbox" is a good reason to ignore them.  I'm just saying that they were not a primary concern of Rabambulin.

    I can not contradict your personal experience, I can only say that I was also there. If the demographics changed as much as you claim, they changed back within just a few years http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.html    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2139/unmasking_the_avatar_the_.php

  • BetelBetel Member Posts: 365

    Rabambulin is not the OP here.

    The OP here did not highlight the tutorial part, his concern was the "blackbox" nature of the game (as he put it). So I am directly addressing the OP's concerns and the root causes of them.

    I am also taking exception to your claim that the sandbox nature of the game is somehow an excuse for the bugs. Already had trial players saying that if this is a sandbox game the genre is not for them. Again, random posters don't decide the content of a thread, only the OP.

     

    Your link just further proves my point -

    "Average age of MMORPG players is around 26" - from the 18-21 of MUD days.

    "About 50% of MMORPG players work full-time" - instead of, well let's just say they were mostly students :)

    "About 36% of players are married, and 22% have children." - not even remotely close to the average MUD profile.

    "including high-school students, college students, early professionals, middle-aged home-makers, as well as retirees. In other words, MMORPGs do not only appeal to a youth subculture." -  a youth subculture (hosted and accessed on university networks by students mostly) is a pretty good description of the MUD scene. Few lecturers etc but mostly late teens and early 20's.

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