Howdy everybody,
I just came back re-birthing from my ashes at Heliopolis.
I don't know where you all disappeared, most of the time it's just me and the AFK queen (Miss O'Hara)
online.
To overcome my solitude I've create a facebook page of 4d on Facebook to invite all my over 100 friends that waste time during the day playing poker or pool to understand 4D and play it. After some efforts spent in creating the facebook page I've discovered there's already one. Shame.
Anyway I've sent a mass-message telling everybody I've learnt English playing the game and that might like a try. So don't get impressed if you'll experience some newbies overflow these days.
I've been doing some research and I've came across the conclusion that doesn't matter how much the content of a mud is qualitative or how nice the Immyes are, if there's nobody there to play with most of the new people we get are going to quit.
In my research on other muds, I've came to understand part of their strategies that work to keep the mud flourishing with players.
It's quite simple and only 3 things are required to make 4D appealing.
A) Botting, they have a lot of fake players running around the place or AFK, so when someone joins to try the game they see it populated. The first thing their mind think about this is: Wow, so many people. My previous mud had only 5 players online, this mud should be really good, I will enjoy questing and socializing around here. By the time they discover the bots, they've already remorted and got in a clan. Much less probability they'd quit once they've spent time and effort achieving something.
B) Questing in low-level zones far more rewarding than farming mobs for EXP. Simple and easy quests gave around the amount of EXP you'd gather by killing 100 mobs. So players are more inclined to quest for EXP than kill,kill,kill and get bored.
C) Ease of gameplay. Mudding through 4D web based application is something I'd consider hardcore mudding (you need to be very desperate about playing 4D to mud like that).
So most of the successful muds invest time and effort in modifying a mud-client of their preference and compile it with triggers to ease the gameplay.
The most requested features by players on other muds are:
1- Separated chat windows, so their gameplay doesn't get disturbed by what I call mud-noise (tells, gossips, auctions, public channels in general).
They can't play without socializing, but they also can't play peacefully having all these messages appear during battles or reading important quest-related descriptions. Having the channels and private messages separated in other windows helps them concentrate and focus on mud-noise in spare time as when they finish killing that big lurking mob or reading that important description.
2- Small floating window that always display a small MAP of where they are the possible directions. This thing looks pretty close to our MAP command, which you have to type every time you want to see the whereabouts of where you are when you're new to the mud and don't know it already by hearth.
I see CMUD always open a MAP window automatically when you connect to any mud, but in 4D case that window is always empty. Is there a way code 4D to display this map in a window without the need of continuously type the command manually?
3- Supplying a list available for download on the website with common triggers, players could just copy/paste into their mud-client with standard uses like:
Auto-open a door if you walk in that direction and is closed.
Anti-idle script (the annoying disconnection if you leave your char connected while you go cook something or speak on the phone)
Gauges (you see your HP/MANA/MV into a bar like in graphical games), and stuff like this and that.
I've seen that the top muds even supply a proprietary mud-client software optimized for their mud with special sounds and effects that trigger on certain events. You kill a mob and hear a roar of agony, etc. You get the idea.
I've also seen that most players on other muds use clients like zMud or CMUD, and publicly share mud-optimized triggers for everybody to use and ease the gameplay.
I don't have the necessary knowledge to write down a mud-client for 4D, but I've been using zMUD/CMUD for quite some time and since after all this time of inactivity I've lost all my triggers I have to make them all again. Since I'm slowly rewriting my set of triggers that ease my gameplay, I'm writing them with the concept of making them easy and sharable without all of you.
I've finished today with the help of Nauzhror as beta tester
. The separate window chats - I think the other muds have this kind of stuff done in the code and compatible with mud-clients but I've been able with some effort to make it all trigger-wise. I'm attaching a screenshot of what it looks like and the .pkg file containing the triggers that make it work. For you to use.
I think we should also make stuff like this available to download on the website.
Also hope to get an answer from Anubbus for the MAP window, it's an interesting feature. I'm very curious about it.
