Is 4D dying? And if so, how can we save our beloved Mud?

[NotNOTKitolani]

Come do your worst! 

[AnotherKitolani]

Come do your worst! 

Even though you're the anti-me, the Satan to Christ, the Dr Evil to Austin Powers, I would love to ransack you errr your person errr your personal belongings!

[Prometheus]

Too many Kitolani's as the saying goes in Highlander:
"There can only be one Kitolani!"

[Bane]

    I really think alot of the problems that keep new players from staying is for the simple fact after mud school they are just throw into this huge world and they have no idea where to go.  They start to explore and its easy to find death. Also the lack of equipment, and how hard it is to find when you are new. I remember how aggravating it was to look around for equipment and die going to a new zone.

After the quest school I think more emphasizes should be put on them exploring the newbie zones then have them seek out their guildmaster in old yorke that will send them on quests in areas where they can find equipment, and places to level.

I dont know how many times i look at a new person who has some levels under their belt and how naked they are, and when they look at you they see this full set of equipment. Now I know people say its easy to find equipment by looking around. This is coming from olbies whos been around for a while. I personally remember finding alot of the races unique spots some of the hardest things to find.

So i really like the idea of giving them the ability to be lead into a direction from their classes guild master to areas they can find equipment best suited for their class. These quest that their guild master gives them I think should also give them a decent ammount of experience also add a few more pieces of equipment to help them level up and fill up their equipment slots.

These quest shouldn't be overly to difficult but it at least will put them in this zone and close to direction of them being able to find this equipment with a little bit of hard work. I think its best to make them work for it then having olbies point them in this direction of just always give handouts.

A few examples would be

1. The Mage Guild master wife has is attending a banquet dinner at the Blue Dragon Inn and she wants to make sure she looks her best.So he asks you to take her dress to Marguerite at the Silk and Satin shop to have it tailored. Now they will be rewarded with some experience and also the store provides some equipment that has stats suited for their needs as a mage.(A good suggestion from Loria duplicate the items he sells but for a male)

Now lets not forget that with a fancy dress you also need some fancy jewelry, but his wife has recently broken her diamond bracelet and She needs it deliver to Janet at the jewelery store so she can fix the link. This will give them the ability to know where to buy some shiny rings that will help their charisma.


2. The Warriors Guildsmaster is in need of a personal guard to escort his family to Dragon Islands. There's a few pieces of equipment that they can buy at the store there that will help melee fighters.

3. After you finish the quest for the Mages Guildnaster he will ask you to help gather some fresh seafood for the banquet dinner and asks you to explorer the Agean sea and gather him up a list of fish. This will point casters towards the magical fishhook.


Now as they continue with quests from these guildmasters their guildmasters will lead them directly into new mobs that will give them new small quests that will lead them elsewhere for a bit till they are a bit more prepared to take on the 4d world completely  on their own.

Now I also think that beginners should also earn more then just gold for reaching certain levels. They should also be rewarded with equipment based on their class and race. Just because some slots with stats that help their specific class are harder to find than others.
Ex - Tails. I remember it took me forever to find a tail slot. Low stats items are not gonna hurt the game play and it will help give the players a full equipment set and make it a little easier to help them level with the added stats and armor.

The olive branch, If i remember correctly you can only use it till level 20. Raise this limit or slowly make the item get weaker as they go on, but letting them keep it a bit longer help them level a bit more quickly. There is also a pair of glasses in the old west, i cant remember if its the quest school or the newbie old west zone. Gives them inn infravision but it also has a level limit.


If you like my ideas, I will continue and start gathering all the items I can find it in the easier zones and give ideas of quests that can put them in the general location of where these items are; along with finding out which slots for mages/melee are the hardest to find for newbies to make for rewards for hitting a certain levels.

[Jaros]

These are good points.

I've been thinking that designing a single 'quest' that basically leads newbs through their first few remorts would be a good way of guiding them.  So instead of being thrown straight from school into one massive world as you say, we could have someone akin to a newb version of Roger Young directing newbs through a long string of tasks that would involve both collecting a set of useful equipment (quest and regular), reaching certain levels/tiers, and probably hunting down a few items from useful zones (eg: tradepoint regions).

I think that would work better than just adding more independent quests because we already have heaps of those.

I'm pretty busy with a bunch of things but Bane if you are keen to track down worthy and achievable sets of melee/magic equip for newbs that would be really useful.

[Jason Orsini]

HAha... Jaros your funny 

[Once]

This is a great idea. If you start putting the work in and showing it on the forums here we'll make sure your work isn't wasted. I think a lot of good could cone of this.

[Tor]

I also think that Bane's post is an excellent idea. It could definitely make a difference in retaining new players.

[Once]

I'd also recommend anyone else who can spare some time to join in. Make a new thread and get to work. I'll post more about this tonight.

[Kvetch]

I have to say that the original post was asking if 4D was dying.  At the time, I thought the question was yes, but it was just a matter of time.  These days, with all the coding and all of the PLAYER ideas flooding th forum, I thing that maybe CPR has been used and there is new life in this mud.  I want to thank everyone that has helped breath new life into our beloved mud.  I also want to say, keep the ideas coming!!

[Natalya B.]

Going to attempt to not say the same thing as others have... But all my answers basically follow along the same tune...

1A. What made you stop playing 4D?
Real life got in the way - relationship etc. But, moreso, other "oldbies" were leaving, nothing exciting was happening anymore, roleplay died with the loss of people like Soulstar, Zenathos and Kierta (and many MANY others). Everyone just sits at recall now, nothing happens. What's the point? Every time I log back into 4d (once a week or so for 30 seconds), I half contemplate playing more, but then realise I have to re-learn everything for the gazillionth time, don't have a good weapon cause the tinker ran out :p, forget all the commands for homes and mounts, and everyone's AFK. Not a motivation, unfortunately. I wouldn't mind trying to change that, though.


2. What might make you start playing/working actively again?
More atmosphere. Some well played characters. People in Sicilians who really act like gangsters. People in vampires that actually roleplay and act like vampires, unlike the current joke of a clan that has people that never RP. (). We have enough zones (though new is always fun!), we just need the people interacting. And hopefully, more people online, and active. It's depressing logging in to see 5 people online, and all of them AFK. Would love to see 10, 20, 30, 50+, maybe we lost sight of that somehow?

3. What would make you at least log on to socialise a bit more often?
(4D used to be like a big chat room, where people hung out just to talk with friends. Is there any way we could bring at least the Recall Squatter spirit back again?)

4. How can we attract more new players to the Mud?
I think, perhaps, some of the problem we have is we have SO MUCH CHOICE, but not much depth. I think we should actually remove a lot of the old zones, make way for the new. Freshen things up a bit. There's so much potential, but it's almost as if we are presenting everything in the wrong way.

We need clearer better maps, a more appetising website design that doesn't feel like a coder cleanly made it (No offence. It's perfect, but it's coder-perfect :p). Easier to read/find help files or guides. A redesign of the future "space port". Better descriptions, more interactive, more involving.

But please, remove some of the older zones. Time to make way with the old.

5. What can we do to make the new players want to stay longer?
As above, plus some change with the class system, or at least further motivation to play beyond hitting GM.
Also comes down to atmosphere.

Also, less favouritism. God's (IMMs) in the sky used to be something more respected and rarely seen or spoken to. IMMs were up there doing their thang, muchly invisible. Now? I get we're all like one strange family, but I think the line between IMMs and mortals has blurred too much. Thin it back a bit, particularly so new players don't feel out of place. Try to engage them in character, too... There needs to be some sense of authority in a game. By allowing everyone to input and work in a mud, it takes away the game aspect part of it a bit, yknow?

6. What do you think specifically turns newbies off our Mud?
Many people I'd think it'd just be a case of a short attention span. Unfortunately, if something doesn't grab someone in 30 seconds, it's forgotten about.
But right now? The fact we're all afk/sitting at recall, OR, giving eachother abuse and unnecessary stuff on public channels. Constant swearing, namecalling, or rude remarks aren't exactly going to encourage people to stick around for long. Cut back on the shit-talk, people.

7. Some players tell me that 4D was more fun in the old days. Is this really true?
Same thing I've basically been saying all along. More RPing and atmosphere. You knew Soulstar wasn't fibbing when he said he could ruin your life until you paid what you owed. PKing meant something, and showed skill. Enemies, friendships, relationships. And yes, everything was more fresh.

8. What was it that first attracted you to 4D and made you want to stay on?
No clue, to be honest. Too long ago... heh

9. Any particular of todays features that you like/don't like?
SO MANY COMMUNICATION CHANNELS! Why do we need so many? It's almost too easy to communicate in this game.

FORCED EMOTIVES! Can't stand them. Someone hugs you, you can't do shit about it. God, if there was anything I would beg to be changed, it'd be this.

10. Any particular old features that you miss and want back?
Disliking the limit on number of perz's, or rather, not being allowed to perz one time items. Seems like if you got it with your character, you should be allowed to perz it, not rely on making an alt to get another one for your main, that really kills the whole depth of the realms thing...

[Natalya B.]

In addition... I think there's too much of a "development" atmosphere in 4d. Too much talk of testing, bad files, coding, or ideas to improve the mud. Whilst all very valid, it takes away from the feel of 4d being a game, rather than some open-source work in progress.

I would seriously suggest cutting back on the openness of development in 4d, and try to be IMMs in game, and leave the rest for behind the scenes, yknow?

[Kvetch]

Just a few responses to Nat’s post:

4. How can we attract more new players to the Mud?
I think, perhaps, some of the problem we have is we have SO MUCH CHOICE, but not much depth. I think we should actually remove a lot of the old zones, make way for the new. Freshen things up a bit. There's so much potential, but it's almost as if we are presenting everything in the wrong way.

We need clearer better maps, a more appetising website design that doesn't feel like a coder cleanly made it (No offence. It's perfect, but it's coder-perfect :p). Easier to read/find help files or guides. A redesign of the future "space port". Better descriptions, more interactive, more involving.

But please, remove some of the older zones. Time to make way with the old.

Perhaps clearing up some of the older zones would be neat, and reworking the maps to force people into new territory may help some, but I think some people don’t like being forced to travel to new areas (probably about as much as some people dislike socials – aka: forced emotes).  The story behind 4D would actually make for a great reason for areas to appear and disappear over time – the dimensional portals have shifted and suddenly new lands have emerged while old ones have been found.  We could make it a regular thing to shift around areas, but then our website maps are virtually useless.  *shrug*

5. What can we do to make the new players want to stay longer?
As above, plus some change with the class system, or at least further motivation to play beyond hitting GM.
Also comes down to atmosphere.

Also, less favouritism. God's (IMMs) in the sky used to be something more respected and rarely seen or spoken to. IMMs were up there doing their thang, muchly invisible. Now? I get we're all like one strange family, but I think the line between IMMs and mortals has blurred too much. Thin it back a bit, particularly so new players don't feel out of place. Try to engage them in character, too... There needs to be some sense of authority in a game. By allowing everyone to input and work in a mud, it takes away the game aspect part of it a bit, yknow?

While I could agree with the less favoritism, it seems like you mean less IMM friendliness here.  Which is something I have to disagree with.  One of the reasons I stayed on 4D is because both Molly and Mordecai showed an honest interest personally when I (as a level 4(?) maybe newbie pointed out that there seemed to be a problem with the dogcart in the Old West section of the mudschool.   I admit, I was awed (I was only level 4 or so and probably only been on the mud for a couple of hours and an IMM was answering my question personally) but it stuck with me to the point that this day (10+years later) I can still tell you that it was 1) Molly AND Mordecai and 2) the exact thing that happened.  Their involvement that day made me realize that they cared enough to personally see to it.  Though, I must admit that Mord probably thought I was a nag after that since every time I saw him I asked what was up with it.

6. What do you think specifically turns newbies off our Mud?
Many people I'd think it'd just be a case of a short attention span. Unfortunately, if something doesn't grab someone in 30 seconds, it's forgotten about.
But right now? The fact we're all afk/sitting at recall, OR, giving eachother abuse and unnecessary stuff on public channels. Constant swearing, namecalling, or rude remarks aren't exactly going to encourage people to stick around for long. Cut back on the shit-talk, people.

I admit, I thought of this the other day and realized that as a new player with a lot of the comments going on over gossip, I wouldn’t stay.  I mean, really, if I was going to make my feelings known about the people with what they say over gossip, most of the players would probably think I hate them.  I don’t.  I do hate what’s said, but then it all falls under “freedom of speech” and  “adult things”.  But it also falls under the “don’t act like an ass” and “be mature about the freedom we give you.”  Which wins?  It’s also because of what’s going on over gossip that I want to finish all the projects I have going on the build port.  Because, once I’m done there, I’ll feel free to move on to someplace else if it all keeps up (yes, I have considered just saying “hell with it” and drop all projects, but I’m not that type of person and I am more invested in this place than it sometimes seems.  It seems to die down once in a while, but then we get people that start it up again.  I understand that some people like that sort of thing, but there are also some that don’t and I wish we could give everyone a chance before we start pounding on them – or letting them into the “family secret” of rudeness and namecalling and other general abuse.

[Kvetch]

As an example of stuff over gossip - take this little tidbit recoverd with "gos:

 1: Pix gossips, '*transport'
 2: Once gossips, 'they get so many free tickets a year'
 3: Once gossips, 'banging a pilot is the cheapest'
 4: Once gossips, 'where's the womens rights groups'
 5: Pix gossips, 'which is cheaper though..bus, train, or air in the US?'
 6: Once gossips, 'so I can start sleeping with one'
 7: Once gossips, 'there needs to be female pilots'
 8: Once gossips, 'wait let me back up'
 9: Thotter gossips, 'that's silly yes.. what line is this?'
10: Once gossips, 'I'm just gonna fly'
11: Once gossips, 'man fuck that shit'
12: Once gossips, 'no you have to transfer to a bus'
13: Pix gossips, 'because you can sleep in the train?'
14: Once gossips, 'shit doesn't even make sense'

So, if I were going to go by what I saw there, I would think that Once was a complete cheapass that wanted to have sex with anything that moved.  I think he may require a female to be involved, but not quite sure about that.  If he can save money, he'll do anything.  Admittedly, that's probably not that far from the truth, but do newbies really need to know about stuff like that?  Also, why isn't this on an OOC channel instead of gossip?

[Once]

Keep in mind new players are usually nogos, conversations on gossip get metered based on who's online at the time, and the average newbie won't know about "gos and if they do know about it, are likely to be culturally ingrained enough and invested enough to deal with the personalities of the mud.  Chances are if they know about "gos it's because I told them too.


-Once

P.S. When I interview old players that left, the thing I most resoundingly hear as feedback is their distaste with the way certain experiences got neutered over the years in the interest of making the game "safe" or "fun for all". I can tone down the crassness on gossip, but honestly, this little Captain America "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" mindset is actually what I've seen turn people off time and time again. Instead of trying to water down the experience for all because of a few bad apples, we should incentivize the behavior we actually want to encourage (hence some of the talk of recruiting contests, etc).