tip of the day

[kjartan]

What do you all think of a "tip of the day" feature? Sloth is a fairly complicated mud, and I suspect that many of the players don't know about some features they might find useful. We could post the tips on this site, or give them to you when you log on, or both.

Personally, I always immediately turn off tips whenever some software tries to force them on me. This may be because I am at that point trying to accomplish some specific thing, and the tip isn't relevant. It might be different in a mud, where you have some idle time occasionally. The tips could be presented while you sleep, for example.

If we did this we would certainly want tip ideas from the players.

[Avatar]

It sounds to me like a possible feature to the web page. If you presented them ingame, I'd have to argue against presenting them while characters are sleeping.

Also, if the tips were ingame I'm not sure if you'd filter warrior-based tips to only warrior-primes or mage or cleric or whatever.

I don't know if it would work either way. A lot of the tips that you'd gather from experienced players would probably be considered borderline hacks...if they were publicized as "tips" the playerbase might fear that the imms would see them and change the circumstances that make the activity possible. A lot of player then keep their knowledge more private in fear that the imms will implement changes that affect the "tip".

[kjartan]

I was thinking more of tips like "this is how to use reply" or "be aware that some mobs hide their treasure in lairs", basically stuff that is buried somewhere in the help but that people may not have found. This would probably exclude anything related to spells and skills, because people generally read the help on those when they get them.

I would guess that newbies mostly do see the webpage, in which case that would be a fine place to put the tips, but I don't know. Of course the web page real estate is pretty crowded already and if we don't put tips on the front page nobody is ever going to see it. We could do what other software does and have the webpage give you a tip when you load it until you turn off your "give me tips" setting, I guess.

We might be able to accomplish the same thing with a page listing differences between sloth and standard dikus (other than the classes and class abilities). That might still be unhelpfully long, though.

[blackmore]

I've considered this before for the web site, but was thinking more in terms of static pages of newbie tips, intermediate tips and experienced tips.

A tip of the day would be an excellent addition to the web site. I'd like to see a difficulty level or some other term with each tip in case people want to glance quickly to see if they should bother reading it.

I'd thought of a ton of them at one time, but I'd have to think again to recall any of them.

[12345]

This is an impossible idea, but I'll toss it out just because.

You can put any amount of boring/overhashed material into a web page and people will read it if you can find the right format. I was surprised how well my silly Grog thing went over. Similarly, if you could do similar with the tips, or come up with an Order of the Stick way of presenting it, people will read just because they want to see what happens next.

[blackmore]

Run it through here:
[url:1hwest0f]http://www.elibs.com/e/funkatize[/url:1hwest0f]

[12345]

That's a cool idea

[Alberich]

[quote:3olvrp2o] SlothMud III … the ultimate in DIKUMUD! The most active, intricate, exciting MUD of its kind. Smurfilicious! With over 21,500 rooms, 7000 distinct mobs and 6200 objects, our world is smurfily absolutely enormous. How smurfy! With the inception of 4 new classes(necromancer, druid, bard, and monk) to go along with our previous 5(cleric, mage, warrior, thief, avatar), forging, brews, in-game quests, multi-classing, multiple continents, and much, much more, Sloth III offers enough challenge to make even the most seasoned mudder never want to go anyplace else. Smurfy, isn't it?[/quote:3olvrp2o]

[quote:3olvrp2o]
FybguZhq VVV … gur hygvzngr va QVXHZHQ! Gur zbfg npgvir, vagevpngr, rkpvgvat ZHQ bs vgf xvaq. Jvgu bire 21,500 ebbzf, 7000 qvfgvapg zbof naq 6200 bowrpgf, bhe jbeyq vf nofbyhgryl rabezbhf. Jvgu gur vaprcgvba bs 4 arj pynffrf(arpebznapre, qehvq, oneq, naq zbax) gb tb nybat jvgu bhe cerivbhf 5(pyrevp, zntr, jneevbe, guvrs, ningne), sbetvat, oerjf, va-tnzr dhrfgf, zhygv-pynffvat, zhygvcyr pbagvaragf, naq zhpu, zhpu zber, Fybgu VVV bssref rabhtu punyyratr gb znxr rira gur zbfg frnfbarq zhqqre arire jnag gb tb nalcynpr ryfr.[/quote:3olvrp2o]


scaaaaary

[12345]

Chuckle.. Mr. T

[quote:1l6ca25t]SlothMUD gunna be a descendant of DikuMUD gamma 0. I pity the fool!0 (see the darn title page for the crazy authors of DikuMUD) that wud started in late 1990 by a couple of college students. Crazy Fool! It has been running continuously ever since. Yeah.. I think I can rig something up...[/quote:1l6ca25t]

[Weasel]

Bork Bork Bork!

[Krok]

It would be really cool if we could turn the tips on and off.

[firebrand]

why not keep it simple? we have the newbie questions page and we are ALWAYS posting things there to help newbies become part of the sloth family. add the tip of the day either to the newbie forum, or maybe add it to the scrolling news banner on the home page

[Alberich]

not everyone reads the website, despite the fact that quite a few newbie questions on the mud get answered with 'go look it up on the website' - and even the ones that do, might not obsessivly check it like the rest of us
Maybe put it in the mud login page after the diku credits, or even have whatever innkeeper you rented at whisper you a tip when you get your stuff from it in the morning (although yeah, you'd definantly want to put a toggle on that)

[brand]

just have the noob innnkeeper on valk give them a tip when they enter the game. and something silly like ask innkeeper about tips or just typing 'tips' from ingame to get more of these tips. as for needing tips in general though you can count me out, and pop ups on the web page telling me i should type score stat would be horrible. or have the news boy change his name to Tip Lad and let his bad self spit out some tips cause news just ain't that kids game. there is that shaggy fool at the end of the dark alley thats supposed to keep up on quest info too, he could change his name to OLD TIPSTER and do more of the same.

brand

[Gnu]

Adding tips to Sloth may be a nice idea, one of the best sides of tips is that veryone may turn them off and on. But let's look at it from another point of view. Let's imagine how tips will "live" in sloth. At the very beginning immortal(s) will spend some (much) time making changes in the code. There will be made a lot of nice and really useful tips. Everything will work fine, newbies will be happy, old school players will be happy too (turning tips off is really important). And what will happend after that? I dont want to complain or blame anyone, but what had happend with BH herald? I have not checked him after 1 week break, but I really doubt he tells us about all or at least some of new things in Sloth... and I remember the days when he did not know anything about "heavy" changes. Or may be tips will become a sort of "hystorical notes"...

Why do I say this? I dont want our immortals include new features in game, making tips may be a nice thing if done well, and I greatly appriciate that Kjartan asked players about their oppinion before making changes. So my first suggestion is to think about futher life of any cool idea. Does it worse to spend time for something that will rotter in 1-2-3 monthes? Another idea is how to present tips. I think it would be nice to make guild masters tell us what new skills/spells we can use when obtain new levels. Something like:
Master 12345 tells you 'Gratz, Grog! You are ready for the next level!'
Master 12345 tells you 'Now are are experianced enough to practice 'double axe attack', 'polishing axe'.