Mechanics of Spells, and the help files.

@Isis wrote:

Being as I seem to be one of the only one of us without Dungeons and Dragons experience, I may have a differing opinion on this but I think it should be pointed out anyway. Having only played other MUDS, I do not feel like the help files explain the way we are to use and implement spells in game very well. While I am perfectly capable of following directions such as: To prepare spell you must do A, B, C and D first and then 1, 2 & 3 to do it again. I don’t feel like it is simply explained in the help files. Maybe this is just my unfamiliarity with the way it works and the game in general, but I think if we want a player base to grow (eventually) it needs to be user friendly. Meaning that they should be able to come in, read a help file or two and be able to cast on something, otherwise, they will get discouraged or just annoyed and go find something else that is easy to ‘jump into’ mechanics wise.

This is a very good observation. The magic system in Luminari, while intuitive to those with some experience, is not intuitive to most mudders, and especially seasoned ones.

Many players do not bother to read help. Therefore, I have a suggestions. What about a ‘HINTS’ channel that is by default on from levels 1-5 or so. This channel is toggleable, of course, and would provide hints to new players regarding what they should be doing. For example, if a player gains a wizard level, then they might receive a message like:

[HINT: Before you can cast spells, you must first MEMORIZE them. HELP MEMORIZE explains how to do this.]

Where HELP MEMORIZE is an MXP clickable link to the ‘help memorize’ command.

This channel could be used for other things as well, like helping the player train, boost, etc. also, upon entering a zone, it could check the player’s level against the zone’s level and warn them if necessary. This requires that we review and set these zone levels correctly (they are off right now).

Updating the help files would also, as Isis said, be helpful. If you have nay updates, feel free to post them and we can add them in game. Any other ideas on creative solutions to the problem Isis presentd are welcome!

– Ornir Elunari

A hints channel would be excellent, and if it could be expanded to pull hints from lists specific to each class (so Paladins are not getting Wizard hints unless they’ve taken a Wizard level), that would be awesome. I’d suggest expanding the level range from 1-5 to 1-10, as with Happyhour bonuses, you can fly through 5 levels pretty quickly. Even with happyhour, 1-10 should still take a couple of days and give the player enough time to see all the pertinent messages.