HELPING NEW PLAYERS
HELPING MUD PLAYERS
A player who is familiar with MUDs is going to know how to explore, and is probably going to figure out how to get started on their own. In the Meeting Room there is a help booth, and 'PRESS BUTTON' plays a set of help messages. Typing 'HELP' gives general help and suggests other help topics. This information ought to be quite sufficient for a player to get a permit, get a ship, find it, and figure out how to do jobs.
However, what seems obvious to one person won't necessarily be to another, so she may well get stuck at various points. Be prepared to answer whatever questions she has, in order for her to get started. Make sure she knows about the game manual and the maps on the web site. (People who have played MUDs before will probably not shudder at the thought of reading game manuals!)
At some point she is probably going to ask what, exactly, is the point of the game - what does she do? Here is where you explain about jobs but it is important that you also explain that jobs are only what players do for the first couple of ranks; after that, they switch to something completely different whenever they promote. This is one of the key differences between Fed2 and other MUDs, where what you do stays the same throughout the game - you simply kill bigger orcs for larger rewards. So tell the player what she has to look forward to at higher ranks - commodity trading, futures, running a company and owning a planet. Also point her towards the Magellan Society puzzle.
As with players who haven't played MUDs before, don't neglect the social side of the game. Even if you're helping a player over the comms, encourage her to get out of her ship and join you for a drink in a bar. Once again, you need to engage her so that she enjoys her time in the game enough that she will come back.
