Returning Players?

[peka]

pout, most of the goals i had set was wash about by the stupid hh(cant players run exp on their own, if you must give them a band-aid take out ths stupid remort procts. every since the where put in, my original goal of being perfect just didn't matter. i like my memory of the mud, not where it went or what it is now.i keep coming back because of my friends, its drinking to much wine, makes you feel good atm but gives you a headache later.but i can stay away no goals,perfection is meaningless, gold is meaningless,
ok ill quit whining as jedimud my way went down the john along time ago

[gonfalon]

I sometimes miss the people I once knew on Jedi, but most of them (like me) have long since moved on. That's probably why I'm fascinated to read his wiki entries on Jedi's history... I see so many familiar names on there that it makes me a little homesick. Not enough to really go back to my sick addiction, but homesick nonetheless.

Sorry you're feeling a bit disillusioned Peka. I can sympathize with the sentiment. In many ways, the JediMUD I loved went away more than a decade ago. In the end, there is only so much you can give, only so long you can soldier on through the unpleasantness... only so much you can bleed.

[Ash]

Feb 11, 2011 11:40:53 GMT -5 Austinpowers said:

A wiki is simple enought to implement. However, what is wrong with this website? What would a wiki offer, that could not be addressed here? Just asking a silly question

At the very least, a wiki tends to have a much better layout than a web board and the search tools tend to be much better as well. If you can enforce any standards at all for the entries, then it can result in a very easy to use and understand tool for players. I personally find the proboard site next to useless for finding particular game info. Other than reading the 10 latest messages, it is very difficult for me to successfully find the information I want, even if I know it is on here somewhere. I'm not saying the proboard isn't a necessary and useful tool and an improvement over the archaic board system in the mud itself; I'm just suggesting that a wiki, or the JediMud website itself would a better tool for easily accessing detailed game info than a discussion board.

I'm not a very wide ranging gamer. I tend to pick 1 game and play it for years. In the last 15 years, aside from JediMud and 1 other mud prior to returning, I played the Diablo games and Guildwars and that's about it. Besides from the amazing game design in those, one of the key features that made me a dedicated player was the presence of accurate and detailed gameplay information available to all via their official website or wiki. I strongly prefer a wiki/website that is maintained, endorsed, or at least participated in by the actual developers so that the information is as
accurate as possible. Wiki's that were run by players only contained a good deal of misleading, if not blatantly wrong and sometimes intentionally harmful information. These player only wiki's also seemed to attract or encourage hackers/crackers and seemed to be something the game designers had to fight AGAINST in stead of being able to embrace. I find the GuildWars wiki fascinating in that it is linked to directly from the game itself as the "help system" and contains both player and developer submitted data. I see a JediMud wiki as a possibility for a complete replacement of the help files. Utilizing manpower from willing players to keep it updated seems like a win/win to me.

I've been wanting to see something similar to the Guildwars wiki for Jedi for a very long time and I've soapboxed before about my own belief in the need for the help file information to be extremely detailed and accurate. The only reason I didn't start a wiki myself in the last 2 years is that I wasn't sure it would be tolerated or supported by the Admin. I broached the idea a couple of times but didn't get a real clear Go/NoGo on it, so I continued with collecting as much of this information as possible and making maps of all the zones (except DOOM and the Immortal zone) as a mortal and sharing the info with those who asked. I don't have an old copy of the code (like some of the more knowledgeable players) to refer to and I'm no statistician or math wiz, so I'm still very much lacking in details on the real mechanics of the game such as exactly how various attributes (str/dex/wis/etc.) impact different skills.

Since Jedi is a hack-N-Slash numbers game, players need the numbers, charts, and formulas it runs on to thrive. If it were a role-playing mud it would be a different story. I have never seen a numbers game with so little detail provided to the players. It's kind of like trying to play a non-roleplaying encouraged game of 2nd Ed. AD&D with a players handbook that has all the numbers and charts blacked out. I'm very much willing to help with the project of updating and compiling "help" data to present to the players in whatever format is chosen, but without major input from the admin team for accurate data, I have doubts about its viability and the value of participating in such a venture myself.

From the developer/programmer standpoint, I can understand not wanting to maintain extremely detailed help info because you have to update the stuff constantly and every time you want to change a basic formula or some-such, prior notice and clear communication becomes a must for maintaining positive player relations. Thus, quick fixes/changes become much more time consuming. There is also a viewpoint that good players should be smart enough to deduce all of this information themselves through use of the phrenologist, information spell, using Xd1 weapons, and many other tricks. While this may be the case, I doubt that it will encourage/lure in most new players or help with retention.

Another argument against game wiki's is the fact that they allow players access to knowledge that many area designers and programmers intended only be gained via a player actually experiencing the game/area for them self and utilizing their noggin's to find hints and secrets and solve riddles and such. Posting detailed area maps online is one example that applies to this idea. Posting the assembly item recipes would be another. The way I've seen such things handled on other wikis in order to preserve the enjoyment of those who like to solve the riddles themselves is to put SPOILER ALERT warnings before any such info and require a separate click to display it. While I despair at how few people actually prefer to experience games the way the designers intended, I know that the harsh reality is that many players simply don't enjoy and/or don't have the time to do it that way and in online games with social interaction, enforcing a particular experience for everyone becomes an impossibility. Similar to using cheat codes, I think this style of play shows a lack of respect for the area builders and the incredible amounts of time they put into writing areas and all of the different rooms, mob, and item descriptions; but it is what it is. IMHO, everyone deserves a chance to enjoy the game in their own way as long as it isn't harming others.

I guess it all comes down to the current administration embracing transparency. I know that there has been an incredibly large shift in this direction in recent years and that alone has given me a great deal of hope for the future of JediMud and kept me around for the last 2 years. I see this wiki as a perfect opportunity to continue down that road and to utilize the expertise and efforts of people like Dank and Destiny to shift much of the workload off of the already swamped admin and onto people with some time on their hands that are willing to donate it to help the mud as a whole. It depends on if the game designers still think there is value and attraction to players in obfuscating much of the game mechanics info. I would be interested to see what the results would be if you took a poll of the top 10 things that draw and retain players on JediMud and if personally unraveling the mystery of how the game works would even register. I suspect if you polled again after the wiki was well developed that the wiki would show up in the top 10.

So what do you think AP? Could you and the other admin get behind such a tool and participate in it? Could a wiki become our future help system?

[Dank]

A player-designed and supported wiki is essential. I had some experience building one for CoE (City of Eternals) and have always felt that there should be a contextual system for newbie/lowbie and experienced player support at Jedi.

Here it is, like it or not:

jedimud.wikia.com/wiki/JediMUD_Wiki

This should NOT be maintained by admin. Just like wikipedia, it will be monitored by the motivated player. We can police ourselves. Inaccurate data will be replaced by accurate data. Leading newbies into death traps won't happen. I truly believe that there are players at Jedi who can and will help build an accurate, supportive wiki.

If you would like to contribute, please contact me so I can explain the template system. It's just in beta, as I'm tuning the templates and trying different approaches to providing information.

Spoilers? If you don't want to know how to get somewhere, if you don't want to know how to build an item, don't read the page. I want to add hints to these, but I had to start somewhere.

Enojy.