HELPING NEW PLAYERS

CHECKLIST OF WHAT TO TEACH A NEW PLAYER

These are the subjects you should endeavor to cover when teaching a new player, with no experience of MUDs, how to play:

• Welcome her to Fed.

• Explain how to talk using 'COM'.

• Ask her how she found Fed. Mail the answer to feedback@ibgames.com so we can keep track of what works.

• Gauge the level of help she is going to need.

• How to read room descriptions and figure out what exits there are.

• Teach her how to move around in Fed: N to go North, SE to go Southeast, etc. Make sure she realizes she can only type one command at a time.

• How both those things are made much easier if she uses FedTerm, because of the auto-mapping and the keypad or cursor movement.

• How to send private messages using 'TELL'; how to distinguish between messages sent the different ways.

• How to talk in the same room using 'SAY'.

• How to use the 'ACT' command. Demonstrate how to smile, laugh, jump around, have fun, etc. Explain that the command is flexible enough to let players do anything they want, and give a long and interesting example. (act jumps onto the table and dances the lambada, skillfully avoiding knocking over the drinks. She finishes with a flourish and springs back to the floor, grinning broadly.)

• Explain how some room descriptions tell you about things you can do in the room - for example, the help booth in the meeting point, buttons in elevators, and so on.

• Take her to a bar and buy her a drink. Explain how she can buy you a drink. Explain why eating and drinking is important to stop stamina getting too low. Explain how to customize buying rounds.

• Explain about clothes. Teach her to examine you, and herself. If she's interested, encourage her to change her clothes. Explain how the command works so she understands what she has to type.

• Take her to the GA HQ to get the permit, then back to Jarrow to get a ship. Explain the 'INVENTORY' command to show she now has permit, and how to look at her score and ship's status.

• Take her to the shuttle pad and explain how to board the shuttle. Explain how to move in space.

• Tell her where to find the Solar System map so she can find the other planets (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/maps/solmap.html).

• How to turn jobs on and off, how to check the workboard, how to accept a job and carry it out.

• Starter maps to help find the AC offices (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/maps/planetmaps.html).

• How to buy fuel, including the fact that it costs more in space.

• Recommend she reads the guides - The Idiot's Guide (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/guide/index.html) and the Fed2 Commands (http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/commands/index.html) are the most useful ones for a new player. Point her to the Fed2 Star and explain she can subscribe to have it mailed each week.

• Explain how the in-game help system works.

• Encourage her to map (or use FedTerm's auto-mapping).

You do not have to cover these points in exactly this order, and obviously some people don't need or want all of this detail - they may want to get right into their ship and start doing jobs, or they may not have time to learn everything on their first time in the game. So use the checklist as a guide but be aware that you won't necessarily get through it all with every Groundhog!

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