MAngband

I think a number of people had this idea simultaneously while reading through the "focus on the new user" thread, so I'll bring it up here for discussion.

As a longer term project, we could look at the idea of having a built-in tutorial mode.

This mode could be entered when joining a server as a new character.  Perhaps "First time playing mangband? Choose X" would be displayed on a screen prior to the character creation screen.

In this mode, we would provide the player with info as they play.

The character creation portion could consist of extra info explaining whats going on, along with providing a truncated series of options: I would advocate actually only allowing a Half-Troll Warrior as the option. You may think this begs the question of if, at this point, we should even have the player go through the motions. However, its part of the game, and we can present it as a simple "how to" with few options.

In game, we could provide info to the player a numebr of different ways. Tutorial text could be displayed, perhaps, via the chat window. Or, and I like this bit (tho I dont know if its possible), we could, in our tutorial mode, actually create an additional term window for our text. This of course has the downside of there already not being a lot of room for term windows on people's screens.

At this point, we could, perhaps, have a pre-scripted series of tasks to prompt the player to do. These could be things such as wearing armor, weapon, lightsource. Then, perhaps we would prompt the player to head to shop 1 to buy a lantern, etc. We would explain the commands necessary to do what we are prompting, and breifly explain anything related.

One question is how we would deal with triggering additional text. I have no idea what would be more or less realistic, but this could be via perhaps interacting with the tutorial in some way (hitting a key etc), or detecting when the player has done something (say, if they have purchased a lantern).

Or, more simply, this could just be an in-game help file deal - tho realtime makes this iffy in some cases.

Anyhoo, what ideas do you have about some kind of mode or setup like this?

Well, like someone mentioned in the #mangband channel yesterday, it'd be great to have a bot that'd answer questions, the same way that purl does, but it'd actually know all the basics of mangband...

Newbie: "how do I run?"
Bot: "Use Shift+Direction or "."+Direction".

Newbie: "I'm a ghost?"
Bot: "You can resurrect in the temple in town (Shop 4) Use < to drift up. Be aware that your gear will be lost if you do this, if you want your equipment saved, wait for a player to come rescue you. Normally this is only done if you have something valueable,  not just average/good stuff...".

... Or whatever.

That'd help a bit, maybe especially if the bot would automatically make itself known to new players, unaware on how to chat, and so on.

I like the "First time playing mangband? choose X" idea, all though I'm a little ambivalent... if we want players who can't figure out even the basics for themselves. And if we want players who gives up after getting killed as a mage once.

The "X" option would then start a warrior, maybe a half troll, ok...

(This newbie character should have all starting gear equipped, he should be running by default and he should ... hm, maybe, be given an extra life, so to speak, at his first death in town, instead of getting killed he'd be teleported to the tavern with the game saying "Beware of the townspeople, they can kill you!" or something).

The first step would be as suggested elsewhere, have the game display just a few lines early on, "welcome, you're in the tavern, hit : to speak and ? for help"
And ? would have to lead to a much much better file than what we have today. Two, three lines intro at most then straight to an overview of the commands and then maybe a short guide after that.

I'm not sure about tutorial text as such being displayed anywhere, I still feel the ? should cover the basics. And more windows would be a no-no I think. As you mention, the problem with the ? as of today is that it's dangerous to use in the dungeon. So maybe "?" should actually bring up a new window. I don't really know.

[quote author=Warrior link=board=thinktank;num=1188876616;start=0#1 date=09/04/07 at 06:04:44]I'm not sure about tutorial text as such being displayed anywhere, I still feel the ? should cover the basics. And more windows would be a no-no I think. As you mention, the problem with the ? as of today is that it's dangerous to use in the dungeon. So maybe "?" should actually bring up a new window. I don't really know.
[/quote]

More windows will just confuse new users, having contact with a few new people I can tell their first 20 minutes goes to figuring what the various windows are and how to chat

What if ? just opened in one of the existing windows? probably not the chat window, but the equipment screen for example, and make it active (like when you press : the chat window becomees active)

The bot idea is perfect, since it won't require building a new client or anything like that. Anyone could just write the script and have it logged into the game like Ircgate assuming it gets approved for the task.

Maybe it could detect the message, "___ begins a new game." and send that player a private chat with the essential beginner's info. I think it should also mention how to move using the numpad, since a lot of new players take a while to get out of the starting building.

How would one query the help bot? That would make all the difference.

Automatic first-time messages for each major action would be helpful. Here is what I'd call the 'first' real major actions:
* Birth
* Entering a store
* Entering a dungeon
* Picking up an item (with sub-class actions for this being Scrolls, Potions, Food, Staves, Wands, Rods, Gear)
* Dropping an item
* Being able to learn a spell/prayer
* Leveling up
* Leaving town for the wilderness

There'd need to be an option to turn them off, in the client options screen. Let's claim one of the unused ones for this.