Feedback from a Newbie

[malaka]

First off, love the game, i've looked at 20+ MUDS in the last month, and GEAS is the one i keep coming back to. That says a lot!
With that being said, I have a few suggestions and this is purely based on my own experience, so please take as such!

1. Combat: the combat is GEAS is the best one i've seen. the perfect blend between automation and having a choice to impact the battle.

2. Grind: the grind is REAL here... killing 600+ nibblers to get to 40 rapier is something else. I get that this is a long term game and thats fine, im willing to invest the time to up the skills and I like that this game isn't trying to cater to the "gimme gimme now now" crowd.

3. Newbie things to do: I started in the human city and this is really where the game suffers - there is VERY little for a newbie to do here, kill rats in the sewers, kill goblins in the fields, or nibblers in the hut. The tavern guy tells me to help with the nibbler quest, so i go and find i can barely handle 1 or 2 nibbler, but that some of the rooms in that hut are 3+ nibblers (i died very quickly there). So i started grinding nibblers and 600+ nibblers later, 30 gold pieces from selliing their equipment, i still can't handle 3 at once. I would love to have other options and other things to do in the meantime. grinding nibblers is really getting old. and no, not interesting in gathering herbs and other things like that, i want to focus on combat!

4. RP: This game takes RP seriously, and thats great! but then you have these weird OOC things in the game that just don't make any sense! For example in the nibbler hut (supposedly a hut that was overrun by nibblers right?) there is a sign, and the game encourages you to read it. The sign says i shouldn't scalp and butcher them because they are humanoid. Here's the question: WHY ON EARTH would nibbler put a sign like that up? "hey we are here taking over this hut, you can kill us but don't butcher us okay?" This makes no sense. If there is a sect of the RP game that are against butchering humanoids, thats fine, but why are they allowed to have a sign hard-coded in the room description? Why can't persons who are pro-butchering humanoids have a sign too? I say just get rid of the thing. Its immersion breaking, makes no sense thematically. If you must have something, have a bloodstained book in the corner of the room giving some background on why butchering humanoids is bad or something like that.

5. Syntax and NPCs: The syntax here is very different from other muds. honestly I have no idea what i can do to interact with npcs. Sometimes its ask help, other times its ask job, sometimes its something else completely and there's no way for a new player to know how to interact with them. For example, to register in the human city as a citizen you go in the room with the big book and register in the big book, but youre still not a citizen. to be a citizen you need to type "register" ... there's nothing that tells me this and i had to ask newbie help. There are many examples of this and its very frustrating. my advice: have ONE command (either job or help, pick one!) that triggers an npc, and allow for more hints in the look description as to who i can interact with an npc.

this also applies to items in the game world... i mean there is ZERO hints of what something in the world can do. You see metal shackles on a stone cross? What can you do with them? look doesn't say anyhting so you need to try everything you can think of (and being new, i have no idea what options are available to interact with items) only to find out nothing works. If would help to have hints of what items can be used for "this item appears to have very little useful value" could mean there's no interaction or "this items appears to have been pulled recently" could mean it can be pulled. having to guess everything without any hints is frustrating.

6. items: there are very few items in the game that i can see. the city only sells one rapier, and i think i need to find a player to craft me a new rapier with steel or better metals. that's fine... but i have literally had the same weapon for the last 30+ ingame hours of playtime. Can you let me rename it at least? add a description? let me customize it somewhat?

7: follow road: LOVE this.

that's all i have for now, just my 2 cents... the biggest pain here is lack of things to do when in the 30-50 skill range and that darn nibbler sign. its very immersion breaking and OOC

[malaka]

for the record, my char doesn't want to pursue the dark arts or whatnot. I really don't feel like i have any stake in the good or evil side of things. I just noticed i mutilate nibblers left and right, stabbing them, murdering them and scalping them, so i might as well practice my skinning skill so i can eventually skin a deer or boar for material. I'm told i might be burned at the stake for doing this - odd thing since i really just killed a ton of these humanoids by stabbing them repeatedly in the neck. If humanoids are protected and sacred, then shouldn't you be stopping me from killing them in the first place?

[Lauriert]

I will take some time and reply to all your points here.

1. Yes, the combat is superb as far as MUD's go and Abharsair has recently made it better.

2. This is a grindy game, there is no denying that. Keep in mind that when grinding combat, the closer an enemy is to your overall level of ability, the more likely you are to gain skill improves from them. Gaining skill improves is primarily how you will raise your stats. Quests, which you may need to ask about, give chunks of exp at a time but do run out eventually. Killing an enemy does reward exp but not a whole lot.

3. As a newbie, you should ask around if you can find anyone else online what you can do to improve yourself. Helpful people will point you to quests and good training spots for your character's skills.

4. This game is indeed rp enforced, and for the most part, the rp is played very well. The example you talked about with the sign is more of a newbie friendliness sort of thing at the cost of a little bit of immersion. But keep in mind, Luminier, whom the sign is signed by, was a player character.

5. The syntaxes can be tricky depending on context and may require a veteran guide. Some of the time, it isn't terribly hard to figure out, others I've found myself madly typing all of the possible inputs before it turns out to be something strange. You can use "report" if you think a syntax is too weird if you want, though.

6. There are stock items, sold by shops, more rare items you have to find in the world, and custom items made by a blacksmith in Elvandar. The items from that smith are the only ones you can customize.

7. Follow road is nice.

[Ash]

2. Grind: the grind is REAL here... killing 600+ nibblers to get to 40 rapier is something else. I get that this is a long term game and thats fine, im willing to invest the time to up the skills and I like that this game isn't trying to cater to the "gimme gimme now now" crowd.

3. Newbie things to do: I started in the human city and this is really where the game suffers - there is VERY little for a newbie to do here, kill rats in the sewers, kill goblins in the fields, or nibblers in the hut. The tavern guy tells me to help with the nibbler quest, so i go and find i can barely handle 1 or 2 nibbler, but that some of the rooms in that hut are 3+ nibblers (i died very quickly there). So i started grinding nibblers and 600+ nibblers later, 30 gold pieces from selliing their equipment, i still can't handle 3 at once. I would love to have other options and other things to do in the meantime. grinding nibblers is really getting old. and no, not interesting in gathering herbs and other things like that, i want to focus on combat!

The game wasn't really meant to be nonstop combat, you might find your character needs a bit of a break from combat, try some RP or explore the world a bit, talk to players. Maybe you'll find other things to do/fight and when you do fight again, you'll notice skill improves again.

4. RP: This game takes RP seriously, and thats great! but then you have these weird OOC things in the game that just don't make any sense! For example in the nibbler hut (supposedly a hut that was overrun by nibblers right?) there is a sign, and the game encourages you to read it. The sign says i shouldn't scalp and butcher them because they are humanoid. Here's the question: WHY ON EARTH would nibbler put a sign like that up? "hey we are here taking over this hut, you can kill us but don't butcher us okay?" This makes no sense. If there is a sect of the RP game that are against butchering humanoids, thats fine, but why are they allowed to have a sign hard-coded in the room description? Why can't persons who are pro-butchering humanoids have a sign too? I say just get rid of the thing. Its immersion breaking, makes no sense thematically. If you must have something, have a bloodstained book in the corner of the room giving some background on why butchering humanoids is bad or something like that.

"l at sign
These Nibblers are Humanoid! Do not eat their meat from butchering their
corpses! Do not skin their corpses! Do not dissect them either! This is a
sin against the Good Gods!
Signed... Luminier of the Crusade."

The sign is clearly signed by someone who is not a nibbler. Also, I don't see any signs in-game that say you cannot scalp them, and I know you've spoken to people in-game as well who've tried to explain the difference between scalping and skinning to you.

5. Syntax and NPCs: The syntax here is very different from other muds. honestly I have no idea what i can do to interact with npcs. Sometimes its ask help, other times its ask job, sometimes its something else completely and there's no way for a new player to know how to interact with them. For example, to register in the human city as a citizen you go in the room with the big book and register in the big book, but youre still not a citizen. to be a citizen you need to type "register" ... there's nothing that tells me this and i had to ask newbie help. There are many examples of this and its very frustrating. my advice: have ONE command (either job or help, pick one!) that triggers an npc, and allow for more hints in the look description as to who i can interact with an npc.

I agree NPC syntax can be really tough sometimes when you're struggling to find out exactly what keyword you need for the NPC to continue the conversation, I've made a few suggestions about that.

this also applies to items in the game world... i mean there is ZERO hints of what something in the world can do. You see metal shackles on a stone cross? What can you do with them? look doesn't say anyhting so you need to try everything you can think of (and being new, i have no idea what options are available to interact with items) only to find out nothing works. If would help to have hints of what items can be used for "this item appears to have very little useful value" could mean there's no interaction or "this items appears to have been pulled recently" could mean it can be pulled. having to guess everything without any hints is frustrating.

This goes back to my first message about talking to other players. Other people would be more than happy to explain things to you, like why there are shackles there and what they are used for.

6. items: there are very few items in the game that i can see. the city only sells one rapier, and i think i need to find a player to craft me a new rapier with steel or better metals. that's fine... but i have literally had the same weapon for the last 30+ ingame hours of playtime. Can you let me rename it at least? add a description? let me customize it somewhat?

There's ways to have your own custom items made, you just gotta ask people about them in-game and usually they're willing to help you unless they're busy with something.

Glad you've been liking Geas, its always good to see fresh faces, however I think a lot of your questions about in-game things would be helped by interacting with others more, there are a lot of helpful people around!

[Arsicas]

Welcome! You might need to do a bit of exploring to find some other areas to hunt. If you continue to ask at the inn, you will get some more suggestions for more tasks to complete too. If you come across any other PCs in game, you can probably ask if they know any other places to hunt as well, or join a team if anyone else is interested.

The sign was added because newbies, not knowing that skinning/butchering humanoids is considered “evil,” would do so because, like you said, why not practice the skills? They would then end up with horrible karma/reputation and earn the suspicion of goodies like the Crusaders. It’s signed by Luminier, the former Lord Marshall of the Crusade, so I believe it’s meant to be taken that the Crusaders put up the sign as a warning to young people that skinning/butchering humanoids is bad (and also a way to prevent newbies from being punished by a mechanic they may not know about).

Figuring out syntax can be quite tricky, so if you find a place that’s particularly hard to figure out, you might use the “report” command to offer a suggestion. Some things you just end up picking up from experience, but I agree that it can be frustrating sometimes.

But yes, I agree that doing some more exploring and talking to more people might help as far as finding new things to do and learning more about the world.

[Ottarr]

truly, appreciate the early warnings when you can get them, especially that sign. People may eventually straight up murder you for minor things you might not realize are transgressions. The earlier you can learn it IC as a fresh newbie about how to play smarter, the better!