Just looking for opinions, let me know what you think of each of these individually:

–Starting characters wearing/wielding a couple pieces of eq that fit the class –

–Starting characters with wimpy set to 10

–Starting with autoloot on.

–Decent ac apply non enchant-able eq easily accessible to newbies. (taken from another thread)

–Return– (Renamed to "Recall") Making it a skill that every class gets at lv 1, it costs ¹⁄₂ of your remaining move to use and you get it at lv 1. Perhaps it could become less likely to work by 20% per gen if needed.

I'm looking for things that would make the newbie experience friendlier, any other ideas?

I forgot one:

–Starting with your lv 1 skills & spells be at least half learned.

Maybe starting speaking common? Not sure about everyone else, but I forget that a lot…

–Starting characters wearing/wielding a couple pieces of eq that fit the class – * I think this is a great idea. Mages getting some +maxmana eq or Borgs getting some +maxmove eq would be helpful. Of course, the eq should be +mort.

–Starting characters with wimpy set to 10 * I think this is also a good idea, although not as useful as the eq idea. However, newbies need to learn how to set their wimp by themselves.

–Starting with autoloot on. * I think this is also a good idea (and perhaps we won't see low level zones full of money on the floor after this). And it'll help them accumulate money for various things.

–Decent ac apply non enchant-able eq easily accessible to newbies. * This goes along with my opinion on eq for newbies. I've always liked the Blade Blacksteel quest (retrieve the silvery catsuit in exchange for bladed breastplate) because it gives useful +mort eq. I would like to see more of these in the game. Also, I remember an idea from someone where +mort eq with decent armor would be sold infinite in Modrian stores.

–Return– (Renamed to "Recall") Making it a skill that every class gets at lv 1, it costs ¹⁄₂ of your remaining move to use and you get it at lv 1. Perhaps it could become less likely to work by 20% per gen if needed. * I don't know about this. If we wanted to help newbies with recalling, we could make recall potions sold in Modrian, or extend the maximum level for the return command.

–Starting with your lv 1 skills & spells be at least half learned. * For most classes, this isn't that useful. If the newbie doesn't know how to learn his/her skill/spells, he won't go very far in this MUD.

Here are some of my ideas to help newbies: - Some games have mini-quests at the beginning of the game to teach you the basics of the game. For example, we can have a quest to teach the player how to loot mobs. We have an NPC who seeks the player's help, asking him to give him some training pants, for example. The player is given directions to the monastery, where he kills a monk trainer for the pants. When he returns the NPC, the NPC can reward him with eq or gold or exp. This may help the newbie learn vital things about the MUD that would help him to do better (which would cause him to stay longer). Also, it might help to boost the speed at which he levels.

• Anyone think that social interaction is vital for helping some people to stay? I've noticed that the players who stay are either experienced with other muds or are enjoying the game with others IRL (so they keep playing despite their slow progress). I don't have a solution for this, short of bringing back Academy, but I'll just throw this out there in case someone else has an idea or thought.

–Starting characters wearing/wielding a couple pieces of eq that fit the class

This is a great idea, not only to help the newb out but to set the scene and give him a better sense of character.

–Starting characters with wimpy set to 10

I think there should just be a tip given to newbies via a mob or notice or something that says "be sure to type 'wimpy 10' so that you automatically flee from fights!" or something like that. You could combine the two but simply setting it for them isn't going to teach them how to use it.

–Starting with autoloot on.

Like above, I think there should be some instruction to do so, so the newbie knows the command exists. Personally I would be annoyed at automatically setting it to "on" but I'm also paranoid.

–Decent ac apply non enchant-able eq

Some better +mort eq would always be helpful. However, I really think that we overemphasize the toughness of the game as what is driving away the newbs. The fact that almost everybody just sits in their clanhouse (afk) and nobody is simply wandering around and available for interaction is a much bigger deal imo.

Also, we've all discussed how much harder certain races are at first. Like I've heard Imms talk about how "Yeah mage is hard mort but they get really good" so that's the payoff. If we accept that as the case, perhaps we should warn people when they're choosing their classes.

–Return–

I think finding a way to recall yourself is part of the game. Simply selling recall potions or scrolls would be much better. Anybody who has remorted should really not have nor need this skill. A +mort item might be more useful here.

–Starting with your lv 1 skills & spells be at least half learned.

I think this is a good idea. At level 2 they'll learn how to practice things and this way they can punch right off the bat. Get's 'em right into the fighting.

I agree with the comment regarding starting eq. The eq that pops out of the replicator gives you an AC of 71. Also note that the replicator doesn't pop out a weapon (at least I wasn't able to get one with the character I was testing it out on). The old set of starting eq (pointy stick, newbie diploma, etc) put you near 0 AC, and the pointy stick had about 20 avedam. I'd think that something between those two would be a good target for starting gear, AC-wise, and something with a similar avedam to the pointy stick (without all of the affects like regen, rejuv, det-invis, etc) would work out. With a 0 AC I was able to get up to level 5 very quickly by clearing imps/monks and killing a few halfling guards. I only got hit a handful of times throughout that entire period.

Also, I'd like to echo Aiel's sentiment about overemphasis on the difficulty of the game. Granted, I've only recently started playing again and I play at weird hours sometimes, but overall the game just seems a lot more quiet/less social than it used to. I don't know if that's just because people are more likely to chat on clan-say than they are on public channels or what.

–Starting characters wearing/wielding a couple pieces of eq that fit the class –

I, too, think this is a good idea.

–Starting characters with wimpy set to 10

Someone mentioned a small newbie quest that they are placed in upon entering the realm that teaches them such things. The quest is a better idea as opposed to setting their wimpy for them.

–Starting with autoloot on.

Same as above.

–Decent ac apply non enchant-able eq easily accessible to newbies. (taken from another thread)

I agree. However, my thoughts are that it should not be valuable to only newbies. Armor's ac-apply should also scale upwards to the high numbers.

–Return– (Renamed to "Recall") Making it a skill that every class gets at lv 1, it costs ¹⁄₂ of your remaining move to use and you get it at lv 1. Perhaps it could become less likely to work by 20% per gen if needed.

Newbies shouldn't be able to recall using a command that doesn't cost anything. The fact that this costs half of your remaining move points means that you will always have enough move to use it. Making it work at all levels and beyond gen 1 is going beyond the realm of newbies.

I don't particularly like how recalling came to be in Tempus. It's very useful, however, it's far too easy to do. I know this belongs in a different thread, but I'll say it anyway since it also applies to newbies. Recalling is convenience and magical, fine. Not recalling is being part of the Tempus world, fine. Being able to recall easily is almost like a console game where you can save and reset, not fine.

Clan recalls should be exterminated. The return command should be removed as well. Recalling scrolls should be expensive. Recalling potions should be extremely expensive. Only spells are left untouched.