Hello!!

I am very excited to join this world, and I appreciate all the help from various players. I am enjoying exploring the world and I want to contribute to making our world better.

As a new player, who has played on other muds, it was an easy transition to the world of Tempus. At the same time, there are some challenges.

The learning curve is not too steep. The newbie area are pretty easy to understand, and it is easy to explore the world, especially with the Brethren's Guidepost. I do feel the past is more accessible than the future, and much more friendly for new players (the monsters do not hit as hard).

That being said, there are still major challenges that I have found. If not for the help of current players, the learning curve becomes astronomically higher. This is because of the lack of a quality weapon from the replicator. The virtual world (touch 1 and 2) are level appropriate, because I am able to defeat them at a moderate pace, but their experience is too little (compared to the halfings I discovered from the Brethren's Guidepost).

A major disadvantage and drawback (leading to many new players leaving) would be the pace of character development. The experience required to level up, compared to the actual mobs killed is very challenging. The pace of leveling is very slow, and here are some key points:

1. Without any equipment help (purely the replicator) I have to kill pirate for 50exp, or maybe risk fighting borgs or tigers, for 100 to 200 exp. This is very slow, since I would have to kill 10 to 20 to level up.

2. With equipment, I am able to kill a halfling child (very easily) for 300-500exp, and later kill women and men for much more experience. I tried it with the newbie equipment, and I had my brains splattered all over by a hit with a gnarled staff (which are great money btw to sell).

3. There was one time where Azimuth was correcting some bugs, and the pace of the game changed dramatically. This is where HP/MP/MZ was restored quickly (max in 2 rounds). The pace of fighting and everything was equally quicker. This made the game more engaging, and much more enjoyable.

4. The mid levels (20-30) were a bit of a challenge. I was lucky to have equipment help, and able to fight College Students. However, the battle was very time consuming, taking 10 minutes to recharge HP/MP/MZ even with physical tap, regen, and mana tap. Having to kill 10 to level up, that is 100 minutes per level. This is with a full set of equipment that gave me -280 ac with buffs and roughly 10 damroll. Without this set (which I could never get as a newbie on my own) I would die instantly in 1 or 2 rounds against these students.

If i do not kill students, then I would have to settle for monsters that give 10,000 exp (maybe Halfling Guards) compared to the 70,000+ experience from college students. That would then take me much longer to level.

1. All of this is important, because of a major observation I have had. I have seen a few new players come while I have been a part of the game. They have all left, and most likely for the same reason, the pace of the game is too challenging to move on to the better parts of the game.

The positive things from the game include the dual classes, and the highly detailed world. I enjoy the hidden easter eggs from exploring, such as seeing Franklin Fail in the past, and his family becoming very wealthy with the Fail Family Legacy in the future. Then the extra easter eggs with the Tekkan. I also enjoy the tatoos (which I found in the Elven Village) and implants (both I have not tested, for lack of knowledge and the recommendation from older players that I will die, and it is not worth it, and I did die multiple times).

1. The player world is dwindling. There are often mostly afk players, or no one on. This may be a symptom or result of having the world so challenging to get rooted and established.

I would imagine that many new players are experienced, and want to find an escape from their real life. They are probably working hard in school or work, and are not looking to put in another few hours in a game world in order to experience it. It is meant to be a fantasy world, not another 9-5 job to level up. At least that is my feeling.

I want to help generate some discussion on this and hopefully improve the user base, so that we have more players on. That way we could have quests.

A few possible ideas to improve it are:

1. Refining the experience caps. Having it on a more generous sliding scale. Having it easy for new players to reach higher levels and experience the better skills/spells will make it more likely they will enjoy the game. Nothing keeps a player in the game than making it easy for them to kill monsters. If it is a struggle to kill monsters, it becomes worse than real life, which is what this fantasy world is supposed to help us escape.

Perhaps having gen 0 to 2 more generous, and then having 3-5 the way it is, and 6 to 10 much more challenging (assuming the characters are much more powerful and able to destroy mobs easily).

1. I learned a lot from the website, especially Wrath of Tempus' page. Without that page, I would be unable to really level up to where I am. The challenge is, if I were to explore (which I did) I would run into monsters I could not kill (with newbie equipment, and even a full set of equipment). Nothing makes a new player want to quit than being unable to kill anything.

2. The pace of the game could be improved. Having to wait for 10 minutes between fights gives a lot of down time. I find myself reading the news more than actually engaging in the world of Tempus. This is unfortunate, because I can feel how much hard work for coding, and building in order to build this world.

I would imagine new players would enjoy spending time exploring and interacting with players, rather than having to spend copious amounts of time leveling. This is on top of the shift in the world, where most people are unable to have any patience. Many new players would not even bother logging in again if their initial taste of the world leaves them unable to kill anything.

My intention is to add value to our world on Tempus, and to build more users. I hope this experience from a new player will help the game immortals with their goal of growing Tempus.

Thank you!

Thanks very much, Diamond, for your post! I think we all realize that there are certain problems with our MUD. Your post, I think, will really help a lot!

But you're right in your observation that many of us have jobs/families/etc., and thus haven't had time to come on. Unfortunately, that is also true with our immortals- there is just not enough manpower to go around to improve the MUD.

So I really hope you won't be discouraged by the lack of players on these days, and be patient. There have been times in the past where one player comes back, and he brings all his friends on for a revival. You never know when it might happen next!

If you do have any questions, feel free to post them here! I don't have time to play, but I am subscribed to the forums via RSS feed. So I can respond here (although perhaps a couple of days slow).

Keep mudding!

Thank you for your response and thoughts Gneissic! Hopefully we can build up the player base and some old players will be able to return.

Greetings tempus players, I used to play quite actively, and would like to continue again, (although on a more limited basis, you see .. im married… with children).I guess my question is, is tempus dying out? After briefly logging in ( after an almost three year break), I had a conversation with another player, who says its usually two afk people and himself. In my playing days, I remember grouping with multiple clan members, and being able to lose hours in this game. I know this isnt the correct topic, but forgive me, I can't even remember how to start a new topic. LOL it took me about twenty minutes to remember how to get out of jail