All new accounts start with 1000 points

I’m a newbie to this MUD and I admit I was a little disappointed by my race options.

That being said, I don’t think free points are the answer. For two reasons, first, like Hashi said: As a bona fide newbie, I had no idea what I was doing when I made my first character and wound up deleting and making a new one. If I had spent points on a race, it would have been a complete waste.

I would instead support making more races free.

On a semi-related note:

It seems to me that if people are genuinely concerned about a race being RP’d improperly, that race should be restricted by application, not points. I can earn points for submitting an item description, doing a great job RPing a human diplomat, or having a high level wookiee engineer get killed. These actions all contribute to the MUD and represent general player investment, but none of these events corresponds to my ability to RP a fierr-whatever-reo or half of the things on the race list.

Like reicere said, use points to manipulate race distribution amongst the pbase. I would suggest that if a race has high stat bonuses, it should be restricted by points, if it’s suspect to RP gaffes, restrict by app. Near humans need to be freed up. It makes no sense to me that Alderaanians cost points, especially since Naboo are free. And seriously, corellians cost points but Hutts are free with no app?

Bottom line, if you don’t care enough about how a race is RP’d to actually check someone’s app to see that someone knows how to RP it, you probably don’t care as much about how its rp’d as you claim. Delegate this responsibility to the RPC for common races that don’t have serious play balance issues.

Altrez, I will counter that quip with one that says there are old players in this game who can’t/refuse to play races properly. Perhaps we should let the RPC handle helping the new players adjust to races, and drive the Imm attention toward those who should already know better, hmm?

I kind of like this idea. I’m always hesitant about giving out freebie things for nothing, but who knows, it might help give a little variety if anything.

[i]I would suggest that if a race has high stat bonuses, it should be restricted by points, if it’s suspect to RP gaffes, restrict by app. [/i]

Making more races app only is not the way to go.

Worth pointing out that the newbies in question wouldn’t be able to spend the points until at least their second character, unless they made their account first then a character, which is very rare.

Also in all my time, the number of players who roleplay a race ‘incorrectly’ are few and far between. Even rarer are the times a simple ‘hey just so you know X race tends to act like Y’ doesn’t fix the issue. It’s essentially a non-issue.

Well..a nudge out of character every so often would help on those who might not know how to play races. Though I agree with whoever said to look them up. I still do that about races I think I know how to play well.

Though the 1k points is a good gesture, maybe implement it at the end of the newbie’s first character?  Where points would matter, I guess?

There are plenty of other systems that provide newbie bonuses to try and encourage newer players to stay around, and give them access to some of the benefits that the game has to offer. With the option of having points to spend, they now have something to invest in and can think more carefully on a character, instead of randomly choosing.

The event of creating an account should have a bit more flair to it than it does. It should be more along the lines of “Congratulations, and welcome to LotJ! You have successfully created an account, and to welcome you, we have credited you with 1,000 points.” From what I recall, it is very simple right now, being just a line or two that forces you to create an account after you hit level 2 or 3, and then essentially says “done” and sends you on your way. My suggestion would give genuine newbies more of a pull to want to stay, make them aware of some of the benefits they could have, and perhaps put them in touch with the RPC with their questions about the use of points. It would be a simple change, but one I feel could add a lot of depth for a new player and be a bit of good news among the walls of text that have thing after thing for them to memorize.

Also, reconsidering what races are free and what cost (or at least, cost as much as they do) should be looked into, as Alyssa has said. There are some races that I look at and wonder why they are that way. Her example with Hutt/Alderaanian is a pretty good one. Hutts require special RP, some that newer characters might not be able to apply, especially if they are not familiar with MUDs or with the concept of IC/OOC. Alderaanians basically have the same spread as Naboo, but, as Alyssa said, do cost. Along the same lines of thinking, baseline humans should have a bit more kick to them. They are the bread and butter of the universe, and as I understand it, they stand a chance at not hitting 150 in their main class no matter what it really is. (I could be entirely wrong, as I have never played one.) If that is the case, I feel like they should be looked at.

I agree. I see no reason why this would be a negative addition, if anything it will make people strive to get more points when/if they lose their first character so they can play such a race again, or perhaps an even better one.

I’m a new player to the MUD, but an old hand at MUDing.

I wouldn’t know what to do with 1000 account points before I’d even started to play the game. I’d probably spend them on something that, ultimately, I didn’t want or know how to play correctly in the context of the game.

That said, I do like the idea of opening up a few more races for people without account points. It might create a more apparently diverse universe.

As has been pointed out, you don’t get the points til after you create an account, which is post-creation for your first character. It’s intended as more of a bonus to help you out should you decide to reroll, or after you’ve played out your first character. It’s not something you would’ve been blindsided with immediately during creation.

I honestly think the hardest part about being happy playing the selection is that if you want something else you have to app for it. Even if you have the points some races still require you to app for them and what if you aren’t good at writing apps? I have to agree and say that new accounts should start with 1000 points or everyone starting the new TL should get a 1000 point bonus or something of the like.

Bebop as far as the imms have always told me, the are less concerned with your ability to write apps as they are with how you will play your character and what it will bring to the mud and current storyline.

I don’t think you should get 1000 points starting off.  The whole reason behind the point system is to show hard work and dedication to a character.  I still have my very first character, and have had him since the beginning of the timeline.  It’s not a matter of selection.  It’s a matter of you have to start at the bottom.  If everyone could roll the awesome races right off the bat, less people would be the lower, voiceless races that help drive the era/timeline along.  I think the selection is fine as is.

Go ahead and give new accounts 1000 points, it can’t possibly hurt anything that couldn’t be corrected easily, and the only arguments seem to be about incorrect roleplay, which is ignored anyway, or some vauge assertions about earning things. To clarify, this is text based adventure game. There is no hierarchy or anything of that sort except what you create in your head, so being on the ‘bottom’ is a silly notion. Newbies having the points will increase the variety we see, and you can’t really do much to screw up with only 1000.