Re: CF: FBBB v1.01 is now up

[Maciej Kalisiak <mac@cs.utoronto.ca>]

Chris Eleveld writes:
 > [ from Scott Wedel ]
 > > 
 > > 
 > > > - black (or brown???) puddings (acid)
 > > > - grimreapers (draining --- kill them with magic bullets)
 > > > 
 > > > Don't let these monsters touch you, ever! Grimreapsers are no problem
 > > > once you have a ring of Life; acid stuff is more dangerous since you
 > > > have to be both immune and protected acid to protect your equipment.
 > > > No newbie item grants immune acid.
 > > 
 > > I do not think a newbie guide should include stuff like the above.
 > > A newbie guide should include all that which a resident of the world
 > > would know, but a player might not know.  It should not include info
 > > which is learned only by significant adventuring.  It is reasonable to
 > > assume that newbie adventuring info is common knowledge and hence belongs
 > > as part of the guide.

Well, I agree and I don't. The crux of the problem is that there are
different types of people, with different needs. My Nethack experience
in point: I've noticed that there were people who wanted to discover
every single quirk and idiosyncrasy of the game on their own, and
there were those, like me, who either got bored too fast or just could
not afford the time necessary to discover all these things on our own.

Needless to say, I would like to have my page cater to all types of
players. Perhaps the name of my page is a misnomer. I want to provide
beginners with the info they need to get into the game (even if they
are the impatient type like me), and I also would like to be
collecting non-beginner tips (so that when I get better I can make use
of some of this more advanced stuff :). The reason I called it what I
did was that I didn't expect to get such good feedback, and was
assuming I would be the only one posting tips, which, of course, would
be of beginner caliber.

To satisfy both types of beginners, as well as the more advanced, I
think I will need to strongly categorize and classify all the tips
with a spoiler/caliber level ("just started", "beginner", "I can
survive for 3 hours without dying", "intermediate", etc.) so that the
reader can moderate the amount of information he gathers from the page
to suit his preference. I've got an idea of how to split the tips up
and brand them, but any suggestions will be certainly welcome. So far
I've put a "BASIC" tag on all tips (as per Raphael's suggestion) which
*I* think are necessary when starting out, and that don't spoil
anything, but there's more work on that needed.

> 	To soem degree I must agree.  A specific kill them with magic
 > bullet may be a bit much.  However you're runnign into another play

Yes, that's more of a "technique tip". On the other hand beginner's
would not normally stray into that area by chance. After all, when you
are a newbie and you see a section which describes how certain people
deal with certain problems, I think you know what to expect in that
section and hence would decide on your own whether that is more
information than you need or not. To be safe I'll label the area
(spoiler warning or such) to that effect to make that more explicit.

 > ability issue to.  If I have to try combinations of 20 weapons and tactics
 > to discover how to do somethign I'm very likely to get bored frustrated

I agree. It's all about choices for the player/reader. Only he can
decide for himself what is too much for him, or too little.

 > and quit.  Unfortunately, Grimreapers and creatures that drain and do
 > stat damage are rather unfortunately plentiful or easier areas with good
 > directions for newbies like myself are harder to come by.  There needs
 > to be some effort to make the basics of the game fairly easy to pick up
 > and a lot to do with the basics.  It's very hard for me to find a natural
 > progression in Crossfire.  Often I discover areas are for a level advanced
 > beyond mine by going there and learning the hard way.  I guess I'm griping

Yes, I noticed that too. I thought of having a catalog of places with
a rough minimum-level estimate for each. I can now easily clean out
the easy houses in Scorn, but have no idea what is the next step place
(in terms of difficulty). The problem is that I'm, relatively
speaking, a newbie myself and in no position to rate a map (but then
there is the 'maps command as Mark suggested...hmmm).

Perhaps, and this is my take on this, there should be two pages: 1) a
BEGINNER tutorial/walkthrough/intro/example/etc.  page catered to get
someone who just ran the client for the first time (a sort of "first
ten missions" walkthrough) up and running (and addicted :), and 2) an
all-purpose, all-levels "tips" page... Any thoughts on this?

-- 
"If you wish to send junk/commercial                     Maciej Kalisiak
mail to my address, you should be                    mac@dgp.utoronto.ca
prepared to accept kernel source trees             mac@elecom97.mail.net
in return mail."                               www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~mac
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