Teaching you the tutorial

The last time you played a Mud, be it a fancy AAA graphical Mud like World of Warcraft or a lower budget independent Mud, or even a text Mud, how long was the tutorial? Was it more than a few minutes? Or was it on the order of a few hours?

Why do modern Mud's even have a tutorial in the first place? Is a tutorial even necessary? I realize this may be stretching an analogy, but Super Mario Brothers didn't exactly have a tutorial. They just dropped you into Level 1 and you were to learn from your mistakes, but they did a good job of hanging a lantern on the challenges, so very few people made mistakes even on their first attempt.

We don't need a tutorial. The metaphors and paradigms of Mud's are fairly common anymore. New players should start their characters in a safe area, but experienced players should have the option of starting anywhere. A new character does not imply a new player. The first thing my new Engineer needs is not a backpack from the tutorial merchant, but a hyperdrive so I can connect with my buddies who owe me a dimensional storage vault.