Never buy speed enhancements from a fat shopkeeper.

~X

I'm glad to hear that more people are working on text-based worlds for BYOND. For what they are worth, here are a few of my suggestions.

I suggest that you create a help file for everything. Games where any given player can type "help [any command or game object]" and get a concise, detailed, helpful explanation are infinitely more learnable and, as a result, enjoyable for newer players.

I suggest that you make every effort to use all of the space you have. Many makers of text-based games add new expansions to their worlds for every new quest and are always making more room to explore rather than adding more depth and character to the rooms they've already got. An in-depth, focused approach builds your players' familiarity with their turf and thus lets them feel more connected to the game world. Additionally, it gives the sense that there is always more to learn about a given place in your game. If you pride your rooms on being unique and interesting, you will want your players to feel that there is always more to a place than meets the eye.

I suggest that you focus on ease of use. Games that demand frequent and constant commands of a player will often wear that player out. The difference in ease of use between poor games and excellent games is in the time spent on it - if you spend a week dealing with ease of use issues in your game to save the player a few commands and keystrokes, that's progress.

Above all, I suggest that you consider the "fun factor" in all things. Any game element that becomes tedious will drive players away, but if you can make every part of your game entertaining you'll get all the traffic you ever need.