Latest posts of: Olaftheblue

maximus:
Creating more newbie areas is a good idea, but... Does it work? My impression is that newbies have problems finding the newbie areas which already exists, and that newbies feel too unexperienced to walk around in the mud. I mean... Here's an example. The Abyss. How many newbies have been there? The first floor, and also the new oracle cellar, is fantastic for newbies. Still, it's not too often frequented, is it?

I don't think the main problem is that newbies are lazy and too afraid to take risks. I think their main problem is that they don't know what to do. I mean... Why isn't there a newbie line? Why isn't there an own club for people who like to help newbies, where people could sign up for "helping newbie duty" and be noticed every time a person under a certain level logs on, eventually who's helped that person before? Why aren't there more NPCs like e.g. the tourist information guide, showing you around and telling you what to do? Although I agree there can never be too many newbie areas, I also think they're relatively useless unless newbies find them, and thus the main priority in that field would be making more things to encourage the newbies to explore, so that they find the newbie areas which already exists.

Here's two ideas I just thought of.

1. What about adding a rack in the tourist information office, holding a list of ALL newbie areas and a clue on how to find it? Sometimes it's more interesting to find things on your own, but many newbie areas are in so distant location no newbie will ever find it. (how many people below level 10 has ever seen Mthead's newbie area?)

2. What about making a magical amulet which can only be worn by players below a certain level, which makes it impossible for monsters of a high level to attack you when wearing it? (and for you to attack them, of course) That way, it would feel safer to walk around as you would know instakilling megamonsters couldn't take you.

Only thoughts. Encouraging newbies to find the newbie areas already existing is in my opinion more important than making new areas. Otherwise, only the newbie areas close to the login point is explored anyway.

You mention mixing newbie friendly monsters with tough monsters in an area is a bad thing. Sorry, I disagree. Plus, one of the main rules of creating areas for Nanny is to make balanced areas. A normal forest would have birds and bees and rabbits even if it lived a troll in it. I think that an area (except for newbie areas) should have a little bit for everybody. Also, most areas, especially the ones with a good theme and a few puzzles or quests, have terribly many KINDS of monsters. In my opinion, it would be wrong if the nice farmer helping you, his labrador, the rabbit in a cage behind his farm and the nasty troll king trying to take over the world would have the same level.

I also must add: Newbies aren't stupid. Newbies, especially the ones understanding English, are careful on what they kill and not. If they enter a room and see a gigantic troll or a minotaur something like that, they won't attack it, as they understand just from looking at him that it would rip their guts out. And if he's instakilling, you still in most cases have a chance to wimpy out as fast as your feet can carry you. People know what to attack and not to attack. Not only because of size, but we also for certain reasons stay away from certain creatures. Here's a confession: NONE of my characters have EVER tried to kill a scorpion. That is because I know from real life that scorpions have lethal poison in their tails - even though most scorpions in the game most likely doesn't. People often get the time to think that this is a bad monster to challenge.

However, I find increasing challenges to be exciting. One example is the Abyss, where the monsters get stronger the further down you go. Another example is the trolls in Bixby's forest, even though that's not a newbie challenge. A small troll, guarding the way to a bigger troll, guarding the way to a bigger troll, guarding the way to three large trolls... THAT kind of challenge I must say I like. And I miss that in the most-known newbie areas.

You mention that rabbits are too unexciting to be an adventure. OK, could be. But you're forgetting one vital fact: A rabbit is OBVIOUSLY something you know you're strong enough to kill. A troll or orc is something many lowlevel players would run away from before even TRYING to kill, because they know them to be strong. That's it. I think most newbies have the guts to kill rabbits, birds, insects, rats, chickens and other small creatures, while they leave the larger ones for when they get a little bigger.

Of course, an amusing newbie area to make would be "The Scary Monster Kindergarten"... :-)

As for quests, I agree. More newbie quests. Also, perhaps there should be made lists showing which quests are suitable for lowlevels. Personally I stayed away from "Year of Banshee" for a long time because I assumed "a quest with that many points can't be suited for a newbie like me". There's more than a hundred quests, and a newbie won't read the entire Book of Quests right away. Making it easier to see what quests are suited for newbies would make more newbies do them.

Some quests HAS TO be in several areas. I mean... In the Prince Violent quest, that's the entire point of it. It wouldn't be any fun if Violent was standing in front of Padrone's castle. You have to go looking for him.

Besides... Exploring is a vital part of playing this game, and we should do everything we can to encourage newbies to explore as well. What about e.g... say... a quest which starts somewhere near the login point, where you have an easy task to solve, and then the person helping you would tell you something like "thanks you very much - for the next clue, you should go see my brother, he's running a shop in Loreley's area" or something like that. That would be... almost like Year of Banshee, but instead of being transported automatically from puzzle to puzzle, you would have to maybe look it up in Tourist Information and finding it yourself. That way, one wouldn't force the players to search the entire mud, but one would still encourage them to explore different areas. Just a thought.

"Find a carrot and eat it" quests are rare, but the ones which are almost like that are either meant for the players who just logged in (finding the tourist information, buying the Book of Quests...) or in my opinion kind of amusing (Tootolah, fishing expedition...). And again: I guess the reason there's so few scary newbie quests is that scary quests scare newbies away.

Kherec:
I think, and hope, that you're underestimating the players when saying nobody solves more than ten quests. I've solved more than thirty, and I know there's many like me. In no-QP-req-guilds. But perhaps we just don't think too much of the quests? A new idea from me would be: What if there was an echo to all players logged on every time someone solved a more than a few points quest? That way, we would talk more about the quests, we would become aware of the quests, and if I see someone I know is not much stronger than me solving a quest, I will at least read the quest's description and consider doing it. Right now, it's a kind of mess knowing which quests are suited for who. Hm... Could an idea be adding a wise person in the town area who could examine you and give you a good tip on a quest you should solve, based on your level, your guild and which quests you've already solved, eventually on other things?

Dain:
Personally I wouldn't mind a QP requirement, but adding that now would be saying "OK, we know that you hate to quest, therefor we FORCE YOU to do it! In your face! Haha!" And that is not very encouraging. That would make you feel more like leaving than questing. In my opinion. A better thing to do would be to do things to encourage people to quest more, instead of forcing them to it.